Twenty years ago or so, one million Rwandan refugees fleeing the genocide in their country fled into the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Their plight marked a turning point for humanitarian relief, the point at which humanitarian relief and politics became inextricably intertwined. Goma's intricacies went beyond the question of genocide, which was why it failed to generate timely international action. The crisis illustrated the fact that relief is a less straightforward proposition than many would like to consider. In Goma, soon after the Tutsi refugees arrived from Rwanda, another group of their countrymen joined them. The new arrivals included Hutu officials and servicemen, the very people who had started the massacre. When victim and prey are both hungry and in need of shelter, should the priority be that of providing food, or identifying possible war criminals? This dilemma still haunts the world of relief to this day, with repercussions in Sudan, Somalia, Darfur, Afghanistan, and Myanmar, to mention just a few. In today's Syria, a country in which one third or more of the population has been forced out of their homes, either into other parts of the country or across the borders in more than one direction, the same questions, and a few more, arise. Some would argue that relief should be strictly humanitarian and devoid of politics, while others argue that relief alone is not enough and that other political and military steps should be taken to address the causes of the conflict. Both sides of the argument are valid, and yet it is not always easy to come up with a general rule that applies to every conflict. In actual practice, each conflict and each natural disaster generates its own array of responses, which typically blend political interests with selfless humanitarian concerns. Governments and relief organisations have come up with several codes of conduct on how to handle relief work, but none of these is legally binding, leaving much room for interpretation or misinterpretation. In some cases, relief groups have been forced out of an area of conflict because of concerns for their safety. This is only one example of the inadequacy of humanitarian work in the face of brute force. In other cases, relief supplies have been used by one party or another in the conflict to score political points. And it is not uncommon for the suppliers of relief to have their own agendas, which may or may not appeal to some parties on the local scene. Furthermore, as the need for relief in some areas has turned from transitional to longer term, experts have pointed out that the need for development aid is more important than charity offerings. In fact, some point out that aid that is not part of a development programme may even undermine local talents and resources.
The major powers: In the hierarchical world of relief, major countries and organisations tend to dominate the scene. Most donors come from affluent industrial societies, while most recipients live in the impoverished countries of the Third World. This may explain why international relief organisations now focus not just on delivering food and shelter, but also on sponsoring education and training jobs, infrastructure work, and other methods for reviving the local economy. According to the Global Humanitarian Assistance Report (GHAR), the biggest donors of relief are the US and Europe, followed by the oil-rich Gulf nations. Between 2003 and 2013, the US and Europe donated a total of $127.7 billion in humanitarian aid. Nearly half of that amount went to impoverished African states, including Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Burundi, and the DRC. Analysts say that the volume of humanitarian aid to a given destination is not influenced by the size of the crisis the region is experiencing alone, but is also determined by the strategic importance of the country, or the potential economic gains donors hope to make once the crisis is over. Political motivation is not confined to the major international players, such as the US or EU. Regional powers have also emerged as influential players on the humanitarian scene, and they often have political agendas of their own. When one third of a million Syrian refugees walked across the border into Turkey in 2012, Ankara became one of the world's top humanitarian donors, with a total of $1 billion spent on providing for the refugees. Over the past 10 years, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar have emerged as leading donors in the region. Between 2003 and 2012, Saudi Arabia donated nearly $1.6 billion for humanitarian purposes. About one third of Gulf humanitarian assistance targets Islamic nations, including Pakistan, Palestine, Sudan, and Syria. The Gulf countries have also been active in the even more crucial field of development aid, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE providing development assistance worth $46 billion between 2000 and 2011.
Humanitarian intervention: Until recently, humanitarian relief was seen as an adequate measure to address a wide range of crises resulting from natural disasters or war. But recently the international community has come to recognise the need for selective intervention in cases when an identifiable political or military group is seen as the cause of wide-scale human suffering. This is one of the thorniest issues in today's humanitarian debate and one that is likely to draw further controversy as time goes by. Bombing a dictator out of power may be tempting, but will it invariably lead to a marked improvement in the lot of the population? International intervention is usually a voluntary act undertaken by the international community, in some cases with UN endorsement, to carry out actions that constitute clear interference in the internal affairs of a given country. As such, international intervention is a newcomer in the world of international politics, which has for long maintained the sanctity of national sovereignty. It is only in the last decade or so that the idea that protecting an endangered population may obviate the obligation to respect the national sovereignty of certain nations has become current in international thinking. But is this rule being applied selectively? The answer is complex, for the international community's willingness and preparedness to intervene varies from one year to another and from one country to the next. Yet, it is a fact that in today's world, and specifically since the end of the Cold War, the state's claim to sovereignty is contingent on its fulfilling the obligation to protect its own citizens. States that jeopardise the safety of their own citizens are, at least in theory, subject to international action against them. Humanitarian reasons were therefore cited as causes for military intervention in Kurdistan (1991), Somalia, (1992) and Bosnia (1995). In all of the above cases, military intervention was followed by considerable relief operations, not only to help the victims of the conflict, but also to help the victims of the intervention itself. In today's world, relief is a growing industry supported by a large community of donors and volunteers and kept alive through a permanent bureaucracy branching out across the world. The industry has developed its own literature, best practices, media offices, and fund-raising operations. One of the rules that the international community has developed since the Rwandan debacle is that intervention is justifiable in order to