Examination of witness (Questions 300
- 316)
TUESDAY 8 JUNE 1999
MR MIKAEL
BARFOD
300. So this must be very frustrating for you?
(Mr Barfod) Yes, it is.
Mr Khabra
301. Does ECHO itself place any restrictions
on the types of aid that are granted to targeted regimes and,
if so, what are the reasons?
(Mr Barfod) In principle we provide impartial humanitarian
assistance directly to the people in need, to the victims. We
do not have restrictions on humanitarian aid for political or
economic reasons. This is the official answer if you like. If
you look a bit more at the situation as it is there are, of course,
some restrictions on humanitarian aid. One of the restrictions
is the fact that we have to have access, our relief workers have
to be safe, which is very important. We have to make sure that
our items are not misused in the conflict and do not go straight
to the black market. We have to make sure that our aid is not
manipulated by the regime for political reasons. We have to make
sure that we do not have a negative effect on the human rights
situation, for instance with the Taliban regime and the way they
treat women and girls. If they close the main hospital and want
to open one specifically for women and girls without any facilities
whatsoever we cannot go in and support such a hospital because
that would have very negative effects on women and children. There
are all kinds of, I do not know if you call them restrictions
or considerations that we have to take into account in order for
our humanitarian aid to be as smart as possible. I would like
to make that quite clear. That also goes for countries that are
affected by sanctions. Does that answer your question?
302. Yes, I think so. Can I ask you another
question. Should targeted states be provided with any special
assistance once sanctions have been lifted to assist in the restoration
of areas such as infrastructure and social services?
(Mr Barfod) I think the answer to that is certainly
yes. That is something that we have done on numerous occasions
in ECHO. We mentioned Haiti before, ECHO actually stayed on there
for a long time to make sure that the health sector would survive
until the development people came in with all the long-term contracts.
Development projects are slower, they are longer term, and they
take a long while to mobilise. ECHO very often played the role
of filling the gap in precisely that kind of situation there.
We will be doing that again and again. Whenever a sanction is
lifted you will probably find us trying to help with the humanitarian
issues and filling gaps until others can come in and help. I would
also say in general terms that it is not just humanitarian aid
but also development aid. We certainly make an extra effort when
sanctions have been lifted. This also goes for what I said before
about the need for being very positive to build a future for these
extremely vulnerable countries. There are a number of efforts
going on at the moment that have been started by the World Bank
and UNHCR and Mr Sogata and Mr Wolferson to fill the so-called
gap so that the countries do not enter into something like a secondary
conflict or humanitarian situation once they are out of crisis,
once the sanctions have been lifted. I think this is a very exciting
exercise which we participate in and I am personally involved
in. However, it is difficult to get your own institution to move
with it because in every aid organisation you have a development
branch or department, you have a humanitarian branch, sometimes
you have political aspects in a different place, all donors have
that problem. In order to be effective when sanctions are lifted
and the crisis is over you have to bring all instruments together
in one goal very quickly with a plan. We are all struggling with
that. The comments I made before about the new Commission I hope
will help us. I know that the British Government has got a flexible
approach to this issue and so have some other European governments
and we would like to follow that trend.
303. Can I ask you another question which is
relevant to the end of sanctions in particular, that the greater
consideration on the part of the donors is perhaps political,
to achieve certain political objectives. Does it happen at any
time that those political objectives are off the mark?
(Mr Barfod) When you talk about political objectives,
who—
304. On the part of the donors.
(Mr Barfod) When you say "off the mark",
I am not quite sure what you mean by that.
305. Sometimes those political considerations
should not take precedence over humanitarian aid and sanctions.
(Mr Barfod) Yes. I can agree with that in general
but in order to be clear I would like to have an example because
I am not 100 per cent sure what you are heading at.
306. There are enough examples but I do not
think this is the time.
(Mr Barfod) Okay. In general terms I see what you
mean but I think it is difficult to answer that question generally,
it would be better to hook it on to an example.
Mr Rowe
307. You have been very realistically talking
about the ways in which ECHO's position vis a" vis
sanctions could be improved but you started with a statement which
made it very clear to me that you would prefer alternative ways
of solving the world's problems. Are you saying to us that in
a world run by you sanctions would not be an instrument of policy?
(Mr Barfod) I did not actually say that.
308. No, you did not.
(Mr Barfod) I said that the sanctions I have seen
so far from a humanitarian point of view have unacceptable consequences
if they are not designed properly. Certainly that is a point that
I am not going to divert from because I do acknowledge that sanctions
for political reasons can be used but the catch-all, wholesale
economic sanctions that almost work like blanket bombings in some
cases vis a" vis vulnerable groups surely can be improved
in the future world. If we target the elite, if we talk about
freezing assets, if we talk about sanctions that specifically
can limit an arms capability, then I think perhaps sanctions can
play a role but that is not the immediate aim of my comments,
of course.
309. No. I am grateful.
(Mr Barfod) There are lots of arms that I do not like
either for humanitarian or all kinds of other purposes.
