Role of Humanitarian Organizations in African Conflicts

1. International Conference of Alternative Perspectives in the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Development and Conflict Kanchanaburi, Thailand October 1-5, 2010

2. Role of Humanitarian Organizations in African Conflicts. Alphonse Kasongo, PhD Keller Graduate School of ManagementDevry University Virginia, USA

3. Humanitarian Organizations • Are those organizations whose (first) goal is to bring humanitarian help to population in social and economic distress, • They are to supplement the action of local government in finding ways to lessen the miseries of this population,

4. Conflict • A conflict is a situation where two parties have different appreciations as to how a specific goal has to be reached. • It translates a situation of two conflicting interests. • It increases a perception of deprivation, which leads to an adoption of escalation strategies. • It results in an increase of miseries of a group of population.

5. Making things work • Putting these two considerations together, the role of HUMANITARIAN organizations would becomes clear. • Then there is a cultural consideration of conflicting parties. In African culture in general, culture/ritual beliefs take the important part in conflict resolution.

6. Making sense • The rational of any social conflict is then that social conflicts occur between parties that share the same social structure. • This rational infers that parties have to be in the same social group or social structure pursuing the same objective (or perception of objectives with the same rational) for them to be in a conflict (opposing position).

7. Making sense • In this case, conflict would be the difference in the way these objectives have to be reached. • This difference translates the position of each party in conflict, which position translates interests of each party. • Interest justifies the motivation to find a solution to the conflict in nonviolent or violent way.

8. What do we do then? • If we side with Anderson, in his extreme analysis of the extreme conflict stage, then we would agree that “wars are fought for good or bad reasons. Therefore understanding the balance between conflicting motivations is critical for aid workers who wish to untangle the ways their aid influences and interacts with conflict” (Anderson, 1999, p. 8. Emphasis was made).

9. What do we do then? • This brings in the cultural dimension, which is essential in understanding some causes of ethnic conflicts for example. • The causes of these conflicts may justify the war as war for just cause or (justice purpose) or war by choice (imposition, domination or expansion purposes).

10. What do we do then? • When the causes of the conflict are identified to be “just cause”, party enters into conflict to defend its rights. In this case, the motivation is “recognition” of these rights. • Military option or the use of force in this case does not bring a lasting peaceful resolution. Ex. Conflict of identity. • The weak party may be dominated or accept the occupation by the strong party by entering a face saving mode. • Conflict becomes dormant waiting for the right time to explode. This situation often happens in ethnic conflicts.

11. The Congo case • In Eastern part of the Congo, there is one ethnic group that has been fighting the majority of the population in the geographic area. Because they have a reason to fight, the conflict is far from its end although the heavy presence of army forces that side the majority group. • The majority group here is actually and in this case the “weak party” although the foreign military support that the party enjoys. • This party is seen as a group that is conducting a war of occupation while the minority (which in this case is the strong party) is viewed as conducting a war for a just cause.

12. The situation on ground • In this geographic area, there are many humanitarian organizations. Depending on whom you ask the question, it is believed that these organizations, in reality, have the tendency of supporting the stronger party, which in this case is the party of occupation. • The rational is that the strong or controlling party is the party that would allow the presence of these humanitarian organizations. Therefore not collaborating with the strong party, the aid would not reach its goals. • This behavior creates a conception that humanitarian organizations favor strong party to occupy and control weak party. This means lengthening the life of the conflict.

13. What to observe? • Assessed in this way, humanitarian organizations are very quickly classified as integral part of the conflict. • It creates a negative perception of their action in the community in which they are supposed to bring relieve or serve as mediators. • This perception of “involved peace-program coordinators or humanitarian aid organizations” corresponds to what Bercovitch says by stating that a “mediator is not unlike another party in the conflict-management process whose behavior and performance - what it wants to do, chooses to do, or is permitted to do - are as conditioned by the context and circumstances as the behavior of the adversaries themselves” (Bercovitch, 1996, p. 4).

14. What to observe? • Sustaining the same assert, Anderson defines the role of NGOs to be the one of “supporting people engaged in a battle for justice. NGOs must be clearly on the side of those who are poor and marginalized, those against whom societies discriminate, and their aid must support systematic change toward justice rather than simply keep people alive to continue to live in situations of injustice” (Anderson, 1999, p. 7). • The problem here is in definition of “poor party” or “weak party” otherwise, this way of defining the role of humanitarian organizations would be completely unjust and bias. Anderson fails to indicate or define what he calls “poor” group.

