Azerbaijan Aid

Jane Olson’s Sept. 23 column on Azerbaijan, “When Bureaucracy Keeps Water From Children,” although well-intentioned, suffers from some major errors. The most serious of these deals with the Freedom Support Act. Section 907 of this act states that the government of Azerbaijan may not receive direct U.S. government assistance until it takes “demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.”

The intent of Section 907 is not to prevent humanitarian assistance to people in need. The very reason 907 was enacted was precisely because Azerbaijan was--and two years later still is--blockading everything intended for “the women, children and elderly” in Armenia. This includes food, medical supplies, heating oil--the stuff of humanitarian aid. Azerbaijanis are not denied humanitarian assistance from our country. The U.S. government provided them with $35 million in humanitarian aid during fiscal year 1994. However, Section 907 requires that the money be spent through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private voluntary organizations (PVOs).

Olson reported that Azeri doctors were not allowed to be contracted with by relief organizations because the U.S. Agency for International Development views the physicians to be government employees and, thus, this would be a violation of Section 907. As a result of such incidents, Congress added (clarifying) language within the foreign operations appropriations bill, which was signed on Aug. 23, stating (in part), “the conferees . . . urge the Administration to ensure that NGOs are not precluded from using government facilities and vehicles, or from using or making necessary repairs to governmental facilities such as health clinics and housing. The conferees also agree that NGOs should be able to use government personnel to distribute commodities.”

However, Olson was right when she wrote, “The need for food, shelter, medical care and sanitation facilities will remain critical at least through the coming winter, and U.S. policies are not helping.” While the U.S. has provided humanitarian assistance, including a desperately needed allotment of 100,000 tons of wheat, to Armenia, the U.S. is not permitted to deliver any of that aid across Turkish territory. Thus, those 100,000 tons of U.S. generosity are sailing around Istanbul, being delivered to ports in war-torn Georgia, and then being transported via train and truck to their destination.

CRAIG H. BAAB, General Counsel

Armenian Assembly of America, Washington