Humanitarian Action

When a conflict strikes or when there is disaster, humanitarian actors move in to alleviate suffering and to save lives. So we see different humanitarian actors here in Bangladesh now to save lives of the Rohingyas who fled from their country Myanmar’s conflict between the Burmans and the Rohingyas, or between the Buddhists and the Muslims whatever one sees it.

Humanitarian actors, however, are a very specific type of actors. As we see the conflict in Myanmar may have disrupted development of the Rohingyas so long that their children remained unimmunized, and now they have carried a disease, diphtheria, long fought-out in Bangladesh and forgotten poised to ruin our children’s health and the country’s image. But what we see here is development actors in Bangladesh cannot respond in this situation. They’re nowhere, and moved out, and the humanitarian actors moved in.

Humanitarians work to different time-scales and work with different principles. Humanitarianism has its roots in religious thinking, in the free giving, a tenement both within Islamic and Christian faiths for example, and maybe for this reason, they’re the people most affected by conflicts, and nearly all of the migrants or refugees globally today are either Christians or Muslims.

Now we see that there are different types of humanitarianism but they have ideas in common. In the United States, it is much more linked to government thinking, in Europe less so and can actually quite conflicted. The principles of humanitarianism, however, suggest that it should be non-political, but the principles by which humanitarian actors live by are varied.

The main one is Humanity, and this is the idea that all are born free and equal in Rights, and as such, all deserve a response. Another issue is around Universalism, again that all deserve a response, but also all countries, all people should try and respond if they can. An important issue is around Impartiality, Neutrality. Here is the idea that humanitarian actors should not be led by political aides and they should not make judgments. It's not the idea that we pick and choose who we help. If there is suffering, if there is need, then humanitarian actors are drawn to actually respond to that need.

So humanitarian actors cannot, and aren’t political. However, they act in very political situations, and this is where we start to see some problems arising because, while they're not political, if they move in, it is actually a political decision. Suppose, if a disaster occurs, then in order for international aid to enter the country, a state-of-emergency has to be called. Now imagine a President or a Prime Minister has a big event, a big cyclone or flood whatever. It depends who call or doesn't call a state-of-emergency because if s/he call a state-of-emergency, s/he is telling the world that they can't cope, they can’t respond. That’s a very political decision to make. So we see while the minnows usually call but the powerful don’t. What happens if one heads a corrupt government? S/he asking other people to come in and make judgments on his/her country. What happens to their trading partners if they tell they can't cope? And think about what a disaster means. A disaster reveals the fact that a government isn’t able to protect its own people; again, highly political.

So, when we're looking at humanitarian actors, of course they go into whatever situation, but not all of them get the same amount of humanitarian response. And again, this is political. Some events get a lot of humanitarian response and this may be based actually on geopolitical ideas. Some countries are very important to other countries, because of their location or because they trade with them, and therefore they're more likely to respond to an event in that country. The other issue to bear in mind, is around which events get response isn't just to do with politics, isn't just to do with governments, isn't just to do with need, it’s also very driven by the media. People see things on their televisions, they hear about them on their radio or read about them on the newspapers o in the Internet and they moved to respond. As individuals, as people we give and we expect the humanitarian actors to go in and respond. But things happen across the globe all the time – wars, genocidal attacks, arsons, tornadoes, floods and not all of them people see on their TV. We can see then, while humanitarian actors are not political in themselves, they are acting in highly political situations.

NGOs acting within the humanitarian sphere have noted this and they've drawn up a Charter after the Rwandan genocide. The Sphere Project has a Humanitarian Charter. And what it’s talking about is the right of all people to receive protection and assistance. However, the Humanitarian Charter notes that these Rights are not actually enshrined in any law, and has to call on rights that already exist elsewhere, The Right to Life with Dignity for example. So rights within the humanitarian field are actually not very clear-cut and the moral imperative is what drives humanitarian actors, more than an actual legal imperative. But humanitarians suggest people need protection and dignity to respond to all and they often talk about humanitarian actors as saving lives but in fact, the humanitarian actors often keep people alive who have already saved their own lives.

And it's very important to bear in mind that people who survive conflict are just that, survivors. Often what humanitarians do is construct them as victims, making a distinction from their survival very positive, to victim very negative, and language does matter. So, what we call the Rohingyas those who managed to flee home? We see IOM, not Red Cross/Red Crescent, coordinates the humanitarian response to Rohingyas in Bangladesh. I’m not sure what they’re called but I know the terminology matters because it has to do with whether they have basic Human Rights or not. The question this raises is, how can a humanitarian organization promote Human Rights? Now humanitarian principles in general, promote universality and the notion that all are responsible. That would fit within a Rights-based approach but where does neutrality, impartiality fit within promoting Human Rights? Can an organization that claims not to be political, not be driven by legal but by moral imperatives actually promote Human Rights and should they?