Examination of Witnesses(Questions 40-60)
WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2003
MR RAJA
JARRAH, MR
ROGER RIDDELL,
MR MIKE
AARONSON AND
DR AL
-SHAHRISTANI
40. But you overcome that at the moment.
(Mr Aaronson) But the framework at the moment is benign
and I find it very difficult to conceive of a framework in the
context of a war against Iraq that would actually allow humanitarian
agencies to operate in that way.
(Mr Jarrah) To follow up on the question of solidarity
with the people of Iraq, if the people of Iraq felt that any post-war
administration was a legitimate model and one that they welcomed,
then it would make it much easier for us to work with them. If,
however, there was a feeling from the Iraqi population that the
post-war regime was an unwelcome one, then, by association with
that, we would have lost our relationship of trust with them.
41. I am sorry to press this, but in the context
of this particular conflict or potential conflict, this is important.
In the morality of the current regime which has obviously oppressed
certain sections of the Iraqi population, you find it perfectly
possible and moral to work in those circumstances.
(Mr Jarrah) But the Iraqi population accept the authority
of the current regime.
42. Willingly?
(Mr Jarrah) If they accepted the authority of the
new regime which succeeds it, then we would find it much easier
to work with it.
43. I take your point, but I am just interested
that you are not operating to different standards here.
(Mr Aaronson) I would like to answer your question
very directly. We have worked over the years in a number of countries
which have despicable regimes, but we have only continued to work
there if we have been able to operate in accordance with our own
values and principles, so we operated in Ethiopia under the Derg,
for example, and we manage operate at the moment in Iraq. Paradoxically,
the sort of armed conflict we are now talking about from our own
side might create dilemmas for us which are more acute than the
dilemmas we currently face working in Iraq. That was the point
I was trying to get across.
44. That is fine. I would be interested to see
how they could be greater than your current ones, but we will
wait and see. At the moment you do not have any particular set
of circumstances under which you would withdraw from Iraq?
(Mr Aaronson) When you say "at the moment",
do you mean—
45. In terms of planning for the immediate future.
Do you have a set of circumstances where either your staff felt
insecure and concerned about the military action or you have a
defined set of principles and you said, "We feel we would
have to come out"?
(Mr Aaronson) Yes, undoubtedly. I think there are
any number of circumstances where reluctantly that might have
to be our conclusion.
(Mr Riddell) Part of our scenario-plan is withdrawal
for a period if there is a war and if the war threatens the lives
of staff and that happened in Afghanistan. Local staff continued
and international staff went back.
Tony Worthington
46. Do you not think this is an absolutely crucial
point, that we have been pursuing this argument that if there
to be a war, it has to go down the UN route and then if it is
authorised by the UN, there is some legitimacy to it and then
it seems to be over to General Tommy Franks. It does seem to me
that you are saying a similar sort of thing, that if it is under
the UN route, then certainly the military commander has to have
a good deal of leeway to pursue war without being too committed,
but surely there has to be a UN controller who is there to decide
upon how the humanitarian aspect is to be administered. The Secretary
of State seemed to be hinting at that in terms of a second or
even a third resolution. Is that what we are saying?
(Mr Aaronson) Yes, obviously it would be far better
that there should be that sort of UN framework and we would all
argue very strongly for that, but it depends also on how that
works out in practice. There will be dilemmas for the UN as well
as for NGOs, depending on how the UN relates to the war, whether
the war is ongoing or whether it has finished, whether, if you
like, control has been handed over from the US military to a Special
Representative of the Secretary General. That would be a different
situation. I think what I have particularly in mind is the provision
of humanitarian assistance and protection while conflict is ongoing
and I am saying that would be very problematic even with the UN
present.
Mr Colman
47. I wrote down what you said, Mr Aaronson,
which was, "Military forces by definition cannot carry out
humanitarian actions". Of course, if the NGOs and the UN
start to withdraw, what other option is there to deliver humanitarian
services in Iraq?
(Mr Aaronson) I think it is probably a question of
definition. If a hurricane hits a Caribbean island and a British
frigate is passing by and provides fresh water or shelter for
the stricken population, that is a non-contentious situation.
If British forces are conducting a war and are trying to provide
assistance to the population, that is a very different scenario.
What I am really saying is that any military commander has to
put the pursuit of military objectives first and therefore humanitarian
objectives inevitably have to be subordinate to the overall military
goal. By definition, humanitarian assistance is given on an impartial
basis without reference to any other objectives, so it is actually
not possible for there to be a humanitarian war or for military
forces to provide humanitarian assistance on that definition.
