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October 15, the 1999’s Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to the humanitarian
group Doctors Without Borders. The
choice was universally applauded as richly deserved.
Dr. James Orbinski, president of the group’s international council used the prize as an opportunity to remind the world of the horror still going on today. “As entire families are chased from their homes in East Timor, as thousands more are targeted in conflicts around the world that don’t make the headlines, the Nobel Prize is an important confirmation of the fundamental right of ordinary people to humanitarian assistance and protection,” he said.
While the primary mission of Doctors Without Borders’ volunteers is to provide emergency relief wherever it is most needed, they refuse to remain quiet about genocide and other human rights violations they witness. They, differently from the practice of other humanitarian groups in the past, insist on the right to intervene in all disasters while criticizing governments and others held responsible. As they walk the walk they also talk the talk. In the case of Sierra Leone, for instance, they were the first to “blow the whistle” on the abuses and atrocities committed indiscriminately against the defenseless population of young, even children, and old alike.
A volunteer of the group remarks: “Suppose you were a doctor and soldiers slaughtered your patients in their bed? Or assailants attacked malnourished refugees in your care? Would you keep quiet and carry on patching those you could save? Or would you call for an end to the carnage? We believe “blowing the whistle” on human rights abuses is a vital part of helping to save lives.”
The Xaverian missionaries who have seen, at close quarters, the work of Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, and some of them owe their very lives to their intervention, testify to the volunteers’ commitment, and rejoice at the decision of the Nobel committee.
The organization, officially known as “Medicins Sans Frontiers,” was founded in 1971 by ten French doctors who cared for the victims of the Biafran civil war. Since then its more than 2000 medical professionals have served in some 80 countries, from Afghanistan to Zaire (Congo, from Algeria to Vietnam and Sierra Leone, from Nicaragua to Uzbekistan and Kosovo. At the new of the Nobel Prize, it was said, “Good! The Doctors Without Borders really has the heart in the right place!”
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)