From MEMRI: “Editor of Egyptian Government Weekly: Arab Doctors’ Association is Aiding Jihad Warriors – but Not Tsunami Victims”:
The Arab Doctors’ Association operates in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Bosnia. In the Egyptian government weekly Akhbar Al-Yawm, editor Ibrahim Sa’dah takes them to task:
“At the time, we welcomed the initiative of the Arab Doctors’ Association, on the understanding that its aim was to support the Jihad warriors and those struggling for the sake of liberating their homeland from the hands of the occupiers who hold many [different] citizenships. [We understood that this support was to have been provided] through capabilities that only doctors have — that is, caring for the sick and saving the lives of the injured.
“But we were surprised later by the fact that the enthusiasm of the Arab Doctors’ Association in sending ‘volunteer’ doctors to those blood-drenched regions was not for carrying out this sublime mission that only doctors [could carry out], but rather, to urge [those volunteer doctors] to fight, [to participate] in the Jihad war, and to manufacture explosives and to blow up places in which there were a number of ‘infidels’ and scores of innocent civilians”¦
“They could not care less that hundreds and thousands of innocent people were killed [in these operations], as long as one or two soldiers from among the invaders and occupiers were killed or injured….
“Several days ago, a destructive earthquake struck a great many countries in Asia. The number of killed was about 100,000, and the number of injured was double that, and many times more was the number of those who became refugees, losing their homes and property and most of their relatives and acquaintances in this most terrifying of disasters, which we are following from moment to moment.
“How I hoped that the Egyptian Doctors’ Union, which belongs to the Arab Doctors’ Association, would act like the doctors’ associations in most of the countries of the world, particularly like the [French] Medicins Sans Frontières. Everyone rushed to organize humanitarian medical convoys that hastened, one after the other, to the regions of the terrifying earthquake, in order to provide aid, as best they could, to treat the injured and to save those at death’s door, without distinguishing between Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, and those not belonging to any religion or ethnic group…
“[Yet] there was no mention of any role played by the Egyptian Doctors’ Union, or by the Arab Doctors’ Association, in collecting donations, gathering the doctors waging the Jihad war and transferring them to the regions hit by the disaster and by epidemic, in order to participate in treating the injured and sick, as they did and are still doing in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Iraq.
“The Arab Doctors’ Association secretary-general, Dr. Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Al-Futuh, justified this by saying that this earthquake was divine punishment because of the Muslims’ oppression by the infidels, invaders and occupiers, headed by the U.S., and that therefore we have no interest in what had happened! Chairman of the Emergency Relief Committee of the Arab Doctors’ Association Dr. Ahmad Omar emphasized that aid to the Asia earthquake victims did not top the agenda of the committee — which was currently engaged in resisting the American invaders and occupiers in Iraq.
From The Independent (thanks to Kemaste): “Indonesia imposes armed escorts on foreign aid workers as bomb threats clear UK embassies”:
With hundreds of thousands of tsunami survivors in Aceh at risk from disease and famine, the Indonesian army yesterday ignored complaints of aid delays and announced plans to flood the province with troops.
The army has also imposed armed escorts on foreign relief workers, whether they want them or not.
From AP: “Indonesia Sets Deadline for Foreign Troops”:
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – Indonesia announced that U.S. and other foreign troops providing tsunami disaster relief must leave the country by the end of March and ordered aid workers Wednesday to declare their travel plans or face expulsion from devastated Aceh province on Sumatra island.