This was first published on MadMasr on 22 August 2020

Seventeen years ago, this week, I survived a terrorist attack that killed 22 people and injured many, including several friends in the United Nations. The attack on the UN offices at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad came a few months after the US invasion of Iraq deposed the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. The building housed the offices of the UN political team and a large group of humanitarian aid workers, whose task was to work with the US-led coalition and the remnants of the Iraqi civil service to help the country stand on its feet after many years of war and draconian sanctions. 

Staff and investigators alike faulted security lapses including, but not limited to, the bending or breaking of rules to enable the deployment of this mission, called for by major donors and political powers, led by the United States. Such explanations are narrow and superficial. They explain how the attack might have been possible, and how it might have come to kill and injure so many. But, they don’t tell us anything about why these armed groups launch such attacks in the first place and the deeper roots of increasing apathy within vulnerable communities towards the very aid organizations claiming to assist them. 

To me, a survivor still haunted by the blood and body parts I touched as I groped my way along darkened corridors shrouded in dust, part of the answer lies in the erosion of the humanitarian principles of independence, impartiality and humanity, and in the politicization of the global humanitarian enterprise.

Especially since the beginning of the endless so-called global war on terror, governments and other donors have sought to use humanitarian aid to serve their own political ends. But such instrumentalization started in earnest after the end of the Cold War in the 1980s. It became evident in the Balkans in the 1990s, where safe havens were created to prevent a flood of refugees into Western Europe. However, while food and shelter were provided, protection and safety were not. Many thousands were massacred in places like Srebrenica — another anniversary to take account of. This politicization got more institutionalized in Afghanistan in 2001 and moved to deeper levels of integration in 2002 in the months of preparation for the war on Iraq, when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that US-based humanitarian agencies were a “force multiplier” in the fight against terrorism. 

States intervening militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan expanded their intervention to include the provision of humanitarian supplies as part of a “hearts and minds” campaign. It should have been no surprise to see public opinion in the Middle East and South Asia turning against the UN and other aid agencies, which stood accused of having become a tool of the West’s overall intervention. 

In almost all Middle Eastern countries where big aid operations are undertaken, major powers such as the US, the UK, Russia and France have been implicated in one form or another including direct bombing, deployment of troops and arms sales. These are also countries that have permanent seats on the UN Security Council and/or are among the largest donors of UN aid operations and also most influential members of the governing boards of UN aid agencies. For example, the US, which is involved in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, provided 43 percent, or US$3.6 billion, of WFP’s confirmed contributions in 2019. The UK provided nearly 9 percent (or $700 million), while Saudi Arabia and the UAE together brought in 8 percent (or $660 million). These countries can and do intervene in the modalities of distribution and details of aid programs under several guises, including the counterterrorism regulations that dictate how their donations could be spent and with which local actors such organizations are allowed to work. These dollars are also used to blue wash the actual military intervention or the large arms deals these countries bring to the region. 

The untold humanitarian suffering of people in Syria is not a byproduct of the civil war, but part and parcel of the war effort itself. Targeting civilians and their basic educational, health and road infrastructure has been used as a war tactic largely by the government. Sectarianism, starvation, and denial of medical and other basic humanitarian supplies had become regular weapons in conducting the war since 2013. This simply means that aid agencies like WFP, which were scurrying to meet the needs of over 13 million Syrians, were under intense political pressures from the government of Bashar al-Assad that controls most of the territory and from the armed factions to a lesser extent. Pressure also was exercised by the main donors and permanent members of the Security Council who have complex agendas in Syria. The UN concluded in an evaluation as early as 2015 that aid agencies “were simply not willing to jeopardize their operations in Syria by taking a tougher stance with the Government … [a position that] will surely be scrutinized unfavorably at a later point.” A later report concluded that the UN has allowed the Syrian government to direct aid from Damascus almost exclusively into territories it controlled. 

Similar politicized outcomes in how aid was allocated, to which areas, and controlled by which groups can be found in Libya, Gaza, and Yemen. 

In complying with stringent donor restrictions and closely cooperating with powerful capitals, aid organizations are thus no longer primarily motivated by the humanitarian imperative but rather by the prerogatives of self-perpetuation, and an insatiable drive to grow bigger and bigger. These motives often force them to become conscious elements in larger political and military schemes aimed at counterterrorism and stabilization.

None of this is to excuse, much less justify, the vicious strategy of terrorist groups. It is to try to understand the rationale that some of these groups adopted and the environment in which such thinking was embraced. It is also to show the negative impact on the innocent people who are crushed between the political machinations of the international community on the one hand and the armed groups (or states), which control their lives on the other hand.  This quagmire has led to a dramatic change in how aid agencies are seen by the very people they try to help. It also changed the way aid workers maintained their security in conflict areas.

Aid workers used to ensure their safety just by displaying the banner of their humanitarian agency and following minimal, commonsense precautions. But now, agencies use unmarked armored cars, wrap their personnel in flak jackets, and heavily fortify their houses and offices — which they also tend to place away from the community they “serve”. This could explain the declining death rate among aid workers, while agencies now also send fewer international personnel into unsafe areas. Remote management, or simply sending national staff to do the work in risky areas instead of international staff, has become common practice. In 2019, a total of 456 national aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped compared to 27 of their international colleagues. 

Aid workers are no idealists and many of them understand how politicized their work and instrumentalized their own lives have regrettably become. Still, even the most pragmatic of aid workers are starting to find their position in various conflict areas untenable. We need to reinstate humanitarian principles through practical measures, to transform funding mechanisms, fix governance systems and work for more transparency in the aid industry. Pooled donor funding through mechanisms such as the Central Emergency Reserve Fund run by the UN’s OCHA would partly shield agencies from falling under direct pressure or even worse competing amongst themselves for funds from various capitals. Creative accountability initiatives that can make agencies somewhat answerable to the communities on the ground could also help balance the skewed power relations in the aid industry and reconfigure some of the aid programs. 

Such measures are very complex and will require hard work and time, but they and other similar interventions are necessary to save this noble mission from becoming just a “force multiplier” or a tool in the hands of donors and governments. Failing this, the humanitarian aid enterprise could soon become useless, and the deaths of my friends and colleagues in Baghdad and many other places afterwards would then amount to nothing more than collateral damage. Fixing this broken system would go a long way to truly honoring the memory of my fallen colleagues instead of all the ceremonies that take place around the world during this week every year, with UN officials and diplomats making a few statements in Geneva and New York and then heading back to the daily grind of chasing ambulances in Syria, Yemen, or wherever there’s a political disaster dressed up as a humanitarian emergency.