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HELPING PEOPLE IN AN AGE OF CONFLICT TOWARD A NEW PROFESSIONALISM IN U.S. VOLUNTARY HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE. by Larry Minear InterAction American Council for Voluntary International Action
TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Peter J. Davies 4 Chapter I: The Setting 6 Chapter II: The Dialogue 19 Chapter III: The Issues 44 Epilogue 71 Endnotes 75 Appendices: 82 I: Draft InterAction Statement on Humanitarian Assistance 82 II: InterAction Questionnaire on Humanitarian Assistance 84 III: Some Questions for Practitioners 87 IV: Sample Guidelines for Aid Personnel in Conflict Situations 94 V: Resources for Further Reference 96 VI: InterAction Member Agencies 102
To David L. Guyer In recognition of his lifelong commitment to international development and in appreciation of his leadership in the community of American private voluntary agencies Design by Noric Quintos, typesetting by Barry Weise using Pagemaker software on Macintosh II equipment. Printed by Wickersham Printing Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania Copyright ~ 1988 by InterAction. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Minear, Larry, 1936 Helping People in an Age of Conflict Bibliography: p. 96 - 101. 1. InterAction (Organization: U.S.) 2. Voluntarism -- United States. 3. International relief - Political aspects. 4. War relief -- political aspects. 1. Title HVS90 . 1573 MS6 198S 361.7 88-3307 ISBN 0 932140 13-0 (pbk.) American Council for Voluntary International Action 200 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003 1815 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006
FOREWORD
The international community has responded magnificently to major human emergencies, most recently the sub-Saharan African famine of the mid-Eighties. However, the need for humanitarian assistance world-wide is reaching unprecedented levels. There are fifteen million refugees today and millions of other people who are displaced within their own countries. While droughts and floods, earthquakes and typhoons continue to generate emergency human need, civil strife and other reprehensible actions of human beings and governments are causing more and more human suffering. Providing assistance to people affected by conflict is not a new challenge, however alarming the increased incidence of current need. What is new is the complexity of the conflicts, the proliferation of actors, and the targeting of humanitarian aid personnel and programs. Today’s conflicts are frequently not the classical confrontations between nations addressed by the Geneva Conventions and traditional international law. They often involve clashes within nations for which ground rules are less clearly established in international practice. In countries such as Ethiopia and the Sudan, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, the conflicts themselves make providing aid difficult enough. When aid programs and aid providers themselves become the object of attack, physical or otherwise, the task of meeting human need effectively becomes far more complicated. Humanitarian assistance, a response to the victims of natural disaster and human conflict, has itself become an object of contention today. The established concept of humanitarian aid is being challenged as such aid becomes more closely linked to geo-political strategies. Military establishments now engage in "humanitarian" activities and many more private politically motivated groups are also getting into the act. The public credibility of aid programs has eroded. The need for more humanitarian aid worldwide and yet the increased difficulty of providing it effectively are of growing concern to American private and voluntary organizations (PVOs). PVOs are sensing that to accomplish their traditional objectives, they need to match their well-known warm-hearted compassion with hardheaded professional and End of page 4 political expertise. Active more and more in situations where governments are major players and impartiality is difficult to maintain, PVOs are seeking to become more politically astute without sacrificing their apolitical character and mandate, i.e., to provide aid impartially to all in need. As one way to increase their professionalism and competency, InterAction, a professional association of 112 U.S. PVOs, served as a forum for discussions during the years 1985-87 about the principles and practice of providing humanitarian assistance in conflict situations. This publication reviews those conversations. Rather than setting out InterAction policy, it describes a process of dialogue. It recaps the discussions, summarizes areas of consensus and disagreement, suggests questions which PVO practitioners may wish to take into account, and identifies resources for further study. Its publication is intended to encourage continuing attention to these issues in the coming years. An InterAction Working Group, chaired by Larry Minear of Church World Service/Lutheran World Relief, planned the dialogue under the guidance of the Public Policy Committee, chaired by John Sewell, President of the Overseas Development Council. Several staff of InterAction and other agencies offered special assistance, including Cindy Cohn, Nancy Iris, Angella VenJohn, Doug Weil, and, in particular, Patty Larson. Larry Minear wrote this book during a sabbatical leave provided by his agencies. Without his dedication and enthusiasm, it would not have seen the light of day. Publication costs have been underwritten in part by the Christian Children’s Fund, Church World Service, the Hunger Project, Lutheran World Relief, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Save the Children Federation, and World Vision, among others. Readers will surely concur in my view that a better understanding of humanitarian assistance and of the difficulties it faces today is terribly important. It is vital to the welfare of those who need such aid, to the agencies which seek to provide it, and to the public on whose continuing support international humanitarian cooperation depends. Peter J. Davies, President and Chief Executive Officer American Council for Voluntary International Action (InterAction) January 25, 1988 End of page 5
CHAPTER I THE SETTING
"What you and I have been associated with can be called a decade of humanitarian assistance," James N. Purcell, Jr., Director of the State Department’s Bureau for Refugee Programs remarked at the 1986 InterAction Forum. "The achievements of this decade…could not have been accomplished without the indispensable help of the voluntary agencies. Overseas you have shown, time and again, that when the going gets tough, the voluntary agencies get going." Voluntary agencies have also played a major role, Purcell noted, in resettling over a million refugees in the United States, more than 200,000 in the year 1980 alone. "Taking advantage of your domestic structures–your churches, synagogues, community centers–you expanded your programs to rise to the challenge of this modern exodus. It was a heroic accomplishment."1 These were gratifying words from a senior government official in daily touch with the activities of myriad American private and voluntary organizations (PVOs). The words echoed a growing chorus of accolades from international aid workers. The indispensable role of PVOs in cooperative international human needs endeavors is now widely acknowledged. They are in great demand as partners in humanitarian assistance programs, at home and abroad alike. While welcoming this growing recognition, PVOs are also becoming more self-critical. Their heightened visibility as aid providers has also meant increased scrutiny by governments and the concerned public. "We like to say we’re grass-roots oriented, private and non-governmental in nature–in short, that we’re good," observed Dr. James MacCracken, Executive Director of the Christian Children’s Fund, at the December 1985 InterAction Symposium on "Providing Humanitarian Assistance in Conflict Situations." In their many decades of service, he pointed out, PVOs have aided millions of people in need. "But people are asking us: Do PVOs know what they are doing? Do they talk to each other? Do they reach the poorest of the poor? Do they allow themselves cynically to be used by governments? Are they really humanitarian? To whom are they accountable? How much of the precious money that is raised is spent on promoting themselves? On End of page 6 what basis do they make appeals?"2 Such basic questions are commanding increased attention among PVOs, however laudatory the comments from colleagues about their work. This booklet describes a two-year process of inquiry and reflection by U.S. PVOs through their professional association InterAction. Concerned about what they view as threats to the integrity of such aid, PVOs reviewed the basic principles of humanitarian assistance and the difficulties it faces today. Events abroad and in the United States gave the dialogue special urgency and concreteness.
Conflict Ascendent Worldwide On January 10, 1985 at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Alexandre Hay, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), launched "An Appeal for Humanity." During the Eighties the ICRC had observed an escalating level of violence world-wide. The number of conflicts, their duration, and the toll in human suffering were on the rise. Many conflicts showed little hope of peaceful or prompt resolution. Functioning exclusively in conflict situations, the ICRC is a respected bellwether on such matters. "Little, if any, effect," Hay said, had come of a more modest ICRC appeal earlier in the decade that "in all times and all circumstances the universally recognized rules of international law and humanitarian principles should be safeguarded."3 He noted that appeals to the parties in particular conflicts–in Iran and Iraq, Afghanistan, the Western Sahara, Kampuchea, and (regarding its occupied territories) Israel–had produced distressingly few positive results. The 1985 ICRC Appeal for Humanity, therefore, looked beyond individual humanitarian emergencies and their assaults on human dignity to seek rekindled respect among governments and peoples for international law and reinvigorated programs providing succor to the victims of violence. "Only a general mobilization may prevent these tragic forecasts [of escalating violence] from becoming realities," Hay observed. "Everyone must be conscious of the urgent, dramatic need for a vast uprising of humanity and solidarity that is essential in the face of actual and potential folly of human violence."4 The ICRC, which has played a key role for more than a century in the development, promotion, and observance of international humanitar- End of page 7 ian law, was committing itself to redoubled efforts. Priority would be placed on promoting the ratification and observance by governments of the Geneva Convention and Protocols, on educating political leaders and military officials to their humanitarian obligations, and on encouraging the international public to insist on more effective humanitarian action. The ICRC would also continue to augment the size and professionalism of its own staff to meet its burgeoning responsibilities in the resolution of conflict and the protection of the imprisoned. The disturbing trends noted by the ICRC were confirmed by the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, an international group of experts which during the Eighties has undertaken research and education on various forces which threaten the human condition, including famine, environmental degradation, human displacement, and migration. The Commission established a Working Group whose report and papers were published in Modern Wars: The Humanitarian Challenge. Excerpts from the Commission’s work are contained in the feature boxes on pages 9 and 41. "The history of humanity is one long succession of wars and conflicts," says the Commission’s report, "Humanitarian Law at a Time of Failing National and International Consensus." Major past wars such as World Wars I and II have given way to a host of local wars and internal conflicts, in part due to "the weakness and precariousness of newly independent States faced with the problems of underdevelopment and a host of political contradictions and socio-economic difficulties."5 "For a decade or two," the report continued, "conflicts have clearly been more frequent, more serious, and more radicalized. The Iran-Iraq war has been going on longer than World War II. Prisoners of war in conflicts like the Ogaden or Western Sahara have been held for over twice the period of detention of World War II prisoners. The fate of refugees in the camps on the Thai-Kampuchean border reminds us more and more of the situation in Palestinian camps, dragging on and on for years with no solution in sight…. Situations are becoming more complex, ideologies more extreme and crises have a greater tendency to culminate in war."6 Modern wars, too, the Commission reported, have taken an increasing toll on civilians. While only five percent of the casualties in World War I were civilian, seventy-five percent of World War II casualties were such, and in some contemporary wars, over ninety percent of the casualties are civilians.7 In fact, traditional distinctions between civil- End of page 8 ians and combatants have become blurred. Civilians have themselves been targeted in recent conflicts. International law is therefore seeking to fashion ground rules for the now more endemic "internal disturbances and tensions" not clearly addressed by existing international convention.8 A Time of Violence We live in a time of violence, of erosion of family structure, of centrifugal forces at the national level, of acute conflict in labour relations. Our traditional beliefs are shadowed by doubts. General anxiety has become the lot of man in the face of scientific, technological and even medical progress. Ethical barriers have broken down, fundamental moral values are questioned and man is engulfed by waves of fear and insecurity. In our own conscience, in the family, at school, at work, in the community, in the country, and finally in international relations, negative forces are at work. The national consensus is being eroded and the international consensus seriously undermined. The erosion is visible at every level. The proliferation of authoritarian regimes or the quest for charismatic leaders are a reflection of our fear and uncertainty. Fear pervades human society. This is why people look for ‘the strong man whom providence would send to dissipate human anxieties.’ The contemporary world seems fascinated by the totalitarian model which deifies those in power. Governments rule and citizens obey: such is the individual and collective reflex today. Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Hu-manitarian Law at a Time of Failing National and International Consensus. The untoward international environment of the Eighties, particularly the emerging politicization of humanitarian aid activities, was also becoming a concern to international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Many are members of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), a Geneva-based association of 85 international, regional, and national NGOs and groupings of NGOs. A number of U.S. PVOs and InterAction itself are also members. Early in 1983, the ICVA secretariat prepared a discussion paper for the ICVA governing board entitled "Humanitarian Organizations and Politics.’’ It examined various definitions of the terms humanitarian and political, reviewed the political implications of humanitarian activities, and explored some of the tensions between non-political aid activities End of page 9 and NGO advocacy with governments. A number of ICVA agencies have continued their interest in the issues and ICVA itself is returning to the subject by co-hosting with the international Red Cross movement a conference in 1988, described on page 50.
