PAWcast: Ambassador Cameron Hume ’68 on Humanitarian Aid

When Cameron Hume ’68 graduated from Princeton, he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Libya, where his two-year stint was cut short by a coup d’etat. The experience launched him on a diplomacy career that has taken him to some of the world’s most dangerous — and interesting — places. On the PAWcast, he spoke about two hot topics where he has expertise: prisoner exchanges and humanitarian aid. He discussed his recent work trying to get aid into Gaza, he and explained why sometimes you need to go to a place to understand its people.

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TRANSCRIPT

I'm Liz Daugherty, and this is the Princeton Alumni Weekly’s PAWcast, where we talk with Princetonians about what’s happening on campus and beyond. 

Today I’m speaking with Cameron Hume from the Class of 1968, who served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria, South Africa, and Indonesia. Within and beyond these posts, his career in diplomacy has brought him expertise in two major topics that have been in the news this summer: prisoner exchanges and humanitarian aid. With the Richardson Center, he advocated for the release of Americans held in foreign countries, including U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was released by Russia on Aug. 1. And with the Maritime Humanitarian Aid Foundation, he’s been working to get aid to Gaza, including with efforts on the U.S. military pier. 

Cameron, thank you so much for joining me today. Let’s start with a little background. I believe you majored in English at Princeton, and then joined the Peace Corps. So is that how you first became interested in diplomacy?

CH: I didn’t know what I was interested in when I left Princeton. I was uncertain about that. I didn’t want to end up going to graduate school in a discipline, and then finding out, “Well, I don’t really want to do that, but now I have to do it, because I went to graduate school, I got another degree.” So I went in the Peace Corps as a way to get two years of time. It ended up being one year, because I went to Libya and they had a coup d’état and they threw us out. But maybe I got two years’ worth of wondering about the future done in one year in Libya.

LD: I had noticed in a 2008 PAW story, you said you’ve been willing to go places with serious conflict. Did that start in Libya? And why is that? How did you end up there?

CH: Well, I always had an interest. I wanted to know about people who weren’t like me. So I think when you go and you see people in conflict, particularly you come from this kind of an environment which is idyllic, and then you see people in conflict, you learn an awful lot about human nature and the world we live in and who we are.

LD: So you’ve worked quite a bit with prisoner exchange situations like the recent one that brought home Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine Paul Whelan, for whom you had done some advocating through your work with the Richardson Center. What goes into making a deal like that? Can you give me a sense of what was happening behind the scenes leading into this?

CH: Well, first of all, generally you have to find out what the other party’s willing to do. What is the government in Caracas willing to do to release Americans who have been put in their prisons? You have to find that out. And then usually they want something in return, but the something is always under control of the president of the United States. They want a person. And that was true with the Princeton researcher in Iran, and that was true with Paul Whelan, that was true with Brittney Griner. But first of all, you have to find out what could go on the table. I believe that sometimes it’s easier for people who don’t work for the president to find out.

LD: Oh, that’s interesting. Was that something that you were able to work on at any point?

CH: Yes. I was with Bill Richardson on Feb. 23 two years ago in Moscow, and we met with Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, for five hours. That happened to be, the next morning is when the Russians invaded Ukraine. We were there to talk about prisoner releases. We were told Whelan was going to be really difficult, but Trevor Reed, who was a younger Marine who had been arrested for essentially disorderly conduct, he could be released if a prisoner who was held in Danbury prison up in Connecticut would be released. We were able to get that information without it being a negotiation where people are pushing back and forth. It was information-getting. We got that information. And after Governor Richardson I think gave sort of an elbow to the White House, Mr. Reed came home.

LD: Can you tell us anything about the case of Elizabeth Tsurkov? She’s the Princeton graduate student who was kidnapped in Iraq. Do you know anything about the case? Do you know anything about what’s being done to bring her home? Or maybe just what is likely to be happening behind the scenes if you don’t know about the case in particular.

CH: Well, I do know about the case. I don’t know how particularly, but the Richardson Center with which I’m still affiliated and they still do some activities, the Richardson Center was asked by her family to advise them. And so colleagues of mine in the Richardson Center actually talked with Elizabeth Tsurkov’s sister and helped in the preparation of the article on Elizabeth Tsurkov that appeared in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

I have raised the question of Elizabeth Tsurkov several times in conversations I have periodically with Iranian diplomats. Their answer is they don’t have anything to do with it, she’s being held by a group inside Iraq. They do not control this group. And that when the group offered to hand over Elizabeth Tsurkov to the Iranians, they said, “No way. We’re not getting involved with this.” I know a little bit about it, but actually what’s being done today, no, I don’t. I’ve not gone to Iraq to try to find the captors or to be engaged directly like that, no.

