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Terms of Engagement with Human Need Larry Minear   Helping people has become a complicated proposition. Two centuries ago, Alexander Pope observed: "In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind's concern is charity." In our own day, individuals and institutions committed to helping people have become deeply divided about how best to do so. Being a Good Samaritan has favourable connotations for some, a pejorative ring for others. Political agendas masquerading in humanitarian garb have rendered humanitarian impulses themselves suspect. The current debate over the terms of engagement with human need has many dimensions. It includes basic questions about why people suffer, why the global quality of life is on the wane, and why aid efforts have often proved unsuccessful and sometimes even counter-productive. The debate cuts across national borders, encompassing such matters as deprivation and homelessness in rich as well as poor countries. Differing perceptions of the roles of public and private aid institutions are also involved. The issues are complex, consensus elusive. One of the recurring items in the debate has been the human element in the causation of human need. Natural disasters such as droughts and floods which have traditionally enjoyed protected status as "acts of God" are now more often linked to flawed patterns of agriculture production, human settlement, resource management, and conflict resolution. Chronic poverty and malnutrition are increasingly perceived to be rooted in the powerlessness and oppression of the poor within countries and of poorer countries within the international economic system. Public attention is beginning to move beyond the failure of individuals to provide adequately for their own needs to the impacts of forces beyond their control which limit their options. Corporate action, as organized by and reflected in government policies and programmes, is coming in for greater scrutiny. Some of the forces which make for human misery appear to outrun the coping power of individual governments, perhaps even of governments acting in concert. The increasing role of governments in creating or aggravating human misery has confronted humanitarian aid agencies, many of which have prided themselves on functioning apolitically, with difficult conceptual and practical challenges. The existence and end of page 4 activities in recent decades of armed opposition movements have further complicated the picture. How should the aid task be approached? Should aid seek to operate in a political vacuum, responding to human need but leaving unchallenged the policies and actions of governments and armed opposition groups? Or does helping people necessitate addressing the causes of their suffering? What are the implication of the terms of engagement chosen? Contrasting paradigms Over the years two major paradigms of engagement with human need have evolved. Perhaps the best established is the charity paradigm, articulated in some detail by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This approach emphasizes the relief and prevention of suffering as an expression of charity. The purpose of the Red Cross is "to help and not to condemn. It must be able to help victims everywhere, which implies moderation in its criticisms [of governments]. Can one really claim to help and to condemn in the same country?" In the international and national armed conflict situations, which are its special province, the ICRC suspends public expression of judgment as to why people are suffering. "For the Red Cross, there is no just war and no unjust war. There are only victims in need of help." The ICRC seeks to preserve its moral force by refusing to be drawn into highly charged political issues. "One cannot be at one and the same time the champion of justice and of charity. One must choose, and the ICRC has long since chosen to be a defender of charity." Not that the ICRC ignores political factors altogether. "Red Cross institutions must beware of politics as they would of poison, for it threatens their very livesÉ. Politicization undoubtedly constitutes the greatest danger now confronting the Red Cross." Like a swimmer, "in politics up to its neckÉ who advances in the water but who drowns if he swallows it, the ICRC must reckon with politics without becoming a part of it." Central to the ICRC paradigm is thus neutrality: the refusal on principle to "take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature." On a more operational level, the ICRC embraces the principle of impartiality. Aid must manifest non-discrimination (that is, respond to human need without regard to extraneous considerations such as nationality, race or politics) and proportionality (respond according to the extent and urgency of the need). The remaining five ICRC principles are humanity (protecting life and health and ensuring respect for the human being through the prevention and alleviation of suffering), universality (a worldwide mandate and mission), independence, voluntary service, and unity. These principles are also affirmed by the other major elements of the Red Cross movement: the national societies and the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. The emphasis on studied disengagement from political matters is also shared by many aid practitioners outside the Red Cross movement, including church-based aid groups primarily from