Politics v humanitarianism on the front line – can the UN get its act together?

Are peacekeeping operations incoherent? Has the humanitarian imperative of protecting and saving lives in conflict taken second place to UN peace operations? Has pursuit of the myth of sustainable peace distracted the UN from the more immediate necessity of keeping people alive?

A report from the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue uses findings from research in conflict-wracked states to examine whether UN peace assistance operations can do more to bring peace and also deliver protection and humanitarian assistance to civilians. The report argues that the UN should not pursue political solutions without regard to the key responsibility given it by the UN charter – the moral guardianship of international law.

Analysing the recent proliferation of UN peace operations, the report presents three case studies which note that:

• In Sierra Leone the UN breached humanitarian principles by withholding food and medicine from civilians to try to oust a military junta. Partisan support for the government jeopardised negotiated access for aid agencies to rebel-held areas. The UN’s security-first approach eventually bore fruit due to the vigorous involvement of the UK – a pattern unlikely to be repeated elsewhere.
• In the DRC –the scene of the gravest humanitarian disaster of the last decade – the international response to calamity has been minimal. UN peacekeepers have worked in isolation from other UN actors and offered minimal protection for civilians. Following UN policy priorities, humanitarian actors have used scarce funding to pursue projects that were prematurely developmental, rather than saving more lives.
• In Afghanistan, the Strategic Framework, which had been tried in 1999 as a way of ensuring that humanitarian principles were not undermined by political imperatives, was not taken up again post September 11. Instead, a more integrated way of working, acting upon recommendations of the Brahimi report, was attempted. At the time of the report’s research this did not appear to be achieving its aims, at least from the humanitarian point of view. Co-ordination of humanitarian relief has been hindered by the lack of UN military personnel outside of Kabul. Furthermore, the handover of humanitarian co-ordination to the Afghan authorities and the shift to development activities was rushed.

Humanitarians have not defended robustly the protection and assistance of civilians and the sanctity of humanitarian principles. The report argues that the key finding of the landmark Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda report in 1995 – that lives are put at risk by “lack of coherence within the political, diplomatic and military domains” – has not yet been addressed.

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue called on the UN to:

• distance itself from any suggestion that it will tolerate any ‘collateral damage’ – the preventable loss of human lives – during its peace operations
• no longer allow international humanitarian law to become a casualty on the drive towards solutions
• implement the recommendations of the Brahimi Report and ensure that the senior in-country UN official functions as an impartial chief executive managing a range of legitimate interests and not simply be an advocate of political and diplomatic concerns
• dispel the notion that it sees conflict between its central purposes and the application of international humanitarian law to protect civilians and provide humanitarian assistance
• consider risks to humanitarian personnel when soldiers blur the distinction between military and humanitarian actors.

Source(s):
‘Politics and humanitarianism: coherence in crisis’, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, by David Bryer and Rama Mani, February 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Governments of Switzerland and the United Kingdom

id21 Research Highlight: 23 July 2003

Further Information:
David Bryer
Henri Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
114, rue de Lausanne CH-1202
Geneva
Switzerland

Tel: + 41 22 908 11 30
Fax: +41 22 908 11 40
Contact the contributor: info@hdcentre.org

Contact the contributor: drwbryer@yahoo.co.uk

Henri Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Switzerland

Other related links:
'Politics vs aid?' Insights #39

See id21's links page on humanitarian aid and politics

'Is humanitarian aid failing?'

'The future of aid? Building peace in Afghanistan'

'The new humanitarianism: incompatible with ethical accountability?'

'Politics of principle? Getting the ethics of humanitarian action right'