Humanitarian Assistance to the Contras If the crisis in international humanitarian action provided the general backdrop for the InterAction dialogue, the specific question of humanitarian assistance for the Nicaraguan Contras sparked direct PVO engagement with the issues. In early 1985 the Reagan Administration requested, and in the summer Congress approved, $27 million in "humanitarian assistance" to the Nicaraguan armed opposition. The request sought "food, clothing, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance" for Contra soldiers and dependents. Lethal material was excluded; "non-lethal" items such as tents, communications equipment, and vehicles were not. The issue of Contra aid divided the PVO community. Some PVOs felt Contra aid deserved their active support. Others held that as part of a flawed U.S. policy toward Central America, it should be opposed. Some believed that while it was beyond their competence to address broader questions of U.S. policy toward the region, PVOs should actively contest the notion that aid of any sort to combatants could qualify as humanitarian. Still others resisted being drawn into the fray, although remaining uneasy with the loose use of the term with which they as humanitarian agencies were identified. Preliminary discussions among PVOs within the InterAction Public Policy Committee in the spring of 1985 produced general consensus at several points. It would be helpful to review "first principles" of humanitarian assistance. Any pronouncements, however, should be universal and generic rather than country-specific. Given the sensitivity of the issues, individual agencies or groups of agencies addressing Contra aid should do so on their own, not on behalf of InterAction. The emphasis in the InterAction discussions was indeed on first principles. The draft Statement on Humanitarian Assistance which circulated among PVOs (Appendix 1) did not mention Contra aid. However, InterAction did not adopt policy on humanitarian assistance since even the generic Statement did not achieve the necessary unanimity among member agencies. End of page 10 Divergent viewpoints on humanitarian aid to the Contras notwithstanding, the InterAction process proved a constructive one. It stimulated individual agencies to review and modify their policies. Several PVOs communicated their views individually to policy-makers. One informal PVO grouping voiced its opinion that Contra aid was neither humanitarian nor appropriate.9 Thus while PVO alarm over the politicization of aid in Central America helped provide a place on the crowded InterAction agenda for the issue of humanitarian assistance, the process did not, as some PVOs had feared and other PVOs had hoped, line up the PVO community in opposition to Contra aid. PVO Involvement in Humanitarian Aid In order to structure a dialogue on humanitarian assistance issues suited to the needs of InterAction members, the Public Policy Committee mailed a questionnaire in the fall of 1985 to InterAction’s hundred plus members. The data generated, reprinted in Appendix II, became the basis for the InterAction activities described in Chapter II and analyzed in Chapter III. Sixteen of the twenty PVOs responding indicated that they provided humanitarian assistance. However, the survey found widely divergent understandings of such aid. For some PVOs, humanitarian aid consisted specifically of emergency relief assistance; for others, it included the ingredients of self-reliant development. Three of the four agencies which said they did not provide humanitarian aid were nevertheless involved in development or other human needs activities which many of those answering in the affirmative considered humanitarian. In fact, the single need which most agencies articulated was for a clearer definition of humanitarian assistance. "Does the PVO community," one respondent asked, "accept the definition . . . provided in the Geneva Conventions?" Of the sixteen agencies which provided humanitarian assistance, twelve had working definitions of such aid. Fifteen indicated that questions about the nature of such aid had figured in recent programming decisions. Seventeen reported that questions related to the nature of humanitarian assistance had been the subject of staff discussions. Fourteen sensed growing public concern about the politicization of humanitarian aid and only nine felt they had adequate resources to answer such questions as they arose. End of page 11 The survey also suggested the considerable extent to which U.S. PVOs cooperate with other humanitarian aid providers. All twenty respondents had worked with PVOs indigenous to developing countries, seventeen with the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), fifteen with the governments of developing countries, ten with the State Department and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and five with the U.N. Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO) and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). PVOs had also collaborated with other U.N. agencies (mentioned were the World Food Council, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.N. Development Program, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development), the U.S. Information Agency, governments of other aid-providing nations, local communities, and other U.S. PVOs. American PVOs clearly provide humanitarian aid in collaboration with many other groups, though the degree of actual coordination was not apparent from the survey. The completion of questionnaires by only twenty InterAction agencies limited the representativeness of the data. However, the results provided an impression of PVO involvement and interests in humanitarian activities. The questionnaire also elicited suggestions of specific regions and countries about which discussion would be helpful and identified staff people to help plan future activities. Several agencies which did not complete the questionnaire still became actively involved in the InterAction dialogue and some without overseas activities also participated. As the dialogue proceeded, the substantial interest generated bore out the impression given by the survey that the issue of providing humanitarian assistance in conflict situations was indeed a significant concern for the InterAction family of PVOs.
Prevailing Public Opinion The publication in early 1987 of a survey of American views on international development confirmed the importance of humanitarian assistance to the American people but reflected disturbing public perceptions about the effectiveness of such aid. Co-sponsored by InterAction and the Overseas Development Council, the mid-1986 poll involved telephone surveys of 2,400 randomly selected adult Americans and five hundred "activists," interviews with thirteen Members of Congress and their aides, and four group discussions in three U.S. cities. End of page 12 While the views of the general public and the activists differed on some points, the survey found that a majority of Americans favor helping people in developing countries. For most, "humanitarian concern appears to be the major basis for interest" in doing so.10 Most respondents favored helping through economic rather than military aid; among varieties of economic assistance, humanitarian aid enjoyed particular support. "Relief for victims of disasters such as floods, droughts, and earthquakes was given high priority by the largest percentage (74%) of the general public. However, longer-term development programs perceived to deliver assistance most directly to needy people–programs such as health care, education on family planning and providing birth control, helping farmers, and U.S. volunteer programs–were also rated as high priority by a majority of the respondents.11 The survey reported that "The major reasons given by Americans for favoring economic assistance reflect a humanitarian desire to help other people. Economic and political reasons. . . are generally far less important." For fifty-three percent of the general public, support for economic assistance was related to humanitarian concerns or feelings of responsibility. Some twenty-eight percent expressed "[p]olitical and strategic rationales for supporting U.S. economic assistance–such as making and keeping allies, discouraging communism, fostering democracy, and promoting world peace." Fourteen percent of the public supported economic assistance for economic reasons such as promoting growth in developing countries and the United States.12 The survey also detected widespread skepticism about whether U.S. aid reaches those who need it and "a growing degree of pessimism about progress made in improving the lives of the poor in developing countries."13 Eighty-one percent of the public endorsed the statement that "Governments in Third World countries are largely to blame for creahng their own problems through poor planning."14 Eighty-eight percent agreed that "aid is frequently misused by foreign governments," eighty-five percent that "A large part of aid is wasted by the U.S. bureaucracy."15 Fifty-three percent of the public agreed that "The problems in developing countries are so overwhelming that anything the United States does is just a drop in the bucket." 16 Most felt that living conditions there had stagnated or deteriorated during the past ten years. The lack of public confidence in aid programs was particularly note- End of page 13 worthy. People were asked whether they had "a great deal, just some, or little confidence that most of the money people give to private organizations (like CARE and Save the Children) reaches needy people in other countries." An identical question followed about "the money for assistance that the United States government sends overseas." Seventeen percent of the respondents expressed a great deal of confidence in private aid programs, while seven percent indicated the same level of confidence in U.S. government programs. Forty-two percent expressed just some confidence in private aid programs, forty-five percent in government programs. Thirty-six percent had little confidence in private programs, forty-six percent in government programs. Five percent didn’t know or didn’t answer the question about private aid programs, four percent about government programs. Only roughly half of the public thus expressed confidence that PVO and U.S. government aid programs are effective.17 Drought, Fighting, and Famine In this age of the green revolution, with crop yields skyrocketing, drought no longer automatically means famine. India, for example, is now in the midst of its worst drought in decades, but because it has a food surplus and a relatively organized system for feeding the hungry, few are expected to starve. Usually it is the combination of drought, mismanagement and civil war that brings famine. Ethiopia is afflicted with all three. Getting the food to the hungry is made more difficult by inadequate port facilities, poor or nonexistent roads and insufficient planes and trucks to transport food to rural areas. But the biggest block in the pipeline is civil strife. The two strongest insurgent armies are in Tigre and Eritrea, the provinces hit hardest by the drought. Eritrea has been in rebellion against the government ever since it was annexed by Ethiopia in 1962, and a guerrilla movement began building in Tigre in 1977. Time Cover Story on Famine in Ethiopia, 21 December 1987. Also disturbing from a PVO standpoint was an apparently waning preference for private over governmental efforts, though people generally expressed greater confidence in private than in government aid. A somewhat similar question fifteen years earlier had found that fifty-seven percent of the public favored assistance through PVOs, the Peace Corps, the Red Cross, and UNICEF while only twenty-two percent wished to see U.S. foreign aid go "directly to the governments of the End of page 14 countries themselves."18 The more recent survey found in its group discussions that "While Americans do not see much difference between governmental and private programs, they do perceive differences between the reasons why the U.S. government and private agencies get involved in the Third World." PVO activities were generally viewed as having primarily humanitarian purposes, U.S. government aid as tending to be "motivated by, and allocated according to, political, strategic, or economic objectives."19 In sum, there is widespread humanitarian concern among the American people. Fully eighty-nine percent of the general public agreed with the statement that "Wherever people are hungry or poor, we ought to do what we can to help them."20 The public also supported aid appropriate to those needs and given for humanitarian rather than economic or political/strategic reasons. However, skepticism about the utility of such aid also appears widespread, with relatively little discrimination among different kinds of aid agencies. The negative attitudes expressed toward governments represent a major challenge to PVOs in generating public understanding of the more frequent dealings with governments needed, the InterAction dialogue suggests, by PVOs who wish to provide effective humanitarian aid today.
