HUMANITARIAN CRISES: PREVENTION, RESPONSE AND REHABILITATION ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, MARY ROBINSON
HUMANITARIAN CRISES: PREVENTION, RESPONSE AND REHABILITATION ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION
I very much appreciate the invitation of the English Speaking Union to give the 1996 Churchill Lecture in this historic Guild Hall, to which I return with pleasure.
I should begin by saying that I have something in common with Winston Churchill which is not at all what you might expect. It is outside of any relationship of heritage or literature or history. It is in fact something altogether more modest which makes me particularly glad to be here tonight, to claim an ordinary human connection across many differences. What I share with him is a long walk, some low light and a difficulty in picking out things through the trees. Let me explain: As President of Ireland I live only a stone's throw from where he spent his first five years, when his father was secretary to his grandfather, the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. And I quite understand Churchill's difficulty as a little boy in making out through the trees a rather menacing approach which he describes in this passage from "My Early Life";
"My nurse, Mrs. Everest, was nervous about the Fenians. I gathered these were wicked people and there was no end to what they would do if they had their way. On one occasion when I was out riding on my donkey, we thought we saw a long dark procession of Fenians approaching. I am sure now it must have been the Rifle Brigade out for a route march. But we were all very much alarmed, particularly the donkey, who expressed his anxiety by kicking. I was thrown off and had concussion of the brain. This was my first introduction to Irish politics!"
Sir Winston Churchill was an extraordinary man whose contribution to the survival of your country and its freedoms, indeed the very ideal of a free people, will never be forgotten. The clarity of his vision at a time of confusion was one of the great individual acts of this century. Amongst the many insightful aphorisms which he left us, one with eerie resonance to recent events was coined in 1901 : "The wars of the peoples will be more terrible than those of the kings". It is precisely the type of clarity of vision he displayed which we must seek for ourselves now.
The theme I have chosen is Churchillian in its scope and scale. I take this opportunity to join again those voices at the international level urging new commitments in response to major humanitarian crises. I do so not as an expert, but as someone who has had opportunities to witness first hand some of the responses to crises in Somalia and Rwanda, and who shares the sense of urgency that lessons must be learned and more priority given to developing the international capacity to respond.
I was reminded recently by Ambassador Mohammed Sahnoun, whom I first met in Somalia where he served as UN special envoy, of the frequency with which internal, political or social conflicts have evolved into complex and often tragic crises since the end of the Cold War. He recollected that in 1995 some thirty complex emergencies were identified, affecting over 60 million people.
During the Cold war, the majority of humanitarian crises were portrayed as essentially environmental or social disasters rather than being explicitly associated with conflict. As such, humanitarian crises were popularly understood as somehow non-political. The allocation of political responsibility at national and international level for widespread suffering, for its prevention and mitigation, and for long-term solutions was seldom made. Relief aid alone seemed the most vital response to make.
The crises that have beset us since the ending of the Cold War - the tragedies of Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda - demonstrate that the nature of conflicts and the global context within which they take place have rapidly and radically altered.
The term `humanitarian crises' really only entered the popular vocabulary with the Ethiopian Famine. We have developed a very grim vocabulary for our times. We speak of intra-state conflict, ethnic cleansing, failed states and man-made disasters. In 1994 in Rwanda, in 1995 in Srebrenica, we used once more the term 'genocide' to describe contemporary events having promised that we would never again have to do so.
Experience in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda resulted in the beginnings of an international recognition of the political causes of humanitarian crises and of the grave humanitarian, political and security implications which they can give rise to at national, regional and international level.
Conceptual clarity about the nature of the challenges which face us is vital. Pre-Cold War experience and theory may have limited bearing on how we meet these challenges.
There seems little likelihood that policy and political action can be adjusted without an agreed understanding of the nature of the problems which we face. Complex political crises cannot be resolved by short term humanitarian responses alone. Rather they require sustained political action over the long term to resolve the causes of conflict and a sustained engagement after the peace is won to ensure that a lasting peace takes hold in societies shattered by violence and war. The difficulty now is to see how we can develop a framework which integrates different forms of international engagement - military, humanitarian, human rights based and developmental - to ensure that external assistance reinforces and supports local capacity to build peace.
A fundamental question is therefore posed. Are the established international organisations and our collective political priorities aligned toward meeting the formidable challenge which faces us on the eve of the 21st century.
The so called "post-Cold War era" is not an era. It is merely a few short years. A few short years during which we have been confronted with depths of barbarity and violence which we will never and should never forget. We have witnessed the collapse of civility in many societies. Neighbour has killed neighbour. The legitimacy of the nation state appears to weaken and we have seen the loyalty of citizens turn for certainties to irrational ethnic or tribal ideologies.
Tensions from deeply rooted political problems, socio-economic exclusion and ideologies of intolerances have overwhelmed fragile local coping mechanisms. At international level too the fragility and inadequacies of our response to these tensions have been laid bare.