LD: It seems like it could be a very complicated situation. I don’t know how it compares to other ones. And I was wondering if it had become more complicated since Oct. 7, since she does hold an Israeli passport.

CH: I think that made it complicated before Oct. 7 as well. I don’t know. It would be speculation on my part, more or less complicated. It’s difficult. 

LD: Can you say anything about the position that Princeton and the State Department are in when it comes to her case?

CH: Well, the State Department, first of all, has no direct obligation whatsoever because she’s not an American citizen. That said, I know that the U.S. government has made extensive efforts to get information about her whereabouts and to attempt to assist. Princeton, I think, could speak for itself. I think they’re in a similar situation. You’re dealing with people in what’s a lawless environment. Making legal arguments to people in a lawless environment is not always effective, let’s say. But people care about Elizabeth Tsurkov, and I think that’s the key.

LD: Can you say anything about what people can do to try and help her case? I know her family’s been advocating, I know the Richardson Center was helping her. What can be done? You’re someone who has a lot of connections with people, but as for her family members, for people who are here on the home front, does writing letters help? Does advocating? Is there anything that people can do?

CH: Well, it’s up to the people who hold her to make a decision they don’t want to hold her. First of all, you never give up. People should not be forgotten. They should not be ignored. But to say offhand I know a way to pressure those people who hold her, that’s hard to find. You can either pressure them, to say, “You better do it or else,” and that’s difficult. Or the other path that often is not explored is, “How could I change the circumstance so that they would prefer to release her? That is, make it as easy as possible for them to release her without then being bombed or whatever, put in jail.” So I mean, there are two ways to look at it.

LD: So the other area I wanted to get to is your work with humanitarian aid in Gaza and the conflict there. Can you tell me about the Maritime Humanitarian Aid Foundation and what you guys are trying to do?

CH: Sure. We’re a new foundation which has been set up in order to manage donations from governments in order to provide for shipping and transportation of humanitarian assistance. First of all, the idea came from Gaza, trying to get aid from Cyprus into Gaza. The people who set up the company that is structured to move the humanitarian supplies were primarily U.S. military. But let’s be frank, it’s the U.S. military who trains people to move humanitarian supplies in difficult situations. It’s the U.S. military that teaches extensive courses to all its officers in humanitarian law. That’s not true for law schools in this country, but it is true for the military.

So I think the fact that military people are involved is good. And they came up with an idea that you could use ocean-going barges, which could handle a sea state of nine feet. It’s a little technical. And they were getting ready to do this when President Biden announced the JLOTS Pier, that is, that the U.S. military would send this pier from Virginia across the ocean to the Mediterranean, and that that would be another access point for humanitarian supplies. But unfortunately the JLOTS Pier is only useful in sea states of up to three feet, and the Mediterranean gets rough seas, so the JLOTS Pier was only effective intermittently.

But when it was effective, moving the supplies from the beach into the distribution network in Gaza worked much better from the pier than from any of the land crossings. And that’s because of other mechanisms that were set up to coordinate between the U.S. and Israeli military to change routes to avoid populated areas in moving the supplies. Because Gaza, there is no internal security. The Israeli occupying force does not provide normal civilian security, and Hamas doesn’t provide it either, so there’s no police force, there’s no cop on the street, so it’s a very difficult environment to work in.

LD: So what are you guys trying to do next? Do you have a plan going forward?

CH: Oh, we always have a plan. One of the things that we’re looking at is how can we assist with the infrastructure needed to distribute humanitarian supplies? So we’re in conversation with a Palestinian entrepreneur who has the permit for what’s called the Gaza Industrial Estate. How can that Industrial Estate be rehabilitated to the extent that it would be a distribution node for humanitarian supplies?

We also have the equivalent of I believe it’s 400 truckloads of flour we shipped at our own expense from Cyprus to Ashdod, port in Israel. It’s now in the port in Israel in warehouses awaiting Israeli permission to move that through the land crossings into Gaza for distribution. You have to keep at it in doing these things. You don’t give up.

LD: What are the challenges of this particular conflict zone? You’ve seen a lot of different conflict zones, you’ve worked in many. Libya was just the beginning. What’s the challenge with this one when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid and how does it compare?

CH: Gaza has two advantages. It has a more educated population. It’s more urbanized than many other places where there are tragedies, eastern Congo, let’s say. And there are donors for Gaza, so there are countries and citizens who are willing to donate money to help alleviate the suffering in Gaza. There’s a lack of such contributions for people starving to death in Sudan right now. Those are two things that are plus.

