Condemned to Repeat?

The Paradox of Humanitarian Action

Fiona Terry

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780801468636
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Diritti umani

Humanitarian groups have failed, Fiona Terry believes, to face up to the core paradox of their activity: humanitarian action aims to alleviate suffering, but by inadvertently sustaining conflict it potentially prolongs suffering. In Condemned to Repeat?, Terry examines the side-effects of intervention by aid organizations and points out the need to acknowledge the political consequences of the choice to give aid. The author makes the controversial claim that aid agencies act as though the initial decision to supply aid satisfies any need for ethical discussion and are often blind to the moral quandaries of aid. Terry focuses on four historically relevant cases: Rwandan camps in Zaire, Afghan camps in Pakistan, Salvadoran and Nicaraguan camps in Honduras, and Cambodian camps in Thailand.Terry was the head of the French section of Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) when it withdrew from the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire because aid intended for refugees actually strengthened those responsible for perpetrating genocide. This book contains documents from the former Rwandan army and government that were found in the refugee camps after they were attacked in late 1996. This material illustrates how combatants manipulate humanitarian action to their benefit. Condemned to Repeat? makes clear that the paradox of aid demands immediate attention by organizations and governments around the world. The author stresses that, if international agencies are to meet the needs of populations in crisis, their organizational behavior must adjust to the wider political and socioeconomic contexts in which aid occurs.

1

Humanitarian Action and Responsibility

Concerned with preserving the dignity of humanity, the term “humanitarian” encompasses constraints, or things that individuals and governments must not do, and obligations, or things that they should do. International humanitarian law imposes limits on permissible behavior during war; human rights law sets the minimum standards to which individuals are entitled by virtue of their membership in humanity; and humanitarian action seeks to restore some of those rights when individuals are deprived of them by circumstance. Hence the “duty” to provide humanitarian assistance occurs only once the duty to avoid depriving and to protect from deprivation have failed to be performed.1 Governments hold the primary responsibility for the safety and well-being of their citizens, and combatants are obliged by the Geneva Conventions to respect civilian immunity in times of conflict. Humanitarian assistance is necessary only once governments or combatants have been unwilling or unable to shoulder their respective responsibilities.

Aid organizations do not inherit the responsibilities that others have failed to uphold, but the very need for their intervention and the impact of their assistance depend upon the extent to which higher-order responsibilities have not been met. Aid agencies cannot be held responsible, for example, for the militarization of the Rwandan refugee camps because it was neither their task nor within their capacity to ensure the civilian character of the camps. But the failure of the UN and its member states to ensure this influenced the context in which aid was provided and placed the onus on aid organizations to deal with the problems posed by the presence of génocidaires. Likewise, the failure of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) to protect the “safe area” of Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995 forced MSF to consider to what extent its presence in the enclave contributed to the illusion of protection that encouraged the population to stay, and hence what share of responsibility it ought to assume for the tragedy.

Responsibility is a complex notion with several connotations: responsibility as task and duty; responsibility as accountability and liability; responsibility as virtue in terms of behaving responsibly; and causal responsibility for a certain outcome.2 Ideas about the responsibility of humanitarian actors for the consequences of their actions and what constitutes responsible behavior are intrinsically linked to conceptions of the purpose and limits of humanitarian action. While responsible behavior for some actors might be judged in relation to the efficiency with which they undertook their tasks, for others it might be judged according to the overall impact of their work. Whereas for some the task of humanitarian action is limited to the short-term alleviation of suffering, others advocate integrating it within a broader approach to conflict management.

The divergent views on the purpose of humanitarian action have obvious implications for the possibility of promoting an ethical framework that is applicable or acceptable to all aid organizations. Three of the seven fundamental principles of the Red Cross movement, humanity, impartiality, and neutrality, provide the most broadly accepted principles to guide humanitarian action3 and form the basis of the various codes of conduct4 that have appeared in recent years; thus I look in detail at the issues surrounding them. Although the other four principles—independence, universality, voluntary service, and unity—apply more to the Red Cross’s internal mode of functioning, I examine independence here along with the first three because it is a precondition for genuinely upholding the other principles. Universality for the Red Cross refers to the sharing of common humanitarian values by the different branches of the Red Cross movement; the equivalent, I believe, is represented for the wider humanitarian community by both the humanitarian imperative and the principle of impartiality.

Most humanitarian organizations have signed on to codes of conduct, but the extent to which they apply these principles to guide operations in the field varies greatly.

Operational Principles of Humanitarian Action

Humanitarian action posits a universal ethic founded on the conviction that all people have equal dignity by virtue of their membership in humanity.5 The Red Cross principles of humanitarian action aim to embody this maxim and promote its universal acceptance. The “humanitarian imperative” declares that there is an obligation to provide humanitarian assistance wherever it is needed, and is predicated on the right to receive, and to offer, humanitarian aid. Impartiality implies that assistance is based solely on need, without any discrimination among recipients because of nationality, race, religion, or other factors. The principle of neutrality denotes a duty to refrain from taking part in hostilities or from undertaking any action that furthers the interests of one party to the conflict or compromises those of the other. Independence is an indispensable condition to ensure that humanitarian action is exclusively concerned with the welfare of humanity and free of all political, religious, or other extraneous influences.