In this troubled context it is hard to find our points of reference. Each humanitarian crisis is instructive on a number of levels. When I visited Rwanda and eastern Zaire in 1994 and again in 1995 I witnessed the courage and selfless effort of humanitarian organisations to assist recovery of a society freshly scarred by the wounds of genocide and to mitigate the suffering of the masses of ordinary Rwandan refugees who had fled to a hellish asylum in Zaire. I applaud that heroic effort and steadfast commitment to humanitarian values. Indeed, I welcome the opportunity to pay warm tribute to the NGO's based here in Britain, such as Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, whose excellent work I witnessed in very difficult locations.
I applaud too the openness and humility with which the humanitarian community has looked at what lessons they could learn from their humanitarian response to conflict and genocide in Rwanda. These lessons include how aid agencies might have worked more closely with the Government of Rwanda. How more lives might have been saved through better contingency planning and co-ordination. Why compassion demanded that aid agencies engaged with camp leaders, whose refugee status was doubtful because many were intimidators, in order to ensure that aid reached what have come to be known as `ordinary refugees'. Why for so long the needs of refugees dominated the aid agenda to the exclusion of the psychological and material needs of the forgotten survivors of the genocide within Rwanda itself. As a result of these reflections, aid agencies are asking why ethical responsibility for confronting the intimidators of ordinary Rwanda refugees was left with the aid agencies and not taken up by the international legal and political community?
Important lessons are also being absorbed in an open and analytical way by those who have participated on the ground in human rights operations in Rwanda and in other crisis areas. I recall the considerable frustration expressed to me by human rights monitors and field operators working in Rwanda, but I have been deeply impressed by their ability to analyse those shortcomings and to address them.
Just last week I met a number of international human rights specialists who had come to Dublin to participate in a round table on the promotion of the rule of law through effective training for human rights field tasks. Given that the first planned human rights operation of this kind was in San Salvador in 1991, the time scale for acquiring and developing "best practice" has been very short. But during the past five years important lessons have indeed been learned. This group of experts concluded that the fundamental aim should be to facilitate the sustainable improvement of the human rights situation as part of an overall human rights strategy that required the active participation of the host society. Their emphasis was on asking: "What tangible benefits would be left behind when the mission ended?". They presented me with a paper by their colleague Karen Kenny on "Effective Training for Field Human Rights Tasks", which recommends an ongoing international process to codify best human rights and field practice.
It is impressive to see how much the aid community and human rights monitors and field operators have learned from their experience. They, who lived through dark and difficult days working in prisons, in refugee camps, in trauma centres with genocide survivors, have had the moral courage to recognise that international humanitarian aid in itself, and alone, is not the solution to the problems of the people of Rwanda or other crisis areas, and may simply postpone the problem so that it recurs. The international community as a whole must be prepared to learn similar lessons. We must have a commitment to address root causes of conflicts even though they may be complex and difficult. This becomes clear if we focus on learning from recent events in Rwanda and Zaire.
These past weeks our TV screens have been filled once again with images of suffering in that part of Central Africa. For a while there were fears that the dark awfulness of 1994 might be about to re-enact itself. In a sense, however, such fears reveal a misunderstanding of the true nature of the situation. Eastern Zaire 1996 is not a repetition of Rwanda 1994. Rather, it is part of a direct continuum from that time, an out-working of a problem unaddressed and unresolved. True, during the two years since the autumn of 1994, we stopped seeing pictures of bloodied machetes and distraught refugees. The cameras moved on to other places: to Bosnia, to Chechnya, to Afghanistan. Rwanda joined the list of half-remembered crises that somehow had seemed to `settle down'.
We, the international community, failed Rwanda by letting it slip down the agenda because the reality was something different. The establishment of the camps in Eastern Zaire and in Tanzania in the second half of 1994 was a response to the Rwandan crisis but not a solution. During visits to Rwanda and to the camps near Goma in 1994 and 1995, I saw very clearly that the journey to a settlement was a very long way from completion and that many difficult and painful miles remained to be travelled. Certainly, some tangible progress was being made within Rwanda itself. The new Government was beginning to convince its own divided people and the international community that its commitment to reconciliation and rehabilitation was real. But as long as the issue of the camps sitting just beyond its borders remained unaddressed, it was obvious that no decisive progress was possible. The camps represented a paralysis of any dynamic towards a true settlement.
In addition, the cycle of impunity had not been broken so the healing could not begin. In 1994 the prison population in Rwanda had risen sharply to over 9,000. When I was there in 1995, and visited an overcrowded prison in Butare, it was over 50,000, and now it is over 80,000 and predicted to rise again sharply with the return of such a large number of refugees. But nobody has been convicted of an offence relating to the genocidal killing in 1994, although three trials are now pending before the international criminal tribunal in Arusha.
And increasing tensions within Burundi and within Zaire have represented additional threats to the stability of the region as a whole.
So what is the present response of the international community to these developments? Is there any evidence that the lessons of 1994 are being learned?
