Alex de Waal

Last updated

Alex de Waal
OBE
Born
Alexander William Lowndes de Waal

(1963-02-22) February 22, 1963 (age 61)
Cambridge
Education The King's School, Canterbury
Alma mater University of Oxford
Occupation(s)Human rights activist, author, academic
Organization(s)World Peace Foundation, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Father Victor de Waal
Relatives Edmund de Waal, Thomas de Waal (brothers)

Alexander William Lowndes de Waal (born 22 February 1963), is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. [1] He is an authority on famine and has worked on the Horn of Africa since the 1980s as a researcher and practitioner. He was listed among Foreign Policy ’s 100 most influential international intellectuals in 2008 and Atlantic’s 29 ‘brave thinkers’ in 2009 and is the winner of the Huxley Award of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2024. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Previously, he was a fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University, as well as program director at the Social Science Research Council on AIDS in New York City. [5]

Early life and education

De Waal was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom to Victor de Waal, an Anglican priest, and Esther Aline Lowndes-Moir, an author. He attended The King's School, Canterbury. [6] He graduated with a BA in Psychology with Philosophy from Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1984 going on to receive a DPhil in social anthropology from Nuffield College, Oxford in 1988. [6] [7]

Famine Expertise

De Waal has worked on famine since began fieldwork for his DPhil in social anthropology on how rural people in Sudan understood famine and adopted coping strategies to try to survive it. A revised version of his dissertation was published as Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984-1985. [8] This was influential in developing the concept of famine as a threat to a way of life, and contributed to the study of livelihood coping strategies and survival strategies. It also framed famine mortality as the outcome of health crises as well as starvation per se.

In the 1990s, de Waal focused on the intersection between human rights violations and famine, including censorship and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. [9] [10]

He was sharply critical of the role of humanitarian organizations in downplaying the politics and criminality of famine, arguing that an anti-famine political contract was the route towards famine prevention. This was the core theme of his 1997 book, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa. [11] This book influenced a generation of researchers, students and aid practitioners to think critically about role of humanitarians in obscuring the underlying reasons for famine.

In the 2010s, de Waal returned to the topic of famine, posing the question, why the number and virulence of famines had declined, and what action was necessary to abolish them for good. [12] His paper ‘The End of Famine’ in Political Geography, was the winner of the Elsevier Atlas Prize for 2017. [13] [14]

By the time of the publication of his book Mass Starvation: The history and future of famine, later in 2017 de Waal was more pessimistic, noting that famines were making a comeback. [15] He attributed this to the increasing use of starvation as a weapon of war, characterizing them as ‘the new atrocity famines.’ Subsequently, he explained the increasing use of weaponized hunger as a product of changing global political economy and an accompanying normative shift, more permissive towards starvation. [16]

With his colleague at the World Peace Foundation, Bridget Conley, and the legal group Global Rights Compliance, de Waal pushed for stronger legal measures to call perpetrators of starvation to account. [17]

De Waal has exposed and condemned the use of starvation as a weapon in Tigray, Ethiopia, Sudan and Gaza. [18] [19]

Human rights activism

De Waal joined Africa Watch (later renamed Human Rights Watch-Africa) in 1989, authoring reports on Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia including on starvation as a weapon of war in all three of those countries. He resigned from Africa Watch in December 1992 in protest at Human Rights Watch’s decision to support the US Operation Restore Hope, which sent American troops to Somalia.

With his colleague Rakiya Omaar, who was fired as director of Africa Watch at the same time, de Waal set up African Rights, a small human rights NGO in London. African Rights hit the headlines for its exposure of human rights violations by the international forces in Somalia. [20]

The United Nations military attorney for the UN Operation in Somalia accused de Waal of ‘supporting the propaganda efforts of the USC [United Somali Congress]’ when he was researching a report, ‘Somalia: Human Rights Abuses by the United Nations Forces.’ The report caused particular controversy in Belgium, where the Belgian army first denied that its paratroopers were responsible for any abuses, and later admitted that they had occurred when photographic evidence emerged. [21]

African Rights took a lead in documenting the genocide in Rwanda, publishing a report Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, with scores of first hand testimonies within weeks of the atrocities. The testimonies were collected by Rakiya Omaar, who was in Rwanda, interviewing survivors, sometimes on the very day they escaped from the genocidaires, assisted by de Waal who was in London.

