Fred Cuny
Published by Yazad Jal January 15th, 2005 in StimulantsDilip D’Souza’s comment on an earlier post provoked me to search for Fred Cuny. What a man and what a life led!
Here’s an introduction from onlineethics.org
Fred Cuny was a disaster relief specialist who used his training in engineering to do humanitarian work. He worked in countries such as Biafra, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, and Bosnia. In March 1995, he disappeared in Chechnya and was never found. His life was featured on the PBS documentary program Frontline.
The PBS site “The Lost American” (complimentary to the documentary) is extensive mine of information. I found this article a superb read. A small excerpt that I quoted in a comment before, is worth repeating.
Studies of every recent famine have shown that food was available in-country — though not always in the immediate food deficit area. Usually, merchants begin hoarding food as a crisis develops — in conflicts, to keep it from being stolen, in famines, to get higher prices. Even though by local standards the prices are too high for the poor to purchase it, it would usually be cheaper for a donor to buy the hoarded food at the inflated price than to import it from abroad. (Emphasis mine)
Cuny set up the Intertect Institute which, after his death, was renamed after him as the Cuny Center. The Center studies and develops practical solutions to address the needs of societies affected by disasters and complex emergencies.
There’s more. A book on his work: The Man Who Tried to Save the World : The dangerous life and mysterious disappearence of Fred Cuny and Harrison Ford intends to make a movie on him.
Thanks Dilip for starting me on the adventure to know more about Fred Cuny’s life and work.
Sorry to add this part here .. but i had sent an email at mail AT yazad dot com with no reply yet. Did you recieve the email??
Perhaps if you had sent it to the yazadJAL.com domain, it might have got there, Sachin. ;)
Yazad, I have the Cuny biography you mention (”The Man Who Tried to Save the World”) — I’ve just lent it to Amit V. Perhaps you’d like to borrow it after he’s done? Somewhere in there I need to re-read it.
cheers,
dilip.
Thanks Dilip. I’d like to borrow it when Amit (and you?) are done.
Sachin, you did send the email to the right address (and I have got it). Sorry about not replying. I was under the weather a bit and only replied to urgent / important mail. Will send a reply sometime this week.
I’ll be done with it soon, managed to get hold of Blink, and got diverted reading that. Magnificent book.
Blink is superb. I’m gonna post a review of both Tipping Point and Blink sometime this week.
Who knows where I can find an electronic copy of the handbook on seismic measures in buildings that fred cuny wrote?
I am currently working in Banda Aceh for UNOPS and would really appreciate this info