Humanitarian Assistance: Negotiating National Interests

As these horrendous situations have developed during the eight years since you assumed office -- Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and now the Great Lakes region in Africa, crisis after crisis -- has the function of your office remained the same, or has it grown or evolved?

It has expanded certainly because the causes of these situations have become more and more complex. You have to have an expanded capacity to deal with the crisis, but also an attempt to come up with some comprehensive solutions, and for that you have to persuade governments of various kinds.

Part of your job is to persuade countries to accept refugees fleeing from their own countries.

Yes, and keep the borders open. These are efforts we have to make when there is a large exodus. Make sure the borders are open so that the refugees can be received; and then what we have to do is establish safety and bring in the necessary relief materials. But I would like to just emphasize it is not just giving things. You have to ensure safety, and that is the most important part of protection work.

As you argue with governments to do something, both in terms of supplying you with resources to do your work on the ground and, in the case of neighboring countries, to receive some of the refugees, what is most persuasive in getting action on their part?

The desperateness of the situation is always a very persuasive cause. And we have to show that we have effective programs to present. Then I have to persuade governments who are outside but are willing, or feel that they have to help, to give us resources -- money, people.

Your organization has something of the nature of a multinational entity, moving into so many different settings, providing the same needs for refugees but often undertaking new tasks.

There are different situations very much like Iraq. It was in a sovereign country, and the refugees tried to flee across borders. Some crossed over. Some were brought down back to their country and stayed, but they were not being protected. So that situation was also rather new.

A large percentage of the people you have to help are women and children. They seem to be the most vulnerable in these situations.

Oh, certainly, and older people. Older people feel very lost.

It is your task to provide the minimal standards of living so they can deal with the situation as it is occurring.

Shelter, food, sanitation, and then also comes education. Those are various aspects that we have to provide.

Has your operation become something of a political football in the context of situations in which there isn't a political settlement? For example, Yugoslavia before Dayton.

Great powers are not reluctant to support us because we are important in the interval period in which peace cannot be had and political solutions don't come through. So we had enormous support in that sense. At the same time, political solutions require a lot of negotiations; various national interests do not converge. And, especially in Africa -- for example, the Great Lakes region -- there are differences in national interests among the powers so the external negotiations among them requires a lot of persistence, leadership, human resources. I think the easiest answer would be that national interests don't converge very often over these internal conflicts. Some are more in favor of one group, others are more in favor of other groups. And these are very delicate issues.

What does that mean for your organization on the ground doing its work of humanitarian assistance?

We have to work much longer in conflict situations and try to do our best when we know that we cannot bring the last answers.

In these situations, has your organization been unfairly treated under certain circumstances? Here I have in mind the debate where one side says "Maybe we shouldn't intervene with humanitarian assistance. This work is becoming a political football when the parties can't sit down and reach a settlement." How do you answer those critics?

I can't answer every critic because there are so many. But I think the choice would be: are you going to let these parties fight it out? That also is hard to do in today's world, when there is much greater transparency of human suffering. To say, "Let's just all leave and let these people fight out and let as many people die as possible" -- that's a very hard choice for most leaders, too, even if they are not determined or they are not coming out with extremely decisive answers. So I think a prolonged situation of uncertainty seems more to be the characteristic today.

Part of your job and that of your organization is to explicate these kinds of dilemmas to motivate the leaders you are dealing with to act.

Persuading and insisting that they act.

One of the issues has been the UN's impartiality in some of these situations. Is there ever a conflict between the integrity of the work you are doing -- humanitarian assistance -- and the impartiality that the UN tries to deploy when it operates in a particular setting? For example, in the former Yugoslavia.

In the Bosnia situation, there were three ethnic groups that fought. Each one had victims. So to the extent that we could identify the victims, we always tried to bring relief to all of them. Of course, there were more sympathies for the Bosnians. At the same time, for those Serbs who required assistance, we made sure we reached them, too, in order that they did not feel left out, so that they would also watch us as being humanitarian to everybody. So those are rather difficult choices to make, but we did try that. One of the reasons why I think we were able to function not only during the war but also after the war, [is that] in the course of Dayton it was decided that we should continue to lead the repatriation of the refugees. After the war they were all going to go back, and we were given that role. I think it was because not every party was satisfied, but not every party was dissatisfied; and I think it was the fact that we tried to meet the needs of everybody who was in need. I am trying to say that impartiality -- to work it out -- requires a lot of thinking and effort, but in the Yugoslavia situation that was recognized.

You are really grappling with reality.

Oh yes.

Somehow you are shaping the best solution.

The best possible solution. Look at the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Serbs have taken refugees in the course of the war. Bosnians have too, Croats too; but [Yugoslav] Serbs [have taken in] Serbs from Bosnia and Serbs from Croatia, and today I think they may have the largest single case-load of refugees in their country -- some 350,000 Croatian Serbs. We as a refugee organization do help the refugees who are in Serbia, and in that sense we know what their needs are and we take a correct attitude in refugee protection and assistance in Serbia. But that doesn't mean that we take their side in not raising voices against what they are doing in Kosovo.

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