Ann Clwyd
310. Can I ask you, Mr Barfod, whether you feel
that sanctions can ever be at odds with international humanitarian
law?
(Mr Barfod) Yes. I think they can. I saw in the papers
that others have said the same thing. You have to distinguish,
of course, in humanitarian law between civilians and the military
and that can be problematic in some cases. Also, the proportionality
in humanitarian law is affected because to hit a legitimate target,
how many civilians can you accept as a "side effect".
So, on both accounts, proportionality and the distinguishment
between civilian and military, I think they can have unfortunate
consequences for humanitarian law. Again I believe Iraq is an
example where probably international humanitarian law has been
negatively affected because of the volume of children that have
suffered there. I think that was more or less the same statement
I read which a British NGO made here in this Committee as well.
311. Yes, Save the Children Fund.
(Mr Barfod) Save the Children Fund, yes.
312. Again, specifically with reference to Iraq,
what was ECHO's involvement in providing humanitarian relief to
Iraq both before the Oil for Food Programme started and afterwards?
(Mr Barfod) Our involvement goes quite far back, it
goes back before ECHO was created in fact. We have provided humanitarian
aid since 1991 and ECHO was created the following year. The humanitarian
response has been targeted at all vulnerable groups, both before
and after the oil embargo. After the Oil for Food Programme was
agreed upon, ECHO tried to concentrate on sectors where this programme,
as I said before, did not reach in the initial stages. Our idea
was all along that the Oil for Food Programme would eventually
reach all the humanitarian victims and we could pull out. However,
the Oil for Food Programme has never managed to stabilise the
humanitarian situation and ECHO has been forced to stay. Whereas
ECHO originally operated mostly in Kurdistan, our resources have
gradually been balanced now between the north, the south and the
centre; the south being the marsh Arabs, the north the Kurds and
in the centre the rest of the Iraqis. In 1992 to 1993 we focused
on northern Iraq, in 1994/1995 we redoubled efforts in the south
and the centre, in 1997 our funding gradually became limited to
medical supplies and equipment, demining and the treatment of
landmine victims and war wounded. I visited most of the projects
in Kurdistan myself in connection with the visit of Mrs Bonino
two years ago and it is obvious that there are lots of war related
victims in that region still, if you include landmines as a leftover
war. For 1998 and this year indeed we have allocated a total of
16 million ecu to water, hospitals, specialised institutions for
children, medicine anddisplaced persons. DG1B, which is responsible
for that region within the Commission, has also provided smaller
amounts of aid for agriculture and drinking water and food aid
has been provided by—No, sorry, NGO projects have been provided
by DG8, that is the NGO profiling programme. Compared to ECHO's
programme it is relatively small. Eight million and five million
ecu respectively. The rest of the 250 million ecu that I talked
about earlier has been provided by ECHO. It is a major programme.
We are, as always, very frustrated when we have been in a country
for a long time because the idea of humanitarian aid is to pull
out so that we can concentrate your resources on other countries
that need our aid.
313. Thank you.
(Mr Barfod) Does that help to give you an overview
of what we are doing?
Ann Clwyd: Yes, it does.
Mr Worthington
314. I think you have answered some of the questions
that I was going to put forward but there is this emphasis upon
smarter sanctions. You talked earlier about how organisationally
you hope that the European Union will get smarter but could you
give us some indication of where you see improvements actually
occurring in the future in terms of obviously protecting the vulnerable
and in particular where sanctions will hurt those who have caused
the particular problems? Are there areas which you or others are
working on to which you would like to draw our attention?
(Mr Barfod) Yes. Apart from all of the general factors
I mentioned I think that smart sanctions must certainly include
well enforced humanitarian exemptions. That was the issue we talked
about before. I believe that we should also try as much as possible
to use our influence to make sanctions targeted at the elite.
If you look at the empirical data that is available, many sources
actually claim that the success rate of sanctions over the past
seven years, for instance, has been as low as 20 per cent in some
cases but in those cases where you have specifically targeted
the elite, which means that you totally exempt a lot of the humanitarian
problems, the success rate has been doubled to 41 per cent. I
think that is a figure that is worth paying attention to in my
opinion.
315. Could you say a little bit more about what
you mean by that? What were those elite targetings that have worked
and how might they be improved?
(Mr Barfod) It is something I got from a study by
a gentleman by the name of Hufbauer who suggested that the average
success rate of sanctions is a lot higher when financial restrictions
targeted at the economic elite are implemented. He compares that
with all the cases where we have used a broad brush trade sanction
and there he finds that the success rate is only 20 per cent.
I can give you the full reference for this study. I have a copy
of an extract of it with me and the full study I can send to you
later.
Mr Worthington: That would be very helpful.
Ann Clwyd
316. Thank you very much. We have finished five
minute early, which is amazing. I thank you very much for giving
such useful and succinct answers and stimulating our views on
this issue. We are very grateful to you, Mr Barfod, for coming.
(Mr Barfod) Thank you. I have found it very interesting
as well. I hope I have been able to say something you have not
heard before.
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