Humanitarianism & War Project

	\|\|\|\| Status Report #18: April 14, 1995.
	THIS IS ANOTHER in our series of reports designed to keep the stakeholders of the Humanitarianism and War Project and its increasingly wide circle of users current on our work. This report covers the period since January 9 1995.
	CONTENTS:
	Research in Progress The Rwanda Crisis International Meetings Publications Project Support

	RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
	During March, field work was completed for a case study of humanitarian action and peacekeeping in Georgia. The team, headed by Dr. S. Neil MacFarlane of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, also includes Stephen Shenfield of the Watson Institute's Center for Foreign Policy Development and Project co-director Larry Minear. Our cooperating partner in Georgia was the International Center for Conflict and Negotiation, headed by Dr. George Khutsishvili.
	Following visits last fall and winter to Moscow, Vienna, New York, and Ankara, the team conducted interviews in Tblisi and visited the conflict areas in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Personnel from humanitarian agencies and peacekeeping organizations (including the Commonwealth of Independent States, the OSCE, and the UN) were sought out. An op-ed by MacFarlane and Minear which appeared this week in The Geneva Post is enclosed.
	Work is also going forward in the area of the media as a humanitarian actor. Consultant Colin Scott is proceeding with research and interviews. A first draft of an eventual publication, The Media and Humanitarian Action: A Practical Guide, will be reviewed by a group of practitioners at a seminar in Geneva in October co-hosted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Centre for Humanitarian Reporting. We would welcome any materials or reflections in this subject area. The new volume is intended as a companion to our earlier Handbook for Practitioners.
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	THE RWANDA CRISIS
	In recent months, research on Rwanda has involved a major commitment of time and energy. Work by Larry Minear and consultant Philippe Guillot of the Université de Lyon is progressing on the book to be published by the OECD's Development Centre reviewing the contribution of international military forces to the humanitarian response in the 1994 crisis. Minear, also a participant in the separate multi-donor evaluation of the Rwanda response, attended a meeting to launch that study in Geneva in late January and will be involved in finalizing the group's report later in the fall.
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	INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS
	Continuing the Project's commitment to ensure that its conclusions find their way into international policy deliberations, Weiss made a presentation in early March to a meeting of experts on "State Sovereignty and Human Rights" organized by the Centre International des Droits de la Personne et du Développement in Montréal. (His remarks will be published as "Overcoming the Somalia Syndrome" in Global Governance, Vol. 1, No. 2, May-August 1995.) He also attended a meeting of the External Advisory Committee to discuss the next report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on The State of the World's Refugees 1995: The Challenge of Solutions (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). He served as a discussant at a colloquium organized in The Hague by the Dutch Foreign Minister and the Clingendael Institute on "A UN Rapid Deployment Brigade."
	Minear participated in a symposium in Copenhagen March 9-10 on "The Role of NGO Emergency Assistance in Promoting Peace and Reconciliation," organized by the International Council of Voluntary Agencies and the Danish Refugee Council. In February, he participated in a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of the Local Capacities for Peace project, for which he had prepared a case study on reconciliation across Serb-Croat lines in a community in rurual Croatia. In late January, he visited Brussels for a meeting with Ms. Emma Bonino, European Union parliamentarian now head of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).
	At the request of the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs, the Watson Institute has begun what promises to become a series of discussions for UN staff, led by the Humanitarianism and War Project. Minear and Scott led a debriefing at the UN in New York on the findings and recommendations of the case study on Liberia. In mid-May, there will be another on "Whither Rwanda?" The meeting will bring together a small group of experts to reflect on some of the roots causes of the Rwanda tragedy and to discuss strategies for the future. It may be followed up by a more public gathering later in the year. Involved in the initial session are Thomas G. Weiss, Antonio Donini, UN Scholar-in-Residence at the Watson Institute while on sabbatical from the UN, and Peter Uvin of the Institute's World Hunger Program.
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	PUBLICATIONS
	The case study on Liberia, Humanitarian Action and Security in Liberia 1989-1994, is enclosed with this mailing. Mercy Under Fire: War and the Global Humanitarian Community, which seeks to interpret our Project's findings for the concerned international public, is scheduled for publication later this month by Westview Press. (Flyer enclosed.) A volume for use in schools and by community groups, Humanitarian Politics, is due for publication shortly by the New York-based Foreign Policy Association.
	Currently in the editing stage is a volume to be published by UN University entitledVolunteers Against Conflict. The book will be comprised of personal reflections by UN Volunteers on their experience in such emergencies as Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, and the Former Yugoslavia, with introductory and concluding chapters by Minear and Weiss.
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	PROJECT SUPPORT
	We are pleased to announce that Trócaire, an Irish NGO, has become a contributing member of the Project, bringing the total number of organizational supporters during Phase II (1994-96) to 25. Taking into account the 23 agencies involved in Phase I (1991-93), our Project has received resources from a total of 34 separate organizations to date. A number of other NGOs and UN organizations are currently in the process of joining us. We would welcome still others as well.
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