Humanitarian Assistance in War Zones - Research Paper Example

 "Although aid agencies often seek to be neutral or non-partisan toward the winners and losers of a war, the impact of their aid is not neutral. ...When given in conflict settings, aid can reinforce, exacerbate, and prolong the conflict; it can also help to reduce the tensions and strengthen people's capacities to disengage from fighting and find peaceful options for solving problems. Often, an aid program does some of both. But in all cases aid given during conflict cannot remain separate from that conflict." – Mary. B. Anderson (1999) In the post cold war era, the occurrence, impact and magnitude of internal conflicts across and within nations has been increased and widened over the years. Millions of lives have been claimed – most of which have been civilians, and millions of others, hugely affected, worldwide, due to internal conflicts and war between and within nations. According to the then Secretary General of the United Nations: “the main aim ... [of conflicts] ... is the destruction not of armies but of civilians and entire ethnic groups” (UN.org, 1998). War torn countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, or the African nations, bear testimony to this fact, that internal violence and war have caused more damage to the civilians than the ‘enemy’. The vast amount of statistical data supporting such claims underlines the growing the need of humanitarian and developmental assistance to the affected regions, not only during the conflicts but years after the said conflicts have ceased to exist. However, of late, it has been increasingly noticed, and documented through considerable amount of research by scholars, that humanitarian assistance in war zones, often lead to negative consequences and does ‘more harm than good’. The argument/s presented above, propagating the need and urgency of humanitarian aid in war plagued nations, builds the premise for the dilemma faced by such international aid providers and non-governmental organizations, in contemporary times. Meaning and scope of Key Terms used: This paper mainly focuses on the negative consequences of humanitarian assistance in war zones. With regard to conflicts, the terms humanitarian assistance and developmental assistance are often used interchangeably and their meanings and scope, seem to overlap, more often than not. It is on account of this reason, that, and for the purpose of this paper, the two terms are clubbed and will be used interchangeably. Humanitarian Aid: It is a widely known fact that violence or protracted conflicts, caused on account war translates into significant and often, irreparable damage to civilian life – directly as well as indirectly. The main goal of international agencies, communities or groups, in such a state, is to ensure the availability of basic necessities to the civilians i.e. food, shelter and health care. The humanitarian aid agencies are primarily concerned with developmental efforts focused on uplifting the displaced civilians, and helping in preventing the further spread of the conflict, in a bid to protect the loss / damage to the general public. Humanitarian aid, thus aims to rehabilitate the displaced in war torn regions, through provision of basic facilities. Developmental assistance: The term developmental assistance refers to the assistance provided by international agencies or NGOs in re-constructing a nation’s infrastructure and/ or economy, which is destroyed due to war or similar internal conflicts. The basic purpose is to ensure that the nation is able to sustain its stability – both political as well as economic, despite war, and prevent it from retracting towards poverty and state of chaos. These agencies are primarily concerned with providing assistance related to governance, transporting basic supplies such as food and water to crises zones, and providing assistance in restructuring the economy, among others. The international aid agencies strive to eliminate or reduce the factors contributing to creating political, social or economic rift, take active measures in blocking economic stagnation, prevent illicit trade which may facilitate further violence such as drug dealing, illicit trade in diamonds, arms and ammunitions etc., increasing employment opportunities, and reducing / eliminating economic incentives to fight. Some such international assistance organizations include MEDAIR (medair.org), CARE (care.org), USAID (usaid.org), CRS – Catholic Relief Services (crs.og), which provide basic humanitarian as well as developmental assistance in war torn countries worldwide. Agencies providing humanitarian and developmental assistance: The United Nations is one of the key organizations which spearheads humanitarian relief operations in nations in conflict; followed by the World Bank which offers funds for developmental and relief work; and finally various local and international non-governmental organizations. All such agencies together, help in re-establishing peace and stabilizing the economies of war plagued nations. Although the impact and scope of humanitarian assistance is largely felt and acknowledged, there are, incidentally, several negative consequences and/ or problems associated with such assistance. The same is discussed in the following section. Negative Impact of Humanitarian Assistance: 1. Misdirected efforts / Poorly deployed aids resources: Although humanitarian assistance is known to offer immense benefits in the form of timely help to victims and saving millions of lives, it is dogged by negative consequences, nevertheless. On one hand, it helps in restructuring the damaged socio-economic fabric of the warring nations, while on the other it leads to increased interference with local agencies. More often than not, international aid agencies have little or no knowledge of the host nation, and are far less informed about the needs and wants of the victims, as compared to their local counterparts. This may lead to disorientation of efforts and channeling / misappropriation of funds by anti-social elements for the purpose of fuelling the war. Furthermore the identification of areas in dire need is a major problem, and consequently the funds may be misdirected, depriving the genuine victims of assistance from accessing the aid material provided to them (Albala, Bertrand, 2000). 