Problems are mostly at the political level, 75 years of a situation which has been unstable. At no point have both of the main parties involved, the Israelis and the Palestinians, accepted exactly the same terms. President after president in this country has attempted to find a solution. Mr. Biden is attempting to find a ceasefire as the first of three steps that have to be completed before you’d have negotiations for a solution. It’s really complicated. Everything has been tried. Everything is difficult.

I would say that that, however, should not stop our active concern for human life. The foundation I work for and my own personal attitude is we should stay away to the extent we can from anything that has political connotations. It’s not my business. My concern is, “Can we get the food in? Can we get the polio vaccines in? Can we get the water purification equipment in so that people in Gaza, just ordinary citizens, don’t die for no reason?”

LD: Do you see this situation getting a little bit better going forward or a little bit easier to get aid in?

CH: Well, it goes up and down. It’s gone up and down for 75 years. This is a particularly bad moment, kicked off by the Oct. 7 invasion by Hamas into Israel. But at some point, everything in life ends. It begins, it has a middle, and it has an ending. This stage of the conflict somehow will come to a close. It’s to be prayed that it comes to a close more quickly.

But even if it comes to a close, even if the Israelis and the Palestinians say, “OK, we’ll have a ceasefire. Mr. Blinken, we agree. Hands up,” there still will be no domestic order in Gaza. There still will be no infrastructure in Gaza. There’s no place in Gaza that looks like your campus, right? And so there’s a long road ahead to put in place again civilian infrastructure, including the cop on the beat and that kind of thing.

LD: What do you think needs to happen? I guess stability, it sounds like, might be the main thing to help the situation. What would you like to see happen?

CH: Well, it’s hard to say. I know it’s the Middle East. It’s hard to say patience, but I don’t think that this level of conflict is working for either Israel and its future or for Palestinians and their future. Of course, it’d be their political leaders who have to decide that, not me. But I think they should both step back and say, “Is this what we want, to continue behaving like this? Is that all we can do? Is that all we can offer our children?” I would hope that they’d find a different path then.

LD: This might be too political of a question, so let me know what you think. But I was curious, our campus was one of many that had protesting going on back in the spring with very passionate students who were hoping to make a difference in the lives of Palestinians. Have you seen those protests, here and elsewhere in the U.S., have any impact on the situation over there?

CH: I don’t think so. I think that they feed into long run agony that will affect our relations with countries in the region. But the protagonists are looking at each other. They don’t care about protests at Princeton’s campus. I think I’d go on a slightly different tack. I know from my work in Africa where on a couple of occasions I hosted people from Princeton in Africa. I got an award from Princeton in Africa. I hosted events in Indonesia when I was ambassador there for Princeton in Asia. Princeton has no similar program for any of the countries in the Middle East. I would hope that —

I understand the reason. I graduated in ’68, ’68 was a lot bigger deal than this, particularly Vietnam War. I would hope that in addition to protests, Princeton would look more at programs so that undergraduates who are interested in this region find some way to be there. Not to protest, but to live for a year and understand, “Why does somebody who lives in Egypt see the world this way?” Or, “Why does somebody who lives in Israel see the world this way?” They’re not all crazy. They’re responding to their natural environment. And I think often the idea of turning that into a morality play on U.S. campuses is shallow. You need understanding. And understanding comes from knowledge, not from just having opinions.

LD: Oh, that’s really interesting. You know, this has gone through a lot of my questions. We’ve gone through a lot of my questions. Is there anything else you wanted to touch on or anything else you’d like people to know? 

CH: Well, I don’t know. When I was coming here, I was thinking, “When I was here as a student, it was ‘Princeton in the nation’s service.’” OK, OK. That was changed: “Princeton in the service of humanity.” How do you do that? And this goes back in a way to the demonstrations here this spring. How do you do that? You’re a university. Do you do that? I know there’s an effort to change investment policies. I think that’s misguided, irrelevant, and ineffective.

And I know that from — I was also ambassador in South Africa. I know something about South Africa and how change came there. And I don’t believe it was because of student protests in the United States. Most of the places where you get change, it’s because you’re able to get people who live there, it’s their life, it’s their country, to understand their possibilities of their future in a different way. And just saying, “We’re going to punish you somehow ...,” I don’t know. Do you have children? You ever try that with the children? It doesn’t work.

LD: I have. It does not work.

CH: It does not work.

LD: It doesn’t work. Mm-mm.

CH: I would say this is an institution of higher learning. Seek the truth. Engage with people in other places to understand their truth, and move forward.

LD: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it.

CH: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you.

PAWcast is a monthly interview podcast produced by the Princeton Alumni Weekly. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. You can read transcripts of every episode on our website, paw.princeton.edu. Music for this podcast is licensed from Universal Production Music.