How can aid workers help war victims without falling prey to, or becoming complicit with, their persecutors?
Humanitarian organisations have an ambiguous relationship with the violence of war. Seeking to relieve its severity, they contribute to its continuation to varying degrees while subjecting themselves to becoming targets. This collection of studies explores the way aid workers attempt to “humanise” war and face the risk of becoming victims of or complicit in the war.
Humanitarian Negotiations revealed: the MSF experience
From international NGOs to UN agencies, from donors to observers of humanitarianism, opinion is unanimous: in a context of the alleged ‘clash of civilisations', our ‘humanitarian space' is shrinking.
If you have to starve to death, better to do it in a war-torn country
For the past several months, news about food shortages and famines affecting large segments of the East African population have been fueling donation appeals from major public and private aid organizations.
When the United Nations cry wolf
The United Nations announces a famine and that 12.4 million people are threatened by drought in the Horn of Africa. Radio and television repeatedly broadcast an appeal for donations to UNICEF, brandishing disturbing figures.
UN accuses, and congratulates, Rwanda…
The United Nations has again raised the question of the implication of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) - in power in Rwanda since July 1994 - in crimes committed between 1993 and 2003 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Humanitarian NGOs and the big stick policy
In January 2009, eight regional and national NGOs got together to create the "International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect." The photo on their website's homepage sets the tone.