U.S. aid workers return to Iraq, encouraged by achievements

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

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They are aid workers for Portland-based Mercy Corps who returned to Iraq on Saturday after a three-week leave spent in Andy's hometown of Walla Walla.

The couple are keenly aware of the perils of their work, which was underscored last month by the Baghdad kidnapping of Care International worker Margaret Hassan, who remains a hostage.

But they also are encouraged by the accomplishment of $12 million in Mercy Corp aid that has helped rebuild schools, clinics, water systems and other community institutions in three provinces around the south-central city of Kut.

And they are committed to helping keep up that Mercy Corps effort even as escalating violence stymies many other larger U.S.-funded aid efforts.

"The people, they see what the development means," Albana Dwonch said. "They are taking ownership of the work, and they don't want anyone to take that away from them."

Because of security concerns, The Seattle Times is not publishing a picture of the couple or mentioning the Iraqi city where they will be residing.

Mercy Corps is part of a dwindling pool of nonprofit aid groups that continue to work in Iraq. Last month, World Vision, whose U.S. operation is based in Federal Way, suspended operations in western and northern Iraq. And last week, Paris and New York-based Doctors Without Borders decided to shut down a program offering medical care to thousands of Iraqis.

Some groups that continue to work in Iraq now shun publicity for fear of emerging as a target of terrorism. Others agreed to be named in this article. They include Portland-based Northwest Medical Teams, which trains nurses and doctors in its international and Iraqi-staffed office in Kurdish-controlled Erbil in northern Iraq, and Connecticut-based Save The Children Federation, which works in the southern Iraqi town of Basra.

"Overall, our operations have continued largely uninterrupted, and we have over 150 Iraqi citizens running our programs," said Mike Kiernan, a spokesman for Save The Children.

Mercy Corps has been active in southern Iraq since the spring of 2003, with Andy and Albana Dwonch arriving in September of that year. The couple had met in January 2000 at a jazz club in Albania, where Albana worked as a journalist.
 
They married in the spring of 2002, and they worked with Mercy Corps in Serbia before arriving in Kut. There, Andy took charge of managing the office, which contracted with local business people to fund dozens of projects. Albana worked with community leaders and schools to organize service projects.

Once in Kut, they lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in a villa that included verandas and gardens. During their first six months there, the city was relatively calm. This allowed a mix of international Mercy Corps aid workers and more than 100 Iraqi staffers to freely move about town and outlying rural areas, where two additional aid offices were opened.

All that changed last spring as the Shiite insurgency led by Muqtada al-Sadr reached Kut. On the morning of April 6, explosions rocked the downtown as U.S. warplanes circled overhead, and the situation grew increasingly dangerous.

Some of the Iraqis were eager for the Dwonchs to remain in Kut.

"One woman, she wanted us to stay in her house," said 30-year-old Albana Dwonch. "That was a big deal. It was more than an invitation — it was an offer of protection."

But as the violence continued, the decision was made to evacuate the international staff. The Dwonchs and other international staff members climbed into cars and headed to a town in northeastern Iraq under control of Kurdish militia. There, working out of a home office in a quiet residential area, they have used computers, telephones and faxes to help keep alive the aid programs they left behind.

Andy Dwonch, 28, said that in the first few months after their departure, Mercy Corps stepped up payments to local contractors and training of Iraqi staff members. That helped to reaffirm the aid group's commitment to the Kut region even though it remains too dangerous for the international staff to make monthly visits to the city.

Mercy Corps efforts also have been aided by dialogue with political, tribal and religious leaders that began when the aid staff first arrived in Kut and still continues, Dwonch said. That dialogue included followers of al Sadr, whose leaders offered to protect aid efforts after the spring insurgency flared. "Sadr's group was doing some good things in town, organizing charity for poor people," Dwonch said.

In Kut, violence flared again in August, when some 70 to 80 people were killed in clashes with the U.S. military, Dwonch said. During that month, Mercy Corps, with the help of a $1 million grant from Nike, organized soccer tournaments for middle- and high-school students. The tournament was suspended during the three-day peak of fighting and then resumed.

"We feel that there are some little success stories out there," Dwonch said. "Stories that aren't getting told."

They both say that the past few months were stressful, as television and Internet news reports carried accounts of the bombings, roadside attacks and kidnappings that have become routine.

"We see the same images that you do," Andy Dwonch said. "And, as all these things happen, it wears on you."

The couple initially signed up for a year's work in Iraq but agreed to a six-month extension that ends in February. After that, they have promised both sets of parents that they will take a new assignment in a safer place.

Maybe somewhere in Africa, they say.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com