op 18 front pages-converted - The Watson Institute for International ...

the international community intervened more decisively and
assertively early on, we might have needed much less humanitarian
relief.”
Opinion is more divided about whether the use of military
force later in the conflict—for example, in 1992 by UNPROFOR
to assist in the delivery of relief supplies or in 1993 by NATO
against the Serbs—would have been effective. That debate is
examined in Chapter 3, along with how aid activities may have
prolonged the war. In any event, the presence of the U.N.’s
humanitarian organizations, interacting with political and
military entities and dependent upon decisions outside their
control yet rarely consulted along the way, aggravated an
already difficult situation.
Four factors—the newness of the challenge, the complexity
of the issues, the attitudes of the warring parties themselves,
and the lack of effective international political support—contributed
to the extreme difficulty encountered by
humanitarian agencies in the former Yugoslavia. Together,
these difficulties represented the defining reality within which
practitioners and their organizations conducted their tasks.
Despite difficulties and complexities, the question at the end
of the day was simple. Was the civilian population of the wartorn
region better off as a result of U.N. efforts?
Our answer is “yes.” Humanitarian efforts throughout the
region provided relief to many, protection to some, resettlement
and asylum to a few. We concur with the observation by
the first Special Envoy of the High Commissioner for Refugees,
José-Maria Mendiluce, that “We have saved many hundreds
of thousands of lives by feeding people and by reducing
the level of horrors and atrocities.” In some areas such as Bihac
and Sarajevo, U.N. efforts made an essential difference. In
others, their contribution was more limited. In still others, the
plight of civilians in October 1993 was more precarious than at
any point during the conflict.
However, the United Nations was largely unsuccessful in
moderating the policies and practices of protagonists and in
deflecting the ravages of the conflicts. The fact remained, as
one NGO official pointed out, that more people had died from
shells than had succumbed to disease and hunger. Her comment
implied that more lives would have been saved had the
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