Where Angels Fear to Tread
Sreeram Chaulia
The August 19
terrorist attack against the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad has
reopened old wounds and dilemmas in the international humanitarian
community. By its sheer scale of devastation and brutality - more than
20 killed, including UN special representative to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de
Mello - it was the biggest single atrocity committed against
humanitarians and the culmination of a decade-long trend of worsening
insecurity for field personnel working in relief and rehabilitation
operations.
A universal reaction to the blast that claimed the life of Vieira de
Mello, and more than one dozen of his colleagues, has been to ask why it
is that good people always suffer? Unfortunately, the situation at the
ground level is a lot more muddled. The moot predicament dogging
humanitarians today is one of neutrality. Not everyone in Iraq thinks
that the UN and its fellow humanitarian non-government organizations are
"good people".
Like all complex emergencies that have burgeoned since the end of the
Cold War, Iraq is a battleground of perceptions and impressions. Who
stands for whom in this quagmire is open to interpretation. The fact
that de Mello - he was also UN under secretary general and a UN high
commissioner for human rights - was meeting the US civilian
administrator, L Paul Bremer, on a regular basis and jointly appearing
before the media with occupation authorities could not have gone
unnoticed by loyalists of the ancient regime and fundamentalist forces
determined to convert Iraq into a second Vietnam. De Mello's high
profile and "personal relationship" with the Americans was an invitation
to gross misunderstanding in a volatile and highly charged ambience like
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Add to the combustible mix the unforgettable
fact that US-instigated UN sanctions have left a bitter legacy of
untreated dying children in rundown Iraqi hospitals, and you have a
casus belli to convince some Iraqis of impropriety and partiality on
the part of the UN.
Former US ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, has admitted in
Newsweek, "Sergio was usually advancing America's long-term interests
[in Iraq]. He saw nothing strange or incompatible in this." Holbrooke
ventured further and used a very American idiom to describe the August
19 horror - "The UN's own 9/11 [September 11] crisis."
But surely, the UN does not wage war, occupy enemy lands and exploit
countries ruthlessly. De Mello's real mission in Iraq and his lifetime
passion happened to be nation-building, not subjugation. His
tete-a-tetes with Bremer were not to divide victor's spoils, but to
ensure that a new Iraq will improve its human rights record and allow
political space to isolated and neglected sections of society. He was
acting as a bridge between voices in Iraqi civil society and the new
administration, trying to ensure that a cross-section of the Iraqi
people had a say in the new 25-member Governing Council appointed by the
US and in determining their own future.
The plotters of the attack either did not hear or heard cynically what
de Mello held close to his heart - that full sovereignty must be
restored to the Iraqi people as soon as possible following the US
occupation. Pragmatist that he was, he believed in making the best of
the available circumstances and utilizing his legendary persuasion
skills and quiet diplomacy to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. He
heard and conveyed to US decision-makers the nuts and bolts problems
Iraqis were facing - street and residential crime, power outages, water
shortages etc. Politicians, religious figures, tribal leaders, lawyers,
judges, professionals, women - all found an active listener and a
genuine empathizer in de Mello.
The same de Mello adjudged as a lackey of the Americans by terrorists is
on record saying that the US occupation of Iraq was "traumatic" and "one
of the most humiliating periods in the history of the Iraqi people". The
same de Mello who was the intended and main target of the Canal hotel
attack had refused beefing up American military protection to his office
for fear of being mistaken as partisan. His fierce independence and
carefully nurtured nonpartisanship drove the UN to post Iraqi sentinels
rather than Americans, in line with a worldwide UN preference to hire
local staff unless expatriates are absolutely essential. What an irony
then that the same local guards whom de Mello's staff wished to aid with
employment in hard times could arrange for the massacre of their own
benefactors.
The first lesson from the Iraq tragedy for humanitarians who have been
struggling with the neutrality conundrum is simple. It is important to
be not just neutral but to appear neutral. De Mello was out-and-out
neutral in his policies and tried to appear neutral, but perhaps the
public relations side of the coin was poorly minted. It is a valid
argument that no amount of good public relations can convince terrorists
trained to detonate themselves for jihad.