These principles, based on the Geneva Conventions, are predominantly aimed at convincing belligerents that all sides are equally entitled to humanitarian assistance and that humanitarian action does not constitute interference in conflict. They aim to create a “humanitarian space” in war which is detached from the political stakes of the conflict. The term “humanitarian space” has been used to invoke a space “separate from the political,”6 but, as later chapters illustrate, such a separation is seldom possible in practice. Here it implies the existence of certain conditions that permit humanitarian aid to be given in accordance with its purpose.

For the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), adhering to these principles provides an important means to carry out its mandate—bestowed by international law—to assist victims of war, visit political prisoners, organize the exchange of prisoners-of-war, and disseminate international humanitarian law, among other duties. But the multifaceted nature of its mandate can, on occasion, provoke conflicts between these principles, particularly when satisfying one task compromises another. Other aid organizations also face tradeoffs between competing principles in proportion to the scope of the mission they have set for themselves in their organizational charters. Aid agencies concerned only with saving lives are likely to face fewer dilemmas from competing principles than those aiming to alleviate suffering and promote justice and human rights. When tensions arise between various principles, and between honoring these principles and acting in the best interests of victims, the disparate multitude of aid organizations respond very differently, according to their mandates, structures, and conception of what humanitarian action represents.

NEUTRALITY

Because much of ICRC’s actions is directed toward influencing the behavior of states and belligerents, retaining the confidence of these entities is of paramount importance for opening dialogue and achieving access to prisoners or victims of conflict. Thus ICRC privileges the principle of neutrality as an operational tool for securing access and dialogue. But maintaining a neutral stance can involve concessions elsewhere in its functions and principles. Although ICRC is the custodian of international humanitarian law, for example, its delegates are not permitted to testify in court about abuses they have witnessed in the field, because that could jeopardize the safety of ICRC personnel and their reputation for confidentiality and neutrality, on which future access is thought to depend. In general, ICRC prefers to be discreet about abuses, preferring to influence parties to the conflict behind closed doors, and to speak publicly only when all diplomatic avenues have been exhausted and it is in the interest of the victims to do so.7 The dictates of neutrality also necessitate obtaining permission from both sides to a conflict before intervening, thereby compromising the humanitarian imperative to save lives if such permission is not forthcoming.

It was this latter constraint that led some former Red Cross doctors to create MSF. Frustrated by delays in obtaining permission to ease the suffering of starving Biafrans during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70), these doctors created a new kind of humanitarian organization sans frontières, which put the needs of victims above concerns of state sovereignty and neutrality. Not having the same diplomatic role or range of activities as ICRC, MSF rejects the necessity of discretion, considering that informing the public of the causes of suffering is part of its responsibility, rather than a last resort. MSF speaks publicly only when its personnel have been direct witnesses, and only if it is likely to help the victims to do so. But this can itself involve a difficult choice between denouncing abuses against victims and the humanitarian imperative to assist them, since a public statement criticizing a faction or regime may compromise the security and hence the presence of MSF in the field. But in extreme circumstances, when victims are at greater risk of losing their lives to violence or oppression than to starvation or a lack of medical care, humanitarian action loses its sense. In such cases, MSF considers that aid organizations have only one tool left to them, the freedom of speech, and that it has a responsibility to denounce the violence and oppression, even at the cost of expulsion.

Although neutrality is viewed as an operational tool to gain access to populations in need, the question of whether it is morally acceptable to remain neutral when faced with absolute wrong warrants consideration. Can aid agencies be bystanders to abuses and avoid making judgments in the name of not taking sides? Although Elie Wiesel is hardly the model of universal values given his characterization of a Jewish state as “more human than any other,”8 what he writes in his novel The Town beyond the Wall about the Holocaust survivor’s thoughts toward the man at the window watching his Jewish neighbors deported provides a poignant reminder of a perverse side of neutrality:

This was the thing I had wanted to understand ever since the war. Nothing else. How a human being can remain indifferent. The executioners I understood; also the victims, though with more difficulty. But the others, all the others, those who were neither for nor against, those who sprawled in passive patience, those who told themselves, “The storm will blow over and everything will be normal again,” those who thought themselves above the battle, those who were permanently and merely spectators—all those were closed to me, incomprehensible. And as often happens I saw all those neutrals in the features of a single face: the spectator across from the synagogue.9

But aid organizations are not merely bystanders; they are active participants in attempts to alleviate suffering. Thus is their responsibility greater or less if their intentions are good? ICRC argues that humanitarians cannot play judge and jury in the field and cannot hold a population collectively responsible for the actions of its leaders by choosing to aid only one side. But refusing to make a judgment about who is right and who is wrong in many ways assumes a legal and moral equality between oppressors and their victims. Even the UN’s official report on the fall of Srebrenica in 1995 concludes that the UN’s globa...