Confirming Events Interlaced throughout the two-year humanitarian assistance dialogue were events which confirmed the importance of the discussions taking place. Indeed, the InterAction dialogue probably attracted widespread PVO participation because it coincided with, and provided an opportunity to reflect upon, difficulties being experienced by agencies in their aid programs. Recurring media treatment of humanitarian emergencies stimulated increased public interest in the issues as well. As the InterAction exercise got underway in 1985, the center of international humanitarian concern was sub-Saharan Africa, where some 150 million persons were estimated to be at serious nutritional risk, seven million in Ethiopia alone. A massive international famine relief effort was mounted by governments, United Nations agencies, and private organizations. Sustained media coverage of particularly hard-hit countries and mass fund-raising activities by groups such as USA for Africa and Live Aid/Band Aid brought the humanitarian emergency home to many in the U.S. and abroad. The multifaceted involvement of U.S. PVOs has been chronicled in an earlier InterAction mono- End of page 15 graph.21 As improved harvests returned in 1986-87 to many parts of the region and attention shifted to reconstruction and famine prevention, the humanitarian crisis continued in Ethiopia, the Sudan, Mozambique, and Angola. Civil strife in each of these countries underscored the linkage between hunger and conflict. Political and military interference with aid efforts was widely reported and lamented. Whether the U.S. should provide humanitarian assistance to the Marxist government of Mozambique, like earlier discussions about the provision of such aid to the Marxist government of Ethiopia, was the subject of public debate. Linkages between "natural" disasters such as food shortages and the policies and priorities of governments in agriculture, environment, human settlements, and human rights became better understood. The tragic situation of blacks in South Africa also received extensive coverage. As pressure from within South Africa to dismantle apartheid increased, more public attention was directed to appropriate ways of encouraging that process from outside. Issues such as whether the U.S. should impose economic sanctions against South Africa and whether, and how, U.S. government aid should be provided to black South Africans came in for considerable attention. The involvement in the struggle of countless children, imprisoned in large numbers for opposing racial segregation, dramatized the humanitarian emergency. Attention to conflicts in Central America and their human casualties may have upstaged the situation in sub-Saharan Africa during the years 1985-87. Civil strife had created widespread human suffering in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua and growing refugee populations in neighboring countries. The well-being of ethnic minorities as well as those in contested areas was imperiled. Not only did civilian casualties mount into the tens of thousands; a substantial number of international and indigenous humanitarian aid personnel experienced harassment, injury, and death. Aid agencies seeking to respond to the casualties and causes of the conflict found themselves caught up in it. The presence of many U.S. citizens in the region as aid personnel and as visitors on fact-finding and solidarity missions lent immediacy to Central American issues. Conversely, the presence of many Central American refugees in the United States and efforts to provide them with services and sanctuary received considerable public attention. U.S. policy toward Central America was also a matter of daily media attention. The imposition in 1984 of a U.S. embargo on trade with End of page 16 Nicaragua, exempting humanitarian items, had sparked public debate. The provision in 1985 of $27 million in "humanitarian assistance" to the Contras was followed by additional requests for, and heated discussions of such aid. The growing reference to such aid as "non-lethal" mirrored the concern expressed by some PVOs for more precision in nomenclature. The State Department gave serious consideration in mid1986 to declaring the United Nicaraguan Opposition, the Contra political and military arm, a PVO so that it could receive Food for Peace and other U.S. government aid.22 The 1987 Iran-Contra hearings reviewed the effort by Administration officials to encourage private donations to the Contras. In a related development, two Americans who had solicited such contributions "pleaded guilty to criminal charges that they conspired to defraud the U.S. government by using tax deductible contributions for contra military activities."23 The judgment of the International Court of Justice in June, 1986 in the case brought by Nicaragua against the United States spoke to both the positive attributes of humanitarian aid and the violation of international law by U.S. actions. (The feature box on page 22 contains excerpts from the Court’s ruling.) Reviewing the broad spectrum definition of humanitarian assistance in the U.S. Contra aid legislation, the World Court concluded that if such aid were to be authentically humanitarian, "not only must it be limited to the purposes hallowed in the practice of the Red Cross, namely to prevent and alleviate human suffering’, and ‘to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being’; it must also, and above all, be given without discrimination to all in need in Nicaragua, not merely to the contras and their dependents."24 The Reagan Administration rejected the Court’s judgment and jurisdiction. Humanitarian emergencies in Asia also claimed ongoing public attention during the mid-Eighties. The needs of Afghans in Pakistan–the world’s largest refugee population, numbering an estimated 3.3 million at the end of 1986–became a prominent international and American preoccupation. The continued presence at the year’s end of more than 250,000 Kampucheans in refugee camps along the Thai border and the problems of access to them by aid agency personnel were also significant concerns. The needs of persons within Kampuchea and Vietnam, whose governments were ostracized by much of the international community, remained major, though they received less attention. Ethnic tension in Sri Lanka was also in the news. In the Middle East, the continuing strife in Lebanon, which by 1987 had claimed more than an estimated 430,000 civilian casualties, End of page 17 received substantial coverage. The condition of refugees in camps, which had been the subject of attacks and sieges, underscored the problems of access by relief personnel to people in need. The plight of seventeen persons (eight of them Americans) remaining hostage in Lebanon as of the end of November 1987, and the pleas that they be released on humanitarian grounds, were recurrent themes of news coverage during this period. The Iran-Iraq war, which had resulted in mind boggling numbers of casualties, many of them civilian, received mounting coverage during these years, as did stepped up U.N. efforts in 1987 to mediate a cease-fire. The InterAction dialogue thus took place at a time of mounting conflict world-wide and of ambivalent American perceptions of the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance efforts. Highly publicized situations of need around the globe, in which PVOs were both increasingly recognized as major actors and yet more and more constrained in their actions, lent urgency to their review of the principles of humanitarian assistance and the ground rules for providing it more effectively. The dialogue itself involved a number of separate events, each building on the needs of member PVOs expressed in the InterAction questionnaire. The first was a Symposium on "Providing Humanitarian Assistance in Conflict Situations," held in Washington, D.C. in December 1985. This was followed by an extended discussion of the issues at the May 19S6 InterAction Annual Forum in McAfee, New Jersey. The Forum led in turn to discussions with senior State Department officials in December 1986. Events in 1987 involved discussions with the Defense Department and the concerned public. A description of the dialogue is the subject of Chapter II. An analysis of the issues is provided in Chapter III. A World of Suffering Beyond Description Today [articulating] the prophetic voice, more often than not, makes us uncomfortable.... But World Vision, I say, cannot be silent. Our work takes us into a world of war, famine, poverty, disease and injustice beyond description. We work in a world of refugees in unprecedented number, of children dying at a rate of 40,000 a day, of hope deferred, indeed, hope forgotten. We must speak for those who have no voice, for the 15 million children a year who die in physical and spiritual darkness. Robert A. Seiple, President, World Vision United States, 1987.
End of page 18 CHAPTER II THE DIALOGUE In the spring of 1985, PVOs associated with InterAction began a series of intensive discussions covering a two-year period about the principles and practice of humanitarian assistance. This chapter recaps the major events in the dialogue. The next chapter analyzes the key issues which emerged.
Activities in 1985 In early 1985, several PVOs approached InterAction’s Public Policy Committee with concerns about the politicization of humanitarian assistance. The Reagan Administration had requested congressional approval of what it termed humanitarian assistance for the Nicaraguan Contras. Was such aid humanitarian? Would it alleviate suffering or create additional hardship? Would it affect the work of private humanitarian organizations active in Central America and elsewhere? To review these issues, InterAction’s Public Policy Committee formed a Working Group on Humanitarian Assistance, open to interested; member PVOs and accountable to the Committee. Agencies participating included the African-American Institute, the American Friends Service Committee, American Near East Refugee Aid, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Church World Service, the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief of the Episcopal Church, Lutheran World Relief, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Save the Children Federation, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees/American Council for Nationalities Services. The Working Group met regularly to review developments and to plan activities. Its work, facilitated by InterAction staff, structured the PVO community’s ongoing engagement with humanitarian assistance issues. Chaired by Larry Minear of Church World Service/Lutheran World Relief, it was made up of PVO staff based in Washington. The activities it orchestrated engaged PVO officials and staff from across the country. The concern about the politicization of humanitarian aid extended beyond InterAction. At its May 1985 meeting, the AID Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, a group of leaders from the End of page 19 private sector charged with facilitating communication between PVOs and AID, reviewed the issue of Contra aid. "We were unanimously and seriously concerned about the possibility of AID involvement in serving as the administrator of this assistance," Committee Chair E. Morgan Williams, President of the National Cooperative Business Association, reported to AID Administrator M. Peter McPherson. The Committee saw such involvement as affecting "AID’s credibility in the Third World, with our friendly allies, and, of course, with the American Private Voluntary Agencies."1 It was evident that humanitarian assistance issues required the attention of the PVO community beyond those serving on the Public Policy Committee or its Humanitarian Assistance Working Group. At its September meeting, the Public Policy Committee therefore authorized the Working Group to plan a one-day discussion on humanitarian aid before year’s end. The result was a Symposium on "Providing Humanitarian Assistance in Conflict Situations: The Challenge for PVOs," held December 2, 1985 at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. The Symposium had three basic objectives. It sought to review the principles which guide PVO work, to examine the international ground rules applicable to the functioning of PVOs in conflict situations, and to seek consensus on an eventual InterAction policy statement on humanitarian assistance. To encourage reflection on the issues among InterAction members, the meeting was closed to other PVOs, academics, government officials, and the press. On such a complex and sensitive issue, the Working Group believed, the first order of business was for the organized PVO community to do its own homework. Thus the group that gathered in Washington was, in the words of David Guyer, President of the Save the Children Federation, who chaired the Symposium, "our family around the table." Fifty participants from thirty-four PVOs engaged in an intensive and task-oriented day of discussions. "It is important for the PVO community, both old and new hands," Guyer told the group, "to review periodically the nature and provision of humanitarian assistance.’’ The Symposium was particularly timely, he observed, given the mounting need for humanitarian aid, the growing public and congressional interest in it, and the increasing difficulties of providing it in complex and politicized circumstances. The session progressed from the historical to the contemporary, from End of page 20 the general to the specific. The day began with reflections on PVO traditions as humanitarian aid providers by James MacCracken, Executive Director of the Christian Children’s Fund. He recalled long-term PVO involvement in humanitarian aid: a century and a half of assistance to Jewish refugees, post-World War I help to devastated Europe, aid during the Peking famine of 1927, Bundles for Britain and the United China Relief during World War II, and post-war reconstruction in Europe. In more recent years, he recalled, PVOs had provided the model for what later became the U.S. Public Law 480 food assistance program. PVOs had also aided people in Berlin, Taiwan, Biafra, Bangladesh, Southeast Asia, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere around the globe. "We’ve come a long way," MacCracken observed, from the early days of missionary outreach to the current working partnership with governments and United Nations organizations. Yet as the issues have become more complex, he noted, PVOs have found it harder to function with professionalism. PVOs had successfully aided in the reconstruction of Europe following World War II, resettling millions of displaced persons in a dramatic response to a black-and-white situation. Humanitarian action today, on the other hand, is set in a far more complex and political context. It is more vulnerable, MacCracken said, to the influence of governments and to the dangers of the conflicts themselves –witness the hostage status of Father Lawrence Jenco of Catholic Relief Services in the Middle East.2 In this new and troubling environment, the PVO community needs to define "the ethics of humanitarianism" in a way which affirms the "basic verities" embodied in PVO traditions yet guides the community toward responsible action in a more complex time. Against this backdrop, the Symposium’s attention turned to the context in which current humanitarian aid activities are set. The international setting was provided by Jean-Jacques Surbeck, New York-based North American delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Joseph A. Mitchell, Washington attorney and former director of AID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, commented on the domestic context. Surbeck presented the Geneva Conventions and Protocols as providing an internationally recognized framework for the activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross and other private humanitarian assistance providers. While these instruments provide no standard, all-purpose definition of humanitarian aid, they recognize the essential End of page 21 qualities of such aid to be the following:
Humanitarian assistance was intended exclusively for civilians and for captured, wounded, or otherwise incapacitated military personnel.
