Militarization of Aid vs. Humanitarian Neutrality in Afghanistan : Part I

When, if ever, should aid organizations work with belligerent parties in a conflict zone? That question has dogged the aid community for years, but the painfully fraught nature of civil-military relations in Afghanistan has brought it to the forefront like never before. In this post, I parse the debate Daniel recently weighed in on from his personal experiences and try to draw some conclusions of my own.

If you aren't familiar with the controversy, this Al Jazeera spot is a decent introduction:

To summarize:

- Gen. Stanely McChrystal wants all international efforts focused on "a single goal," but not every organization in Afghanistan shares the US military's goal.

- The International Rescue Committee and other aid organizations are guided by humanitarian principles, and their goals are humanitarian goals --they want to help the Afghan people, regardless of the war's outcome.

- First and foremost, the US military is in Afghanistan to advance US national interests.

- CARE and other organizations do not have the funds they need for Afghanistan, but have turned down USAID funding because some grants require aid agencies to undertake "battlefield cleanup" activities, that is, reconstruction and development projects in areas where American forces fought off the Taliban.

- Aidworkers need to be seen as neutral and benevolent in conflict zones, and rolling into villages American soldiers damaged during battle to do "cleanup" work does not exactly promote that image.

A few thoughts on all this:

- It's flat out wrong for USAID to attach counterinsurgency strings to aid funds. Period. If organizations like the IRC and Oxfam don't want to do post-battle reconstruction and development work, they should not be expected to, and they should be eligible for USAID funding anyway. Most of the major humanitarian NGOs working in Afghanistan are working in dozens of other countries, and their leadership must consider how civil-military relations in Afghanistan could affect relief and development efforts elsewhere in the world. For an organization like CARE, working closely with the US  military in Afghanistan --especially in areas where where coalition forces have caused civilian casualties-- could imperil vital projects in other conflict zones.

- Aid community leaders talk about humanitarian neutrality. In Afghanistan, I don't see how neutrality is possible, even if organizations eschew working with coalition militaries entirely. Afghanistan's conflict (dramatically simplified) is a war with the Afghan government and the NATO coalition on one side, and Taliban factions and affiliated groups on the other. If an organization is doing development work, it's probably working with the Afghan government to some extent. At a  bare minimum, it needs to register with the government. To the insurgency, even that small act is tantamount to picking sides - the Afghan government over the Taliban. At the same time, working with the government makes good aid sense in most cases, because the (very) long term goal of assistance should be an Afghan state capable of providing for its own people. Afghan humanitarian and development organizations are asking for this; they want and need aid, but they want to make sure it aligns with the Afghan National Development Strategy. If organizations respect this, cooperation with the government is unavoidably part and parcel.

- In some instances, working with the government is a bad thing, at least short-term. CARE recently released a study showing that government-supported schools are attacked more often than those built by NGO-community partnerships. This is a problem, because primary education is a basic public good, and the communities most wracked by violence are in desperate need of tangible proof their distant government isn't just another predator. That said, maybe averting the disaster of another generation of Afghans lost to illiteracy trumps all.

-  Afghanistan has been at war for thirty years, not eight. Relief organizations were in Afghanistan long before the US-led invasion, and they will be in Afghanistan long after the last coalition soldier leaves.  No matter who runs the country, Afghans will still need help, and aid agencies will need to be able to help them.

- If the Taliban retake most of country, delivery of aid might be impossible, no matter what aid organizations do from here on out. The Taliban killed Afghan aidworkers when they were in power, forced relief organizations to engage in discrimination, and routinely threw foreign NGOs out of the country. With genocidal intent, the regime imposed a devastating, multi-year blockade on the central Afghanistan homeland of the Hazara people, and refused to allow aid in from the south, even as the United Nations warned of near-famine conditions. It's difficult to believe that a re-empowered Taliban in 2012, or 2015, or 2020 would be less hostile, but it's easy to imagine such a regime being even more brutal than before, because this time, vengeance would be in order.

Part II up soon.

[Photos: Hungarian ISAF forces distribute winter supplies to local Afghan families in Baghlan Province. (Photo by ISAF Public Affairs)]