In several Asian, African and South American conflict theaters,
humanitarians negotiate access rights, safe passage of essential
supplies and "humanitarian relief corridors" with non-state actors,
rebels, guerillas, terrorists et al. In a typical civil war scenario,
humanitarians convince warring factions that their concern is for the
suffering civilians and that they will aid non-combatants of all ethnic
hues and political affiliations. This profession of strict neutrality
must be loud, unambiguous and repetitive to be effectively understood.
The irrational fanatics might not heed to reason, but humanitarians must
not become fatalistic and drop the guard of eternal vigilance.
Maintaining the reality and appearance of neutrality in disaster zones
where angels fear to tread is a delicate and hazardous exercise. The
implicit consensus on field security between international aid workers
and local military authorities is fraught with landmines and liable to
sudden inexplicable warps for the worse. Accusations and rumors can fly
fast that this NGO representative or that UN official is partial or
friendly with one side or the other and kidnappings, detention,
extortions, assault and outright assassinations can occur. Before the
Baghdad carnage, the UN alone had lost a record 214 civilian staff from
malicious acts since 1992. Field-oriented UN agencies like the High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Relief and Works Agency in
Palestine have borne the greater brunt of these outrageous acts. When
this author was at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, the elevator posters
sadly displayed photos and tributes to slain employees from West Timor
who were burnt to death by anti-independence militias. This brings me to
the second lesson emerging from the wreckage of the Canal hotel in
Baghdad. Despite suffering precious human losses for the last 10 years,
humanitarians have not given enough thought to the linkage between
militarism and their professions. Journalist Michael Maren has
demonstrated lucidly the strange irony of UN and major Western NGOs
offering jobs to petty criminals and lumpen elements as bodyguards for
personal security and protection of aid convoys in Ethiopia, Somalia and
elsewhere.
UN "aid bureaucrats" have often been accused of employing private gangs
and mercenaries due to lack of any other effective security force or
governmental law upholder. Such practices are mighty contradictions with
the fundamental objective of demilitarizing war-torn realms. Yet, in the
interests of "staying there", humanitarians unwittingly resort to
proliferation of light arms and vigilantes. More often than not, dubious
protectors are invitations to serious trouble. The two Iraqi guards
hired by de Mello's office had links to Saddam's dreaded Mukhabarat
intelligence service. It is a classic moral dilemma that needs to be
resolved by humanitarians, not by arguing whether they should withdraw
from lawless spots but by creating alternative sources of security.
As blame goes around in Iraq, the UN secretary general claims that the
responsibility for humanitarian security lies with the occupying power.
The occupying power in turn rebuts that the UN turned down an offer for
improved security. This is a lose-lose negative sum game. Humanitarians
should give serious thought to a long-proposed but never implemented
idea of a standing UN protection force under UN authority and UN pay.
Variously floated ideas of a UN "Rapid Reaction Force", a "Rapid
Deployment Police" and a "High Readiness Brigade" must be dusted off the
shelves and quickly acted on. It may be practical and easier to overcome
national sovereignty hurdles if this standing force has the limited
mandate of protecting UN and NGO humanitarian staff, premises and
provisions rather than the entire civilian population. Peace enforcement
by a UN army is a much grander enterprise requiring strong political
will from major member states in the Security Council. What is feasible
in the short term is a smaller entity that will protect the protectors.
Unless a UN protection force specializing in field personnel security
starts running on the ground, resolutions declaring terrorist attacks on
humanitarians to be war crimes will carry zero credibility. A toothless
Convention on the Safety of UN Personnel has existed since 1994 to no
avail. Any number of clauses in international humanitarian law also
expressly proscribes deliberate targeting of UN and NGO staff. What the
UN needs to do in this hour of mortal danger is to go beyond condemning
and prevaricating yet again. Sergio Vieira de Mello's blood should not
have been spilled in vain. |
