The MSF Speaking Out podcasts are a new series adapted from the original Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Speaking Out Case Studies (SOCS). Like the case studies, the podcast series examines the challenges and dilemmas surrounding speaking out. The series offers an in-depth look into these humanitarian dilemmas through the narration of extracts from MSF documents and press archives to help establish the facts. Interviews with the main MSF protagonists at the time of the events also provide insight into, and analysis of, the positions adopted, including personal reflections which offer fresh perspectives.
Speaking Out Srebrenica Podcast
soundcloud.comThe first podcast series is adapted from the MSF in Srebrenica, 1993-2003 case study. 5 episodes examine the speaking out constraints, questions, and dilemmas faced by MSF teams in Srebrenica. MSF was present in the enclave since the beginning of its siege by the Bosnian Serb forces in 1993 until it fell in July 1995. During the fall, thousands of Bosnian Muslims were massacred. These massacres were qualified by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as genocide in 2004.
Speaking Out Srebrenica podcast

Episode 1: Entering the Enclave
Even after the United Nations (UN) declared Srebrenica a ‘safe area’ in March 1993, the Muslim community trapped inside the city was living under constant shelling. MSF provided medical care while starting to question how much protection the UN could actually provide.

Episode 2: prison doctors
MSF was the only provider of medical care in Srebrenica as the violence intensified. MSF wondered if our role had become more like de facto prison doctors in the besieged city. Was MSF inadvertently contributing to the Bosnian Serbs' strategy of ethnic cleansing? Would calling for the evacuation of Bosnian Muslims actually result in aiding the Bosnian Serb’s ethnic cleansing policy of driving the people out and claiming the land? And what if Bosnian Muslims wanted to leave? What should the position of MSF have been?

Episode 3: The fall of Srebrenica, the so called "Safe Zone"
Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs in July 1995 and approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred. How could this happen in the presence of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers in this so-called ‘safe zone’? What mechanisms did MSF put in place to speak out over the UN’s inability to protect the people of Srebrenica?

Episode 4: Peace agreement versus justice
Following the fall of Srebrenica, thousands were dead, missing or relocated to refugee camps. MSF questioned what could be done to ensure that peace did not take precedence over justice. Where did the responsibility for these actions and inactions lie?

Episode 5: Mechanisms and expectations
Many nations were not taking responsibility for their (in)actions in the enclave. MSF France decided to put pressure on the French parliament to investigate France’s role in the fall of Srebrenica, by issuing an appeal for an investigative parliamentary commission. Should a humanitarian organisation speak out and advocate for official government inquiries in order to place responsibility, document events, seek justice and defend human rights?
"MSF in Srebrenica. 1993-2003" Speaking Out Case Study.
Podcast Hunting and killing Rwandan refugees in Zaire-Congo
soundcloud.comThis podcast is adapted from “The Hunting and Killing of Rwandan Refugees in Zaire-Congo. 1996-1997” Case Study.” In 8 episodes, it investigates MSF's experience in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide, and in particular, with the impact on local populations and refugees living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).
The series expresses on the constraints, questions, and dilemmas faced by MSF teams attempting to bring relief to Rwandan refugees and local populations.

Episode 1: Resumption of war in eastern Zaire
In 1996, MSF attempts to alert the international community about the resurgence of conflict in eastern Zaire, as witnessed by teams on the ground. The perpetrators of the Rwandan Tutsi genocide, living in refugee camps, threaten and attack the Zairean civilian population. The same perpetrators are holding Rwandan refugees that fled the 1994 genocide, hostage within the camps. The new Rwandan regime and its Zairian ally, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL), launches counter attacks on the refugee camps.

Episode 2: Information war over refugee numbers
As the instability of the region increases, MSF and other humanitarian organisations are eventually forced out of eastern Zaire entirely. MSF suspects that thousands of refugees are suffering and at risk of dying. The organisation decides to launch an appeal for an armed international intervention and communicates about the plight of the population, predicting a health catastrophe, if access for aid agencies is not provided.

Episode 3: Under fire in the press
In November 1996, the offensive led by the ADFL and Rwandan forces empties the camps in eastern Zaire of their population. Some refugees were repatriated to Rwanda and others fled into the neighboring forest. MSF denounces the repatriation conditions and is reproached by the press for "catastrophic" forecasts made a few weeks earlier.

Episode 4: Humanitarians used as bait
Finally allowed into South Kivu, a province in eastern Zaire, the MSF teams discover that refugees are being massacred by the ADFL and its allies, particularly in the Massisi and the Shabunda regions. MSF realises that MSF teams are used as bait by the ADFL to lure the refugees out of the forests and kill them.

Episode 5: Forest exodus
The ADFL takes control of all of the Kivu province and refugees continue to flee their rapid advance eastwards through the forest. MSF struggles to maintain access to the refugees amidst the violence, restrictions, and threats to team safety, while receiving continued reports about refugee massacres.

Episode 6: Silent vs public advocacy
MSF's exploratory mission teams complete their reports on their Masisi and Shabunda visits. Details of mass graves, massacres, and the fact that the ADFL used humanitarian teams as bait to lure refugees out of the forests, sent shock waves through MSF offices. A debate about the use of the information collected ensued: should it be made public or not?

Episode 7: The ‘Forced Flight’ report
In May 1997, MSF published a new study describing the movements of refugees in the Great Lakes region of Africa and the fate of refugees. MSF planned to distribute the report to a small group of journalists, asking them not to cite MSF as the source of the information. However, a lack of communication between MSF offices and with the teams in the field, exacerbates tensions.

Episode 8: Learning from retrospective reports
From mid-1997, MSF teams try to work together again. The organisation publishes retrospective studies that trace the odyssey of the Rwandan refugees through the Zairean jungle and contributes testimony to international investigations on human rights violations in the region.