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| Sunday, 7 May 2006 |
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Peace is not simple Sri Lanka and Aceh offer different lessons about the effectiveness of humanitarian aid in post-conflict zones Why is the ceasefire between rebels and the central authorities holding in Aceh while it is falling apart in neighbouring Sri Lanka? Both places have experienced long-running ethnically-based civil wars that were recently ended by peace deals brokered by Scandinavian governments. Both countries were also devastated by the tsunami disaster and have since been the target of massive international relief operations. However, while the response to the tsunami brought the two sides together in Aceh, it seems to have set back the peace process in Sri Lanka. I was in Sri Lanka a few weeks after the tsunami and it was already clear that the aid relief mechanisms had become the subject of political wrangling. The government complained that front organisations for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had hijacked the distribution of relief in Tamil areas, while Tamils countered that they were being discriminated against in the allocation of official relief. The peace deal had been reached in Oslo two years beforehand and an international Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) had already been deployed before the tsunami struck. Unfortunately, the mission has been powerless to prevent an increase in tensions that now threaten to plunge the country back into full-scale war. When I was in Aceh, a few months later, by contrast, it seemed as if the tsunami had swept both the rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government to a peace table in Helsinki. A memorandum of understanding was signed in August of last year that seems to be providing the basis of a durable peace settlement. An international Aceh monitoring mission (AMM) was deployed and this presided over a demobilisation of GAM fighters in exchange for a release of political prisoners and a scaling down of the Indonesian army's presence. Humanitarian aid is increasingly being delivered in "complex emergencies" that are characterised by both natural disasters, such as famine or earthquakes, and man-made disasters, such as civil wars. While, traditionally, humanitarian aid was given on the basis of strict neutrality, some maintain that the impact of aid is never neutral regarding whether a conflict worsens or abates. Professor Mary Anderson, for example, claims that it is naive for aid organisations to think that their work will not have a political impact and so they should ensure that the assistance is provided in ways that contributes to "justice, peace and reconciliation". Others, such as Francoise Bouchet-Saulnier, legal adviser to Medecins Sans Frontieres, counter that "using humanitarian assistance to influence a given military confrontation" distorts the very meaning of this aid and "imperils the presence of humanitarian actors in the field". The delivery of humanitarian assistance is becoming increasingly integrated into international peacekeeping operations. The very presence of external observers can help to monitor the implementation of peace agreements, while programmes such as disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former militias clearly bridge the divide between the two. The British government's Department for International Development (pdf) has drawn up "conflict assessment guidance notes" for donors "to assess how they interact with the dynamics of conflict and the potential for more effective, coherent or coordinated responses". Unfortunately aid workers are also being increasingly targeted by the protagonists in various conflicts. David Harland, the head of the UN department of peacekeeping operations, recently noted that, contrary to media reports, the world is actually becoming a safer place. He claims the international community is helping to broker an end to old wars about twice as fast as new ones are breaking out. There is clearly a limit to the effectiveness of such international action, however. Sri Lanka and Aceh are separated not just by 2,000 miles of ocean, but also by differences of history, culture and politics. One danger of the international community's current enthusiasm for "peacemaking" is that some over-simplistic methodologies are being developed, which it is assumed will fit all situations. Perhaps the real lesson from Aceh and Sri Lanka is that peace can only be made on the ground when both sides really want it. (Guardian UK) |
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