De Waal continued to work on Sudan, particularly on the then-neglected case of the Nuba Mountains, organizing the first mission to document abuses there, which led to the report, Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan, and a BBC documentary by the journalist Julie Flint. [22] De Waal reflected on the challenges of documenting genocide as it unfolds in an article in Boston Review . [23]

In 1998 de Waal left African Rights and founded a new organization, Justice Africa, with Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Yoanes Ajawin and Paulos Tesfagiorgis. African Rights co-hosted a series of conferences on peace and human rights in Sudan, bringing civil society voices to the peace process. [24]

It campaigned against the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, sponsoring a case at the African Court of Human and People’s Rights against Ethiopia for the expulsion of Eritreans. It convened workshops on the peace and security challenges facing Africa. [25]

Pandemic Expertise

De Waal left Justice Africa to work on HIV and AIDS in Africa, playing a leading role in the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, [26] the Social Science Research Council report on AIDS, Conflict and Security, [27] and the Harvard University-led Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS. [28] De Waal later reflected on how the worst predictions for political and security crises arising from the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Africa had turned out to be erroneous. [29]

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, de Waal wrote an essay for Boston Review drawing lessons from the politics of the 1890s cholera epidemic in Hamburg, which he later expanded into a book, New Pandemics, Old Politics, arguing that each pandemic should be seen also as a societal ‘pandemy’, with subtle but far-reaching social and political implications.

Interviews with former Tigray People's Liberation Front members

In the outset of the Tigray War, de Waal and Mulugeta Gebrehiwot published reports surrounding the situation in Tigray with regards to Eritrea's involvement. [30]

Published works

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia</span> Famine in Ethiopia during the Derg rule

A widespread famine affected Ethiopia from 1983 to 1985. The worst famine to hit the country in a century, it affected 7.75 million people and left approximately 300,000 to 1.2 million dead. 2.5 million people were internally displaced whereas 400,000 refugees left Ethiopia. Almost 200,000 children were orphaned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darfur</span> Region of western Sudan

Darfur is a region of western Sudan. Dār is an Arabic word meaning "home [of]" – the region was named Dardaju while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë c. 350 AD, and it was renamed Dartunjur when the Tunjur ruled the area. Darfur was an independent sultanate for several hundred years until 1874, when it fell to the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. The region was later invaded and incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. As an administrative region, Darfur is divided into five federal states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur. Because of the War in Darfur between Sudanese government forces and the indigenous population, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency and genocide since 2003. The factors include religious and ethnic rivalry, and the rivalry between farmers and herders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baggara Arabs</span> Nomadic confederation in the Sahel

The Baggāra, also known as Chadian Arabs, are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile river near south Kordofan, numbering over six million. They are known as Baggara and Abbala in Sudan, and as Shuwa Arabs in Cameroon, Nigeria and Western Chad. The term Shuwa is said to be of Kanuri origin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derg</span> 1974–1987 ruling military junta of Ethiopia

The Derg, officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military junta formally "civilianized" the administration but stayed in power until 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuba Mountains</span> Geographic area in Sudan

The Nuba Mountains, also referred to as the Nuba Hills, are an area located in South Kordofan, Sudan. The area is home to a group of indigenous ethnic groups known collectively as the Nuba peoples. They are not the same as the Nubians who are indigenous to north Sudan. Rather their name is derived from the name of the mountains, “Nuba”. In the Middle Ages, the Nuba mountains had been part of the Nubian kingdom of Alodia. In the 18th century, they became home to the kingdom of Taqali that controlled the hills of the mountains until their defeat by Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. After the British defeated the Mahdi army, Taqali was restored as a client state. Infiltration of the Messiria tribe and Muraheleen of Baggara Arabs has been influential in modern conflicts. Up to 1.5 million people live in the mountains, mostly ethnic Nuba, with a small minority of Baggara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messiria people</span> Ethnic group in Chad

The Messiria, also known as Misseriya Arabs, are a branch of the Baggara ethnic grouping of Arab tribes. Their language is primarily Sudanese Arabic, when Chadian Arabic is also spoken by a small number of them in Darfur. The numbers is varies, perhaps between 500,000 and 1 million in western Sudan, extending into eastern Chad. They are primarily nomadic cattle herders and their journeys are dependent upon the seasons of the year. The use of the term Baggara carries negative connotations as slave raiders, so they prefer to be called instead Messiria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War in Darfur</span> Genocidal conflict in Western Sudan

