Humanitarian aid as a weapon?

**Your central argument in your latest book “War Games: The Modern History of Aid” is that humanitarianism has become a massive industry that, along with the global media, forms an unholy alliance with warmongers. How can you justify it, considering that so much money is invested in it?**
Linda Polman: A lot of money is being spent on, for example, the development of codes of conduct and on international gatherings discussing how aid can be made better. However, these are not efficient investments – money is merely being spent because conclusions about aid are not being implemented. The majority of the evaluations made about what went wrong in international humanitarian operations, like after Goma in 1994 and the more recent tsunami operation in Japan, have been conclusions about what could be proved. And all those conclusions have not been implemented, so a lot of time and money are being spent on improvement but there is very little being done about implementing these solutions. The aid industry does not need me to tell them what to do, because they themselves have made all the evaluations and calculations already. The only thing they need to do is implement what they themselves concluded was wrong with them.

**Going back to the central argument of the book that humanitarian aid doesn’t really help, that it even makes people suffer more – could you give us some more examples on how you have reached that conclusion?**
LP: My argument is not that all humanitarian aid is wrong and no humanitarian aids help. Humanitarian aid saves human lives. But there are places and instances where humanitarian aid does more harm than good. My area of investigation has been conflict areas – countries at war, countries in civil war, and countries in other conflict periods, where humanitarian aid is used as an instrument in the war that is going on. Humanitarian aid represents money, it represents goods. Money and goods are being used by the warring sections for their own sides. So if you send food into war, for example to Somalia, or you send food aid into wars in Ethiopia, then the local regimes will do anything to make sure that they themselves get as much of the aid as possible and the enemy gets as little of the aid as possible. And that’s a very logical thing, because why would you allow aid organizations to feed your enemies, why would you allow aid organizations to make your enemies stronger? Aid can be used against you. It’s only logical that aid is used as a weapon of war. Not only in terms of African war lords though. – we in the West, our armies, they also use aid as a weapon. They feed the people whose hearts and minds they want to conquer, and they will deny aid to parties that they want to be weaker. You deny aid to your enemies. It’s a long established weapon of war.

**Are there the same patterns in current Arab Spring wars?**
LP: There is not much aid going there as yet but you can already see the pattern happening in Libya, for example, where the West is very eager to make friends with the ones who are now in charge. So a place like Egypt is one of the largest recipients in the past year because we needed that regime for our own political and military purposes; we will now use aid to probably support those who are in power now in Egypt. Aid is an instrument in our foreign policy and there is nothing secret about that, it is very open. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is very open about the fact that aid should benefit Britain and foreign policy of Britain. The same goes in America; if you are in America and you want to receive aid funds, you have to pledge that you will serve the American form. It is similarly happening in the Netherlands, where our minister says that aid must benefit Dutch political and economical purposes. So it’s a very open issue; there are no secrets made about it, and it’s been like this for decades. It’s just that the public doesn’t realise this; we have the image of benefiting poor little children in Africa, while aid has always been somebody’s instrument.

**Do you think that we, as ordinary citizens, should still help organizations which are involved in international aid?**
LP: It would be a good idea if we the public would take more responsibility for the money that we donate. Between you and me, I would be happy to discuss whether there should be aid at all. But we live in a world where we have decided there will be aid, which is fine. However, let’s take responsibility for it. Don’t just give your money to an organization claiming to be working for African orphans and nothing else. Do your homework: take responsibility and find out what those organizations are actually doing and where they are doing it. If there is an organization working in Somalia then it is guaranteed that the organization runs into these moral dilemmas of aid being abused and used against people. It is guaranteed that the aid organizations are confronted with that dilemma all the time. Therefore, I think it is important to find out what stance these organizations take toward those dilemmas: What do they do, how much do they do to prevent ending up in these dilemmas and to prevent their aid being abused too much. There is no perfect world where aid will never be abused, but where is the balance? Where does the aid organization that you support draw the line: is it at one percent of abuse or is it at 50 percent of abuse or more? What are their thoughts about abuse? What do they do to prevent abuse as much as they can? I believe it is your responsibility to engage in discussions about this with aid organizations you choose to support.

