By Sheri Fink
21 August, 2003The Wall Street Journal
The bombing of Baghdad's Canal Hotel, headquarters of United Nations operations in Iraq, is an attack on all ordinary Iraqis, the end of any surviving perception that the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to stabilize Iraq are working, and the death of innocence for relief workers world-wide. The U.N. Special Representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and the building's other dead or injured civilian workers had come together from around the world and within Iraq with the goal of improving life for all Iraqis. For their protection in the conflict zone, they relied primarily on an invisible shield forged from tradition -- and from the laws of war, which state that noncombatants, and particularly relief workers, are never legitimate military targets.
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The inevitable drawing back of U.N and other humanitarian efforts that will follow Tuesday's attack will have a devastating effect on Iraqi civilians, who are desperate to reclaim a normal existence after years of repression, sanctions, war and terror. But the bomb's percussion will also ripple through the dozens of other sites in the world where U.N. aid agencies and other international relief organizations work, and the necessary increase in security measures threatens to change the very character of aid work.
Far from being a military or primarily political structure, the destroyed Canal Hotel housed U.N. and intergovernmental offices concerned with the coordination of aid workers, mine awareness, medical evacuations, food aid, refugee returns, human rights, logistics and communications, among others. The building had one of Baghdad's few Internet nodes, where humanitarian aid workers from nongovernmental organizations were welcome daily to communicate with colleagues, family and friends from around the world.
For three months this past spring and summer, I worked with one of these NGOs, International Medical Corps, providing emergency medical assistance to hospitals and medical clinics throughout Iraq. My coworkers and I were frequent visitors to the "U.N. hotel," meeting with our colleagues and checking e-mail. I am horrified and devastated by the egregious attack, and deeply worried about the fates of those I worked with; but I am equally concerned about the larger ramifications of Tuesday's events.
Although isolated attacks on aid workers have been an all-too-common occurrence over the past decade, most humanitarians have continued to shun security measures that involve armed protection. As aid workers, we are at pains to distinguish ourselves from the military, often refusing military escorts, for example, and trusting instead that our widely recognized neutral and impartial status will protect us.
Yet as we sat together in Baghdad not long ago, many of my colleagues and I worried that a blurring of the lines between the military, the political, and the humanitarian in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq was the very reason that terrorists were increasing their attacks on aid workers. Human-rights groups condemned U.S. Special Forces for dressing in plainclothes, and aid organizations protested when the humanitarian funding arm of the U.S. government -- the U.S. Agency for International Development -- was for a time placed under the control of the Department of Defense. My fellow aid workers and I cringed every time the U.S.-led coalition publicized our aid efforts as part of their own effort to win Iraqi "hearts and minds."
However, it would be naive to blame Tuesday's attack on a mistaken perception by the bombers that the U.N. relief workers were in cahoots with the military coalition. Those who perpetrated this attack clearly were sophisticated enough to know exactly who they were killing. While it is possible that the U.N.'s political -- rather than humanitarian -- role was being targeted, what's more likely is that the bombers, interested in fomenting chaos and discontent, chose the U.N. for the very fact that it was providing aid and increasing the well-being of ordinary Iraqis.
Tuesday's events mirror recent attacks on Iraqi civilians who are leading efforts to reconstruct major sectors of civil society. For example, several Iraqi health officials, democratically elected by their peers after the war to replace high-level Baathists, have been targets; one was recently assassinated. Although these new local authorities and international relief workers have little to do with the U.S.-led occupation, our very success has made it appear that something under the occupation was working.
Because the bombers played on the vulnerability of relief workers -- the fact that we are soft targets without much in the way of armed protection -- the magnitude of Tuesday's attack will force a rude awakening. The realization that has been creeping up on us has now asserted itself full force. We can no longer rely on the promise of protection given to us by the Geneva Conventions. For whatever set of reasons, our nimbus of invulnerability has evaporated. It is no longer reasonable to criticize and deride aid workers who feel compelled to use armed guards for protection.
Without taking such pragmatic steps, we will be forced to withdraw and leave the embattled civilians we have traveled across the world to assist. The only question now is whether the changes humanitarians must make in the way we operate will steer us away from our core principles of independence and impartiality, or make us more determined to stick to them.
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Dr. Fink served as medical director for International Medical Corps in Iraq from April to July 2003. Her book, "War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival," was published this week by PublicAffairs.
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