The Purpose of Humanitarian Assistance The characteristics [of humanitarian assistance] were indicated in the first and second of the fundamental principles declared by the Twentieth International Conference of the Red Cross, that ‘the Red Cross, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours–in its international and national capacity–to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes understanding, friendship, co-operation and lasting peace amongst all peoples’ and that ‘It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavours only to relieve suffering, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress.’ Judgment of the International Court of Justice in the Case of Nicaragua v. the United States of America, 1986.
Surbeck expressed concern that humanitarian aid was in danger of losing its traditionally impartial character. "Until recently," he observed, "there seemed to be a vague consensus as to what was to be understood by ‘humanitarian’, namely, any activity aimed at helping people in need…. The strength of genuine humanitarian work until now has rested to a large extent on the fact that, owing to its nature, it is in essence considered a-political…and can therefore proceed unimpeded." He noted with concern the recent tendency to use "this adjective for purposes which border dangerously close to obvious End of page 22 political waters. If this trend takes momentum," he stated, "all organizations involved in genuine humanitarian work might find themselves in a difficult, if not risky, position in their field operation."3 Mitchell reviewed the legal and political setting in which U.S. PVOs as aid practitioners function. While U.S. law contains no precise definition of humanitarian assistance, he noted, the U.S. is a party to the Geneva Conventions and bound by international law and custom.4 U.S. law and regulations, he observed, both encourage the humanitarian work of PVOs and limit their freedom of action. "PVOs greatly assist in the achieving of U.S. foreign policy objectives, and in most cases, the ‘humanitarian assistance’ objectives of the PVO itself." Yet the effect of U.S. law and regulations, he noted, is that "the PVO gives up…at least some independence and free initiative in the process. PVOs must conform organizationally, procedurally, and programmatically to many varied administrative and reporting requirements" of the U.S. government.5 Mitchell, too, expressed serious concern about an erosion in the traditional understanding of humanitarian assistance. "With the forming of new [U.S.] private organizations during the last year…to fund and transport ‘humanitarian assistance’ to the Contra forces in Nicaragua, and [with] the recent U.S. congressional authorization of ‘humanitarian aid’ to those same forces, serious new questions arise as to common understandings and proper roles of PVOs." Mitchell encouraged "PVOs as individual agencies and as a community…to assist in providing Congress and the American public a historical and present consensus on this issue."6 The Symposium then turned to case studies of PVO principles in action, one historical and one contemporary. The first concerned the provision of aid to Kampucheans during the 1979-84 period, the second of aid to the Contras in 1984-85. Symposium participants had been provided with background readings on each. The historical setting of the Kampuchean situation, in which some five million persons had required emergency assistance in 1979, was reviewed by Joseph Short, former Executive Director of Oxfam America. (His views are also elaborated in the feature box on page 25.) A current update was provided by Scott Leiper, Deputy Coordinator of the United Nations Border Relief Operation, in which fourteen PVOs were cooperating with the World Food Program and the Thai Government to provide assistance to Kampuchean refugees. End of page 23 The effort to aid Kampucheans, both within their own country and in border camps within Thailand, raised both ethical and practical questions for PVOs. They included the following:
The case study on PVO assistance to the Contras generated even more lively debate. Sharing the panel were three persons with experience in Latin America: Vicki Kemper, News Editor of Sojourners Magazine; Tom Hawk, a former Country Director for World Relief in Honduras; and Ed Marasciulo, Executive Vice President of the Pan American Development Foundation. Humanitarian aid to Nicaraguans in Honduras, in Kemper’s view, had become politicized. In order to encourage refugees to become more self-reliant, agencies such as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the American PVO World Relief, which operated camps at the standard fifty-kilometer distance from the Nicaraguan border, had reduced their levels of refugee assistance. Their approach was undercut, however, by the availability of generous assistance from newer relief groups such as Friends of the Americas, The Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, the Christian Broadcasting Network, and the World Anti-Com- End of page 24 munist League. The concern of these groups, Kemper said, was not the welfare of the refugees, who would have been safer and more able to meet their own needs farther from the border. Had the beneficiaries not been Contra dependents, Contra sympathizers, and Contras themselves, she said, these relief groups would not have taken an interest.7
Politics and Assistance to Kampucheans Humanitarian aid in disaster situations often has political implications; this seems especially so in the case of Kampuchea where the struggle for governmental control of that country continues, where the near demise of an entire nation derived from political and diplomatic failures, and where even today the ultimate security of the people cries out for political and negotiated settlements. With considerable justification, it has been argued that food to aid the Kampucheans in Thailand was diverted to bolster the resurgence of the Pol Pot forces–and that humanitarian aid inside Kampuchea indirectly fortified the present Vietnamese occupation. Because humanitarian aid may affect the balance of political forces within and among countries, diplomats of any nationality are tempted to block humanitarian aid to those people in "enemy" areas; but as the case of Kampuchea also demonstrates, they may temper their political cynicism with human kindness, or at least a more "flexible pragmatism."… What might the humanitarian-aid agencies have further done to overcome or sidestep the political obstacles to meeting the life-or-death needs of literally hundreds of thousands of people in Thailand and Kampuchea? Humanitarian-aid agencies operating in disaster situations must hone in on the survival and emergency needs of people without primary reference to ultimate political goals and consequences. This response is more than rhetoric and easier said than done; it is an approach that will not please and may even antagonize the proponents of "playing hardball with the enemy." The corollary is that in an area of military conflict humanitarian-aid organizations have a moral and practical obligation to assure that the aid goes effectively and efficiently only to noncombatants. If humanitarian-aid organizations either deliberately or unwittingly use their resources to advance particular political or military objectives, they can readily forfeit their moral and practical standing that enables them to play a useful role. "Voluntary Aid Inside Kampuchea," by Joel R. Charny and Joseph Short.
Hawk’s experience bore out Kemper’s concerns. Some 17,500 Miskito Indian refugees in Honduras assisted by World Relief had been well on End of page 25 their way to self-reliance. However, with the availability of overly generous U.S. government and private aid along the border, some 4,000 refugees had left ready-to-harvest fields in favor of closer-to-the-border areas.8 The central issue was not that of competition among relief groups for an opportunity to assist the refugees. It was rather one of basic principle: should refugees be used by relief groups to advance a political agenda? Hawk also described World Relief’s efforts to establish its independence from U.S. foreign policy in the area. Marasciulo, a career AID official in Latin America before becoming a PVO executive, found nothing unusual in the fact that, given the history of U.S. intervention in the region, generous assistance was now being provided by the American people and government. He did raise a concern about the array of new private groups soliciting tax-exempt funds from Central American exiles and others in the U.S. to advance a clearly political agenda. He encouraged InterAction to become more concerned about whether these were legitimate humanitarian assistance organizations and urged more circumspection in PVO dealings with the U.S. and other governments in such circumstances. The discussion dealt with whether humanitarian assistance, in so complex and politicized a situation, could remain apolitical. One Symposium participant suggested that PVO activities could preserve their humanitarian character only if PVOs left unaddressed the reasons humanitarian assistance was needed. PVOs should take a Hippocratic oath, in fact, to keep political considerations from intruding into their work. Other participants felt that while PVOs should insulate their activities from political considerations, they should not hesitate to address the policies of governments and, in this case, paramilitary groups which generate the need for humanitarian aid. One PVO executive said that since questioning whether Contra aid could be humanitarian was really an attack on the Administration’s Central America policy, he, for one, supported that policy and saw no inconsistency in calling such aid humanitarian. The situations in Kampuchea and Central America recalled similar circumstances elsewhere. If actions along the Nicaraguan/ Honduran border were somehow inappropriate, should questions not be raised as well about the more broadly supported "humanitarian" assistance provided to the Afghan resistance in and through Pakistan? How did helping the Contras compare with aiding secessionist groups in Northern Ethiopia? Was not the U.S. government’s Contra aid strategy similar to its support for anti-government rebels in Mozambique, ad- End of page 26 vancing through some of the same PVO surrogates, under the guise of humanitarian aid, a political and military agenda? Three discussion groups pursued these issues in more detail. They were chaired by Corinne Johnson, Secretary of the International Division of the American Friends Service Committee, Roger Winter, Director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and Don Bjork, Associate Executive Director of World Relief. The plenary adopted the groups’ recommendations that the draft InterAction Statement on humanitarian assistance (Appendix I) be further refined, that future discussions be planned using case studies from other countries, and that a checklist of questions be drawn up for use in the decision-making of PVOs and in their manuals for overseas staff. The Symposium quite clearly generated more questions than answers. However, by illuminating some of the complexities which confront PVOs seeking to function amidst conflict, it raised issues needing attention by today’s aid practitioners. It also reflected such extensive interest that the issues were soon placed before the PVO community as a whole.
