The international community's focus terrorism has led donors to lavish aid on countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, while neglecting the plight of civilians caught up in less strategic conflicts such as Liberia and Burundi, Oxfam said on Tuesday.
| That's why Afghanistan is... uhhh... thriving? |
It said in a report titled "Beyond the Headlines: an agenda to protect civilians in neglected conflicts," that the focus on international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction since the suicide attacks on New York on 11 September 2001 had left civilians trapped in the world's forgotten conflicts more vulnerable than before. Oxfam said rebels and governments alike had been terrifying civilians for years in too many civil wars. For decades these had caused much more death and destruction than terrorism. Oxfam complained that international humanitarian law was inadequately enforced by the international community in most of the world's 42 conflicts and the suffering of civilians continued unabated. The UK-based relief agency cited the civil war in Liberia as one case where armed attacks on civilians by both government and rebel forces had become commonplace over the past four years. Displaced people, who had been forced to leave their homes by the fighting, were particularly vulnerable to harrassment by gunmen, it noted. A general climate of heightened fear and insecurity in Liberia had been heightened by the abduction and killing of civilians and aid workers. Oxfam said those marched off at gunpoint were often men and youths who were in turn forced into military service for the warring parties.
| They, in turn, got to march other fellows off to join the rebels or the gummint forces. Once they get the ladies' underwear, they're lost... |
In June and July this year, more than 200,000 people fled from the outskirts of Monrovia to the city centre as rebels overan camps for displaced people on the outskirts of the city and advanced into its western suburbs. The violence killed over 1,000 people in less than two months, OXFAM said, adding that up to 50,000 people were left sheltering in the national sports stadium where sanitation was a huge problem. Latrines were overflowing and people were living in total darkness in rooms packed with bodies.
| We noticed that. Oxfam appears to be imposing an obligation on third parties to clear up messes where we have no strategic interest. That's a fine thing, if we have the time and resources to devote, but if we don't, the parties actually involved seem to have an obligation to conform to some sort of norms. Holding them accountable has been a theoretical task of the UN for the past 50 years or so — not that they have what you'd call a stellar success rate... |
Oxfam complained that donor governments had diverted their humanitarian aid to strategic countries away from many of the people who most needed their assitance. This had undermined the independence and impartiality of humanitarian aid, it stressed.
| On the other hand, they've been doing a much better job of protecting their own citizens from senseless violence perpetrated by Islamists. You put your money where it's going to give you the most return... |
Oxfam pointed out that nearly half of all the funds given by donor governments in 2002 to the UN's 25 humanitarian appeals went to just one country, Afghanistan. It admitted that Afghanistan was a desperately poor place, but noted that it was also top of the list of priorities in the "war on terror".
| "That's a point against it, of course..." |
The remaining 24 countries had to struggle by on what was left, Oxfam said, noting that this pattern of unequal funding recurred year after year. |