To a degree, at least, I believe that the answer to the latter question is yes. For the past while, the beginnings of a new approach have been coming slowly into view. I am referring to the initiative of the Heads of State of the Great Lakes Region in taking to themselves a collective responsibility for tackling the problems of the region. The imposition of sanctions on Burundi following the military coup there was a statement by African leaders themselves that coups are no longer acceptable as a means of effecting political change, no matter the circumstances. This is a critically important lesson, irrespective of one's view on the merits or otherwise of economic sanctions. The initiative has involved also the deployment, as facilitators and mediators, of a number of retired African statesmen, in particular, Julius Nyerere, the former President of Tanzania. A further and critical element of this strategy has been the involvement in a supportive role of the international community, largely through the use of special envoys. The European Union, in the person of special envoy Aldo Ajello, has played a particularly prominent role in this regard.
In my view, we have the shape here of a critical new paradigm: African leadership in addressing an African problem, the deployment of wise and experienced African elders as mediators, with the international community in the role of close support. If this paradigm can make progress in addressing the problems of the Great Lakes Region - as I believe it already has - I am certain that it can serve as a valuable model for other conflict situations in Africa.
I recently had the honour of receiving Julius Nyerere in Dublin. We had a long conversation about these issues. He is firmly convinced that with the proper support from the international community this model can work. Africa, is his view, recognises that it must take a greater role in resolving its own conflicts. But it also recognises that it cannot do so alone. The challenge is to work out an arrangement which encapsulates this balance in correct measure.
We in Europe would be wrong to minimise the extent of that challenge. Given the history of Europe/African relations, are we ready to accept in real terms a paradigm constituting African ownership and European support?
Some of the preliminary evidence from the way the international community is addressing the crisis in Eastern Zaire suggests a mixed answer to that question; or, at the very least, that the jury is out. There have been reports that African leaders are less than happy with the level of consultation with them on the composition of the multinational force. On the other hand, it is also clear that nobody is talking this time of a humanitarian response being sufficient of itself. A comprehensive, political approach will be necessary on a regional basis and African primacy in that process will be critical.
Where do we go from here in Rwanda?
From this distance it is not possible to prescribe ways of coping with the immediate humanitarian emergency. But the problems ahead are extraordinarily daunting. The task of absorbing such a massive return of refugees would be enormous for a country of far greater means. The needs of the refugees remaining in Eastern Zaire and of displaced Zaireans, together with the situation of the over 500,000 Rwanda refugees in Tanzania, must be addressed. The ending of impunity in Rwanda remains a challenge which must be met. The international community must support the Government of Rwanda in its efforts towards rehabilitation and reconciliation. Legitimate concerns about the quality of justice and security for the returnees must also be addressed.
At the same time, we need to redouble our efforts towards a more global resolution of the problems of the region as a whole. The holding of a conference on peace, security and development under the aegis of the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity seems a sensible initiative in this context. One of the ideas such a conference could look at might be a Stability Pact for the region, which would draw together the many disparate elements of its problems. It is clear from the most superficial analysis that so many of the problems of the region are inter-related. The recent crisis in Eastern Zaire has served as a further reminder of the urgent need for such a comprehensive approach. It is, of course, critical that such an initiative should be Africa-driven. The European Union has an important role to play in the process ahead, building on the good work it has been doing this past while. But it must ensure in the most vigilant way that its role is one of genuine support, based on a process of close, continuous consultation. Anything else will not and cannot work because it will not be sustainable.
What are the broader lessons for us in responding to humanitarian crises? Ambassador Jonathan Moore recently published a book entitled `The UN and Complex Emergencies' in which he offers an expert view on the role of rehabilitation assistance and the need for improved international support for societies in transition from crises. His is a challenging perspective. It rests on an essentially optimistic vision, which I share. It is this: despite huge suffering, brutality, conflict, war and violence, people in the end yearn for peace and recovery. At some time, a chance for peace and reconciliation emerges. We must seize that chance courageously and quickly.
I agree with those who emphasise that international assistance should be a source of empowerment to the local society coping with the crisis. It should be based on encouraging participation by local people themselves in building up a self reliant approach through the management of resources, and development of production and services in a sustainable way. Of course, a revitalised UN could and should play a critical role with the wholehearted and unequivocal support of its member states, to provide the necessary vision through a new set of priorities and a managerial structure which addresses more vigorously issues such as good governance, large scale demilitarisation, the promotion of human rights and international law and emphasis on the social and economic sustainable growth of areas affected.
Equally, we need to see how greater political and financial support for regional intergovernmental bodies can allow them to play a leadership role in conflict prevention and conflict resolution between the states and other parties to conflict. Above all we need to support civil society groups that work on the ground and can achieve remarkable results in humanitarian tasks, peace building and a culture of respect for human rights.
Let me conclude with a simple story of one such group.
In Rwanda I visited a shelter project which was being run by ARDEC, a Rwandan NGO, and which had received Irish Government assistance. At first sight this project addressed the urgent need to provide houses to genocide survivors, mostly women, who had lost their homes. As I visited the project sites, I saw bricks made and new houses built by widows and other local people. But I saw much, much more. I saw a vision of reconciliation made concrete. Two communities working together in a basic humanitarian and reconstruction task. This working together is the building not only of houses. It is the building of community and reconciliation. As such, these houses are built on the strongest possible foundation. These are houses of hope; a step to preventing conflict in the future.
We, in our time, need that clarity of vision which marked out Sir Winston Churchill if we are to develop an international commitment and capacity which truly guarantees the sustainability of such projects.