The 1986 InterAction Forum The InterAction membership, a larger group than had attended the Symposium, devoted a full day to humanitarian assistance issues at the organization’s Annual Forum, held May 18-21 in McAfee, New Jersey. The Forum’s general theme was "Building Leadership for Voluntary International Action." The fact that most of the final day had been reserved for humanitarian aid discussions reflected the growing importance attached to the subject. Earlier in the conference the new United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Jean-Pierre Hocké had delivered a major address on "The Worldwide Status of Refugees and the Impact on Development." The Forum conversations began where the Symposium had left off. Having struggled with a title which would express urgency without being unduly alarmist, the Working Group had arrived at "Humanitarian Assistance Under Fire." "Today’s session," observed Larry Minear in welcoming the hundred participants, "is designed . . . to raise fundamental questions about humanitarian aid" and to examine some of the difficulties experienced in providing it. Whereas six months earlier only PVOs had gathered around the table, this occasion involved a high- End of page 27 level government official with humanitarian aid responsibilities and a member of the press who had reviewed recent large-scale aid activities in Africa. James N. Purcell, Jr., Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Refugee Programs, began his keynote address by reviewing recent humanitarian challenges and accomplishments. His praise for the work of PVOs in overseas refugee programs and domestic resettlement has already been noted (page 6). He outlined what he saw as a deepening partnership in meeting refugee needs between PVOs and various United Nations agencies, the U.S. and other governments, and the international Red Cross movement. "Different voluntary agencies," he observed, "will see different roles for themselves in different situations. Some will carry out their work ‘under fire’, in situations of military conflict and political tension. Others will concentrate on longer term programs–education, child care, infrastructure improvements, avoiding the conflict situations in which development aid runs up against the political reality of battle lines and contested frontiers."9 Aware of PVO concern about the politicization of humanitarian assistance, Purcell challenged the view that the Geneva Conventions and Protocols stand in judgment over current U.S. policies and programs. These instruments, he observed, "establish a minimum level of assistance which must always be permitted. But they do not preclude anyone from providing additional humanitarian aid to one side or the other, beyond the required minimum." Moreover, since the instruments "at no point...even define the term ‘humanitarian assistance,’ [they cannot be violated by] the actions of the U.S. Government in providing nonlethal or humanitarian assistance to people involved in political or military conflict situations."10 Purcell also took issue with the view that humanitarian assistance must be provided to all in need. "To suggest, as some of you have, that humanitarian aid should only be provided on an equal basis to both sides in a conflict would prevent courageous medical teams from providing life-saving medical aid inside Afghanistan; would eliminate hospitals and medical stations for Afghan refugees in Pakistan; would militate against the surgical wards treating victims of fighting at the Thai-Cambodian border; and would rule out other worthwhile programs throughout the world. In theory, one can agree that all humanitarian aid should be available to both sides; in practice, such a philosophy would prevent major life-sustaining programs in situations throughout the world in which access is available only to one side or the End of page 28 other."11 Concerned about increased political activism by PVOs on aid issues, Purcell expressed the view that "As U.S. citizens, all of us have the right to participate in the political process that governs our country and sets direction for government policies at home and abroad. Within that framework, private citizens and organizations have the freedom to support or disagree. But as agencies committed to humanitarian aid, I hope you will concentrate your efforts on programs in which you are prepared to help rather than opposing those with which you may disagree but which others among you are prepared to support." His comment highlighted the diversity of views among PVOs within the InterAction community and beyond.12 PVO respondent John Hammock, Executive Director of Oxfam America, took strong exception to Purcell’s remarks. The Reagan Administration had launched a major attack on humanitarian assistance, he charged, of which aid to the Contras is the most obvious but by no means the only example. Aid is one element in the Administration’s broader political strategy of destabilizing the Nicaraguan government. Its recipients are not civilians; its contents are not for basic human needs; its providers are not impartial. With politics rather than human need controlling, Hammock contended, such aid clearly does not meet the expectations of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. In illustration of the extent to which the basic concept of humanitarian assistance had been distorted, Hammock noted that an Oxfam request for a U.S. government license to ship agricultural tools to Nicaragua remained ungranted (even unanswered) two months after submission. Yet the Administration had approved in only four days the request of a recently formed PVO to send a helicopter, ostensibly for medical work, to the Honduran /Nicaraguan border. During the years 1982-84, Oxfam applications for shipments to Vietnam and Kampuchea had also experienced delays and, in four cases of sixteen, rejection. Oxfam’s programs had suffered accordingly, Hammock said. He welcomed recent legislative changes making it possible for PVOs to be granted general licenses for shipments to such countries rather than requiring individual licenses for each shipment.13 Hammock urged his PVO colleagues to become more actively concerned about government manipulation of the concept of humanitarian assistance and about the impact of U.S. government policies on Ameri- End of page 29 can PVOs. "If PVOs allow government to politicize humanitarian assistance," he warned, "we will have difficulty distinguishing ourselves from the U.S. government and [will] become tools of U.S. foreign policy." PVOs for their part need to become partisans for the poor overseas, Hammock said, though not supporters of a given government or political party. "Real human beings," he said, are at the core of PVO programs and of humanitarian aid discussions. Conflict with the U.S. government, which has no such overriding orientation, should therefore be expected and accepted. The third panelist, Josh Friedman, was a reporter whose coverage in the New York newspaper Newsday of the 1984-85 African famine had won a Pulitzer Prize. He directed impassioned and strongly negative comments at both the U.S. government and American PVOs for their humanitarian aid activities. "Global politics play an increasing role in where the U.S. government goes," he observed. During most of 1984, virtually unlimited amounts of U.S. aid had been available for Kenya while Ethiopia, in the grip of far graver food shortages, received nothing. U.S. policy-makers approach human needs in a given country with the view, Friedman said, that "Either you’re for us or against us." The needs of the poor are thus held hostage to relationships between governments. Food has been used increasingly as a diplomatic weapon in recent years, he observed. The upsurge in U.S. bilateral aid at the expense of U.S. assistance channeled through the United Nations is one clear indication. The U.S. government has also stepped up aid to and through more fundamentalist American PVOs, forgetting, Friedman said, that "the U.S. public doesn’t want food handed out on a Bible." Hunger and Politics To respond to starving people is a fundamental expression of our civilization and of our values. We’ve been willing to respond without regard to politics. As President Reagan has said, "A hungry child knows no politics." AID Administrator M. Peter McPherson, responding to a question in May 1985 about whether the United States would provide emergency assistance to Ethiopia. PVOs for their part have been too inattentive to the distorting effects of resources and patronage, Friedman charged. They have become too dependent on the U.S. government for resources, irrespective of the extent to which this limits their humanitarian responsiveness. At the same End of page 30 time, PVO fundraising from the American public has become a spectacle, pitting PVOs against each other and promoting a simplistic approach to complex problems of human suffering and underdevelopment. Friedman urged greater professionalism within the PVO community both at home and in developing countries. He recommended more joint fund raising, as practiced in Europe, to minimize destructive competitiveness among agencies and to upgrade the content of promotional material. He urged PVOs to establish an auditing agency to augment accountability and public trust and a training entity to enhance the competence of PVO personnel. He concurred with Hammock that more circumspection in the use of government resources was in order. Following animated discussion of the plenary presentations, the scene shifted to workshops on the Sudan, on South and Southern Africa, and on working with the new governments in Haiti, Uganda, and the Philippines. Once again, background information had been circulated in advance. The presence of PVO personnel with extensive overseas experience lent concreteness and immediacy to the discussions. Recent events had again propelled the Sudan into the public eye. The civil strife and weather conditions which had interfered with food production and created widespread food shortages were also slowing the work of the aid agencies. The number of aid personnel in the South was dwindling in the face of the injury and death experienced by current PVO and U.N. staff. Against this background, sketched by Mark Publow of World Vision and Fred Gregory of World Concern, David Guyer led the group in a discussion of the following issues:
End of page 31 relieve agencies of their obligation to assist there? The group concluded that in conflict situations like the Sudan, PVOs should coordinate activities closely among themselves and with the governments on whose consent their continued work depends. PVOs should exercise great caution, however, in approaching the government together, even to obtain fuller government cooperation in their work. To be sure, more agencies were active in the North and more assistance was provided there. However, security problems in the South rather than any PVO partiality to the North justified the disproportionate allocations. Parallels were drawn with the massive aid provided to government-controlled areas of neighboring Ethiopia as compared with the more modest levels in the secessionist areas of Northern Ethiopia. Equally difficult issues confronted the workshop on South and Southern Africa, moderated by Richard Scobie of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. David Bonbright of the Ford Foundation, Tom Getman of World Vision United States, and Cathy Makhene of World Vision South Africa served as resource persons.
End of page 32 The group concluded that since poverty and injustice are the fully intended result of deliberate South African government policies, PVOs should conceive of themselves as human rights as well as humanitarian aid organizations. They should be prepared to engage the South African government on broader issues in pursuit of their aid objectives, even given the risk this might pose to their own programs. PVOs also agreed on the need to function in solidarity and close cooperation with indigenous groups, realizing the dangers of such cooperation for South African agencies and personnel. Because current U.S. policy in South and Southern Africa is generally viewed negatively in the region, the group concluded that American PVOs should not serve as channels for U.S. government aid.14 Indigenous PVOs should be free to make their own decisions respecting the use of such resources. A more recent discussion of both the urgent human needs and the political complexities of the situation has become available in Community Development in South Africa: A Guide for American Donors by Michael Sinclair. "South Africa’s history of racial oppression and black political resistance," he writes, "has created a complex political situation that affects almost every dimension of South African society…. Although it is not possible to escape the political dimension, it is possible to gain acceptance among black South Africans through sensitivity to the political aspirations and social needs of blacks." While activities which, in the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, polish the chains of apartheid will be met with suspicion, Sinclair concludes, PVO efforts will be welcome which identify with "black political liberation by [choosing as partners] institutions that are a legitimate part of the black struggle."15 End of page 33 Meeting Urgent Human Needs within Political Struggles Given the Reagan administration’s action of the past seven years–actions that have called for at most minor adjustments to the status quo–people inside South Africa are very suspicious of anyone and anything linked to the United States. Black South African reaction to American PVOs is characterized by hesitation and suspicion. This is not to say that PVOs shouldn’t come in, or that South Africans will not recognize good work done by people of goodwill. All I am saying is that private voluntary organizations be sensitive to this perception. Therefore, I would say to American PVOs: "be sure to consult South Africans at every level." Charles Villa-Vicencio, University of South Africa professor, 1987.