48. From my rather flimsy experience through
the Parliamentary Armed Forces Scheme and knowledge of the rules
of engagement and the basis on which the military can engage,
there is certainly, as I have seen it on other times, a humanitarian
side in their work, because clearly hearts and minds have to be
won not just territory. Is there some sort of ideological basis
that you have not yet said—not just you, Mr Aaronson, but
the others—in terms of why the delivery of humanitarian
relief can be carried out by the military, not simply a passing
frigate, but from the point of view of being part of their key
role if the UN has withdrawn and the NGOs have withdrawn?
(Mr Aaronson) Two points, if I may. Firstly, hearts
and minds is part of the military objective not a humanitarian
one. Secondly, most of the situations you are referring to I am
quite sure are peace support situations, not combat situations,
and that is the difference.
49. Mr Riddell, Mr Jarrah or Dr Al-Shahristani?
(Mr Riddell) One of the critical aspects is the manipulation
of the local people. If local people have some degree of acceptance
of the alien forces, that is a different scenario from those who
do not. That is, to me, absolutely crucial.
(Mr Jarrah) One of the issues which came to a head
in Afghanistan and is likely also to come to a head in Iraq is
that in the turbulent post-war situation, or immediate post-war
situation, where violence is being perpetrated by all sorts of
actors, not just formal armies, then any action that fudges the
distinction between military and civilian activities is always
going to be problematic for humanitarian agencies because it makes
us complicit and targets, and makes us identified in the eyes
of ordinary people with possible belligerents. One of the important
issues for us in separating civilian and military action is the
safety and security of staff.
50. Yes, but you clearly accept that the British
military forces on previous engagements have very much taken on
board a humanitarian side to their work?
(Mr Jarrah) I accept that there is a humanitarian
need which can be filled by military forces if nobody else is
filling it.
Ann Clwyd
51. I think that was certainly the case in Kosovo,
when people crossed the border to Macedonia and the UN simply
could not cope with that situation, and were it not for the intervention
of the military at that stage, who quickly put up tents, et cetera,
et cetera, then I think a lot more people would have died. I think
there are several occasions in the past where I have seen—actually
there when the crisis has been taking place—the efficiency
of the military in providing that kind of humanitarian aid and
that has been appreciated by all who witnessed it. So while your
objective may be the ideal one, the reality is sometimes a bit
different.
(Dr Al-Shahristani) If I may say, Iraq is a very special
case. A lot of the people have been on the verge of starvation
over the years. The regime has been so oppressive that there has
been no civil society institutions, which people can really depend
on. Of course, the best route would be for the UN to take over
the whole operation, the provision for the people and setting
up an administration, it would be much more acceptable to the
Iraqi people. Everybody aims for that, but if the situation comes
to a point where there is military action and people are very
dangerously exposed, I do not think the ideal situation will prevail.
At least for NGOs like us, which is based completely on Iraqis,
we will see no other option but to go and try and help the people
inside Iraq as much as we can. I have mentioned earlier that the
present network of food distribution is the only option for the
general population but it remains to be said that there is a small
percentage of the population that has been targeted by the regime,
denied food rations because they considered them opposition, et
cetera, et cetera. Those have to be identified and plugged into
the system again. I do not think this can be done on the current
records and that brings the point of why Iraqi NGOs who are aware
of the local situation from these different towns have to go in
immediately as soon as they can. They would love to be under UN
sponsorship but if that option is not available to them, I do
not think they will turn their back on their own people and walk
away.
(Mr Riddell) I am worried about a line of questioning
which suggests we go to war and then worry about the humanitarian
consequences afterwards. The Geneva Conventions require that those
who engage in military activity focus on civilians right from
the start.
Mr Colman
52. I agree, I think perhaps one of our witnesses
was denying that, Chairman.
(Mr Aaronson) Could I put the record straight on that,
which was in response to Ann Clwyd's point about the camps in
Macedonia. The point I was trying to make was that military actors
cannot deliver impartial humanitarian assistance when they are
fighting a war. The situation in Macedonia was very different
because the military were not fighting the Macedonians, they were
not fighting the Kosovar refugees, therefore they were in a position
to be able to—up to a point unless of course you were Milosevic—act
in an impartial way. The fact is, if you are fighting your way
into Baghdad, it is a very different scenario compared to putting
up a refugee camp on the borders between Kosovo and Macedonia.
Just to make it clear, I am saying that when you are fighting
a war you cannot be impartial.
Tony Worthington
53. Every time we go to a disaster area the
word which comes up all the time is "co-ordination"
of the many, many players and how they are working together. What
does the scene look like in Iraq at the moment in terms of planning
for you? Are you getting co-operation from DFID and other bodies?
I am giving you a number of areas which you can respond on.