2. Militarization of humanitarian aid Humanitarian assistance has been known to be misused by reigning political or terrorist groups as tools of war. The refugees or groups seeking humanitarian assistance may have strong political cohesion or alliance with the political groups which is further used by them for spreading terror and forwarding their own political agendas. Humanitarian assistance is often responsible for legitimizing the combatants’ amoral agendas. Most of the humanitarian aid agencies seek financial assistance from the western public / governments. These agencies offer oversimplified fabricated stories which tend to highlight the helplessness of the refugees at their camps and deviate the attention of the western world from the role played by such 'victims' in furthering their aggressive motives. For instance, in the case of the ‘Rwandan civil war’ humanitarian assistance agencies involved in providing aid to the Rwandan refugees, depicted the Hutu refugees as victims in dire need of assistance, while in reality, they were the major reason behind the genocide against the Tutsi (Lischer, 2005; Brown, 2004). 3. Political impact “No international humanitarian organization or NGO can solve political conflicts. We need political will, the involvement of government and their leaders, of the U.N. and regional organizations, to maintain and build peace” Sadako Ogata, ex. U.N.High Commissioner for Refugees Traditionally, humanitarian aid has been aimed at resolving economic setbacks and strengthening the political situation of the nations at war. However, regardless of the intent, the fact that humanitarian assistance has political undertones, which can be and have been exploited for personal gains, cannot be denied. For instance, the case of the prolonged civil war in Sudan. The war is known to be one of the longest civil wars of all times, which lasted for almost two decades, with the highest number of victims (approximately two million), and the longest running humanitarian aid operation. This not only represents the serious lack of political will to re-establish peace and stability in the nation, but also highlights the role, played by international humanitarian agencies in prolonging conflicts. In spite of the strong presence of international humanitarian groups affiliated to the United Nations and HINGOs, the internal conflict continued to persist. The humanitarian aid in Sudan, is accused of providing assistance to the warring groups, fuelling ethnic antagonisms, perpetuating famine, pushing the indigenous population towards depths of poverty, and stifling the nation's economic independence. The blunders caused by unintelligible decision making on the part of HINGOs - a relief organization, in Rwanda, defied the very purpose of humanitarian aid by completely disregarding the moral principles which must be observed diligently by such humanitarian service providers. Since the assistance provided by humanitarian organizations is meant for the betterment of the refugees and / or victims of war, it ensures that the innocent civilians are properly fed, provided adequate shelter, and have access to health and hygiene and at the same time ensure that violence around them is reduced to a bare minimum. However in case of Rwanda, when the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) took over the reins in 1994, millions of Hutus sought refuge in neighboring regions. The Hutu militia as well as former government soldiers and officials were a part of this refugee group, who were provided humanitarian assistance by international agencies, working to serve the poor and the destitute. Thus ironically, the very groups who had played a greater role in committing genocide used the United Nations to survive, regroup and launch guerilla attacks into Rwanda, thus causing further political turmoil (Carey, Richmond, 2003). 4. Promoting misleading ideologies The huge amount of financial aid provided by international humanitarian organizations may promote greater reliance of local / indigenous populations on the international communities’ involved in providing financial aid. It may provide a mistake sense of security to the locals which may dissuade the government’s efforts to restructure its economic fabric. International assistance involves provision of food and the local people are employed at the international aid agencies at high salaries, this may prove to be fatal to the victim nation’s personal growth, making activities such as agriculture, a less sought after occupation and thus greatly affecting the country’s efforts to stabilize its economy. 