fundamentalist traditions. The succour provided in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) exemplifies the charity approach. Providing food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and hospitality for the stranger is placed at the heart of Christian discipleship (Matt. 25:31-46). A second paradigm addresses suffering more directly in the context of its causes. Frequently associated with religious traditions of a social justice orientation, this approach end of page 5 views human misery as rooted in unjust and unequal relationships. Human need is linked to poverty, poverty to oppression. "To be poor is not to be able to satisfy basic human needs: food, housing, health, education, job and social participation. In this sense," states a World Council of Churches document, "to be poor isÉ to be oppressed." Emergency and longer-term assistance must be provided in ways which empower the poor to take fuller control of their lives. Aid is first and foremost an expression of solidarity with the poor, part of a "liberating process aimed at justice, self-reliance and economic growth." In providing assistance, "churches must carefully align themselves with the poor and their viewpoint, using as a plumbline for all decisions the simple question: 'Will this act express solidarity with the poor?'" In fact, the helping institution validates its reason-for-being precisely by taking sides. "What does it mean to be in solidarity with the victims of poverty, oppression, and underdevelopment?" asks the Lutheran World Federation's Secretary for Research and Social Action. "The prophetic voice of the church must be loud and clear in condemning unjust practices, structures, policies, and systemsÉ. Solidarity with the victims of poverty and oppression also means support for, and participation in, the struggle of the hungry and the oppressed to bring about structural change." Refusing to take sides leaves unjust structures unchallenged, the poor oppressed, the battle for human dignity unjoined. What may be loosely called "the justice school" takes inspiration from biblical passages such as the Old Testament prophecy, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, of good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed (Luke 4:17-21). It envisions the contemporary Good Samaritan as one who does not simply provide first aid to modern-day travellers on the Jerusalem-Jericho road but who also tackles the underlying problems of robbers preying on the innocent, the high cost of health care, and prejudice against minority groups. The charity and justice paradigms are not simply intellectual constructs which give way when confronted with situations of acute human need. They are deeply-held value systems which shape the day-to-day activities of aid agencies and personnel. The fact that practitioners of both schools work side by side around the world invites comparisons. A review of their experiences highlights critical issues of contemporary aid policy and practice. Paradigms and particulars All aid activities carried out by private agencies involve engagement with governments. Providing assistance requires at least their consent, more often their active cooperation. Indigenous aid personnel interact with national and local governments in countless ways. Expatriate personnel need visas and residence permits, duty-free entry and off-loading priority for their supplies. Many agencies use relief materials provided by governments and require cash or in-kind contributions from their hosts. All agencies and personnel, irrespective of paradigms, function in contexts shaped by governments. What distinguishes the paradigms is not that practitioners of charity have nothing to do with governments (or, as the case may be, armed opposition movements) while those acting out the justice paradigm confront them head-on. Both must establish and maintain good working relationships with governments. What distinguishes the approaches is rather end of page 6 the way each manages the essential dialogue. The charity approach gives priority to meeting human needs, muting criticism of governments accordingly. The justice school addresses governments, sometimes imperilling their direct assistance ministries as a result. The experiences in major conflicts in such areas as the Horn of Africa, South Africa, the Occupied Territories, Central America, and Afghanistan illustrate the point. 1. Impartiality and neutrality Despite appearance, the impartiality espoused by the Red Cross paradigm and the partiality towards the poor which has become the watchword of church-related justice groups are not polar opposites. The latter approach, like the former, is committed to respond to need without regard to considerations of nationality, race or politics and with due regard to the extent and urgency of human need. The real difference lies instead in the area of neutrality. Neutrality is the brake which allows the Red Cross vehicle to "slow down and manoeuvre around the political hazards and thus to keep the confidence of all." The justice school, on the other hand, views neutrality as an abdication of the responsibility openly to engage governments on those issues which cause human misery. Activities in the Sudan suggest how the differences play themselves out. The challenge in the Sudan during the years 1988-89 was to provide emergency assistance to about three million southern Sudanese, buffeted by famine and civil strife, some