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JAN EGELAND

Special to Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 1:14 PM EDT 18/09/06

They're paying with their lives. ...Read the full article

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  1. Patrick Ulrich from Gatineau, Canada writes: What the head of the UN's Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs fails to note is that the increased risk for humanitarian personnel in the field is a direct consequence of the US and Nato occupation operations dating back to Kosovo in 1998. Security in the field is primarily political. Every team must develop acceptance by all parties and social groups where they work, to develop and expand a 'humanitarian space' to ensure their security, the security of the people they aim to serve, and their freedom of operations (logistics, crossing checkpoints, being protected from looters by local authorities, etc.). The only way to develop this humanitarian space is to build trust with all local groups by proving by your actions that you are there strictly in a neutral and impartial capacity to save lives and alleviate suffering. Being neutral, for example, would mean treating local insurgent forces on the same footing for negotiations as the multinational contingents. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and in most other contexts that political space to conduct neutral and impartial operations has been destroyed. Like in Iraq and Afghanistan, assistance has been made the slave of the vague and unachievable political objectives. To the opponents of the Western operations in those countries, the assistance and those who distribute it must be fought to prevent the international operation from winning the hearts of the people. In order for aid work to be feasible in the field within a manageable security environment, governments such as Canada's must dissociate aid from the political package and allow neutral and impartial organizations such as the International Red Cross of Doctors without Boarders to re-establish their credibility with all groups in order to provide relief to those who need it the most, without discrimination based on political interest.
  2. david owen from Pemberton BC, Canada writes: I feel naive in asking why these deaths happen. Are they just killing for the sake of it like hunters shooting at stop signs and cows, or are there clear motives in the sense of driving out all foreigners whatever their mission? Pol Pot killed the doctors too. The idea that grass roots gun-crazies have even heard of the Geneva Convention is unlikely.
  3. Bernard Katz from Canada writes: Jan Egeland presents a powerful narrative, but in the end her call for action is naive. Though winning the hearts and minds of those who are served by international aid workers is of tremeandous importance, it will not serve to protect those aid workers. In the situations extant in Sri Lanka and Darfur and so many other places where the rule of law and human justice have vanished they are ultimately vulnerable to local gangs, war lords and even criminal elements who may have no humanitarian interest whatsoever in cooperating with the workers for the benefit of the general population who are at risk, and so will not protect the aid workers. Unless these elements are either subdued by forces friendly to the aid workers and their goals, or somehow can be won over to those goals and objectives through bribery or points of mutual self-interest, the reality is that international aid workers will continue to be killed, raped, maimed and terrorized.
  4. Myil Ramkumar from Canada writes: In Sri Lanka the government is deliberately targeting these humanitarian workers to deepen the suffering of Tamils as a method of collective punishment. Aid workers have been targeted even before the massacre of the ACF staff. Seven TRO [Tamil Rehabilitation Organization] workers abducted by Army-backed paramilitaries in January are feared dead. Sri Lankan state failure to investigate and punish those responsible for attacks against aid workers, journalists, intellectuals and civilians in the past had contributed to this climate of impunity.
  5. m mac from London, Canada writes: The unfortunate truth is aid workers and their efforts to help is seen to be helping the opposition. This trend restarted at the end of the cold war when regional factions instead of nation states began to fight for control of the country or for their own piece of it. Group A fights Group B. Group A only wants aid to the people if they can be seen as providing it. Aid from any other source could be construed as coming from group B and that is not acceptable. Group B feels the same way so both will do what they can to ensure that only aid for which they can get credit will be allowed. This occurs in every conflict on the globe. While some appear to shocked that those who are there only to help would be targeted in this manner, this tactic of denying food and security has been used in one form or another throughout history to get the popululation on their side. It is a sad commentary that only with armed security can the humanitarian work can be done. I unlike pos#1 do not blame this on the US or NATO but on human nature.
  6. Clark Browning from Maple Ridge, Canada writes: I completely disagree with the first poster. These deaths clearly illustrate that a greater military presence is needed to protect aid workers from the violent fanatics who kill those workers for racial, political or religious reasons without considering the non-partisan, humanitarian work they do. Our enemies are the same people who decapitate truck drivers, journalists, and even their own teachers who chose to educate young women. The 'hearts and minds' campaign is a product of the fact that humanitarian aid can only be delivered effectively under the aegis of professional, lawful, bearers of arms who, in these backwater regions, will almost invariably be soldiers from the western democracies.
  7. Garrett Deyne from hamilton, Canada writes: I was going to right a long responce to #1 comments but its seems a few people got there ahead of me. I completely agree with numbers 5 and 6, expecially 5 and I will only add that if NATO and the US are making things worse then why is there humanitary aid in all parts of iraq and afganistan but only a limited few parts of Darfur. Aid workers need protection and it is impossible for them to appear neutral in a combat zone. This idea would work well in theory but is completly impractical in the real world. Would YOU walk into a war zone unarmed and unescorted? I know I wouldn't.
  8. mogens bay from Canada writes: keep it simple. Stay out, who are we to think, that what we decide is important. We cannot even assist our own homeless and poor
  9. Myil Ramkumar from Canada writes: It is sad to see most postings (#3, #6) and Canadian public believe murderous gangs are responsible for deaths of these Humanitarian workers in the case of Sri Lanka it is the government which is committing all these atrocities as confirmed by independent SLMM.
  10. maryetta thielen from Lethbridge, Ab, Canada writes: What, AID workers are being killed. Time to bring them all home.
  11. maryetta thielen from Lethbridge AB, Canada writes: The leftists cry, bring the troops home when some are killed. 4 more today. Therefore, bring all aid workers home as some have died. And they have died in places Bush has no troops.

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