5. Other factors The cases of the Rwanda and Sudan and many others, point towards the fact that humanitarian agencies have potential to do more harm than good, and when coupled with the ‘lack of accountability’ of such agencies towards interest groups, makes the argument all the more stronger. It is a widely known fact, that humanitarian agencies have little or no accountability, and almost any group can form a non-governmental organization and offer to provide relief work in areas of crises. Since there are clearly no enforceable performance standards for such agencies, monitoring and steering their activities becomes a difficult ordeal. Although agencies such the Red Cross do have their own self imposed codes of conduct, but such agencies are far and few in between, the host of other organizations involved in providing assistance. Allegiance to political parties of countries involved in war, provide a great platform for such international agencies to gain huge financial profits, and the lack of accountability further helps them in pursuing their agenda. The fact that humanitarian assistance can fuel or prolong war can be substantiated with the cases of Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and many more. Relief aid can help the militants in getting back on their feet, and continue their destructive missions (UN, 2004). Analysis and Discussion The lessons learned from the above mentioned cases have offered the international communities, to sit back and think about the strong and inevitable repercussions of humanitarian aid. The lessons learned from the prolonged decades-long Sudan conflict as well as from the several other warring African nations include - humanitarian goals cannot be achieved through sole reliance on international assistance; funds meant for helping the victims can and are misappropriated by the anti-social groups; there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems and the local coping strategies have a far greater chance of succeeding in re-stabilizing the nations as compared to the international humanitarian aid agencies. It is quite clear from the above discussion that the solutions to such a problem are neither easy nor apparent, and are in fact a problem causing fundamental dilemmas faced by humanitarian organizations. The fact that the international humanitarian assistance tend to not only help the victims or refugees but also unintentionally (or at times intentionally) fall victim to the local militia or gangs who in turn thrive on such aid, for furthering their violent agendas. More than the victims, the humanitarian agencies seem to be highly vulnerable and susceptible to such preying groups, who exploit the international resources and misappropriate the funds for their own personal gains. The facts presented in the paper, has made the case stronger in favor of the argument that humanitarian agencies seem to do more harm than good, and offer less grounds of optimism to defend the case. The past attempts made by NGOs and other international humanitarian agencies too, seem to offer little help in reinstating the faith in ability and credibility of such agencies. Humanitarian aid providers, regardless of the negative consequences, might find it difficult to balance their prerogatives against the wider cause of human good, i.e. on one hand, their basic aim is to offer assistance to the victims, while on the other, the victims may include the rebel groups or the militia. Denying help / assistance to any human in need, is against their policy while they are at the risk of promoting militants and encouraging violence. However, it is needless to add that the humanitarian groups will continue with their mission to serve humanity, and especially the vulnerable groups, and disassociating themselves from their primary goal for fear of negative consequences is simply not an option they can afford. In fact, it is highly likely that their role and responsibilities are likely to grow manifold, given the type and extent of crises the world is in (Carnegie Commission, 1997). The only feasible alternative, although challenging, remains to devise and implement innovative strategies which has the impact of minimizing, if not completely eliminating, the negative repercussions of humanitarian aid, in war torn countries, and to ensure its optimum utilization by the most vulnerable groups. The NGOs along with the international assistance groups, must ensure that their funds are not misappropriated for fuelling and prolonging the conflict, and the lessons from the past must be put to better use for assessing strategies and alternatives. Strategies for minimizing the negative consequences of Humanitarian aid in war: One of the most exploited resource provided by foreign aid, is the provision of food supplies. In order to counter the threat of miscreants preying on misappropriating this resource, international aid agencies have now begun to provide food in conjunction with their estimated market demand and value. Detailed inquires are now being made, to assess the probabilities of looting, and ways to prevent it are being devised. For instance, in Somalia, the looters mainly focused on looting rice, while other food products such as sorghum were largely ignored. In one instance, an the entire convoy sponsored by CARE – an international relief organization, was attacked with a motive to loot ‘rice’ but was left untouched, on finding out that it contained sorghum, instead of rice (Natsios, 1997). This provides a valuable lesson, which can be exploited by the organizations providing international assistance, and continue to help the ‘needy’ and the vulnerable without worrying about indirectly helping the militants. The above incident suggests that foods which are perceived as less tasty are found less attractive by the looters, and