The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of the War in Darfur</span>

This is the bibliography and reference section for the Darfur conflict series. External links to reports, news articles and other sources of information may also be found below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethiopian Civil War</span> 1974–1991 conflict in Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Darfur</span>

Throughout its history, Darfur has been the home to several cultures and kingdoms, such as the Daju and Tunjur kingdoms. The recorded history of Darfur begins in the seventeenth century, with the foundation of the Fur Sultanate by the Keira dynasty. The Sultanate of Darfur was initially destroyed in 1874 by the Khedivate of Egypt. In 1899, the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan recognized Ali Dinar as the Sultan of Darfur, in exchange for an annual tribute of 500 pound sterling. This lasted until Darfur was formally annexed in 1916. The region remained underdeveloped through the period of colonial rule and after independence in 1956. The majority of national resources were directed toward the riverine Arabs clustered along the Nile near Khartoum. This pattern of structural inequality and overly underdevelopment resulted in increasing restiveness among Darfuris. The influence of regional geopolitics and war by proxy, coupled with economic hardship and environmental degradation, from soon after independence led to sporadic armed resistance from the mid-1980s. The continued violence culminated in an armed resistance movement around 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Africa Action</span>

Africa Action is a nonprofit organization that is based in Washington, D.C., working to change U.S.–Africa relations to promote political, economic and social justice in nations of Africa. They provide accessible information and analysis, and mobilize popular support for campaigns to achieve this mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Prendergast (activist)</span> American human rights and anti-corruption activist

John Prendergast is an American human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as an author. He is the co-founder of The Sentry, an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Prendergast was the founding director of the Enough Project and was formerly director for African affairs at the National Security Council.

By January 2011 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there are 262,900 Sudanese refugees in Chad. The majority of them left Sudan escaping from the violence of the ongoing Darfur crisis, which began in 2003. UNHCR has given the Sudanese refugees shelter in 12 different camps situated along the Chad–Sudan border. The most pressing issues UNHCR has to deal with in the refugee camps in Chad are related to insecurity in the camps, malnutrition, access to water, HIV and AIDS, and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War crimes in the Tigray war</span>

All sides of the Tigray war have been repeatedly accused of committing war crimes since it began in November 2020. In particular, the Ethiopian federal government, the State of Eritrea, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Amhara Special Forces (ASF) have been the subject of numerous reports of both war crimes and crimes against humanity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Famine in northern Ethiopia (2020–present)</span> Famine occurred during the Tigray War

Beginning with the onset of the Tigray War in November 2020, acute food shortages leading to death and starvation became widespread in northern Ethiopia, and the Tigray, Afar and Amhara Regions in particular. As of August 2022, there are 13 million people facing acute food insecurity, and an estimated 150,000–200,000 had died of starvation by March 2022. In the Tigray Region alone, 89% of people are in need of food aid, with those facing severe hunger reaching up to 47%. In a report published in June 2021, over 350,000 people were already experiencing catastrophic famine conditions. It is the worst famine to happen in East Africa since 2011–2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tigrayan peace process</span> Process of ending the Tigray War

The Tigrayan peace process encompasses the series of proposals, meetings, agreements and actions that aimed to resolve the Tigray War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation</span>

The EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation is a human rights investigation launched jointly by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in mid-2021 into human rights violations of the Tigray War that started in November 2020. The EHRC–OHCHR joint investigation team's report was published on 3 November 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1992 famine in Somalia</span> Famine in Somalia (1992)

The 1992 famine in Somalia resulted from a severe drought and devastation caused by warring factions in southern Somalia, primarily the Somali National Front, in the fertile inter-riverine breadbasket between the Jubba and Shebelle rivers. The resulting famine primarily affected residents living in the riverine area, predominantly in Bay Region, and those internally displaced by the civil war.

The Muraheleen, also known as al-Maraheel, were tribal militias primarily composed of Rizeigat and Messiria tribes from western Sudan. They were armed since 1983 by successive Sudanese government to suppress the insurgency of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the Second Sudanese Civil War. Their activities included raiding Dinka villages, looting cattle, abducting women and children, scorched earth, and causing widespread destruction. The Muraheleen were notorious for their brutal tactics, which contributed to famine and displacement among the affected populations.