in areas controlled by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and others in garrison towns held by the Khartoum government but surrounded by rebel troops. In 1988 alone, an estimated 250,000 southern Sudanese lost their lives. A million fled north, with some killed by tribal militias or enslaved en route; another half million escaped to neighbouring Ethiopia. The ICRC pressed the protagonists hard for unimpeded access to those in need. Throughout much of 1988, it negotiated with both sides, each of which was using access to relief supplies as a political weapon against the other. Eventually it won agreement to airlift aid to three towns controlled by the Khartoum government and three by the SPLA, the number later expanding to a total of 19. Beginning in December 1988 the ICRC airlifted a substantial tonnage of relief supplies to people caught on either sides of the conflict. To preserve its neutrality, the ICRC did not publicly address the root causes of the civil war. Since 1987, church groups, many of them partners of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), had been actively engaged in cross-border relief activities from Kenya and Uganda, supplying food and medicine to Juba, capital of the southern region. Juba was the focus of Lutheran World Federation/World Council of Churches airlift and of overland convoys coordinated by Church World Service. World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, and other church agencies were also active. Religious groups are now credited with having helped avoid massive starvation. Together with aid from secular groups, their assistance served as the basis for the more publicized activities of the United Nation's Operation Lifeline Sudan. While their aid went initially only to government-controlled areas, church groups did not see themselves as making a choice of side in the civil war. They felt constrained to help people on one side even if they could not help victims on both sides. At the same time, they end of page 7 sought to strengthen working-relationships with SPLA officials and, in part due to the international attention attracted by the UN operation, became more able to assist in SPLA-controlled areas without risking pressure from the Khartoum government on their other activities. Similarly, Lutheran World Relief (US) provided emergency assistance to people in Tigray and Eritrea at a time when the ICRC and others which depended upon Ethiopian government consent were denied access. The churches also addressed the root cause of the suffering: religious, economic and political frictions reflected in the civil war. Throughout 1988-89 the SCC maintained an active dialogue with both the Khartoum government and the SPLA and sent delegations to Europe, North America and Africa to encourage churches and governments to become more energetic in relief and peace-making efforts. "Our mission is to seek peace, reconciliation, and relief for the people of war-torn Sudan," explained SCC general secretary Ezekiel Kutjok at a March 1989 press conference in Washington, DC. "Our being here is arrangedÉ with help from the international church community. This is indeed the role of churches: to help bring about peace in the Sudan." In the Sudan itself, he noted, "Christians and Muslims alike have a responsibility to find a way of co-existing and building their nation together." The SCC's visit buttressed an effort by Church World Service and other private groups to change US government policy. After years of inattention, the US by early 1989 began to pay more attention to the crisis and to apply heavier pressure on its Khartoum ally. The World Council of Churches was also active on the diplomatic front, recalling its role in the 1972 Addis Accords, which had ended the earlier civil war. The ICRC, meanwhile, limited its efforts to the direct relief of suffering among the displaced in North and South and to visits to prisoners of war and detainees. In sum, the churches placed a higher premium on helping whatever people could be helped, though they eventually came to assist persons on both sides. The ICRC preserved its impartiality, though its insistence on access to both sides delayed its relief activities for most of a year. The ICRC also maintained its neutrality while church groups ventured to address the causes of the suffering and to provide a vehicle for reconciliation. 2. Politics and the political The paradigms and their practitioners take fundamentally divergent views of politics and the political. The charity paradigm has apolitical action at its very core. The political is anathema, a corrosive threat to Red Cross mission and credibility. The justice paradigm, on the other hand, affirms the political as an arena in which people of good will must engage to protect the rights of the poor. The ICRC's deep discomfort with things political contrasts sharply with the more relaxed approach of some church-related aid agencies when it comes to joining what are essentially political issues. Their respective engagement in South Africa illustrates the differences. The issue confronted the ICRC both within South Africa and at the international level. Staff members of the national Red Cross have struggled to protect their neutrality in a society deeply politicized by the apartheid issue. Community organizers (COs) who provide emergency assistance and protection have found it necessary to interpose themselves and the Red Cross