Dear David,

Would you please consider this comment from MSF (regarding Robert Ware's piece on list 9304) for inclusion in your next list? thanks very much

Emma Bell

MSF Press Officer, Russia

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Re: 'Russian Legislation restricting NGOs' – Robert Bruce Ware

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) wishes to clarify several inaccuracies in Robert Bruce Ware's piece on Johnson's List 9304 (26.11.05).

MSF is not a human-rights organisation as explicitly claimed, and implicitly suggested, by Mr Ware. MSF is a humanitarian medical organisation, focussed on bringing medical aid to populations in distress and highlighting their suffering. It does not, as Mr Ware states, have a 'narrow and slanted ideological agenda': quite the contrary. The observation of neutrality and impartiality are enshrined in MSF's charter, as part of its commitment to medical ethics. When we speak out on humanitarian issues, we do so based on witnessing the suffering of our patients, and do not pursue a specific ideological focus: we report what we observe.

In addition, Mr Ware treats the regrettable constraints on humanitarian action caused by the multiple kidnappings in the mid-1990s somewhat glibly. It might be helpful to remind readers of Johnson's list that MSF did not 'abandon' the North Caucasus because of mere tales about the 'hostage industry', but because from April 1996 to July 1997 alone, three MSF staff were kidnapped. It was simply not possible for our medical humanitarian operations to continue in this context. We returned to the Caucasus in 1999, in response to the plight of the thousands of refugees leaving Chechnya who were in need of medical aid. And we have continued to operate in Ingushetia and Chechnya since then – despite two more kidnappings in 2001 and 2002.

There remains an acute humanitarian crisis in Chechnya, and MSF will continue to respond to the medical needs of the population, and highlight their suffering, based on our medical witnessing, as long as is necessary.