protect the local population. But to avoid abuse of this practice, it has become the norm to desist from international intervention until all other options (negotiations, pressure, and persuasion) have been exhausted. Once the humanitarian aid starts coming in, various parties to the conflict will be tempted to use it for political purposes. Typically, they will try to block aid from reaching their adversaries, demand political advantages for letting the shipments go through their territory, and claim that their adversaries are receiving preferential treatment. Although it is often the case that relief is intended for the most vulnerable parts of the population, rival groups often claim that the aid organisations have a political agenda. If they did not, why would they help one group more than another, they ask. Negotiations, placation, and concessions thus become an integral part of the provision of aid across the fault-lines of politics. Another complication is that when foreign humanitarian aid starts flowing in, the local authorities feel that they no longer have to feed their own population and instead focus their attention on smashing their opponents, leading to an even deeper humanitarian crisis than the one that existed before the onset of the aid. In Syria, in order to deliver relief to the most needy sections of the population, the shipments had to go through government lines, for example, leading to the usual protests that the aid was not humanitarian but was intended to help the rebels. Likewise, when relief groups relied on the opposition Free Syrian Army to distribute assistance in the areas it held near the Turkish border, charges of bias were made. When practices of this sort convey an impression of bias, the continuity of the relief operation and the safety of relief workers can be compromised. Sometimes, donors balk at providing relief to areas held by politically unsavoury groups. This was the case in Somalia, where US organisations reduced their supplies to areas held by the Shabab Movement for fear of strengthening this notorious group that has made it onto the US list of terror organisations. In Myanmar, claims of bias in the distribution of humanitarian aid in 2012 also fuelled tensions between the Buddhist and Muslim communities. Similar situations also developed in Darfur, South Sudan, and the DRC. In some cases, another complexity surfaced, which is that relief shipments can cause harm to the local economy by undermining local producers of food and clothes, items that the charitable donors provided as a way of relieving the suffering of the recipient community. It is because of such observations that charity organisations today are now more alive to the fact that development efforts should go hand-in-hand with the provision of immediate supplies needed to alleviate the crisis. Experts have noted that if the local producers of peace-time supplies are deprived of their livelihoods because of the abundance of aid, they may join the war economy, thus opting for the gun instead of the plough. Religion can also influence the course and shape of humanitarian relief. When relief organisations are branches of religious groups, it is often the case that the focus is on helping co-religionists. A similar trend was seen in colonial times, when religious zeal sent hundreds of missionaries into distant lands to preach Christianity, while at the same time providing a range of community services in education and health. In Darfur and South Sudan, church groups often combine relief work with religious activities. Muslim charities have also been known to offer food and schooling while building mosques and promoting Islamic codes and traditions. However, such practices may backfire, as happened right after the 9/11 attacks when the US froze the funds of a range of Muslim charities, claiming that they were funneling money to terrorists.
Development efforts: One recent trend in humanitarian work is the drive to restore the normalcy of peacetime economies, a way of creating a new dynamism that can replace the passivity of receiving aid with the energy of a society creating its own needs. Assistance of this kind often tries to bridge the cultural and economic barriers created by the conflict and promote coexistence between potentially rival groups. Much of the aid provided to Gaza and the West Bank has been of this developmental strain, geared toward reinforcing the cause of peace. However, this type of work, commendable as it is, is not immune to criticism. The failure of the Peace Process in the above-mentioned case, for example, has caused some to depict the relief work as a kind of gimmick that has allowed Israel more time to consolidate its occupation of Palestinian land. There has also been the concern that aid may be phased out if the recipients are seen to be less than enthusiastic for the cause of peace. Unless charity and relief groups coordinate their activities, they can also replicate each other's work, or give disproportionate attention to one group or locale. But if coordinated well, relief can be timed for the times when it is most needed and provided in the form most suitable to the community. Humanitarian groups should also be aware of the political background of the recipient communities. In the case of the Rwandan refugees fleeing into the DRC, aid officials were accused of reinforcing the conflict through their inability to distinguish between the victims and the perpetrators of the genocide. To help coordinate such relief efforts, humanitarian groups formed the Sphere Project, a voluntary initiative dedicated to improving the quality of assistance and the accountability of relief groups to their constituents, in other words the donors and the affected populations. By focusing on the quality of the assistance and the needs of the target communities, the Project aims to stress not only the need to save lives, but also to give people the chance to recreate a steady and sustainable life. For example, aid groups are encouraged to employ local skills, such as carpentry. When building a school, for example, hiring a local worker to make and install the doors and windows will enhance not only education but also the entire local economy.
An integrated approach: Saving lives, creating sustainable conditions for life, restoring normalcy, and protecting the population from human rights abuses are only aspects of the integrated approach that many relief workers now believe is the most helpful to target communities. To engage in such an integrated effort may seem to contradict the classical rules of humanitarian assistance, as established by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has long valued neutrality in its work. Younger organisations such as Doctors without Borders have taken a more engaged approach to humanitarian work, often publicising and denouncing human rights violations in areas of their operations. This step may be seen as risky by ICRC standards, but it is not completely incompatible with a modern integrated approach to humanitarian intervention. Groups that believe in the integrated approach also try to create bond of trust with various sides in the conflict, hoping that they will be able thereby to guarantee the uninterrupted flow of aid to the needy. The Italian charity the Community of Sant'Egidio, for example, engages not only in providing assistance but also in facilitating negotiation among rival groups in places such as Mozambique, Uganda, and the DRC.aa