symbol between angry mobs and people targeted for violence. The meaning of end of page 8 neutrality has been dramatized when the Red Cross has come to the aid of both the wounded black policeman enforcing apartheid regulations and the wounded anti-apartheid protestor, yet siding with neither. "People in the townships are having trouble understanding Red Cross principles of neutrality," a visitor reports. "The more radical youth groups think that neutrality means that the Red Cross wants to 'neutralize' their groups and their cause. They don't realize that neutrality does not mean betrayal but in fact fulfills the mission of the Red Cross. These principles are essential-even life-saving-for the black COs working in the black townships." At the international level, the issue of neutrality was highlighted at the 1986 international conference of the Red Cross, a quadrennial meeting of the ICRC and representatives of national governments and national Red Cross/Red Crescent societies. In a move initiated by African governments, the conference voted to expel the South African government delegation on the ground that apartheid violated the basic Red Cross principle of humanity. The opposing view-that condemning apartheid and excluding the South African government delegation violated the movement's neutrality and universality-failed to command a majority. The South African government then expelled the 15 ICRC representatives, whose duties included visiting Nelson Mandela and other detainees. However, in a reaction which tempered outrage with pragmatism, it rescinded its order, valuing ICRC assistance in repatriating South African military personnel captured in Angola. While the Red Cross has sought to place itself above the apartheid struggle, the churches have positioned themselves precisely in its midst. The South African Council of Churches (SACC), bolstered by assistance from Christians around the world, has been perhaps the most consistent and unrelenting challenger of an unjust system. "The World Council of Churches is especially well-placed in the great fight against apartheid," observed Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda at the 1987 Lusaka meeting of the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism (PCR) on "The Churches' Search for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa." "The breadth of your organization and the depth of your convictions about freedom, peace and justice, make you particularly qualified to be in the forefront of the struggle." Also in attendance were the leaders of the liberation groups themselves, which had been receiving assistance from PCR for more than a decade. In fact the meeting had been called, explained the Most Rev. Khotso Makhulu, a WCC president, because "it was felt that the churches should meet with the liberation movements for a dialogue on issues of common concern within the solidarity that the churches have expressed for the liberation struggle, so that together we can move forward to new forms and new strategies." The Lutheran World Federation has also been actively involved in Southern Africa issues. In 1986, the LWF assembly expelled two South African churches for not having distanced themselves sufficiently from apartheid. From the churches' viewpoint, assistance is an expression of international solidarity in the struggle to dismantle apartheid. Rejecting help which, in Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words, simply polishes the chains of apartheid, South African church leadership has made clear that aid initiatives, beyond correcting the injustices of apartheid, must lay the foundation for a new society. Outside assistance has been undertaken in that spirit, as have sanctions and disinvestment campaigns. After years of ministering to the victims of apartheid, observes the Rev. Frank Chikane, SACC general secretary, "the churches are end of page 9 beginning to say: Is our role just to try to deal with the victims, or do we need to stop the victimizer?" The situation in South Africa, where few if any institutions, public or private, have remained unaffected by the struggle, is hardly unique. People caught up in other struggles against injustice view outside assistance in a similar fashion. "Aid should be designed to make us more independent of our occupiers," stated one Palestinian doctor just prior to the intifada." It certainly should not help tie us more [closely] to the machinery of occupation." Organizations which channel assistance to Palestinians are experiencing harassment from Israeli authorities different in degree but not in kind from that brought to bear by the South African government. In such settings, the ICRC's oft-stated devotion to apolitical action tends towards political naivete. Its soul-searching after the 1986 conference has not fully addressed the tensions inherent among its various principles (for example, between humanity and neutrality) or the extent to which the relief of suffering is sometimes unavoidably a highly political act. Practitioners of the justice paradigm are more realistic about the political dimensions of humanitarian action, yet their greater comfort with things political leads them to understate the problems created by their particular brand of engagement with governments. Too close an embrace of political forces makes it easier for governments to dismiss humanitarian activities as only political. It also renders the churches less able to claim the international protections of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, for which only the ICRC and other impartial humanitarian aid organizations qualify. 