Nicholas Morris1
Humanitarian Aid and Neutrality2
Contents:
INTRODUCTION
1. THE PROBLEM
2. MILITARY SUPPORT TO HUMANITARIAN
ASSISTANCE
3. SANCTIONS
4. THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
5. CONCLUSIONS
See elsewhere: Author's Biography
(appendix C)
Introduction
Humanitarian action saves lives but cannot substitute for the
political will necessary to reach peace. In the implementation of an agreed
political settlement, humanitarian and political action can work well together,
as in Namibia, Cambodia and Mozambique. In the absence of the necessary
political will, and especially when substituting for it, humanitarian action
risks being compromised, or perceived as compromised, as in former Yugoslavia
and Somalia.
The delivery of humanitarian aid amidst conflict has, for
over a century, been predicated on respect for certain basic principles. These
principles require that humanitarian aid be provided impartially to civilians,
on the sole criterion of need, without distinction as to their origins or
beliefs. Neutrality has been understood as the condition - not taking sides
directly or indirectly - that allows humanitarian aid to be given impartially.
By definition, humanitarian aid should not contribute to the military effort of
any party to the conflict. Humanitarian action requires the consent of the
parties to the conflict and assumes that, when they consent, they will also
respect the principles.
In the past, humanitarian aid in and around conflicts was
generally seen by those with the power to obstruct it as impartial and neutral.
There were notable exceptions, for example, Biafra and southern Sudan. There
were conflicts where humanitarian aid was not attempted, at least not on a scale
commensurate with the needs. At critical times, the United Nations, if not the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was absent from a number of
conflicts as a result of a combination of practical and political constraints,
an assessment that the basic principles could not be respected, and the absence
of media pressure. Afghanistan, Angola, Somalia and Vietnam are examples. Today,
the expectation is that the United Nations and non-governmental organizations
will help victims of conflict whatever the circumstances.
1. The problem
Humanitarian aid has probably often been less neutral in
effect than was assumed. It now faces new challenges. The difficulties
confronting a humanitarian operation where authority and law and order have
collapsed are self-evident. Even when authority and some rule of law exists,
recent experience suggests that in certain conflicts, the maintenance of
neutrality may pose major problems. Neutrality can no longer be assumed. A
combatant's perception of the humanitarian operation has become the practical
measure of its neutrality, and thus of the safety of humanitarian aid workers.
At the same time, the international community has new expectations that are
exposing the limits of humanitarian action.
The reasons for the obstruction of humanitarian aid in Bosnia
and Herzegovina illustrate problems encountered and to be expected elsewhere.
All sides have seen the humanitarian operation led by the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) as directly helping their enemy. With nearly every
able-bodied male mobilized, the distinction between civilians and combatants was
largely meaningless. Until the Bosniac/Croat peace agreement in February 1994,
Croat and Serb forces surrounded the Bosniacs in central Bosnia, as the Serbs
still do elsewhere. For them, the humanitarian operation was demonstrably not
neutral: it was undermining their military efforts by breaking the siege and
prolonging the war. Political pressures and the presence of the UN Protection
Force (UNPROFOR) could extract grudging consent from those who controlled
access, but did not change this perception.
All sides in such conflicts use humanitarian food aid for
political ends and to feed their military forces. For the Bosnian government
forces in the enclaves and Sarajevo, other sources were too limited to give them
a choice. The provision of fuel for humanitarian purposes gives rise to even
greater challenges to humanitarian aid's neutrality. The fact that UNHCR
supervised delivery and ensured proper use was irrelevant in former Yugoslavia,
because while this fuel met priority humanitarian needs, for example, heated
hospitals, it released other fuel for the military. Thus the Bosnian government
accused UNHCR of fueling Serb offensives on Gorazde and Bihac, and its opponents
blocked access for UNHCR fuel, maintaining that it would be used against them.
2. Military support to humanitarian assistance
Such perceptions have cost the lives of humanitarian aid
workers. In a humanitarian operation with military support, the perception that
this military support is itself not neutral is even more damaging. The provision
of air support to UNPROFOR in Bosnia revealed a major divergence between NATO
and humanitarian organizations over the concept of neutrality and humanitarian
aid. For NATO, humanitarian aid that the UN Security Council had mandated
UNPROFOR to support was being obstructed, and force - or preferably the threat
of force - should be used to remove the obstruction. Announcing its 2 August
1993 decision to draw up "options for air strikes", the North Atlantic Council
stressed the "humanitarian purpose of the military measures foreseen".
For the humanitarian organizations, such an argument was a
dangerous contradiction in terms. International humanitarian law imposes on
parties to a conflict the obligation to accept humanitarian aid but does not
confer on others the right to impose it. The delivery of relief and the ending
of suffering are legitimate objectives for an international military
intervention. The deployment of the American-led Unified Task Force (UNITAF) to
Somalia in December 1992 is an example. Such interventions cannot be neutral: an
enforcement operation under Chapter VII of the UN Charter is incompatible with a
humanitarian action, which, like traditional peace-keeping, is based on consent.
Such an operation may also make the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
the custodian of international humanitarian law, feel obliged to distance itself
from the UN's humanitarian action. Close cooperation among the ICRC and other
humanitarian organizations is essential.