Recent and dramatic changes in the governments of Haiti, Uganda, and the Philippines had raised many questions. Resource persons for the workshop, which was moderated by John Swenson of Catholic Relief Services, were Harlan Hobgood of the Freedom from Hunger Foundation and Roger Winter of the U.S. Committee for Refugees. Questions included the following:
The group viewed transitions of governments as opportunities to establish good working relationships with new political leadership and as open moments when a new government’s human needs agenda may be particularly susceptible to PVO influence. Existing agreements may End of page 34 also be refined and regularized. On the other hand, the group felt that the natural PVO impulse to get on with the task of meeting human needs should be moderated and not allowed to obscure the possibility that other transitions might also follow. The coming to power of new Haitian, Ugandan, and Philippine governments had not removed the vulnerability of aid personnel in those countries. The InterAction Forum stimulated interest in humanitarian aid issues throughout a wider segment of the PVO community. The discussions did not achieve much consensus either on ground rules for PVO involvement in conflict situations or on the draft InterAction Statement (Appendix I). The Forum did produce a sobering sense of the complexity of the situations in which PVOs work and reinforced a desire among, PVOs to seek ways to function more effectively in such situations.
State Department Discussions in 1986 Hearing from James Purcell of the issues raised at the InterAction Forum, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead expressed interest in continuing the dialogue. When Whitehead had assumed his duties in July 1985 as second in command at the State Department, he already had considerable familiarity with PVOs. As a board member of the International Rescue Committee for thirty years and more recently as its president, he had played a key role in establishing its programs for refugees in Somalia and Pakistan and had visited its projects in Thailand and Hong Kong. Whitehead originally proposed a relaxed half-day session with InterAction on a Saturday in the fall of 1986. Due to other demands on his time, the meeting finally took place on Friday, December 5 and lasted just over an hour. Joining Whitehead were other officials with humanitarian assistance responsibilities: M. Peter McPherson, AID Administrator, Jonathan Moore, State Department Coordinator for Refugee Affairs, and seven others from State and AID. The InterAction delegation was made up of Nan Borton, InterAction Chair and Executive Director of International Voluntary Services, Karl Zukerman, InterAction Vice Chair and Executive Director of HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Peter J. Davies, InterAction President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Sewell, Chair of the InterAction Public Policy Committee and President of the Overseas Development End of page 35 Council. Also present were John Lapp, Executive Director of the Mennonite Central Committee, Robert DeVecchi, Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee, Richard Carr of World Vision Relief Organization, Larry Minear, and two InterAction staff. Following discussions at the 1985 Symposium and the 1986 Forum, the issues raised with the Administration had been carefully researched and framed by the InterAction Working Group. They had also been shared in general terms with State Department aides in advance. The delegation itself had met to review the issues and discuss their presentation. The group was cordially received by government officials and the exchange was useful, if not altogether satisfying for either party. Borton’s introduction stressed the heterogeneity of the PVO community and yet the shared concern about difficulties facing humanitarian aid and its PVO providers. That shared concern, she said, provided the common backdrop for whatever particular items individuals in the delegation might raise. Acknowledging the diversity of the community, Whitehead praised PVOs for their work as respected aid providers and as partners with the U.S. government. However important the policy concerns PVOs were raising, the more serious threats to U.S. humanitarian assistance, Whitehead believed, lay in congressional budget-cutting of the Administration’s foreign aid request and in the lack of an articulate constituency for foreign assistance. For their part, PVOs raised a number of issues. Most fundamental was the need for more precision in the government’s use of the term humanitarian assistance. PVOs clarified that many did not believe, as Purcell had charged in his May speech, that the U.S. government was prevented by international convention from providing assistance of whatever sort it wished to whomever it might chose whenever it saw fit. Calling such assistance humanitarian, however, did violence to the accepted understanding of the term and to bona fide humanitarian assistance itself. (News accounts earlier in the week had reported U.S. shipments of "humanitarian" and military aid reaching the Contras on the same flights.)
Humanitarian Assistance and Communism Anyone who examines the historical record of communism must conclude that any aid directed at overthrowing communism is humanitarian aid. Washington Times editorial, 10 May 1985.
End of page 36 A second PVO concern had to do with the need for the U.S. government to employ clear and consistent criteria in selecting PVOs as channels for U.S. humanitarian assistance. The Department of Defense, it was noted, cooperates with PVOs which are not registered with AID. Given the proliferation of both PVOs and U.S. government agencies involved in such aid, mutually agreed upon ground rules for all agencies involved in providing humanitarian assistance become ever more important. PVOs also urged greater government sensitivity to the vulnerability of U.S. and indigenous PVOs providing aid in conflict situations. While PVOs were highly sought after as partners, cooperation was frequently a matter of greater delicacy for them than the U.S. and other governments acknowledged. The mistaken perception that one PVO was using CIA funds had seriously compromised its integrity and had complicated its ability to find indigenous partners. Also cited was the acquiescence by one U.S. embassy in an attempt by a Central American government to discredit an indigenous PVO seeking to provide humanitarian assistance in a contested area. As humanitarian aid is drawn into political and military conflicts, PVOs observed, the mounting vulnerability of aid workers and programs should concern the U.S. government no less than PVOs. The need for PVOs to preserve their impartiality in politicized situations remained a difficult one for PVOs to dramatize and for U.S officials to grasp. As a case in point, officials believed the U.S. had been forthcoming in allowing PVOs to distribute U.S. aid to displaced persons in San Salvador without requiring verification that they had not come from areas where the Salvadoran government’s authority was being contested. U.S. PVOs would not be allowed, however, to distribute U.S. government aid to people needing it in contested areas themselves. The meeting also did not explore the extent to which PVOs could provide the sought-after political support for the U.S. foreign aid program and still retain their independence as private organizations. While most of the issues raised by PVOs dealt with ways in which the government was seen to impede their humanitarian activities, one PVO cited the constructive role which the Administration might now play in facilitating such work. Recent legislative and administrative changes were making it more possible for licenses to be granted promptly for PVO shipments to embargoed countries such as Vietnam and Kampuchea. The State Department was urged to expedite the granting of such requests as expressions of humanitarian concern by the American public rather than making them occasions for communicating U.S. End of page 37 government views to the governments involved. Overall, the session provided for an opportunity to explore issues of concern to PVOs and the Administration, though the size of the group and the time available did not allow for extended discussion. Whitehead praised the courageous spirit of PVO personnel and acknowledged the perilous circumstances in which they often function. He requested the AID Administrator to develop a mechanism to foster further dialogue and encouraged PVOs to draft what might become, after discussion within the State Department, official guidance to U.S. embassies incorporating PVO concerns.
Events in 1987 Two events in 1987 broadened the InterAction dialogue further still. The first was a discussion with Dr. Robert Wolthuis, Director of the Office of Humanitarian Assistance of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The occasion was a luncheon on January 29 in Washington, D.C. sponsored by InterAction’s Humanitarian Assistance Working Group and attended by representatives of about fifteen PVOs. The second was a March 19 panel discussion, also in Washington, at the International Development Conference on "Providing Humanitarian Assistance in Conflict Situations: New Complexities, Abiding Challenges." The audience included about one hundred persons from development groups, academic institutions, the media, and the interested public. "What is DOD doing in the humanitarian assistance business?", asked Wolthuis as a starting point for the luncheon discussion. He noted that the Defense Department had a history of assisting in humanitarian crises around the world, a unique capacity for providing emergency materiel and personnel assistance in significant amounts, and, as a result of legislative changes in recent years, substantial statutory and congressional support for expanding the scale and scope of its aid activities. DOD currently has five areas of involvement. In two respects, it facilitates the work of PVOs: by providing them with excess U.S. government property and by transporting their relief supplies. Since first authorized to do so in 1984, DOD has transported on a space available basis just over one thousand tons of PVO supplies. After a End of page 38 first-year response to nineteen requests for Central America, the program in 1987, given expanded authority to operate world-wide, filled 102 requests for transport to 22 countries in every region. While most of the first-year shipments were for a relatively new Louisiana-based PVO, Friends of the Americas, several dozen PVOs used DOD transport services in 1987. DOD coordinates the assistance it provides with AID, though PVOs receiving excess property or free transport are not limited to agencies registered with AID. In the other three areas of DOD involvement, Wolthuis explained, U.S. military personnel themselves are the providers of aid in the form of disaster relief, medical assistance, and civic action activities. Such DOD activities were expanded and made more explicitly part of its mandate through changes legislated in 1986. They are now authorized to be carried out in conjunction with military operations if they promote the security interests of the U.S. and the recipient country, enhance the skills of U.S. troops, and have the Secretary of State’s approval. DOD’s humanitarian work is undertaken to advance U.S. political and military objectives and is part of a strategy of low-intensity conflict, although clandestine activities, Wolthuis noted, may not be underwritten with such funds. The discussion was about equally divided between PVO inquiries for more details about cooperative possibilities and policy questions about the appropriateness of DOD’s involvement in so-called humanitarian assistance. Could DOD expedite the process of making available excess property to PVOs? It would welcome suggestions for doing so. May DOD transport PVO personnel as well as supplies? No. May PVOs join DOD’s medical readiness, or med-ready, exercises which provide basic health services to poor communities? These are limited to DOD personnel. Interested PVOs agreed to join together informally to explore improved and expanded cooperative arrangements with DOD. On the policy side, some PVOs challenged DOD for having "stolen our term" and included within humanitarian assistance various activities which do not meet established international understandings of such aid. Loose use of the term, they suggested, subjected legitimate humanitarian aid providers, already working in perilous situations, to suspicion and physical danger. While DOD indeed has a tradition of community involvement, would it not be preferable to distinguish civic action, which may be appropriate for the U.S. armed forces, from humanitarian assistance, which, some PVOs held, is not? End of page 39 Wolthuis countered that PVOs themselves acknowledge significant unmet need beyond what they are able to reach. DOD has been active in some of the very countries reviewed in the InterAction dialogue such as the Sudan, Pakistan, and Haiti. Is it not in the national interest to have such human need more fully met? In doing so, DOD was operating not in freewheeling fashion but rather in close coordination with AID and with the permission of the American ambassador in each such country. DOD activities to date, Wolthuis said, had also been well coordinated with local government officials. Nor need there be confusion between DOD personnel, which are always uniformed, and PVO staff. In short, while the U.S. government and its defense establishment are not neutral in relation to many countries experiencing conflict, the assistance DOD provides is constructive and can properly be termed humanitarian.
