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Studies and reports
The world trade system leaves poor countries too little scope
Slight rise in German ODA
Africa: back to the roots is the wrong direction
Humanitarian aid can be impartial, but not neutral
Immunisation initiative: Nelson Mandela calls for participation
German hearing on GATS: different positions
Proposal for insolvency rights buried quietly
An oil pipeline
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medico international conference
Humanitarian aid can be impartial, but not neutral
"Where we help, the people need first and foremost not clean water, but protection from violence; but we don't provide that." This was said by Ulrike von Pilar, general manager of Ärzte ohne Grenzen (Doctors Without Borders) at a conference on 'The Power and Powerlessness of Aid' held by medico international in Frankfurt am Main, March 28-29. The actors in humanitarian aid are discovering more and more that in several respects they are in a predicament. On the one hand, humanitarian aid has become a resource that is used by warring parties to fuel conflicts – civil wars are not ended with its help, but kept going. "Aid can contribute to more violence being practised," said Lothar Brock, of the University of Frankfurt, and Thomas Gebauer, general manager of medico international, coined the bitter slogan of "humanitarian aid as confirmation of the existing conditions".
Another dilemma, linked closely to the first, is that aid workers are enjoined to remain neutral. Can one do that in view of the horrors encountered? One must, said Johannes Richert, representative of the German Red Cross, if the task is to care for prisoners-of-war or, after the massacre in Rwanda, to help the refugees in the camps on the Congolese side, while being aware that many of them have blood on their hands. "Public statements can endanger the work," Richert says. But what applies to the Red Cross need not go for others. Ärzte ohne Grenzen, said Pilar, withdrew from the refugee camps around Goma when they noted that weapons were being bought with money from the sale of aid supplies. And David Rieff, from the USA, said: "It is very important not to romanticise victims." Still, there are different objectives. Human rights groups, says Pilar, "can be impartial, but not neutral".
The third problem, which apparently has only recently triggered a wider debate in humanitarian aid circles, is that short-term aid solves no long-term problems. Sabine Eckert of medico international said: "As long as aid is given only to alleviate immediate need and is not backed by a vision, it is doomed to failure." The actors in development cooperation have long known that, but evidently they live in another community – there is scarcely a dialogue between the two. That was one of the more important insights of this conference.
Finally, Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel, director of Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World), used the USA's war in Iraq as an occasion to pose the question about the justification of "military interventions as a humanitarian solution". What should be the humanitarian organisations' attitude towards that? Can they simply wrap themselves in their "core competencies"? Her conclusion: "We must be much more aware of our ethical basis."
Reinold E. Thiel
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