References

  1. ↑ "The World Peace Foundation Comes to the Fletcher School | Tufts Fletcher School". Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
  2. ↑ "Top 100 Public Intellectuals". Foreign Policy. 22 October 2024. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  3. ↑ "Brave Thinkers". The Atlantic. 1 November 2009. ISSN   2151-9463 . Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  4. ↑ "Huxley Memorial Medal and Lecture Prior Recipients". Royal Anthropological Institute. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  5. ↑ old Alexander De Waal bio at Harvard University from 28 January 2008, courtesy of the Internet Wayback Machine (accessed 13 June 2009)
  6. 1 2 "Alex de Waal's Biography". Colby College . Retrieved 3 September 2024.
  7. ↑ "Alex de Waal - Bio". Tufts University. Retrieved 3 September 2024.
  8. ↑ global.oup.com https://global.oup.com/academic/product/famine-that-kills-9780195181630?cc=us&lang=en& . Retrieved 21 October 2024.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. ↑ "Starving In Silence: A Report On Famine and Censorship - World | ReliefWeb". reliefweb.int. 1 April 1990. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  10. ↑ "Denying "the Honor of Living": Sudan : A Human Rights Disaster : An Africa Watch Report, March, 1990 - No Author: 9780929692531 - AbeBooks". www.abebooks.com. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  11. ↑ "Famine Crimes". Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  12. ↑ de Waal, Alex (8 May 2016). "Is the Era of Great Famines Over?". The New York Times.
  13. ↑ de Waal, Alex (1 January 2018). "The end of famine? Prospects for the elimination of mass starvation by political action". Political Geography. 62: 184–195. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.09.004. ISSN   0962-6298.
  14. ↑ Elsevier Journals (26 March 2018). Interview with Professor Alex de Waal . Retrieved 21 October 2024– via YouTube.
  15. ↑ "Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine | Wiley". Wiley.com. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  16. ↑ de Waal, Alex (15 October 2024). "Hunger in global war economies: understanding the decline and return of famines". Disasters: e12661. doi: 10.1111/disa.12661 . ISSN   0361-3666. PMC   11603759 . PMID   39410764.
  17. ↑ global.oup.com https://global.oup.com/academic/product/accountability-for-mass-starvation-9780192864734 . Retrieved 21 October 2024.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  18. ↑ Waal, Alex de (17 June 2021). "Steal, Burn, Rape, Kill". London Review of Books. Vol. 43, no. 12. ISSN   0260-9592 . Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  19. ↑ Waal, Alex de (11 January 2024). "Alex de Waal | Starvation as a Method of Warfare". LRB Blog. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  20. ↑ Waal, Alex de (1 August 1998). "US War Crimes in Somalia" (PDF). New Left Review (I/230): 131–144.
  21. ↑ AP Archive (21 July 2015). BELGIUM: SOLDIERS ACCUSED OF ATROCITIES IN SOMALIA ARE ACQUITTED . Retrieved 21 October 2024– via YouTube.
  22. ↑ "Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan — Sudan Open Archive". sudanarchive.net. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  23. ↑ de Waal, Alex (6 June 2016). "Writing Human Rights and Getting It Wrong". Boston Review.
  24. ↑ "THE PHOENIX STATE: Civil Society and the Future of Sudan, Edited by A. H. Abdel Salam and Alex de Waal". Africa World Press & The Red Sea Press. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  25. ↑ "WHO FIGHTS? WHO CARES? War and Humanitarian Action in Africa, Edited by Alex de Waal". Africa World Press & The Red Sea Press. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  26. ↑ Securing our future : report of the commission on HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa. 2008. ISBN   978-92-1-125105-0.
  27. ↑ de Waal, Alex (September 2009). "HIV/AIDS, Security and Conflict: New Realities, New Responses".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  28. ↑ "IDS Bulletin".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  29. ↑ de Waal, Alex (4 April 2013). AIDS and Power: Why There Is No Political Crisis – Yet. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN   9781848136090.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  30. ↑ ""They Have Destroyed Tigray, Literally": Mulugeta Gebrehiwot speaks from the mountains of Tigray". 29 January 2021.
  31. ↑ "Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine – World Peace Foundation". 29 November 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.