Sharing the Means of Life Humanitarian assistance is an active expression of mutual responsibility in the human community, a responsibility higher than that to any govern-ment, party, or policy. It is the unencumbered sharing the means of life. Corinne Johnson, The American Friends Service Committee, 1987. The second 1987 event was more wide-ranging and more public. The four panelists assembled in March at International Development Conference were Jean-Jacques Surbeck of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Lt. Colonel George DeAngelo, Wolthuis’ Deputy in DOD’s Office of Humanitarian Assistance, John Swenson of Catholic Relief Services, and Don Bjork of World Relief. In introducing the panel, Larry Minear called attention to the finding that there is more conflict in the world today, with civilians more vulnerable, than ever before. (See feature box on page 41.) At the same time, there are more agencies seeking to assist persons caught up in violence. In addition to established aid providers such as the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, the ICRC, and traditional PVOs, he noted, there are new private organizations and U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense. Nevertheless, Minear concluded, "for all of the new complexities and the bewildering array of actors, the basic challenge of providing humanitarian aid remains." Attention focussed on Minear’s basic question: "Why is it more and more difficult to provide humanitarian aid?" Surbeck began by con- End of page 40 firming from the experience of the ICRC, whose activities are limited to conflict situations, a "tremendous increase" in the need for such aid. In the period of only a decade, from 1974 to 1984, the number of ICRC staff and delegates, which are entirely Swiss to ensure neutrality, had grown from 357 to 890. ICRC delegations had increased from sixteen countries in 1974 to thirty-six in 1984, with sub-delegations in another sixteen countries. Its budget had more than doubled. The ICRC’s growth, Surbeck observed, reflected its effort to respond to a larger number of armed conflicts, most of them non-international in character and many of them more protracted than in earlier years. The ICRC has also noted a marked increase in practices prohibited by international law, such as the mistreatment of civilians, and in the priority which states attach to political and security concerns.
Reality Has Become More Complex Today, a great number of people are involved in implementing humanitarian law. Among the situational or inherent obstacles to observance, there is the sheer number of rules involved. The inclusion of new actors, such as resistance fighters, partisans and more recently guerilla fighters, as legitimate combatants (with their rights and obligations) should have led to greater observance since these new actors have been granted new responsibilities. But with technical progress on the one hand and the new forms of warfare on the other–in particular the advent of total war–actors have continued to proliferate. Despite its qualitative improvements, humanitarian law is not close enough to the real world. This is particularly the case for the crucial distinction between civilians and combatants. Reality has become more complex and distinctions more uncertain. Total conflicts with total mobilization of human and economic resources have meant an increasing participation of civilian facilities and of civilians themselves in the war efforts, thus blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants, especially for those responsible for applying humanitarian law…. But is there a way to improve the situation? The main one, indeed the radical remedy, would of course be an improvement in the international political climate and the patient and loyal quest on all sides for a new consensus based on greater equity and justice. The violence of a few desperados would then become irrelevant. Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Humanitarian Law at a Time of Failing National and International Consensus.
End of page 41 Bjork indicated that World Relief, like all private humanitarian aid agencies, was struggling in highly complex situations with the monumental task of providing impartial and effective aid to those in desperate need. The principles which guide his agency’s activities include political neutrality and a willingness to challenge governments at appropriate points. Conversations with the U.S. and host governments were a regular feature of World Relief’s work. His organization’s services, too, were increasingly in demand. Swenson explained some of the difficulties Catholic Relief Services had experienced. Although the activities of ICRC-like PVOs are recognized by governments party to the Geneva Conventions, PVOs in actual practice "work at the suffrance of host governments." While PVOs are committed to aid all in need, they seldom "control the contexts in which they operate" and may be limited to providing assistance "on one side of a conflict line." Unable to do everything everywhere, individual PVOs are faced with tough choices, sometimes reaching different decisions about how best to proceed. They can and should, Swenson stated, appeal to governments and to public opinion for fuller access to those in need. However, "the moral argument unfortunately is not always the argument that ends the day." DeAngelo described, as had Wolthuis in January, the Defense Department’s humanitarian assistance-related work, emphasizing both long-time DOD involvement in civic and humanitarian programs and its more recent expansion of activity. He provided several illustrations of DOD in action, stressing its close connection with the State Department and AID. "We’re involved purely for humanitarian reasons," he stated, acknowledging at the same time that the aid provided served as a "good deterrent and tool . . . to help keep down insurgencies around the world." The panelists were challenged at many points. Since the Geneva Conventions divorce humanitarian assistance from extraneous agendas, does aid provided for reasons of religion (in the case of the PVOs) or national security (DOD) qualify as humanitarian? When misery cries out for attention, is it humanitarian to insist on the rigorous application of certain ground rules? Is public confidence not undermined when differences in philosophy and approach lead even well-established PVOs to respond differently to a given crisis? The emergence of a new breed of PVOs with patently political objectives, it was observed, further confuses the situation. Members of the End of page 42 audience also questioned the appropriateness and professionalism of PVO activities in specific countries. The consensus of the International Development Conference discussion was that while providing humanitarian aid has never been easy, the task has been made vastly more difficult by the complexities in which today’s human need is set. Universal principles, however widely acknowledged, require finely tuned application to individual situations, and different aid providers will apply those principles differently. International convention may provide a supportive and protective context in which aid agencies function, but the instruments of the international community are fragile and the activities they seek to protect are easily compromised. More broadly, the events in the InterAction dialogue during the years 1985-87 suggest that, however exemplary the past activities of PVOs, the abiding challenge of providing humanitarian aid in increasingly complex situations requires a new degree of professionalism. The following chapter analyzes some of the issues that such professionalism will need to address. End of page 43 CHAPTER III THE ISSUES
The InterAction discussions described in the previous chapter identified issues which have a critical bearing on the effectiveness of PVOs as humanitarian assistance providers. This chapter analyzes those issues, with particular attention to the areas of consensus and disagreement within the PVO family.
Shared PVO Values and Traditions One prominent theme of the InterAction dialogue–indeed it was the starting point for the InterAction discussions themselves–was an affirmation of the basic values and traditions of PVOs. "Principles are important to us as agencies," James MacCracken told the 1985 Symposium. In the light of the more complex world in which PVOs are called to assist people in need, he observed, PVOs need to "redefine our principles." Three essential principles which characterize many PVOs involved in the dialogue emerged from the two-year series of discussions, reinforced by long-standing PVO traditions and by other aspects of PVO life and activities within InterAction. First and foremost, PVOs are private. That is, they are agencies which received substantial portion of their resources from non-governmental, private sector contributions. Those resources, which may be augmented by others from governments or United Nations institutions, are used in accordance with ground rules specified by boards of directors composed of private citizens, to whom PVOs are accountable for accomplishing their self-selected objectives. Second, PVOs are voluntary. That is, they are composed of people who associate themselves voluntarily to accomplish certain common objectives. They are an expression of, and seek to cultivate, constituencies of support among persons who share their goals. Their policy-making boards are made up of private citizens who serve without pay. Third, PVOs are people-to-people in orientation. That is, they express the concerns of the American people through direct ties with people in other countries. Many of their programs place a premium on strength- End of page 44 ening popular institutions and encouraging local decision-making in developing countries. Many PVOs also stress mutuality, collaborating, for example, in two-way exchanges rather than simply transferring resources from the U.S. to developing countries. These principles make for an action-oriented, can-do approach. The organizational style of PVOs tends to be non-bureaucratic and decentralized. As many resources as possible are generally committed to programmatic objectives, as few as possible to administrative costs. PVOs as a group have come to be identified with a dedicated and energetic style of engagement at the grass-roots level in developing countries. As MacCracken suggested, an understanding of PVO history and traditions provides a sound basis for charting an appropriate future course. The new complexities of current humanitarian assistance situations, the International Development Conference discussion concluded, need to be faced in the context of the abiding challenges PVOs have met in the past. The broader international humanitarian effort would hardly be well served were PVOs to desert what over the years they have learned to do best in an effort, for example, to become more like governmental aid providers. While the InterAction dialogue reaffirmed a common PVO history, the conversations also illustrated the heterogeneity of the PVO community. The 112 member agencies of InterAction include some with annual budgets in excess of $200 million, some with budgets of less than $500,000. Some have programs in scores of countries, others in one or two. Some have been in existence for more than forty years, others were established in this decade. Some have roots in religious communities, others are non-sectarian or secular. Some emphasize charity, others encourage entrepreneurial activities. Some as a matter of principle accept no government funds, others have budgets mostly of government origin. Some operate with partners at, the international level and in developing countries, others do not. Some have no overseas programs at all, concentrating on education and advocacy in the U.S.1 While such diversity does not make the development of a common approach to humanitarian assistance impossible, it does complicate that task. The failure of broad consensus to emerge on the draft Statement on Humanitarian Assistance (Appendix I) during the two-year period suggests the difficulty of finding meaningful common ground among InterAction’s member agencies. The difficulty would be compounded End of page 45 if U.S. PVOs which are not InterAction members were also involved. As of December, 1987 205 U.S. PVOs were registered with AID. Still others are not, making the PVO universe immense indeed. (InterAction’s 112 members are listed in Appendix VI.) While reflecting the pluralism of American society, the diversity of PVOs has less attractive aspects as well. The spectacles of competitiveness and lack of coordination in responding to the African emergency were identified at the 1986 Forum as serious problems. Concern was also expressed throughout the dialogue about the undermining of the credibility of established and reputable PVOs by the activities of other private groups, particularly in Central America. The public opinion poll released in early 1987 also suggested that given a waning (though still significant) public preference for the aid activities of PVOs over those of the U.S. government, PVOs should not rest on their laurels. Clearly, an affirmation of shared values and traditions, including diversity, deserves to provide the basis for charting the future.