3. Education and advocacy Practitioners of both paradigms have a strong commitment to improve the humanitarian ethos in which they function, both internationally and in particular countries and regions. That commitment, however, results in education and advocacy activities of differing scope and thrust. Its role as promoter and protector of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols has led the ICRC to undertake significant educational and advocacy efforts. Fully one-tenth of its budget underwrites dissemination activities such as seminars on international law for diplomats, jurists and academics, training courses for members of police and armed forces, and use of the mass media to reach the general public. The ICRC also works to expand the number of states party to the Conventions and Protocols, a challenge requiring astute political judgements in dealing with laggard governments. In keeping with its mandate of encouraging wider respect for international law and in support of its country programmes, the ICRC quietly apprises individual governments of violations of the rights of the civilians in situations of armed conflict and requests remedial action. In El Salvador, for example, the ICRC has reminded both sides of their responsibilities as protagonists to guarantee protection for civilians caught in the conflict. As a last resort, the ICRC does go public. It has repeatedly criticized the Israeli government for international law violations during the intifada, practices such as the destruction of houses, the deportation of civilians, the obstruction of the free passage of ambulances, and the use of unnecessarily destructive firearms. Cornelio Sommaruga, ICRC end of page 10 president at the time, raised these and other humanitarian matters with Israeli authorities in a June 1989 visit. A signatory to the Conventions, the Israeli government takes the view that the fourth Convention (on the protection of civilian populations) does not apply to the Occupied Territories. Yet it has assured the ICRC that it would de facto apply its understanding of these protections to the treatment of civilians there. While the ICRC seems to avoid the term advocacy, it does address broader issues as well. In mid-1988, a message from the Red Cross movement to the Third Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Disarmament supported disarmament and urged governments to stop the use of weapons such as anti-personnel mines and chemical warfare which cause cruel and needless suffering. The movement viewed the need to promote peace and to limit the effects of war as clearly within its humanitarian purview. The Red Cross also condemned the use of poison gas in the first world war and in the Iran-Iraq war. The churches, too, have taken on an ambitious set of education and advocacy activities, theirs on a far broader range of global justice issues. Their activities reflect a shifting division of labour within the worldwide non-governmental community. Aid agencies in the North, prodded by colleagues in the South, are now giving higher priority to educating northern publics and improving the policies of northern governments. The transition has not been easy for many aid groups, few of which yet spend ten percent of their funds on such activities. Education and advocacy expenditures, in the United States at least, have yet to be widely understood by aid agencies or their constituencies as integral to the alleviation of suffering. The education and advocacy activities of the churches express a more systemic view of the causes of human need. The Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches have for many years addressed the underlying problems in the West Bank and Gaza which have now erupted in the intifada. In 1987, the LWF executive committee affirmed the use of "the resources entrusted to itÉ to contribute to the emergence of secure structural relationships between Jewish and Palestinian peoples on the historic territory of Palestine. The LWF believes that Palestinian as well as Jewish people should have a legitimate right to live on the land of Palestine with safe and secure borders and with binding guarantees for full and equal political, economic and social life." Early in 1989 the LWF sent a delegation to review the situation. The executive committee then voted "to strongly urge the Israeli government to comply immediately with the international standards of the Geneva Conventions regulating the administration of occupied territories and to give full application of the principles of human rights both individually and collectively." Thus both charity and justice adherents affirm the importance of international humanitarian law, though the latter base their advocacy on more extensive and explicit policies tying their justice commitment to the particulars of the region. 