(Mr Jarrah) Certainly in south and central Iraq there
is no need for inter-agency co-ordination because the whole thing
is currently very centralised and running very efficiently. I
will pass over to my colleagues to talk about Northern Iraq. The
second half of your question was about relationships with DFID.
We have not had a meeting with them since 2 December and any exchange
of information between us and them has been informal since that
time.
(Dr Al-Shahristani) I will respond to the second part
of your question. I listened very attentively to the Secretary
of State and I was anxious about what real preparations are being
done for the population inside the country after there is a regime
change, or at least the regime releases its control over some
parts of the country. It is very reassuring, and I will try my
best to believe it, that they are thinking about it and they are
preparing and discussing with the military et cetera, but some
small preparations which could be done visibly to reassure the
people that somebody is concerned and thinking about them are
not there. A small NGO like us has set up what we call a crisis-preparedness
project where we are training hundreds of Iraqi doctors, paramedics
and others, taken from refugee camps in Iran, we have even tried
to get a British colleague to go and train them on how to treat
victims of nerve gas attacks and so on. Even projects like this
have not been looked at by DFID so far, they have not been provided
for, and the NGOs are left on their own to prepare whatever they
can prepare.
54. There is another question about the UN Disaster
Group and the Disaster Management Teams. What are the NGOs' views
of these organisations and their effectiveness? What has been
the experience?
(Mr Aaronson) The UN has hitherto said that in the
event of an outbreak of hostilities it will base itself in Cyprus
and co-ordinate the operation from there. I think it is fair to
say, as I said before, there is no leadership at the moment in
terms of contingency planning.
Chairman: Just on that point, listening
between the lines of what the Secretary of State was saying, she
was giving some weight to a second resolution and what might be
in the wording of the second resolution, and it sounded to me
as though DFID were making a bid for the wording of the second
resolution to have some emphasis on directing the Security Council
and members of the UN in relation to humanitarian plans. I think
it would be interesting—and I do not expect you to do it
now off the top of your head—if over the next couple of
days the NGOs could give some thought as to what wording might
be helpful in the second resolution. One of the things which strikes
me as being very important is, within that separation, does the
Secretary-General appoint a special representative? Is there somebody
who is a sort of brahmin-type figure who is getting a grip on
these things? At the moment there is no indication of anyone getting
a grip on things, and as we all know UNHCR and WFP are extremely
stretched and you could have some very confused scenarios and
some very confused situations. I think those are issues which
we collectively as a Committee are going to give some thought
to but if you have, on the basis of previous experience of UN
resolutions enhancing and helping humanitarian action, precedents
which you think have helped in the past, I think we would be very
grateful if you could share that with us.
Ann Clwyd
55. Can I ask some questions about funding which
is obviously of interest to you. Can you tell us how the humanitarian
relief effort is going to be financed? Can you tell us if adequate
provisions have been made by donors? Will resources be diverted
from elsewhere and can diversion of resources to a possible situation
be justified if it results in less funds being available for current
humanitarian crises? Finally, what do you think about the money
from the Oil-for-Food programme being used for humanitarian relief?
(Mr Riddell) Wow! Maybe I should start by saying we
must not give the impression that we, as NGOs, are well prepared
because we simply do not know what is going to happen. We are
deeply concerned about the scale and extent and duration of the
war and worried that we will not be able to cope. In terms of
funds, our own British public gave an enormous amount of money
for Afghanistan. We think if there is a war, given the scale of
concern and focus, the British public are likely to respond favourably.
We are, as the Secretary of State's written evidence pointed out,
very, very worried about the loss of publicity of very serious
humanitarian disasters which are in place at the moment in Southern
Africa, in East Africa and we now have West Africa with the disruption
in Cote d'Ivoire. In terms of funding from DFID, we have no indication
from them, as the Secretary of State confirmed, of the amounts
of money which will be available. We fear that there will be a
gap between what is needed and what is provided. The evidence
from Afghanistan in terms of what was pledged by the international
community and what has come, shows that the gap remains enormous.
If the international community is to focus on Iraq, we want them
to focus for the long term to assist in the humanitarian disaster
which, as I indicated, will last for a considerable length of
time. In terms of the agencies together, the Disasters Emergency
Committee has been discussing this issue and, if circumstances
are right and there are projects which we can put forward to the
British public for them to fund, I am sure the DEC will launch
an appeal.
(Mr Aaronson) I am not sure whether this has already
been said in evidence, and forgive me if it has. It is worth remembering
that the Oil-for-Food programme costs 1 billion US dollars a month,
of which 200 million US dollars is on the food component. Were
that to be disrupted, that gives some sense of the scale of the
funding which would need to be made available to keep the humanitarian
option going.
