International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills

      Map 1. Africa, Map No. 4045 Rev. 7, November 2011. United Nations.

      The final responsibility to provide humanitarian aid to people affected by conflict created by the crimes mentioned above—what I call the responsibility to palliate—does not seek to stop the conflict, nor does it seek to punish people driving the conflict. Rather, it seeks to provide the displaced and other victims of conflict with food, water, shelter, and medical assistance so that they can continue to live at the most basic level. It takes conflict for granted and tries to ameliorate—palliate—the effects of conflict. In theory it has no grand political project like the other two responsibilities, although this is a convenient—and not always convincing—fiction. It may also be used when R2P is invoked, although many times the actors involved—in particular nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—may be on the ground carrying out this responsibility before the invocation of “never again.” Yet it, too, is intimately tied up with the other two responsibilities.

      All three of these responsibilities come from the same human urge to stop suffering, and they are all heavily embedded in the twentieth-century human rights project, although there are also connections to the nineteenth-century development of international humanitarian law (IHL). Yet, the relationships between them are complex. This book seeks to disentangle and make clear these complexities. The core part of the book examines four case studies from central/east Africa to make concrete how the international community has—or has not—engaged with these responsibilities. First, however, these responsibilities require further explication. In the next sections I look more deeply at each of the responsibilities and associated norms and practices, briefly tracing their development and interrogating the concrete meanings of these responsibilities. I then turn to developing a framework for understanding how these responsibilities interact and the main conundrums faced by those deciding which of these responses to implement.

       Humanitarianism: The Responsibility to Palliate

      As Michael Barnett observes, “We live in a world of humanitarianisms, not humanitarianism.”² Indeed, while I will briefly track the evolution of the idea and practice of humanitarianism, one must recognize that there are, in fact, multiple ideas about what humanitarianism is and how to practice it.

      While some use the term “humanitarianism” to denote a wide variety of human-rights-supporting activities,³ humanitarianism is distinct from human rights, even if they have overlapping ideational bases. Human rights are about making sure that all humans have access to the same protections from human-induced suffering and discrimination and have what they need to live in dignity. It is a political project that aims to order polities in such a way that individuals have access to the political process and their other rights are protected. Humanitarianism, while it may have broader social goals, is, in the end, about making sure that people can continue to live on a day to day basis in the most horrible and extreme circumstances. While we frequently use the term “humanitarian” to describe an individual who is attempting to do good in the world, the ambit and practice of humanitarianism as an “ism” is much more circumscribed. Humanitarian organizations—as opposed to development organizations, which focus on longer term economic and social progress throughout society—are focused on providing assistance—food, water, medical care, shelter—to individuals caught in the midst of conflict. They help refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, and other war-affected individuals gain access to what they need to survive on a daily basis—a “bed for the night.”⁴ This so-called classical humanitarianism does not deal with the broader political context in which it operates. It is all about saving lives. It is apolitical. However, this “pure” humanitarianism is under many pressures to go beyond this remit and become embedded in politics. As this occurs, life becomes much more complicated for humanitarians, and the choices faced by them—and the international community more generally—more difficult.

      Michael Barnett and Jack Snyder⁵ identify four types of humanitarianism, characterized by where humanitarians stand on two issues—whether or not they accept that they are political and whether or not they accept constraints on what they can accomplish. These are “bed for the night,” “do no harm,” “back a decent winner,” and “peacebuilding.” The first is the approach of the Red Cross Movement, and has been expounded by David Rieff in a book of the same name.⁶ It is only emergency relief. It does not claim any goals or import beyond saving lives from one day to the next. Do no harm is essentially bed for the night with more reflection. While adhering to the previous goals, humanitarians will consider the consequences of their actions and whether or not their actions are doing more good than harm.⁷ Such issues came to the fore in 1990s, as questions were raised about whether aid actually prolonged conflicts by providing resources or safe spaces for combatants in the form of refugee camps. Until then, there was an uncontested assumption that good intentions resulted in good outcomes.⁸ Rwanda was one such situation where, as we will see, some organizations decided to withdraw because they felt they were doing more harm than good. This perspective still claims to be nonpolitical, but once one starts deciding who should or should not receive aid, one is making political as well as ethical judgments. Back a decent winner recognizes the constraints of humanitarian action while having a willingness to engage politically. It essentially looks for a “better” partner who can create a better peace even if this does not mean a broad-based liberal peace. When engaging with comprehensive peacebuilding, humanitarians look to the root causes of a conflict, including human rights abuses, and advocate the creation of a more just society that provides a basis for peace. It is avowedly political and it rejects the limited mission for humanitarianism advocated in the first strategy.

      Advocating one version of humanitarianism over another will lead to different trade-offs and conundrums for humanitarians. The more you advocate political solutions, the less able you are to claim the classical humanitarian label which, theoretically, protects you in the field. Further, you may end up supporting activities and outcomes that are at odds with your intended goals as a humanitarian. These four categories are archetypes, and it may be possible to move between categories or occupy more than one category simultaneously, which creates even more tensions and complications.

      An Abridged History of Humanitarianism

      We can look to the mid-nineteenth century for the origins of humanitarianism. There were a number of efforts at this time to regulate warfare, which resulted in the creation of national Red Cross societies that would assist war wounded and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as the first Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field in 1864, which established the principle of neutrality of those assisting the wounded. There followed many more conventions that provided protection for war wounded and those assisting them, as well as restrictions on the methods of warfare. These culminated in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which comprehensively laid out the rights and duties of combatants and noncombatants in war. The 1977 Additional Protocols further extended the coverage (if not as comprehensively) in noninternational (i.e., internal) armed conflict.