Beacon of hope in dark corners

Date: 04/06/1998

In disaster zones around the world, the European Community's Humanitarian Office sets out to deliver aid and relieve suffering. By Mark Turner reports on the obstacles, both practical and political, it encounters in its work

IN AN institution not known for its glamour, the European Community's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) is a shining but paradoxical beacon.

Offering help to some of the planet's most miserable and least glamorous corners and funding relief to people racked by hunger, civil war and natural disasters has given ECHO a sensationalist gloss that shines out from Brussels' otherwise grey backdrop.

The impact of this is not lost on the young organisation, which has made an art of conspicuous compassion in the post-Band Aid era.

When the European Commission's Berlaymont building was covered with a large white sheet to prevent asbestos dust escaping, ECHO projected on to it a giant slide show, highlighting its work. The organisation's newly released 1997 annual report features on the cover three starving children, sitting naked on a cardboard box, emblazoned with the headline 'Forgotten'.

"We decided on a rather stark image of three Rwandan kids for the cover, because the despair on their faces could be that of anyone of any age," explains Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Emma Bonino.

"The photo does far more than words ever could to convey just how helpless people feel when faced with the day-to-day depravity of modern humanitarian crises: hunger, violated innocence, lost dignity and crazed conflict. A moral desert stretches out before us."

Critics may argue that the grim task of relieving misery should not be reduced to sound bites and striking photographs. Recognising the potential for a backlash, ECHO's publicists have recently made a point of focusing on individuals' suffering rather than the workers who help them.

But in an age of donor fatigue, perhaps a little spin is the only way to cut through the increasing public disinterest in the outside world.

With the European institutions under fire for a serious lack of transparency, other Commission departments could learn a great deal from ECHO about how to tell taxpayers where their money is going. The office gets across its message loud and clear that in the late 1990s, the need for humanitarian assistance is greater than ever.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, combined with a gradual retreat by Europe's old colonial powers, regions which had been kept under control by the superpowers have collapsed into near anarchy.

The result has been a spate of brutal civil wars, negligent administrations and societies ill-prepared for sudden disasters.

In the early 1990s, former Commission President Jacques Delors called for a pan-European structure to fill the vacuum, resulting in the creation of ECHO in 1995.

Working with around 170 non-governmental partners, the organisation's 120 Brussels-based staff and 70 field operatives spend between 400 and 800 million ecu a year on short-term emergency assistance - from erecting storm shelters to distributing food, medicine and blankets.

The countries in which they operate read like a Who's Who of modern disaster zones: ex-Zaïre, Rwanda, Afghanistan, the West Bank, Albania, Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia. These are the wild frontiers of the millennial landscape.

All the indications are that more is to come: Sudan is in profound crisis, Angola is in trouble again, Eritrea and Ethiopia are on the point of war, and Cambodia is simmering.

In countering these tragedies, ECHO's fundamental philosophy is that humanitarian aid should be granted irrespective of race, creed, religion or political objectives.

"It is quite clear that the difference between the United States' philosophy and ours is that US Aid, and Brian Atwood in particular, connect humanitarian aid to the foreign political priorities of the US," Bonino told European Voice.

"We are trying to behave differently and say that humanitarian aid is about saving people and shouldn't be linked to the political priorities - particularly geographical political priorities."

Bonino argues that ECHO's pan-European nature is particularly important in this regard. "The fact of having a European office helps us to be more neutral in the sense that every member state has its own traditions and political links," she says.

"My country Italy, for example, is more active when humanitarian aid is linked to Albania or Somalia. Germans are particularly interested in former Yugoslavia. The added value of having a European office is to overcome these bilateral links; to have a broader approach."

Yet the humanitarian world is becoming increasingly aware that strict neutrality is not always so easy to implement on the ground. Even if they do not intend to, aid workers can unwittingly find themselves disproportionately assisting one side in a conflict, with catastrophic consequences.

If one party, for whatever reason, receives less aid than its rivals, it will perceive humanitarian agencies as the enemy and target them accordingly.

Such situations are even more likely to occur in today's predominantly civil conflicts, where dividing lines are less clear and the traditional 'rules' of war are cast aside.

These problems have provoked serious reflection, as humanitarian workers and administrators seek ways to reconcile theoretical neutrality with practical reality.

More than principle is at stake. There are growing concerns about the safety of aid operatives, after a spate of horrific killings over the past two years. Eight United Nations' staff and medical workers were murdered in Rwanda last year, there have been tens of casualties in warring southern Sudan, and in the northern Caucasus 12 staff have been kidnapped and held to ransom.

"Beyond our sense of moral outrage we also have a deeper sense of unease, the feeling that such incidents call into question the very basis of humanitarian aid," says Bonino.

Humanitarian agencies are also playing an increasingly prominent role at the top end of global politics.

Last year's land-mines treaty crowned a sustained and highly professional campaign by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and ECHO, which have long argued that the weapons kill indiscriminately and destroy countless civilian lives long after conflicts are over.

This year's ECHO report features the heart-rending account of Pan Tol, a farmer in Cambodia whose leg was blown off in 1984, in the hope that continued pressure will eventually force the US to crack down on its exports.

Bonino's high-profile campaign for an international criminal court (ICC) also has profound political implications at a time when the US and France are strongly resisting the move.

"My feeling is that in the last year one of the basic causes of major humanitarian crises has been the sense of impunity which is spreading all over the world," she says.

While such a court might not make any immediate concrete difference, it would send "a strong message that impunity will not be tolerated any more" which the Commissioner believes could have "an important impact".

Some critics have attacked Bonino's statements about the role of women in Afghanistan as a political statement about Muslim societies. But on this, and other issues, she is very clear about her role.

"The philosophy of the Taliban has been imposed by force of arms. Up until two years ago, women were behaving differently and had a different life," she points out.

"It is not down to humanitarians to solve these problems, but it is our duty to say out loud what they are. From what we see in the field, we have the responsibility to inform foreign affairs ministers and say 'Look!'.

"I'm not trying to politicise humanitarian aid, but I would like to have a foreign policy more based on values and principle."

Major feature on the European Community's Humanitarian Office (ECHO).