Rony Brauman revient sur le bilan des cinquante ans de l’ONG et affiche son scepticisme à l’égard de la justice internationale.

Invité dans l'émission radio "L'invité(e) des matins" animée par Guillaume Erner sur France Culture le 17 décembre dernier, Rony Brauman expose son avis sur l'intervention française en Libye. 

We were happy to welcome Claudine Vidal, sociologist (CNRS) and Crash scientific committee member, and Jean-Hervé Bradol, doctor, former President of the French section of MSF and current director studies at the Crash, for the launching event of the newly-published book “Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie” (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris 2021). The event was hosted by Rony Brauman.

The comic book "Le Grand Voyage d'Alice" was drawn by Gaspard Talmasse and published by La boîte à bulles on November 17th. The preface of this comic book was written by Dr. Jean-Hervé Bradol, former president of MSF and director of studies at the Reflection center of MSF (MSF-Crash). The book won the MSF prize at the Carnet de voyages Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, held from November 19th to the 21st. 
 

In his book, La Traversée. Une odyssée au cœur de l’Afrique, Patrick de Saint-Exupéry challenges the reality of Hutu Rwandan refugees’ hunt and massacre facing the advancement of the Rwandan Patriotic Army and their Congolese allies in 1996-97. This systematic exercise of denying reality – especially the denial of the Mapping Report written by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1143 pages, published in June 2009) – but also this denial of Human Rights Advocacy groups’ investigations, and those of journalists’ witnesses present in DRC at the time – does not spare MSF’s teams who came to help these refugees in 1996-97. However, as a front-line witness of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, MSF was also one of the organizations noticing the intense violence perpetrated by the new Rwandan political regime in Zaire / DRC back in 1996 and 1997, mostly against a population constituted at three-quarters of women and children. 

Comment enquêter sur les violences extrêmes ? Comment secourir leurs victimes et juger leurs responsables ? Ces trois questions traversent un ouvrage collectif intitulé « Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, Juger », qui vient d’être publié par la Maison des sciences de l’homme. Le livre revient sur ce qui s’est notamment passé au Rwanda. Pour en parler, Laurent Correau est en ligne avec l'universitaire Claudine Vidal, l’une des coordonnatrices de ce travail.

Over the last few years, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Syria have been places where situations of extreme violence took place. As witnesses and investigators of such, the authors of this book shed light on three key-moments that marked these tragic episodes:  the investigation, the intervention of emergency relief teams and the implementation of justice procedures leading to judgement.

Dans cette interview accordée au média Jeune Afrique, Rony Brauman, l'ancien président de MSF et actuel membre du Crash, revient sur les limites des interventions militaires impérialistes occidentales en Afghanistan et au Sahel. Il y partage son point de vue de docteur humanitaire ayant travaillé sur ces terrains en conflits.  

This article was first published in Issue 2, Volume 2 of The Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. 

How can a medical humanitarian organisation deliver emergency assistance in Syria when there is nowhere in the country where civilians, the wounded and their families, medical personnel and aid workers are not targeted? Not in the areas controlled by the government, nor in those held by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the different rebel groups. So what action could be taken, and how? Remotely or on site? At the very least, we had to decipher the diverging political and military agendas, and then adapt, persist or sometimes just give up. In this article, I will present the full range of methods used to acquire knowledge and obtain information as well as the various networks used to carry out this venture. I will also show how Médecins Sans Frontières’ operations became a balancing act, punctuated by episodes of adapting to the various difficulties encountered.

Rony Brauman a participé à une conversation autour de l’histoire de l’engagement humanitaire, dans le cadre de l'émission Histoire Vivante de la Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), parue le 23 novembre 2020. 

Il y a dix ans, le Haut-commissariat des Nations Unies aux Droits de l’Homme publiait son rapport Mapping sur les crimes les plus graves commis en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) entre 1993 et 2003. Dans cette interview paru dans l'Humanité le 6 octobre, Jean Hervé Bradol parle de l'expérience MSF, notamment des conséquences de la fermeture des camps de réfugiés rwandais en RDC. par une offensive des rebelles congolais de l’époque.

On the 31st January, a symposium was held at Sciences Po in support of Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, researchers at Sciences Po's Center for International Research (CERI) who were arrested in Iran on June 5, 2019. Roland Marchal was released on 20th March 2020 in exchange for an Iranian engineer detained in France. On 6th May Fariba Adelkhah was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment for "propaganda against the political system of the Islamic Republic, and collusion to undermine national security". The researcher was offered conditional release on condition that she terminates her research, but she refused. 

The symposium brought together diplomats, journalists, humanitarians and researchers, with the aim of "nourishing reflection about prisoners and hostages, from a political, legal and ethical point of view". Fabrice Weissman presented the experience of Médecins Sans Frontières in the face of kidnappings.