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UN:
Even angels need protection
By 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.
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