4. Use of government resources The acceptance of government funds by both sets of practitioners leads to a common vulnerability to political influence. The ICRC receives more than ninety percent of its annual budget from governments, the remainder from national Red Cross/Red Crescent societies and private contributions. In 1987, the Swiss government was the largest contributor (29%,) end of page 11 followed by the United States (25 %), the United Kingdom (8 %), Sweden (7 %), and the Federal Republic of Germany (6 %). (In 1989 the ICRC received its first contribution from the Soviet government.) The heavy budgetary support from governments reflects their special obligation as signatories of the Geneva Conventions to provide financial and political support for the ICRC's work. Government underwriting notwithstanding, the ICRC works to retain full freedom to function in accordance with its principles. Geneva-based staff and overseas delegates are entirely Swiss to help ensure neutrality, though the ICRC also hires programme and support staff locally. Governments also play a major role in national Red Cross/Red Crescent societies, on whose boards they serve. The movement stipulates, however, that the "National Societies, while auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of their respective countries, must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with Red Cross principles." Over the years there have been various instances of unwelcome governmental influence on Red Cross activities. Central American governments have sought to make their national Red Cross organizations agents in highly political aid and resettlement activities. In many countries, senior officials from foreign ministries and domestic welfare departments serve on Red Cross policy boards. Yet even that does not necessarily mean that national societies function simply as political extensions of governments. One national society recently urged its government to ratify the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, knowing that it would probably not comply. Practitioners of the justice paradigm also struggle with the undue influence of government resources on their activities. During the past decade, donor governments and UN organizations alike have sought out non-governmental groups as operational partners. About one-fifth of the development budget of the US Agency for International Development is now channeled through such groups and has come to represent a substantial share of their resources. Some US church groups, though generally not those of the justice school, accept half or more of their total resources from the US government. The acceptance of government funds is also an emerging policy issue at the global level. A recent WCC study of funds channeled by church-related organizations from around the world to agencies in Zimbabwe found that fully eighty percent originated with foreign governments rather than churches. A WCC consultation in October 1989 in the Netherlands reflects growing question about whether church agencies can serve with integrity as government intermediaries. A case in point concerns the utilization of US government funds for Nicaraguans. Wishing to assist Nicaraguan children at a time when it was working to oust the Nicaraguan government, the US sought out US private aid groups in 1988 as aid intermediaries. Ground-rules prohibited US funds from being provided to or through the Nicaraguan government, in effect requiring aid agencies to assist children independently of Nicaraguan government health facilities or outside the country altogether. A number of church-related agencies declined such funds. Earlier in the decade, some had declined while others had accepted US government grants to help only those Nicaraguans who had fled to Honduras. Acceptance of government resources can and on occasion does mute advocacy voices. The experience of several agencies, however, has been that their expressions of end of page 12 critical views have not been greeted by tightened government purse strings. Moreover, rather than feeling constrained by such resources, some agencies-Church World Service in the Sudan is an example-have found that their acceptance of government funds gives them a special opportunity to influence government policies. To limit the vulnerability of staff and to maximize impact on the policy process, however, some agencies carry out advocacy activities in coalitions rather than singly. In sum, national and international politics can and do affect aid responses under both the charity and justice paradigms. Practitioners of both schools struggle with the issue of whether government resources can be accepted with integrity. Each employs safeguards and uses contextual decision-making to prevent their responses to human need from being compromised by their acceptance of government resources. 5. Staff engagement on the front lines Finally, the paradigms result in quite different styles of staff behaviour. ICRC field personnel convey an image of cool professionalism. Perhaps their Swiss nationality contributes to a certain detachment, a methodical approach to data gathering, relationships with government officials marked by extreme discretion, a stubborn persistence on intractable humanitarian issues, and a discernible distance from other aid personnel. ICRC field staff are, in the grudgingly admiring words of one observer, "real Swiss." Despite their air of disengaged engagement, they have, of course, a deep personal and institutional commitment to alleviate human need. This image of dispassionate involvement has been noted by press accounts from Afghanistan, where the ICRC's struggle to assist people on both sides of the war has been ever more tortuous than in the Sudan. While the ICRC succeeded in helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan throughout most of the decade, its overtures to