Hutus, Tutsis, and Us
Natsios, Andrew S.
HUTUS, TUTSIS, AND US by Andrew S. Natsios The ongoing crisis in Zaire has brought several aid-related issues to the fore, among them, whether military force should be applied to protect...
...in Liberia, U.N...
...We also know that refugees are drawn to international military forces—for security, yes, but also for the food and water they lack...
...When humanitarian agencies demanded military and diplomatic intervention in Zaire, the New York Times said, in effect, "There they go again...
...What Zaire, Burundi, and Rwanda need now is some robust American diplomacy to force contending groups to the negotiating table so that the larger political crisis is settled before more innocent blood is spilled...
...Refugee civilians were kept in place by a combination of terror—anyone caught trying to leave the camps was beaten or killed by the militias—and aggressive propaganda warning that Tutsi soldiers would not welcome returning Hutus...
...planning is an understanding of what makes people pick up and move in chaotic circumstances...
...The threat of force can be as effective as its actual use, and the militias' lock on the camps was not broken until the West threatened to intervene...
...The reality was otherwise...
...The specter of such intervention was critical to the return of some 600,000 Hutu refugees to Rwanda...
...The refugees believed that if an international force showed up, they had a better chance of a peaceful homecoming in Rwanda...
...In both the Somalian and the Liberian emergencies, we saw this same magnetic effect on displaced populations...
...The agencies that left and the agencies that stayed represent two schools of thought on relief: The one (exemplified by the Red Cross) argues that humanitarian work should be wholly divorced from politics and that aid should be supplied strictly on the basis of need, to persons on all sides...
...The debate over politics and neutrality has led to a certain cynicism...
...And one thing we know for sure: We have not heard the last of the agonies of that part of Africa, nor of the conundrums of trying to do good in conflicts that shock the conscience...
...The Hutu militias, responsible for genocide in 1994, had converted these camps into military bases for the purpose of launching attacks on their opponents in Rwanda...
...The "neutrality school" has suffered body blows to its position as, in crisis after crisis, its central assumptions have proven untenable...
...in somalia, the displaced population increased by 25 percent within two weeks of the arrival of American troops in Mogadishu...
...Between December 1994 and April 1995, two dozen of the most prominent Western aid agencies (including my own) withdrew from the camps because they were unable to wrest control of them from the militias...
...They had thought that involvement with the military would compromise their neutrality...
...Humanitarian agencies are divided on the question...
...Yet when secretary of defense William Perry announced on November 15 that the Pentagon was reviewing the possibility of contributing troops to a Canadian-led force in Zaire, he made an astonishing admission: it was pressure from humanitarian agencies that was driving America's military response...
...Most of them considered it near-heresy even to speak to military personnel, much less cooperate with them, until the West rescued the Kurds in northern iraq after the Gulf War...
...Their band-aids are no substitute for geopolitical power...
...food distribution and the presence of West African troops caused the population of the capital city to double...
...strategic incoherence has troubled too many American humanitarian efforts in the past...
...Humanitarian agencies are not foreign or defense ministries...
...and donor-government operations...
...Enough agencies did stay on, however, to support U.N...
...HUTUS, TUTSIS, AND US by Andrew S. Natsios The ongoing crisis in Zaire has brought several aid-related issues to the fore, among them, whether military force should be applied to protect non-combatants, including relief workers...
...What has been absent in U.s...
...or humanitarian agencies might have undertaken to assure them that Rwanda was safe...
...When refugees began to move out of the camps back to Rwanda before the arrival of an international force, the response was, "You see, troops were unnecessary...
...the other (exemplified by Doctors Without Borders) argues that politics often cannot be separated from relief efforts, that it is next to impossible to provide humanitarian aid in a neutral fashion, and that because some groups commit atrocities against their weaker adversaries, neutrality may be morally indefensible...
...We know from experience in virtually every conflict that refugees make calculations about whether to remain in camps or return home...
...Andrew S. Natsios is vice president of World Vision, a faith-based international humanitarian organization...
...And the same principle undoubtedly operated in Rwanda in encouraging the repatriation of the Hutu refugees...
...People told us candidly why they moved en masse towards the city: They sought protection from raging clan wars, and they were in desperate need of food...
...The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan military answered repeatedly with nighttime commando raids into the camps...
...The prospective arrival of the troops was a stronger insurance policy for these frightened refugees than any effort the U.N...
...War raged there for over a year...
...For two years, humanitarian agencies had issued regular warnings about the explosive situation in eastern Zaire, where Rwandan Hutus populated refugee camps...
Vol. 2 • December 1996 • No. 14
