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    American Committee On Africa - Dr. F. Ian Gilchrist and The Situation in Angola

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    Tracy Johnson
    1) Dr. Ian Gilchrist, a 29-year-old Canadian doctor, is touring the US and Canada to raise awareness about the war in Angola and the plight of over 300,000 refugees who have fled to the Congo. 2) Dr. Gilchrist grew up in Angola and provides medical care to refugees at a clinic in Leopoldville, seeing an average of 80 patients per day. He also travels into rural areas to treat refugees. 3) Angola has been embroiled in a violent war for independence from Portuguese rule since 1961. Hundreds of thousands of Angolan refugees have fled the violence and suffering into the neighboring Congo.

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    American Committee On Africa - Dr. F. Ian Gilchrist and The Situation in Angola

    Uploaded by

    Tracy Johnson
    117 views3 pages
    1) Dr. Ian Gilchrist, a 29-year-old Canadian doctor, is touring the US and Canada to raise awareness about the war in Angola and the plight of over 300,000 refugees who have fled to the Congo. 2) Dr. Gilchrist grew up in Angola and provides medical care to refugees at a clinic in Leopoldville, seeing an average of 80 patients per day. He also travels into rural areas to treat refugees. 3) Angola has been embroiled in a violent war for independence from Portuguese rule since 1961. Hundreds of thousands of Angolan refugees have fled the violence and suffering into the neighboring Congo.

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    American Committee on Africa -- Dr. F. Ian Gilchrist and the Situation in Angola

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    1) Dr. Ian Gilchrist, a 29-year-old Canadian doctor, is touring the US and Canada to raise awareness about the war in Angola and the plight of over 300,000 refugees who have fled to the Congo. 2) Dr. Gilchrist grew up in Angola and provides medical care to refugees at a clinic in Leopoldville, seeing an average of 80 patients per day. He also travels into rural areas to treat refugees. 3) Angola has been embroiled in a violent war for independence from Portuguese rule since 1961. Hundreds of thousands of Angolan refugees have fled the violence and suffering into the neighboring Congo.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    117 views3 pages

    American Committee On Africa - Dr. F. Ian Gilchrist and The Situation in Angola

    Uploaded by

    Tracy Johnson
    1) Dr. Ian Gilchrist, a 29-year-old Canadian doctor, is touring the US and Canada to raise awareness about the war in Angola and the plight of over 300,000 refugees who have fled to the Congo. 2) Dr. Gilchrist grew up in Angola and provides medical care to refugees at a clinic in Leopoldville, seeing an average of 80 patients per day. He also travels into rural areas to treat refugees. 3) Angola has been embroiled in a violent war for independence from Portuguese rule since 1961. Hundreds of thousands of Angolan refugees have fled the violence and suffering into the neighboring Congo.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 3

    Prepared by

    The American Corr.mittee on Africa


    211 East Street
    Neu York J 7, c:e1'J YOl'k
    212 TN 7-8733

    on
    DR. F. IAN GILC-lltIS T
    and
    THE SITlL'SION IN I.NGOLA
    April/VJaY 1964
    GENER.:.L: Ian Gilchrist, the 29-year-old Canadian doctor serving among Angolan
    refugees in the Congo, is making a short spealting tour of the US and
    Canada to make the facts about the ,var in Angola ,md the plight of more than
    300,000 refugees. His work is sponsol'ed by ER.. (Emerge'ncy Relief fa!' Angola, a
    division of the American Committee on Africa), Cdngo authorities, while doing
    their best, cannot extend help to the refugeMj the 111ternDtiol1al Red Cross has
    halted its program; the United Nations canno t act because of Portuguese pressure;
    this leaves responsibility for the care of the l'efugees on private organizations
    and individuals. Exactly four doctors are servinG the needs of the refugees
    -- and F. Ian Gilchrist is the only one from North Awerica .
    GILCHRIST is the son of a medical missionary stHl in Angola today. He Nas
    born in Halifax and grew up on his father's mission. Here he learned
    to speak the local African languages as well as to see things from the African point
    of view rather than that of the Portuguese administration. He received his medical
    training in Canada and joined the Emergency Relief to An,:ola program in January
    1963. His Hife and two children live with him at the Leopoldville clinic-compound,
    where he sees an average of 80 patients a day. not at the clinic, ' he loads up
    his station l.Jagon (donated by American contributors) and takes to the bush roads.
    Background/two
    Diet diseases and malaria are t he two comrnoneGt causes of suffering, he reports.
    He also treats a fair number of wounded guerrillas br oucht back from encounters in
    Angola. AIJIlost all the drugs he dispenses have been donated by American drug
    manufacturers.
    Dr. Gilchrist has been stuck in the mud, isolated in lonely villages, shot at
    by Portuguese planes; he's been hungry, tired, poor, and forgotten but he's
    never been beaten.
    ANGOLA is a Portuguese colony on Africa's "rest coast, which shares a common
    border Hi th the Congo. The population is made up of Africans (4 million)
    whites (200,000), and mulattoes (75,000). The colonyts coffee, djamond, and
    cotton exports make it Portt:gal t s only profitable t e:::-ri to:cy in her empire. Angola
    has be8n a Portuguese possession for almost 500 years. Illj.teracy in ALgola is
    more than 95 percent, and sla'rery l.vas practiced by t i1p. Portuguese into the
    20th century. When the Congo became independent in :960, Lngolans also demanded
    their freedom. But the refused to consider such a possibility. Thus,
    in 1961, the Africans rebelled violently against Po:ctuguese rule. In retaliation,
    the Portuguese struck terror into the hea rts of the civilian population: rebellious
    villages were bombed and burned; the bush was set on fire to flush out hidden
    villagers; thousands of refugees fled to the neighboring Congo.
    Today, a war bet-treen Portuguese and Angolans is being waged silently and re-
    lentlessly. The Unit ed Nations has called for an end to Portuguese
    colonialism; the United States has requested Portugal to change its policies. But
    to no avail. Angolans receive help from Algeria, Tunisia, the Congo, and other
    African countries.
    T'IE REFU0F.ES: Dr. G:i.lchrist recently 1frote: "We do not delude ourselves into
    thinking we have much more than scratched the surface of
    Background/three
    relief for close to half a million ref11gees. But He have, He believe, done that
    much. We have posts and iiorke rs st:cetching abo Jt hal f -way along the Congo-Angolan
    border and extending dmm into Angola as far as Luanda. Early in the ne11T year l-Je
    hope to start on the other end of the border and begin working through from
    Katanga.
    1I
    These border posts are necessary to reach the refugees as they stumble across
    the frontier. As GiJ.cnrist described one such incident: ttLooking at these new
    refugees as I have done so often in the past year, I Sa11'1 a group of about 20 in-
    dividuals. The Ovimbundu (people from southern Angola) had come farthest. They
    were three men, t1-W "ramen, and two children. Three of their children had died along
    the 1l'1ay. All were in a bad state physically, in tatters and rags, and mentally
    numbed. One man, his head covered with sores, his eyes whit,e with the lowest hemo-
    globin level compctible with life, said to me: I I was ashan:ed to see you because I
    am almost nude. I Yet they were here. After six weeks of hiding, running, starving,
    suffering, and dying, they had escaped. With all the odds against them they had won
    the game, all of them eAcept the three small bloated bodies that lay along the way."

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