hence such food is mostly left untouched. Secondly the looters are primarily concerned with looting food products which can be stored for a longer period of time and hidden from predators. The anti social elements mostly engage in warfare and need food which can be stored for a longer period of time. As a response to this observation, the ICRC, started delivering cooked food, which can only be used by the genuinely vulnerable groups, thus continuing with their mission and at the same time keeping the anti social elements at bay. Furthermore, strategies such as assessing the needs of the local people and helping them with programs which could be fruitful in the long term, have proved to be useful on several occasions in the past. For instance, NGOs working in African nations, Rwanda and Angola, where the incidence of looting and misappropriation of funds and materials meant for humanitarian relief, were at its highest, devised intelligent strategies to counter the immoral agendas of the warring gangs. Instead of lootable items, the NGOs started providing seeds, which can be used by the local and vulnerable group for planting and can be used for a long term purpose, and at the same time eliminating the chances of looting entirely. Similar efforts were found to be implemented by USAID in Somalia, with successful results. The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) started monetizing the food provided to the refugees. It was observed that the looters attacked vehicles carrying food and used it as a medium of exchange, thus benefiting from the bargain. Since food was a scarce product, it provided the anti-social elements, an opportunity to trade it for money or buying arms and ammunitions, and spreading more violence. To counter this threat, the USAID decided to flood the country with food, this would cause its value to fall drastically, due to over availability and dissuade the looters from misusing it for antisocial purposes (Natsios, 1997). This strategy helped the international agencies in forcing the food hoarded by warlords back into the market and at the same time crippled them by cutting the very source of their income. Also they started selling oil and cereals to the local stores, which increased circulation of money putting the country’s economy back on track. This strategy proved to be hugely successful in rehabilitating the displaced populations to a considerable extent. It is evident from the above mentioned examples that the international aid agencies have learned valuable lessons from the past, and have attempted to overcome the negative consequences of their actions. Due to the outcry regarding the misappropriation of funds at the hands of warlords, and the vulnerability of international organizations against the anti social elements, immense positive measures and transformations have been made possible. More and more NGOs and other agencies working at an international level in war torn countries are now coming forward to collaborate their data, and learn from each other’s experience, with a view to improve their services, and reduce their exploitation at the hands of few. Incidents such as genocide in Rwanda, gang wars in Somalia, and suppression of the local population in Afghanistan and Iraq due to internal conflict, will continue to persist in other parts of the world, and the vulnerable civilians who are the most disadvantaged group of the lot, would continue to need and rely on humanitarian relief work for support. Eliminating war entirely is, a luxury which cannot be materialized in years to come, nor can the warlords and antisocial elements be prevented from oppressing the local population for their own personal / political gains, and as long as these two factors continue to persist, the vulnerability of organizations involved in providing humanitarian aid will be continuously threatened and challenged. With such ever-lasting dilemma, it would not be too wrong to claim that – more than victims of war torn countries, humanitarianism itself seems to be in a crisis. References: Albala-Bertrand, J.M., Responses to complex humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters: an analytical comparison, in: “Third World Quarterly”, Volume 21, Number 2 / April 1, 2000, pp. 215-227. Anderson, M. B., (1999). Do no harm: how aid can support peace or war. Lynne Riener Publishers, Cambridge, MA, Pp. 1 Brown, M. E., (2004). New global dangers: changing dimensions of international security. The MIT Press, Pp. 390 - 400 Carey, H. F., Richmond, O. P., (2003). Mitigating conflict: the role of NGOs. Taylor & Francis publishers, Pp. 120 - 125 Carnegie Commission. (1997). Preventing Deadly Conflict, Final Report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York.Pp.105 - 127 Lischer, S. K., (2005). Dangerous sancturies: refugee camps, civil war, and the dilemmas of humanitarian aid. Cornell University Press, Pp. 88 - 90 Natsios, A. S., (1997). Humanitarian Relief Intervention in Somalia: The Economics of Chaos. In Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst, Learning from Somalia: The Lessons of Armed Humanitarian Intervention. Boulder: Westview Press: Pp. 77-95. UN.org (1998) U.N. Press Release [Online] Available from: http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/sgreport/pressrel.htm [Accessed: March 7, 2011] UN (2004). The humanitarian decade: challenges for humanitarian assistance in the last decade and into the future. Panel discussion on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of General Assembly Resolution 46/182, United Nations, New York, Pp. 30 - 32 Read More