Once the Bosnian Serbs perceived the intent of Security
Council/NATO/UNPROFOR actions as punitive and directed only towards them,
whatever was left of the operation's neutrality in the Serb military mind was
gone. UNPROFOR’s major role in supporting the humanitarian operation was of no
moment. The Bosnian Serbs saw little distinction between UNHCR and UNPROFOR, and
accused UNHCR of direct responsibility for the use of NATO air power against
them. There are obvious parallels from Somalia. There, by early 1993, the
neutrality of the humanitarian organizations was being prejudiced by an enforced
close association with and subordination to the military actions of UNITAF. By
July 1993, the expanded UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II), which had replaced
UNITAF and was also operating under Chapter VII of the Charter, was at war with
one party to the conflict in Mogadishu, with disastrous consequences for all
concerned.
3. Sanctions
Humanitarian assistance has been seen as the "safety net" for
the most vulnerable civilians in states subject to sanctions. As the
humanitarian operation in Iraq since 1991 has shown, the safety net has great
difficulty in functioning effectively. Even if it did, a state subject to
sanctions may perceive this assistance as also facilitating the imposition of
sanctions, which it could argue was in effect the expectation of the Security
Council. When sanctions are tightened, so are the controls and constraints on
humanitarian assistance. Bosnian Serbs argued that the humanitarian operation
should compensate for the effect of tightened sanctions. When their arguments
were rejected, their perception of bias and the likelihood they would obstruct
assistance to their opponents increased.
4. The political context
Humanitarian aid can relieve suffering. It can arguably help
create time for political solutions, but it cannot end conflict. Nor can it
substitute for the responsibility of authorities for the well-being of civilians
on the territories they control, even when circumstances render the full
discharge of their responsibility impossible. In the absence of real prospects
for peace, a humanitarian operation will face increasing - and may even generate
- problems. For example, in Angola, where the UN’s political and humanitarian
actions have been closely linked, the difficulties faced by the humanitarian
operation increased whenever the prospects for peace receded. Such problems will
be severe when a humanitarian operation is subordinated to political
considerations, particularly those resulting from an unwillingness on the part
of the international community to address root causes. Continuing humanitarian
assistance (and political containment) may then become a higher priority than
ensuring respect for the principles that should govern it. Actions denounced by
the international community as "unacceptable" become, if only by default,
accepted in practice. The direct attacks on aid workers (and, of course, on
UNPROFOR) in former Yugoslavia, and on them and refugees in camps outside
Rwanda, are examples.
When humanitarian aid is seen as a substitute for justice,
the neutrality of the aid itself may be questioned. The example of Bosnia is
instructive. The government considers the emphasis placed on the humanitarian
operation to be an evasion by the international community of its
responsibilities. If the choice is humanitarian aid or progress towards a more
just political settlement, albeit involving more suffering, the latter is
preferred. Thus the Bosniacs have obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid to
their own civilians in order to influence the international community to change
its stance and not treat aggressors and victims as equal. They object strongly
to the phrase "parties to the conflict", and resent the fact that while the
Security Council resolutions establishing the mandate of UNPROFOR at least
identify the aggressor, the humanitarian operation does not.
There is a related direct criticism of the neutrality of
humanitarian aid: that it should not seek to be neutral and impartial when the
aggressor prevents humanitarian assistance from reaching the victims of his
aggression. This argument, made by the Bosnian government, and the Bosnian Serb
perception that humanitarian aid helps their enemy, illustrate the dilemmas
facing humanitarian organizations when their own ability to ensure neutrality
and respect for the basic principles is severely circumscribed. The debate on
humanitarian "linkage" - conditioning assistance to one side on that side's
consent to similar access to the other side - is an example. The alternative may
be to continue to assist the former while being denied access to the latter.
Such linkage is, however, not neutral: humanitarian assistance should be an
individual right, and not be conditioned on the actions of others. (Linkage may
also be a price besiegers are prepared to pay, and therefore will not work.)
Humanitarian linkage is unlikely to be perceived as neutral by those who control
access. But for the victims, reluctance to make such linkages can reinforce the
perception of appeasement and injustice in the guise of humanitarian principles.
The inability of humanitarian organizations to resolve such dilemmas
satisfactorily in large part explains why all sides in the Bosnian conflict have
on occasions deliberately and fatally targeted the humanitarian operation.
The situation in the Rwandan refugee camps provides a stark
example of the intractable problems facing humanitarian action in the absence of
preventive or curative political action. That operation assists soldiers,
militia and civilians who are held to be responsible for genocide and whose
declared aim is the overthrow of the Rwandan government (itself grounds for
disqualification from humanitarian assistance). The international community has
been unable or unwilling to ensure that such persons are removed from the camps
and brought to justice. The humanitarian organizations are unable to stop
assisting these persons except by stopping assistance to all, including the far
larger number of their victims.
5. Conclusions
In the types of future conflict most likely to challenge the
response of the international community, humanitarian aid will often not be
perceived as neutral and impartial. For this reason, even if it can start, it is
subsequently likely to forfeit consent. In such circumstances, UN or other
military support to the humanitarian operation may facilitate delivery, at least
in the short term, but with time is likely to exacerbate the problem. The use or
threat of force in support of a humanitarian operation, except in clear
self-defence, will gravely prejudice that operation. Problems will increase in
the absence of a political solution. In operations where problems of the sort
faced in former Yugoslavia are expected, a more restrictive approach to the
scope of international humanitarian assistance may be advisable.
The principles themselves should not be compromised; there
may be circumstances when a humanitarian operation should be stopped.
Humanitarian action cannot solve problems that are political in nature. Their
solution requires the political will necessary to prevent suffering or remove
its underlying causes. If the international community is prepared to use force
to this end, this should be independent of the humanitarian operation. Where the
required political will cannot be mobilized, the humanitarian operation will
have a better chance of success when it is clearly separated from the
international community's efforts at political containment.