**How is this balance achieved? Obviously there are many flaws in organization of international aid; however, what would be a better solution? How can we help those in need without hurting them to a certain extent?**
LP: One of the things that the aid world evaluates after every humanitarian operation is that there is a very serious need for cooperation with each other, to work together as one force. Which would be better is as little wastage of money as possible; so you coordinate how you spend your money, where you spend your money, you coordinate what the most efficient way is to spend your money, etc. In very peaceful countries where you provide aid, it is absolutely necessary to coordinate and coordination becomes a matter of life and death, when you go to a country of war with your aid. For example, take Sudan. Sudan is one of the largest aid recipients. Sudan receives about 1 million dollars a year; I personally think that that is a lot of money! But the aid organizations in Sudan are not in charge at all in terms of how their money is being spent. They are at the mercy of these Sudanese regimes, which we all know have been invited by the international criminal court for crimes against their people. So there is something wrong with that regime, we’ve all agreed to that. And still, organizations are at the mercy of that regime, and one of the reasons why the regime is so powerful over each organization is because they are in total charge of aid, and where and on whom to spend the donated money. The reason why the Sudanese regime is getting away with it is because the organizations are not working together but each as a separate individual unit in order to achieve their own agendas.

**Were there any examples of the misuse of international aid on the European field, maybe during the aftermath of Yugoslav wars?**
LP: This has been evaluated quite extensively by individual aid organizations as well, but the abuse has not been documented intensively. However, there have been instances where aids organizations admitted that aid was abused by one or by more of the warring parties. The United Nations officially investigated and found that about 30 percent of the total value of UN aid going into Serbia was actually stolen by Serbian warriors. This is another factor why working together is so important – if you want to verify how much of the aid was actually abused, you have to consult every one of those organizations and individually investigate what actually happens with the money, checking their administration records. It is up to journalists to find out what actually happened to that money.

**In one of your interviews you have mentioned that ‘Europeans believe too much in dialogue’. Should violence ever be preferred over peaceful dialogue?
**LP: There is not a rule that violence is always better than dialogue. But there is also not a rule that dialogue is always better than violence. There have been instances where Europe engages in too much dialogue according to my taste.In this case of Sudan, for example, the Sudanese regime has been pleased for much too long. Alternative ways of using violence are economical and diplomatical sections – there are many ways in which to put pressure on regimes. And we don’t always do that, for our own selves. We don’t want to damage diplomatic relationships; we don’t want to officially invest in military action, etc.

**Do you have any expectations for Warwick International Development Summit? Are you looking forward to giving your speech?**
LP: Yes, very much! I always look forward to engaging in discussion with students and I am also very much encouraged by how many students are still deeply involved in international human rights. It is very encouraging to see the next generation pick up the debate and carry it further.

###### **WIDS – Great speakers, engaging workshops, wine receptions and a lot of debate…**We have also asked WIDS organisers about their expectations for one of the biggest student-run conferences at University.
**”WIDS has always aimed to bring a diverse range of keynote speakers who have cast light on fundamental inequalities and the role of individuals or organizations on how to best address these challenges. This year is no exception. The Summit will kick start with a talk on the evolution of women’s rights in Afghanistan in the past ten years, followed by talks centered upon Climate change, ‘Green economics’ and the arguable importance of aid in development. The Summit aims to be both factual and inspiring, integrating and drawing links between psychology, politics, economics, geography and law. Nic Marks, a statistician and founder of the Centre for Well-being, will talk about his innovative Happy Planet Index – “a global index which suggests that human well-being and protection of the environment are not necessarily incompatible concerns,” said Aseel abu Dabat, one of the members of the organisation team. He continued:
”The World Bank’s lead economist Branko Milanovic will offer valuable information and insight into the global income distribution in the long-run, while speakers including Douglas Higgins, based in Unicef’s Jerusalem office, and Dr. Azza Karam, senior advisor at Unfpa, will offer a global development perspective on women’s rights in the Middle-East and the Arab spring. For a more comprehensive list of our alternative speakers and talks, see the WIDS website.
Attendees of the summit should also expect optional workshops by our speakers and a wine reception to give everybody a chance to mingle. Meeting like-minded individuals will be rewarding, helping to stimulate debate on the controversial issues of the developing world and helping to emphasize our role in society to create a better world.”**