work in government-controlled areas did not bear fruit until late 1988. Even then, its relief assistance and prisoner visitation did not extend beyond Kabul. Yet one reporter in mid-1989 described its hospital in Kabul as "an island of impartiality [where] combatants on both sides are admittedÉ [and] on occasion, guerrillas and government soldiers have recuperated in the same ward, without friction." Cool professionalism was apparently anything but typical of aid personnel. One journalist reported from Pakistan in 1988 that agencies like the ICRC which "profess strict neutralityÉ seem a minority even among professional humanitarians." Many Western aid personnel, the reporter observed, had a strong military-political commitment to the mujahedeen. In fact, much of the international relief effort, suffused by the US government's heavy East-West agenda, had become a virtual extension of the Resistance's Holy War. Another journalist confirmed that "this war has attracted every kind of anti-Soviet element" into the aid effort. Many aid personnel appeared to be assisting refugees primarily to strike a personal blow for freedom and against communism. If justice requires partiality towards the poor and if authentic aid is an expression of solidarity with them, the aid practitioner places a premium on clear identification with the people in need. "The ICRC operates at a different level, above the conflict," explains one church-agency programme officer. "We, on the other hand, seek to express solidarity, and the whole point of solidarity is that we seek victims as our constituency." end of page 13 Expressing solidarity, particularly in conflict situations, presents difficult challenges for staff. "I have identified with the people," wrote one aid provider of her work with a community of returnees from Honduras resettling in El Salvador in 1989, "which means that the army considers me their enemy along with the rest of the community." Her efforts to arrange health care for the community were rebuffed by the nearest government hospital, which refused "to treat people they identified as 'subversives.'" As the community then accepted medical services from guerrillas, it drew harassment from the army. "Church health programmes are also targets," she reported, "as the army accuses us of channelling medicine to the guerrillas." While the solidarity approach identifies aid staff directly with those who suffer, it also places out of reach some people on the opposite side of the conflict. In a situation reminiscent of South Africa and the Occupied Territories, the El Salvador worker noted that "the escalating conflict is forcing people to take sides. There is no room for neutrality. What dos it mean to take sides? Are not Christians called to be reconcilers in the midst of conflict?" Side-taking has its consequences, she muses, especially for those called to express the "healing, reconciling presence of Christ." Her identification with those in need has clear political implications. "It has always been the Christians," observes Bishop Medardo Gomez of the Lutheran Church in El Salvador, "who, because of their commitment of love, have been treated as subversives and confused with revolutionaries. Its true that they're revolutionaries, but not in the style of political revolutionaries. They're revolutionaries in the aspect of looking for a better life, looking for an atmosphere in which God reigns, where there is peace and justice." Again, each paradigm has its strengths and weaknesses. Those who remain above the conflict enjoy fuller access to persons in need on all sides than those who express solidarity with the oppressed. Thus the ICRC reports providing food in El Salvador to people living in conflict areas whose normal supplies had been disrupted by military activity and who were not accessible to other aid agencies. At the same time, those who cast their lot with the victims stand a better chance of strengthening the forces of social change, reducing future suffering, and hastening the coming of justice. Paradigms and politics: some reflections A review of the paradigms and the experience of their practitioners confirms some stereotypes and revises others. There are fundamental differences between the charity and justice approaches in theory and in practice. At the same time, aid institutions of each persuasion struggle with common problems and work out in sometimes similar ways the terms of their necessary engagement with governments. The variables are too numerous and complex to suggest that one approach is more effective than the other. Such variables include the nature and extent of the suffering, the governments and country settings involved, the strengths and weaknesses of the aid agencies, and the short- and long-term aspects of the task. There are no universal solutions, no paradigms for all seasons. Each approach has a great deal to recommend it. "In a highly politicized world," concludes one study of the ICRC, "impartiality becomes a strength, as there is increased need for actors free from suspicion of participation in realpolitik and partisan politics." The ICRC's visits to 40,000 intifada detainees, its hospital in Kabul, and its access to peo- end of page 14 ple across the battle lines in El Salvador are a tribute to this approach and to the ICRC's painstaking and largely behind-the-scenes skills. At the same time, in a world in which injustice and apathy abound, there is need for actors