Post by soulflower on Feb 1, 2024 7:27:46 GMT -5
USAID’s Samantha Power, genocide scholar, confronted by staff on Gaza
Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a world-renowned scholar on genocide, was pointedly challenged by current and former USAID employees who during a public event Tuesday questioned her stance on the war in Gaza and complicity in the divisive U.S. policy.
“You wrote a book on genocide and you’re still working for the administration: You should resign and speak out,” said Agnieszka Sykes, a global health specialist who told The Washington Post she left her job at USAID late last week.
Sykes interrupted a speech Power was giving in Washington on climate change and natural disasters to invoke Power’s book “A Problem from Hell.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning work examines and condemns U.S. inaction on various atrocities, from Armenia to Rwanda, spanning several presidential administrations.
“You wrote a book on genocide and you’re still working for the administration: You should resign and speak out,” said Agnieszka Sykes, a global health specialist who told The Washington Post she left her job at USAID late last week.
Sykes interrupted a speech Power was giving in Washington on climate change and natural disasters to invoke Power’s book “A Problem from Hell.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning work examines and condemns U.S. inaction on various atrocities, from Armenia to Rwanda, spanning several presidential administrations.
The interaction marks the first clash between Power and current and former USAID employees at a public event, but she has encountered dissent in other ways. In November, hundreds of USAID employees endorsed a letter calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Liberal activists at MoveOn are circulating a petition calling on her to resign or return her Pulitzer Prize, considered the preeminent recognition of influential journalism and other published works.
She also came under criticism for not publicly disclosing the killing of a USAID contractor who died after a suspected Israeli strike in Gaza in November. Power has said that in all of her high-level discussions about the conflict, she has made protection of aid workers a priority.
“There is not a single call that President Biden makes or engagement that anybody in the Biden administration does that doesn’t put the importance of civilian protection and international humanitarian law at the at the top of the conversation,” she said during the Tuesday forum.
She also came under criticism for not publicly disclosing the killing of a USAID contractor who died after a suspected Israeli strike in Gaza in November. Power has said that in all of her high-level discussions about the conflict, she has made protection of aid workers a priority.
“There is not a single call that President Biden makes or engagement that anybody in the Biden administration does that doesn’t put the importance of civilian protection and international humanitarian law at the at the top of the conversation,” she said during the Tuesday forum.