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initiated several activities and UNICEF organized training seminars in recognizing and treating disturbances among war-traumatized children. Many NGOs also were active in the social services sector, some using funds provided by UNHCR, which helped coordinate local groups working with women refugees, funded a number of community programs run by NGOs (including recreation and daycare activities), and underwrote the costs of medical care and psychological teams. The ICRC also was engaged in social service activities, working through general and psychiatric health facilities. The prevailing perception in late 1993 was that social services were unduly limited in a setting that cried out for more diverse activities than simply providing emergency material aid. Especially among Muslim populations, disappointment was compounded by anguish and anger at the continuation of ethnic cleansing and rape. “I am not sure what the U.N. can do or should do,” lamented Amra Cengic, Genocide Documentation Officer of the Red Cross of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who, like many professionals in the region, had no contact with the U.N. before this crisis. “I only know that well-meaning investigators, human rights and humanitarian personnel keep arriving—and the rapes continue. A full year after the first disclosures,” she commented in September 1993, “the same practices are occurring.” The plight of children orphaned by the war was widely publicized by the international media, and Croatian government officials were inundated with offers for building and running orphanages and for adoptions and placements outside the region. Local patterns and preferences, however, called for settling such children with families closer at hand. Here, too, UNHCR sought to develop guidelines to discourage insensitive approaches and minimize the separation between locally felt needs and outside interests. A firm hand was needed because international understandings of humanitarian priorities and strategies were not attuned to the views of those directly affected. Yet U.N. agencies did not effectively interpret the situation and channel international resources accordingly. 60
Relief and Beyond Two issues emerged regarding the balance established between relief and rehabilitation activities. First, did the U.N. manage relief activities with an eye to rehabilitation wherever and as soon as possible? Second, did the way in which emergency relief activities were implemented lay the necessary foundation for rehabilitation, reconstruction, and development? If both questions seem theoretical, particularly given the day-to-day struggle for survival in the former Yugoslavia, the experience of the international community in recent armed conflicts confirms the importance of looking beyond relief, even during the emergency phase of activities. In neither respect did the U.N. acquit itself particularly well. While U.N. appeals sought to highlight rehabilitation and development needs, the funds generated and the activities supported concentrated largely on emergency material aid. The March 1993 consolidated appeal for the balance of that year sought to strike a balance among three components: relief assistance to an expanding number of civilians in need; “a broad range of support to the traumatized victims of rape, torture and conflict;” and rehabilitation and development activities. The subsequent October 1993 appeal, covering the first six months of 1994, reiterated—amid a still proliferating need for immediate relief assistance—the importance of taking steps as soon as possible toward “durable rehabilitation.” The rehabilitation funds sought by UNHCR and other U.N. organizations and the activities mounted, however, were comparatively modest. The burden of striking a balance between life-and-death emergency activities and rehabilitation concerns fell primarily upon UNHCR as lead agency. Its responsibilities included “emergency transition activities in agriculture and income generation,” and in some areas it did make a solid contribution, directly or indirectly. Interviewed in Zenica in late 1993 as the war raged, Philippos Papaphilippou, acting head of the UNHCR office, noted several promising rehabilitation initiatives with which UNHCR was associated. These included income-generation projects carried out by the International Rescue Committee such as shoe and clothing manufacturing 61
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Occasional Paper #18 HUMANITARIAN A
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CONTENTS Foreword .................
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accountable is the United Nations f
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areas within the former Yugoslavia.
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The deteriorating social situation
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IRC LWF MSF NATO NGO ODA ODPR OFDA
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xiv
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“We got our own hands dirty in th
Page 18 and 19:
civilian populations beyond areas i
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European Union on November 1, 1993
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with its concern for minority popul
Page 24 and 25: U.N. put as much effort into stoppi
Page 26 and 27: No. of displaced / refugees 200,000
Page 28 and 29: How many persons were reached by U.
Page 30 and 31: the entire population of central Bo
Page 32 and 33: quantitative data to qualitative ju
Page 34 and 35: denied access to the centers where
Page 36 and 37: ing proceeded uninterrupted. In the
Page 38 and 39: also difficult. Human Rights Watch,
Page 40 and 41: UNHCR as Lead Agency UNHCR received
Page 42 and 43: primary responsibility for the wide
Page 44 and 45: wars, the terrain was more familiar
Page 46 and 47: * Joint Appeals (UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO
Page 48 and 49: teur it appointed was given more au
Page 50 and 51: port of third-country nationals bac
Page 52 and 53: followed locally. It became more di
Page 54 and 55: had two principal contacts: the gov
Page 56 and 57: national NGOs resident in Serbia an
Page 58 and 59: and military equipment to Yugoslavi
Page 60 and 61: Montenegro because the Federal Repu
Page 62 and 63: munity played a major role in polit
Page 65 and 66: CHAPTER 3: TEN CENTRAL POLICY CHALL
Page 67 and 68: homeless and lower-income pensioner
Page 69 and 70: international community,” recalle
Page 71 and 72: electricity up and running was unde
Page 73: UNICEF, charged with the survival a
Page 77 and 78: ties away from the areas of fightin
Page 79 and 80: sons forced to flee intolerable cir
Page 81 and 82: evacuees to 30,000 bodies.” The i
Page 83 and 84: war in which human displacement was
Page 85 and 86: Based on interviews and observation
Page 87 and 88: tarian organizations did their best
Page 89 and 90: eneficiary population had been reac
Page 91 and 92: with 113 persons, including two WHO
Page 93 and 94: humanitarian access. A lot of time
Page 95 and 96: here than in any previous conflict
Page 97 and 98: fered at a “lower price” would
Page 99 and 100: Third, and perhaps the most visible
Page 101 and 102: ity and seriousness of the U.N.’s
Page 103 and 104: had to adapt to UNPROFOR rather tha
Page 105 and 106: Serbian aggressors is not effective
Page 107 and 108: some of those persons who have alre
Page 109 and 110: In a letter sent in June 1993 to th
Page 111 and 112: indirect extermination of the whole
Page 113 and 114: insisting on a presence in Serb-hel
Page 115 and 116: has exactly the same problems—lac
Page 117 and 118: Yugoslavia lends urgency to address
Page 119 and 120: town of Srebrenica.” DHA’s atte
Page 121 and 122: population at risk. The numbers wer
Page 123 and 124: tions would also have been construc
Page 125 and 126:
observed, the situation was reverse
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erly preceded by interagency assess
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Local Resources Recent humanitarian
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the ground rules for dealing with t
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standably dismayed by the time pree
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10. Assisting Civilians without Pro
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sanctions against the Federal Repub
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that the drops were a bad idea but
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CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS Several
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political, and military entities. O
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ferently. The interface between the
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takings ultimately rely. Second, we
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ANNEX 1 PERSONS INTERVIEWED * UNITE
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Stephanie Allen Early Joan Edwards
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Karen Kenny Peter Kessler Mostafa K
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Jacques Mouchet Sadako Ogata Pierre
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Serge Telle Tatjania Termacic Sonya
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Derek Boothby Shannon Boyd David Cr
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Marc van Wynsberghe Civil Affairs O
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Ann Grant Rita Hudson Zlatko Hurtic
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Martin Damery Ursula K. Eugster Car
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Arthur Helton John Hicks Lidia Himi
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Jan Williamson Roger Winter John Wo
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ANNEX 2 CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR EVENTS
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the ICRC suspended relief operation
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Summer 1993. In May, fighting betwe
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ANNEX 3 TEAM MEMBERS Jeffrey Clark,
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ANNEX 4 ABOUT THE HUMANITARIANISM A
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167
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