15. What to observe? • Humanitarian organizations should also play the role of mediator. • Objectives of International aids should be related not only to alleviate the sufferings that come with conflicts, especially in war conflict, but also to help local conflicting parties in search for resolution that would end their conflict. • They are a part of international mediation.

16. What to observe? • As international mediators, I agree with Bercovitch that these organizations are active participants in the process that goes beyond being procedures and impartial, to reach the main purpose of any mediator, which is to influence parties so that polarization does not occur and violence is prevented (Bercovitch, 1996. Emphasis was made). • This rational leads me to disagree that these “organizations should explicitly take side in conflict”(Anderson, 1999, p. 7), because if on one hand and when given in conflict settings and due to their action, aid organizations acting like a mediator, “can reinforce, exacerbate, and prolong the conflict; on the other hand, they also could help reduce tensions and strengthen people’s capacities to disengage from fighting and find peaceful options for solving their problems” (Anderson, 1999, p. 1. Emphasize was made).

17. What to observe? • It requires these organizations in their capacity of mediator to have flexibility and creativity to adjust to the parties’ style and culture, the outside environment and the historic events that may influence their action. • In real life, when humanitarian organizations act in nonwestern culture, and I am considering here the case in Eastern part of the Congo, they also act like peace-action/program coordinators. • They lead reconciliation programs at the same time with their humanitarian programs. This way, they are exposed to profound cultural reasons that may really justify parties’ conflict. As Bercovitch states as facilitators/program coordinators, they coordinate from “within” and facilitate to ensure transparency and legitimacy (Bercovitch, 1996 p. 223).

18. What to observe? • This task has to dilute any negative perception that conflicting parties would have as to the objective of the aid. I think that as soon as the aid program is perceived to be a way of helping one party to dominate another party, the latter would develop strategies that would challenge the action of these humanitarian organizations. • It is a difficult task because as humanitarian organizations functioning as international mediation, their action goes across individuals’ development levels and across technical sectors. In the role of peace program coordinators, mediators need to be aware that the mediation may usually not improve relationships (Bercovitch, 1996).

19. What to observe? • However, humanitarian organizations can still design, set, and direct parties toward reachable peace resolution at the same time remain neutral, means without taking obvious side in parties’ conflict but shows sign of support and encouragement to weak party. Moore (2003) makes a distinction between neutrality and impartiality as a way of asserting the potential for mediator objectivity and evenhandedness. • The principal framework of humanitarian organizations when acting as peace coordinators or mediators is dictated by the social structure of the mediators and adversary parties.

20. What to observe? • In Western culture like in North America, mediators are an outside-neutral third party that facilitates direct negotiation and their neutrality is reinforced by their coming from outside the conflict and they are distant from the parties; on the other hand, in nonwestern culture the effective mediator would be an insider-partial mediator who comes from within the conflict. He is connected to and trusted by the parties in dispute (Wehr & Lederach, 1991. Emphasis was made). • Therefore when humanitarian organizations act as conflict mediators or peace program coordinators, they are considered as outside mediators, and as such they have to adjust to local cultural consideration of the conflict.

21. What to observe? • They have to develop a cultural and a social relationship with the parties and be accepted by them as an important part of the conflict. • This would be a valuable way to comprehend the origin/motivation of the conflict and be able to help parties in their search for a lasting peaceful resolution of their conflict. • They also will be more effective in providing help that lessen the social and economic sufferings of the population.

22. Reference • Anderson, M. B. (1999). Do Not Harm, How aid can support peace- or war. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. • Bail, C. Falkner, R. Marquard, H. (2003). The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: Reconciling Trade in Biotechnology with Trade in Environment and Development? 2nd ed. London: Earthscan Publishers • Bercovitch, Jacob. (1996). Resolving International Conflicts: The Theory and Practice of Mediation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. • Jeong, Ho-Won (2000). Peace and Conflict studies. An introduction. Burlington, VT: Ashgate • Mbiti, John: “The role of Women in African Traditional Religion”. Article Publisher in Cahiers des Religions Africaines, numéro 22 (1988), pages 69-82. Centre d’études des religions africaines. Université Louvain de Kinshasa: Kinshasa, Congo. • Moore, C. (2003). The mediation process: practical strategies for resolving conflict. 3rd edition. Jossey-Bass. • Ritzer, G. (2008). Sociological Theory (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. • Wehr, P. & Lederach, J. Mediating Conflict in Central America. Journal of Peace Research. 28(1), pp. 85-98. Retrieved May 25, 2009 from http://jstor.org.