Greater Recognition of International Law and Custom A second major theme of the dialogue was the need for more explicit recognition of the context provided for PVO activities by international law and custom. The presentation at the 1985 Symposium on PVO traditions was followed by one on the rights and responsibilities of PVOs within that international framework. Subsequent discussions throughout the two-year period have underscored the relevance of that framework to PVO activities. Acknowledging the importance of this broader international context would break new ground for many American PVOs. This is not to say that their international activities over the years have been carried out wholly without reference to international law and custom. They have been more preoccupied for the most part, however, with the laws of the United States and of individual developing countries as these affect their operational activities. Respondents to the InterAction questionnaire indicated that many agencies do not have at their disposal the expertise they would like in this area. While greater attention to international law and custom may thus be overdue, their application to the day-to-day activities of PVOs in conflict situations is frequently anything but self-evident. The ICRC representative noted at the 1985 Symposium that the Geneva Conven- End of page 46 tions and Protocols recognize and seek to protect the role of the ICRC and other impartial, non-governmental humanitarian assistance organizations. For the most part, however, they do not provide clear-cut definitions of humanitarian assistance or lend themselves to ready application. A recent effort to produce a guidebook applying international law and custom to the operational activities of PVOs confirms how complex that process can prove.2 The problem appears to be less the myopia of American PVOs than the complexities of international law itself. "One of the reasons why humanitarian norms are not always observed," notes the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, "is the complex or even esoteric character of the rules." The fundamental principles at present are "drowned" in myriad operational principles.3 International humanitarian law, it seems, is both overly detailed and not detailed enough. As the world’s population has increased from one billion to five billion, the ten articles in the original Geneva Convention of 1864 have grown to six hundred. Even these, however, do not address humanitarian issues in all situations, particularly those involving disturbances and conflicts within nations which have become so numerous of late. Those who have pressed for a set of streamlined principles applicable in all circumstances have encountered the objection that more rather than less detail is required if the application of basic principles is to be incontrovertible. While international legal expertise may not have been essential in an earlier and simpler day and while the application of international law and custom to the daily activities of PVOs is difficult, the InterAction discussions make clear that understanding such provisions can have a direct bearing on the execution and outcome of humanitarian activities today. The importance of the rule that refugee camps be located at least fifty kilometers from borders, for example, was confirmed by the consequences of ignoring it. The opening of new programs in Honduras closer to the Nicaraguan border, attracting Nicaraguan refugees from established and safer camps, appears to have contributed to the treatment of the refugees from a political and military standpoint. Good-faith efforts to apply international convention to PVO activities however important are not assured of success. Relief workers who had sought to function apolitically have lost life and limb in countries whose governments were bound by international law to provide them protec-tion and access. Agencies seeking to assist in some conflicts have been End of page 47 requested to leave the areas and even the countries involved. PVOs working in areas controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army have been requested by the Sudan government to leave the country altogether, although they have appealed the government’s decision.
Conflict and Cooperation in the Southern Sudan On September 8, 1986 executives of eight U.S. PVOs and religious organizations wrote Secretary of State George Shultz to express their concern for the worsening food situation in the Sudan and "to enlist the more creative involvement of the U.S. government in helping to find solutions to the problems of civil strife and hunger there." The State Department, replying in a letter dated 16 October 1986, indicated that the Department shared "both your concern about the human crisis in southern Sudan and your assessment that the civil war is central to that crisis." After recapping the assistance the U.S. government was prepared to provide "as soon as security permits," the Department stated, "We are willing to cooperate with all neutral, competent relief organizations that can ensure our aid will not be used to support combatants." State Department letter of 16 October 1986 to the Mennonite Central Committee.
The InterAction dialogue produced examples of the indispensable role of PVOs which, difficulties notwithstanding, have operated with professionalism. Particularly in conflict areas such as Kampuchea and Northern Ethiopia, their ability to transcend political divisions was seen as positioning them to make unique contributions. In "zones of political and military conflict," one review concludes, "voluntary relief agencies…may have a special opportunity to be of service. If they abide by their professed standards of meeting emergency human needs, by whatever principled and practical means possible, they are able and willing to take risks to reach people who would otherwise be defined as beyond the pale of governments vying for political advantage."4 The draft InterAction Statement (Appendix I) moves in the direction of affirming the relevance of international law and custom to U.S. PVO activities. Citing the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, it notes that humanitarian aid is expected to be "offered impartially . . . and strictly on the basis of need, free from extraneous objectives and managed by End of page 48 entities which can assure its efficiency." The InterAction discussions, however, have left none of these elements unchallenged. Participants repeatedly questioned what is meant by impartiality, how realistic it is to expect extraneous objectives to be excluded, and why aid providers should be limited to experienced agencies of proven effectiveness. Questions such as these may help explain the lack of broader endorsement of the draft InterAction Statement. The concept of impartiality proved at one and the same time most central and most perplexing.
Continued PVO wrestling with the nature of impartiality and its bearing on PVO activities is clearly needed. While many PVOs welcome the recognition and protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions and Protocols and international law, the precise nature of the resulting obligations requires additional attention. The InterAction dialogue has illustrated not only the importance of international legal safeguards but also their fragility. This was reflected in the InterAction delegation’s request of government officials that the U.S. use the term "humanitarian assistance" with more precision and be more sensitive to politicizing the work of U.S. and indigenous PVOs. End of page 49 The tenuous attention of governments to their own obligations was also apparent in discussions of the various conflict situations. PVOs have experienced difficulties in gaining access to people in contested areas such as the Southern Sudan and Northern Ethiopia, El Salvador and Sri Lanka. Even U.N. authorities have been denied access to Kampuchean refugees in camps along the Thai border. U.S. PVOs would benefit, the discussions suggest, from connecting more effectively with the global community of active concern about humanitarian issues. A late 1988 conference on humanitarian assistance co-sponsored by the International Council of Voluntary Agencies and the Henry Dunant Institute of the international Red Cross movement will provide a setting for reviewing issues related to the status and security of humanitarian assistance organizations in conflict and nonconflict situations. The InterAction dialogue also suggested the value in certain situations of transferring operational responsibilities from U.S. PVOs to international or indigenous partner agencies.
Greater Attention by PVOs to Matters Political American PVOs have traditionally prided themselves on keeping themselves divorced from politics. In fact, one major element in their attractiveness to private contributors has been the general perception that they have steered clear of political entanglements and are reaching needy people directly–that is, apolitically. While the public opinion poll described in Chapter I indicated that popular American perceptions may now be finding less to distinguish PVO aid from government assistance, the survey also found that people associate private assistance with humanitarian objectives while viewing government aid as more political in character. Americans, by and large, view helping people as an activity set in a political vacuum, an approach which differentiates them somewhat from Europeans. Many Americans consider the best PVOs those which have the least to do with governments. One of the recurring themes of the InterAction dialogue–that PVOs need to become far more attentive to the political contexts in which they seek to provide such aid–would thus require major changes in the ways PVOs approach their work and present themselves to the public. The InterAction dialogue suggests that the complexities of the situations in which PVOs are involved limit the extent to which their activities can be actually be divorced from governments. Rather than End of page 50 minimizing the political dimensions of their activities, PVOs are sensing the need to become more fully aware of them. The discussions suggest that PVOs should preserve the best of their traditions of apolitical aid while at the same time becoming more politically astute. The InterAction conversations bear out the observation of the Independent Commission that "In order to be really useful, a humanitarian strategy must take the political environment into account."5 This would appear to be true at the level of individual countries, developed and developing, and at the international level as well. In actual fact, PVOs as aid providers cross paths with governments at many points. They gain access to developing countries only after signing agreements with those governments which specify the ground rules for the entry of relief supplies, personnel, and personal effects. Once operational, PVOs develop relationships with officials at various levels from local to national. Three quarters of the PVOs responding to the 1985 InterAction survey reported working with the governments of developing countries. The connections are numerous. American PVOs also interact in countless ways with the U.S. government. PVOs which negotiate grants and contracts with the U.S. government must be registered with AID, to which they are strictly accountable. Seventeen of the twenty survey respondents reported working with AID, ten with the State Department. Even PVOs not accepting U.S. government resources are bound by government rules and regulations which, for example, impose restrictions on PVO travel to, and activities in, embargoed countries. PVOs are also subject to U.S. laws respecting tax deductibility of contributions to, and postal rates of, non-profit organizations. PVOs must be recognized by the Internal Revenue Service to receive such contributions. Some PVOs also engage in education and fund-raising activities which involve state and local authorities. Although PVOs today have not forsaken their private and non-governmental traditions, their conventional emphasis on their distance from governments may require review. In routine relief and development activities, PVOs interact more frequently with governments than is generally realized. In conflict situations, the case studies indicated, those routine interactions are charged with particular sensitivity and importance. The ability of PVOs to manage those interactions, the discussions suggest, have a major bearing on their success as humanitarian aid practitioners. PVOs are finding the need to engage governments more rather than less, even though, as one panelist told the International Development Conference group, "the moral argument unfortunately is End of page 51 not always the argument that ends the day." The InterAction process has produced a general awareness of the importance of a new realism among PVOs about the legitimately political dimensions of their activities. Indeed, such a realism may be a prerequisite for developing the political wisdom needed to function effectively. Very little consensus emerged from the dialogue, however, on many basic aspects of the tension between retaining a fundamentally apolitical approach to humanitarian assistance and managing increasingly critical relations with governments. Areas which stand in need of further attention include the following.
Some InterAction members believe that the divorce can and should be complete. Humanitarian aid, they hold, should be provided because people are in need, not to assist (or embarrass) governments or win hearts and minds, not to gain strategic advantage for the United States or stanch (or fan) the fires of social or political discontent. Identifying the American people and their government with helping people, the reasoning goes, will have long-term rewards for the United States. If such are the results of providing aid, well and good–but they should not be the controlling rationale for doing so. As people-to-people agencies, PVOs should not be forced to carry short-term foreign policy messages on behalf of the U.S. government. Impartiality as envisioned in the Geneva Conventions is not only possible; it is also indispensable. Other InterAction members hold with equal conviction that it is neither possible nor desirable for the aid which PVOs provide, whether of private or U.S. government origin, to be divorced from U.S. foreign policy agendas. American PVOs are, after all, American. They should not be expected to disguise or downplay their identity and roots. Expectations of impartiality should be tempered by an awareness that people suffer these days in a world dominated by governments and ideologies. The ability of PVOs to make wise compromises, the reasoning goes, is the test of effective humanitarian action. From this perspective, charges one critic, the draft InterAction Statement (Appendix I) ignores the reality that "large-scale humanitarianism today inevitably includes a End of page 52 governmental component, complete with attendant matters of national interest…. Humanitarian realism requires simultaneous attention to what is morally good and what is politically useful."6
Principles of Humanitarian Assistance The provision of aid to displaced persons must follow certain guiding principles. They are:
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