(Dr Al-Shahristani) I think it also has been brought
up that Saddam might attempt to set fire to the oil wells, as
he has done in Kuwait. We hear reports coming from inside Iraq
that he has been considering such actions. If that happened, there
will be a long disruption of the oil flow and obviously the food
has to be provided from some other funds. As for the availability
of funds from DFID, it is a bit alarming to small NGOs like us,
who are trying very hard to prepare themselves to do something
inside the country, we have not been able to set up bases along
the borders even though they have obtained all the permissions
and so on to do so in Kuwait and Iran for lack of funds.
(Mr Jarrah) Just on the question of Oil-for-Food,
while it may be practically possible to fund some of these humanitarian
operations from that fund, what makes us uneasy is the precedent
that might set about the responsibility for the financing of humanitarian
action following a war, and what would happen if similar political
circumstances prevailed in a country which was poor and did not
have oil for food and what the international system would do to
resource the humanitarian response to that. So practically perhaps
the Oil-for-Food programme might be able to provide some bridging
funds for humanitarian action but we would be very concerned about
the precedent that would set. Just going back to Mr Baldry's earlier
point about the United Nations and the possible wording of the
Security Council resolution, we do not have any answers now but
I can inform the Committee that as a result of NGO lobbying in
New York the Security Council is having a special briefing session
on the humanitarian consequences of a war tomorrow, and at that
session we hope that not only will the facts and figures which
have been exchanged around this table be shared but also some
forward thinking about how to solve some of these problems will
also happen. That is under the chairmanship of Kofi Annan.
Ann Clwyd
56. Is enough money available to you now to
make the necessary preparations?
(Mr Jarrah) No.
(Mr Aaronson) No.
57. No for all of you. Finally, can you tell
us how international humanitarian refugee law might apply to this
situation? What implications will it have for aid agencies?
(Mr Aaronson) We have already considered the issue
of whether the frontiers will be open or closed. Did you say international
humanitarian law?
58. Yes.
(Mr Aaronson) Sorry. As Roger said earlier, obviously
the application of the Geneva Conventions to all armed forces
engaged in any conflict. That is it really.
Chairman
59. Can we just do a quick tour de table,
perhaps starting with you Mike. Was there anything else the Secretary
of State said that caused you concern in its detail, by omission
or otherwise? Secondly, is there anything else you feel you would
like to say to the Committee which we have not covered in the
questions, and we are talking in headline terms here?
(Mr Aaronson) I think the Secretary of State clearly
is very concerned about the humanitarian dimension of this and
we, as humanitarian agencies and perhaps this Committee as the
International Development Select Committee, have a particular
responsibility to make sure that those considerations play a significant
part in the debates that feed into policy-making. I think the
Secretary of State was as direct about that as she could be, but
clearly I do not feel—we do not feel—that the humanitarian
considerations have featured as prominently in those debates as
they should.
60. Roger?
(Mr Riddell) We are concerned about what we see as
the slide to war. We believe that peaceful methods to address
the problems have not expired; there are other methods which can
be used. We would support the Secretary of State in all the actions
she can take within the Cabinet to give even greater prominence
to the humanitarian dimension of the crisis in Iraq.
(Mr Jarrah) What I would have said has just been said
more eloquently.
(Dr Al-Shahristani) The Secretary of State was very
clear that she considered the possible humanitarian crisis and
humanitarian need as a very important component in this crisis.
However, I was left with the impression that we are depending
too much on the goodwill of the military to make a lot of these
humanitarian preparations. I have not really seen much else being
done by the non-military on the ground to take care of the crisis
that might develop. The fact that DFID still has not been able
to release any funds to the NGOs who are preparing to play an
active role is also alarming to me.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
help this afternoon and thank you very much for having come and
given evidence at such short notice. I just want to say something
when I close the meeting on another matter but I think you have
made very clear your concerns, not least about the scale. I think
that point came through from the Secretary of State as well, so
that is a point which we collectively need to keep on hammering
home. Informally, having moved off the agenda, we all share your
concerns too about this issue drowning out any attention on any
other international issue at all. We saw this when we published
our report recently on the Reconstruction of Afghanistan, and
I was in Sierra Leone the other day and they feel on the edge
of the world although they have just got the War Crimes Tribunal;
they feel completely forgotten. We are publishing our report on
the humanitarian situation in Southern Africa on 11 March at the
ODI at 10.30 in the morning, and it would be very good if representatives
of the EEC were there because that would give us an opportunity
of focusing with the media on the scale of what is happening in
Southern Africa. These things cannot be forgotten. Thank you very
much for your time this afternoon, we are very grateful to you
for having come and given evidence. Thank you.
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