OFF CENTRE: 'We are helpers, not martyrs': UN aid workers are increasingly becoming targets in the war zones they try to assist, reports Mark Turner
Financial Times ; 07-Oct-2000 12:00:00 am ; 898 words
By MARK TURNER

It was 10am when the United Nations convoy arrived at the Muzye regroupment camp in southern Burundi, its mission to assess the needs of civilians herded away from their homes in a war that has cost the lives of more than 200,000 people.

Most of the visitors - a clutch of UN officials, aid workers and local dignitaries - had already left their cars when one military escort noticed armed people in a house ahead. He was running back when the shooting began.

The provincial governor, district commander and military escort ran away, while two aid workers and the governor's driver screamed off in vehicles. The six UN staff were not so lucky.

The three men and three women were lined up against the side of a house and robbed. Then two shots rang out, killing Luis Zuniga, a Chilean working for Unicef, and Saskia von Meijenfeldt, a Dutch logistics officer with the World Food Programme.

Accounts differ on what happened next. What is clear is that the visit on October 12 last year was one more gruesome and confused example of how UN humanitarian workers are increasingly becoming targets in the war zones they are trying to help.

No longer are relief workers angels who perform their duties in isolation and retreat in glory. Over the past decade, the aid business has become an integral part of today's complex emergencies - and UN staff are regularly bombed, held hostage and killed.

Since 1992, 198 civilians working for the UN have lost their lives. Only one of their attackers - in Georgia - has been tried and indicted.

Neither are deaths the only concern: since 1994, there have been 63 cases of hostage-taking/ kidnapping involving 240 UN personnel.

In 1999 alone, there were 292 reported violent incidents involving UN staff throughout the world, including robberies with violence, physical assault, rape and vehicle hijacking.

It is an appalling record. And while the UN is by no means alone in its difficulties - with private charity workers and journalists subject to the same risks in unstable regions - its failure to tackle these issues is causing increasing anger.

Last month, 1,500 UN staff demonstrated in Geneva against the global, intergovernmental organisation's failure to learn from mistakes. "We are aid workers, not martyrs," said Naveed Hussain, head of the UN High Commission for Refugees staff council.

According to one UN official well acquainted with the system, the increasing danger is the result of member states' failure to provide for adequate training and equipment.

"The system works on peace-keeping missions, but for non-peace-keeping missions it systematically fails," he says. "There is no money in the system, we cannot afford enough equipment, and security officers in the field are left with no viable way of ensuring staff safety.

"It is UN policy that the host country is responsible for the security of staff: in Somalia, for example, that means you have to turn to the warlords, and that falls apart routinely."

Philippe Gourdin recalls travelling in Somalia's Juba valley, assessing floods. He was using the men of Osman Atto - a significant Mogadishu warlord - for security but after passing through the first checkpoint of a village, the second checkpoint would not let him through. "He said he didn't care who the security men were - he had the gun and he was the chief."

The incident that followed resulted in Gourdin and two Food and Agriculture Organisation men being beaten up - with Gourdin saved by an old woman who hurled abuse at one of the militia.

In another more recent case, in Merca, a group of armed militia surprised a dinner party filled with UN officials; they had to be saved by Starling Arush - a Somali warlady - who beat them off with a shoe.

An imminent UN report is likely to be damning. According to Diana Russler, from the UN's security arm Unsecoord, there are only 59 inter-agency security officers around the world (mostly ex-army and ex- police), looking after 70,000 UN staff and dependents, whereas a bare minimum would be 80 to 100.

There are only seven professionals in the New York headquarters, with an annual budget of Dollars 600,000 (Dollars 200,000 after salaries). A special fund for security and training has been woefully undersubscribed, with only four countries contributing. Training is being improved but it remains insufficient.

"Security is an after-thought," says Russler. "Member states want the UN to be out on the frontline but the security system established reflects conditions in 1979."

Even such systems as are in place are not applied correctly. Why, asks Elias Habte Selassie - Saskia von Meijenfeldt's husband - was the Burundi mission only agreed a day before? Why was there so little consultation and planning? And why, in a subsequent investigation, did the UN not even visit the site?

One UN official said that few lessons were learned in Burundi even after von Meijenfeldt's death - with badly co-ordinated, ad hoc, last-minute decisions still being taken regularly.

To make matters worse, UN supplies often become a crucial part of a war effort, and treating all sides equally is a daily, and not always achievable, challenge. Combatants have many reasons to attack aid workers: to gain supplies or halt assistance to the enemy, to gain publicity, or even to use supplies as a bargaining counter in local business feuds.

But as long as humanitarian principles are applied - every hungry child must be fed - aid agencies feel they cannot withdraw altogether.

There is little consensus on how to improve things. There had been talk of privatising security, but the costs appeared prohibitive. Proposals for specific UN guards in difficult areas - which security experts believe are the only true defence - are contentious.

"The Security Council should define how future peacekeeping operations will protect humanitarian workers as well as civilians," says Catherine Bertini, head of the World Food Programme. "And the international community must be mobilised to punish those responsible for crimes."

In the meantime, the first step is for governments to recognise the problem, which they still appear reluctant to do. "UN staff members give everything they've got to save people living in the worst circumstances on earth," says Bertini. "They shouldn't have to give their lives, too."