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Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
Jeremy Konyndyk
@JeremyKonyndyk
President of @refugeesintl. Former lead for COVID (46) & disaster relief (44) @USAID. Also, bread. Support our work at the link below!
37 subscribers
Aug 10 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Always illuminating to check whether accounts using other crises to downplay Gaza have *ever* otherwise shown concern about those crises.

Almost invariably: nope. Just a clumsy, cynical attempt to dunk on Gaza activism.

Let's dive into the levels of bad faith at play here:
🧵 First, the receipts:

@IsraelMFA has NEVER before shown concern about the humanitarian crises in Sudan: x.com/search?q=sudan…

or Afghanistan: x.com/search?q=afgha…

or DR Congo: x.com/search?q=congo…

or Yemen: x.com/search?q=yemen…

It just wants to use them as props.
Jul 29 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
The world's famine alert system is warning us – in the starkest possible terms – that any remaining window to avert mass starvation deaths in Gaza is about to close.

A quick dive into what the report tells us: This confirms what media reports (and frankly anyone with eyes) could see over the past week: a famine unfurling in Gaza.

While this is not (yet) a formal famine declaration, it signals that one is likely coming.

Importantly, formal declarations ALWAYS come after the fact.
Jul 26 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Netanyahu has used aid diversion claims as pretext for massive obstruction of aid to Gaza.

Now we learn the IDF had briefed his team that these claims were false (as aid groups have long argued).

This constitutes further evidence he is using starvation as a weapon of war.
🧵 Humanitarian groups have long denied that their aid is being diverted at any significant scale.

My organization dug into this last year and found no evidence for the Israeli govt claims. refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs…Image
Image
Jul 24 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
As a longtime humanitarian who has battled famines and hunger crises, I fear that starvation in Gaza has now passed the tipping point and we are going to see mass-scale starvation mortality.

A thread on famine momentum, famine response, and what it means for Gaza today. The latest reporting shows telltale signs of rapidly accelerating mortality - the kind of classic famine scenario we know from places like Sudan or Somalia.

Barring a massive reversal of Israeli policy, there is a little standing in the way of total collapse.
Jun 4 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
For days, GHF and its defenders tried to "debunk" the massacre claims by arguing "but this didn't happen *at* the GHF sites."

As we know, the people killed were in the crowds walking long distances through IDF perimeters TO REACH THOSE VERY SITES.

Which GHF now...admits. The whole episode says a lot about the sincerity of whoever is pulling the strings at GHF.

First instinct is to put out a gaslighting press release denying the massacre reports, while pretending that whatever happens outside their perimeter has nothing to do with them.
May 27 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Seasoned humanitarians do not operate this way because it's a terribly risky and ineffective way to deliver aid.

Quick 🧵 on what seems to have gone wrong, and why nothing about today's events was surprising.

(subtitle: humanitarians know stuff, actually) One thing that relief workers learn early is that managing desperate crowds is TOUGH.

So you generally try to deliver aid in a way that avoids drawing more people than you can manage and serve at a given site.

More sites = smaller crowds = manageable distribution. Not this: Image
May 9 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
"We will take your baby and deport you without her.”

Blockbuster new report from us @RefugeesIntl and our partner @humanrights1st documenting shocking stories of asylum seekers unlawfully disappeared, abused, and expelled by Trump's @CBP and @ICEgov.

Read on. 🧵 Image Our teams interviewed numerous asylum seekers who have been unlawfully expelled from the US to Costa Rica, Panama, and their home countries (where they face real risk of persecution or torture, likely constituting refoulement).
May 4 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Teachable moment here.

I don't love using the term "humanitarian principles" b/c it sounds like an ethical creed.

That's not what the principles are. They are fundamentally a *tool* to enable safe humanitarian access.

A tool refined by years of hard lessons.

Quick🧵 Saying something "contravenes humanitarian principles" rarely persuades non-humanitarians.

When I was in government, that approach never worked.

Instead I would argue for why supporting independent, neutral humanitarian action *stood the best chance of operational success.*
Apr 24 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
More an amputation than a major re-organization.

The core structure of @StateDept remains intact and mostly unchanged.

But they amputate the US government's foreign aid capacity and eviscerate other soft-power tools.

A 🧵 Here's a cross-walk of the prior State org chart to the new one released by Rubio (links to both below).

🟥 items appear to be fully eliminated.

🟨 items are retained but reshuffled

🟩items are new to the org chart

New: state.gov/wp-content/upl…
Old: 2021-2025.state.gov/department-of-… Image
Image
Mar 31 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Aid leaders have been warning for 2 months that the gutting of @USAID would leave US unable to respond to major global disasters.

We are now seeing that play out in real time with the Myanmar quake - reality is calling bullshit on the Trump admin's narrative.

🧵 In today's press briefing @statedeptspox bizarrely "rejected the premise" that a meaningful US response requires USAID staff "to be physically there."

