Humanitarian Assistance: The International Environment

When the Cold War ended, we thought we had a new world order, but in fact, especially in your job, we came up against a new world disorder. How has the end of the Cold War changed the nature of the work of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees?

In two ways. The number of refugees fleeing has gone up, and the causes for refugees to flee has also changed from a fairly clear inter-state conflict to internal conflicts. And that has also changed the way we work. We can no longer just wait for refugees to cross international borders and receive them, because international borders meant much more then than today. When there [are] internal conflicts, borders are really fuzzy.

In this new environment, the great powers are more reluctant to intervene, especially after Somalia.

I think that is a fair statement. Especially the United States, because it suffered huge casualties. But also there is a limit to intervening in internal conflicts among various factional leaders. You cannot say this person is the right person or that person is the wrong person. You cannot divide the parties to the conflict in terms of good or bad or the right or wrong, because the causes are much more complex. It's sometimes tribal, sometimes political, sometimes sheer human greed, and an outside force, even a very great country like the United States, cannot bring determining control over these developments.

Isn't there also a great reluctance on the part of the industrialized countries to suffer the loss of any of their soldiers' lives?

Yes; at the same time, when you look at Bosnia, France suffered the greatest loss of soldiers. There is a degree of difference of how much [great powers] can expose to danger their own people.

Along with this reluctance, expectations about what agencies such as yours should do have increased, haven't they?

There is reluctance but there is also pressure, because nobody really knew much of the human suffering before this television age. But now, when these sufferings come on the screen, there is something that governments have to do. Look at Kosovo. When last summer the people were out in the woods in very difficult situations knowing that the Balkan winter was coming, something had to be done. And that has prompted action on the part of the United States: Ambassador Holbrooke negotiating with President Milosevic. Something had to be done.* The same thing with Rwanda after the genocide. Looking at the refugees, the terrible suffering of the people who had fled: something had to be done. But that something -- I think the governments would like to make as little sacrifice directly of their ground forces as possible. So they look for all sorts of other means, and one of them is to help the humanitarian workers.

So you are caught between a rock and hard place as you do your work. Expectations are that something needs to be done. People are seeing on CNN the starving children or the victims of war; on the other hand, the leaders of the great powers are reluctant to give all that might be needed to resolve the situation.

That's right. Endanger too many of the lives of their own people.

And that is where you have to navigate?

That is where we have to do our job anyway. If there are civilian victims and if many of them are refugees crossing borders, we have to be there. But when the governments are pondering, are not decisive in their action, we end up exposing more of our staff in dangerous situations and that is quite a serious dilemma for me. How much do I let our colleagues suffer or expose them to danger? And our colleagues tend not to want to come back [from the field]. They want to do everything for the people.

And your office is the representative of the displaced in these situations?

Yes, we represent the victims, especially the refugees. Some of them are internally displaced when they cannot cross national borders.

Next page: Humanitarian Assistance: Negotiating National Interests

Note: This interview took place one week before events spiraled out of control in Kosovo. The negotiations that Dr. Ogata refers to collapsed, and war followed.

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