who express in vocal and unmistakable terms their solidarity with the oppressed and who challenge the forces which oppress them. The churches' solidarity with the victims of apartheid in South Africa and their efforts in favour of peace and aid to people in the Sudan demonstrates the value of this approach. Given the strengths of each paradigm, the lack of engagement between their custodians is distressing. With the ICRC headquarters and the Ecumenical Centre but a few steps away from each other in Geneva, the interaction is conspicuous in its absence. The ICRC keeps its distance, fearing that association with the politicized work of the churches will threaten its principles and credibility. The churches have little time for the ICRC, feeling, with angry blacks on the frontlines in South Africa, that the Red Cross wants to neutralize their groups and their cause. Fuller communication would not meld the two paradigms into one or blur the distinctive features of each. Informed people will surely continue to disagree about whether in situations where human life and values are on the line, the neutrality espoused by the Red Cross movement represents a responsible option. Conversely, there will be continuing debate about whether political activism serves the cause of those who suffer. There may, in fact, be legitimate reasons why operational collaboration between practitioners would not advance their shared commitment to relieving human misery and the more widespread observance of international law. Even more fully understood, the paradigms will still offer clear choices to individuals and governments seeking to find channels for expressing humanitarian concern. From dialogue, however, should emerge a better sense of how the languishing global humanitarian ethic can be strengthened. Certainly the development of a more effective international regimen to assist and protect those who suffer will not be hastened by denying political realities on the one hand or by embracing them uncritically on the other. The needs of the world are too manifold and the labourers too few for the debate itself not to be engaged in a more productive and mutually instructive way. NOTES *Larry Minear has headed the advocacy office in Washington, DC, of Church World Service and Lutheran World Relief since 1974. 1. Essay on Man, Epistle III, 1. 303. 2. Jacques Moreillon, "Different Perceptions of the Same Event", International Review of the Red Cross, March-April 1987, p. 144. 3. Jean Pictet, "The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross", Geneva, Henry Dunant Institute, 1979, p. 31. 4. Ibid., p. 60 5. Ibid., p. 56 6. Ibid., p. 59 7. Ibid., p. 60 8. Commission on the Churches' Participation in Development, "Towards a Church in Solidarity with the Poor", 1980, p. 4. 9. Ibid., p. 27 10. Sibusiso Bengu, Mirror or Model: the Church in an Unjust World, New York, Lutheran World Ministries, 1984, p. 63. 11. Jacques Moreillon, "On the Correct Application of a Number of Fundamental Red Cross Principles" (offprint from Studies and Essays on International Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles in Honour of Jean Pictet), Geneva, ICRC, p. 5. 12. Four church-based agencies were expelled by the Khartoum government in 1988. Suspicions of religious activities rather than their relief work per se appear to have led to their ouster. Medecins sans fronti�res was forced to leave Ethiopia in 1985 for its vocal criticism of government resettlement and policies. 13. Church World Service, "An appeal for Peace and Relief Assistance," press release, 22 March 1989, pp. 1-3. 14. Ann Stingle, "Report from South Africa", in Red Cross News, American National Red Cross, July-August 1986, p. 7. 15. Programme to Combat Racism, "The Churches' Search for Justice and peace in Southern Africa", p. 9. 16. Ibid., p. 7. 17. "Interview", Africa Report, March-April 1988, p. 13. 18. Hatem Abu Ghazali, director of the Sun Society for Handicapped Children in Gaza, as quoted in the Jerusalem Post, February 1987. 19. For a fuller discussion, cf. the author's "Humanitarian Issues in the Intifada," Christian Century, 31 August-7 September 1988, pp. 769-71. 20. Cf. Jacques Moreillon, "Different Perceptions". 21. LWF executive committee minutes, July-August 1989, agenda item 10.1.A. 22. Ibid. 23. "Principles, Organization, Activities", ICRC, 1985. 24. "The Development Market: a Study on Government Funding of Church-Related Development Cooperation", WCC Office for Resource Sharing, 1987. 25. John F. Burns, "Strain of War at Kabul's Gates pervades Red Cross Hospital", New York Times, 11 August 1989. 26. Colin Campbell, "Afghan Relief Effort Carries Big Price Tag", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3 August 1987, p. 8A. 27. See also the author's "Reconstruction in Afghanistan", Christianity and Crisis, 26 September 1988, pp. 318-21. 28. Willis Logan, director of Africa Programs, Division of Overseas Ministries, national Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, conversation with the author, 9 September 1989. 29. Excerpted from March 1989 correspondence between a field staff person and her agency (staff and agency names withheld because of the sensitivity of the issues.) 30. "A Service to God: an Interview with Bishop Medardo Gomez", Soujourners, March 1988. 31. David P. Forsythe, Humanitarian Politics: the International Committee of the Red Cross, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977, p. 237.