As the guy who used to deploy those teams - this is total nonsense.

You can't conduct search-and-rescue virtually. Come on.
Mar 28 • 16 tweets • 8 min read
OK, @elonmusk, challenge accepted.

Here's my own wall of receipts.

🧵 I posted this over a month ago on some specific line items on DOGE's wall of receipts, explaining how these violated the Rubio guidance on protecting lifesaving activities.
Mar 6 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
On claim after claim about @USAID / foreign aid, Elon is just making shit up as he goes along. No truth to any of it.

This claim is demonstrably false. Deaths have already been documented from the aid freeze. And the so called "sanity check" is a clown show of incompetence. This is not a "brief pause." Aid orgs doing critical lifesaving work are being denied reimbursement for work already completed, and can't access USG payments to continue operations.

Many had their programs waived from the freeze, then terminated, then un-terminated.

A farce.
Feb 26 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
So - I've actually led Ebola outbreak response at @USAID.

This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they're bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC.

What's left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically. I led USAID's response to the 2014-15 outbreak in West Africa.

Also went to Congo with WHO to assess response at peak of the 2019 outbreak (under Trump 1).

Those were both robust USG ops.

That capacity has now been wrecked.
cgdev.org/publication/st…Image
Feb 25 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Train wreck coming.

A federal judge has ordered the USG to lift the aid freeze, pay what it owes, and show evidence that it has not been defying the court.

Which the USG can't do, because Pete Marocco has been defying the court and has purged the staff who move those payments. It is clear as day that Marocco has made no effort to comply with multiple orders from the court to lift the arbitrary & capricious aid freeze.

He is likewise defying @SecRubio's order to waive lifesaving assistance.

Virtually no money has been unlocked by either order.
Feb 13 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
So...Max Primorac was the lead anti-USAID witness in the House hearing this morning and is one of the architects of the assault on the agency.

He made a few odd claims about his credentials at USAID in today's hearing. He claimed that he "oversaw containment of two Ebola outbreaks and led the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance."

Neither of these claims are accurate.
Feb 13 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
As I told CNN earlier, most of the disinformation about @USAID falls into one of three categories:

▶️ Outright fabrications

▶️ Real programs, but not USAID-funded

▶️ Programs that make sense if you take 2 minutes to understand them ▶️Fabrications:

"Gaza condoms" is the classic here.

Absurd on its face, but still Elon and Trump spent a week repeating it as the pretext for destroying USAID.

Until Elon just glibly admitted it was bullshit and we shouldn't trust what he says.
Feb 9 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
OK, time to bust another @USAID myth.

Stephen Miller said on Fox today that USAID is a rogue slush fund. Trump & Elon have made the same accusation.

FALSE. They're either ignorant of how USAID spends money, or willfully lying about it. Or...

Anyway, caffeinate and read on.

🧵 Buckle in for a roller coaster ride through the USAID budget process. To keep you reading, I will use memes.

Step 1.

Every year, the White House (via OMB) puts together a federal budget proposal to Congress. Every federal agency (incl USAID) sends OMB their budget wishlist.
Feb 7 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
The state of play, a week into Elon's assault on USAID.

USAID is in a state of suspended animation - it has been powered down, but it's not *quite* to the point where it can't be powered back on.

What happens next comes down to the courts & Congress.
🧵 Ignore the wood-chipper tweets and here's where things actually stand:
- USAID's HQ is intact and could resume work
- USAID's staff are mostly furloughed - but could be recalled
- Overseas missions have been told they'll be drawn down - but for now remain intact and in place
Feb 4 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Might not feel this way on twitter - but back here on earth, DOGE did not have a great day yesterday on the @USAID front.

Elon's attempt to speedrun the destruction of USAID is starting to hit real legal and political bumps.

The pushback is starting - and must be sustained.
🧵 Congress is waking up to what is happening, on both sides of the aisle.

Big spontaneous rally outside of USAID HQ yesterday with a sizable contingent of Congressional Dems defending the agency.
Feb 2 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Whether or not you care about foreign aid, you should be very worried about what DOGE is doing to @USAID right now.

Breaching highly classified systems and unlawfully attempting to unilaterally dissolve an independent federal agency.

This is a test run.

🧵 Since last week rumors have been swirling of a potential Exec Order to dissolve USAID into State.

I did an earlier thread on why that would be deeply damaging to the USG's ability to advance American interests and values in the world. Would harm millions.
Jan 29 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
So look - on the "Gaza condoms" thing.

USAID procures condoms for around $0.05 apiece.

$50m would be ONE BILLION condoms.

What's going is here is NOT a billion condoms for Gaza.

What's going on is that the bros at DOGE apparently can't read govt spreadsheets. This data is publicly available! A short conversation with staff at USAID would have made it pretty obvious.

usaid.gov/sites/default/…Image