War on aid groups: Who will protect the protectors?

Tag : straw fabric

Al Qaeda and other groups have said that the United Nations is apriority target. In November 2001, Osama bin Laden declared, "Underno circumstances should any Muslim or sane person resort to theUnited Nations. The United Nations is nothing but a tool of crime."Last year, Al Qaeda specifically denounced the humanitarianagencies of the United Nations as "direct enemies aiming to changethe fabric of Muslim society."
UN officials have recently received specific threats inAfghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Sudan. InDecember, a Qaeda suicide strike in Algeria killed 17 UN workersand injured another 40. The after-action report on the Algeriaattack sounded helpless: "The UN is under an extremist threat. Thethreat could be carried out anywhere at any time. There is no UNcapacity to predict attacks."
Vieira de Mello's political team had come to Iraq in 2003 in orderto hasten the end of the American occupation, but this proved tomatter little to a man known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, who helped AlQaeda plan the attack. "A lot of Islamic countries have beenthrough injustices and various occupations and foreign troops usingthe UN resolutions," he said afterward, referring to theresolutions of the UN Security Council.
By this logic the 140,000 unarmed, civilian personnel who dopolitical, humanitarian, development and human rights work for theUnited Nations would be blamed for the Security Council's actionsand inactions (over which these civil servants have little say).
The killing of the aid workers in Afghanistan last week showed howaid groups, too, are being lumped with Western governments andmilitary forces. In claiming responsibility for the attack, theTaliban posted a statement on the Internet saying it held the threeWestern women responsible for NATO's killing of 50 civilians in awedding party in July.
UN officials and aid workers who choose to work in conflict zoneshave always exposed themselves to banditry, crime and violence. Butthe assaults, kidnappings and killings of humanitarians have morethan doubled in the past five years - precisely when independenthumanitarian, reconstruction and development assistance has beenurgently needed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
So what, then, should governments, the United Nations andhumanitarian organizations do to help these workers continue toprovide life-saving assistance in perilous circumstances?
First, in some places where local authorities are unable to preventAl Qaeda and other violent extremists from operating, the UnitedNations and other aid organizations may have no choice but toreduce their physical presence. The Bush administration bypassedthe Security Council before the war in Iraq, so Europeansgovernments and Secretary General Kofi Annan wanted to send Vieirade Mello and the United Nations' "A-Team" to Baghdad partly toremind the world of the organization's continued relevance.