Belief in relief: why humanitarian aid isn't the lost cause critics say it is.

• Author: Kenny, Charles
• Position: Book review

The Crisis Caravan: What's Wrong With Humanitarian Aid?

by Linda Polman

Metropolitan Books, 240 pp.

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In 1994, Rwandan Hutus slaughtered 800,000 of their Tutsi compatriots in the space of some three months. In response, a Tutsi army invaded Rwanda from bases in neighboring Uganda, precipitating a mass exodus of 2 million Hutus into Tanzania, Burundi, and Zaire. The town of Goma in Zaire alone became home to more than half of that number. The global response to this massive crisis was tragically late and chaotic. Agencies without the experience or capacity to deliver responded too slowly, with inadequate organization and supplies. In the early days of the Goma camps, 50,000 people were felled by cholera outbreaks alone.

Within months, however, a massive relief effort was underway. Around 250 international aid organizations threw themselves into the operation, spending upward of $2 million a day. Life in the refugee camps got considerably better, writes journalist Linda Polman in her new book, The Crisis Caravan: What's Wrong With Humanitarian Aid? An inventory of the four main camps at Goma at the end of 1995 found 2,324 bars, 1,060 shops and restaurants, sixty hair salons, thirty tailors, and three cinemas. Artists Sans Frontieres was even giving free lessons in basket weaving.

But the relative calm was not destined to last. For two years, the camps were home to not only a considerable chunk of Rwanda's Hutu population but also much of the country's Hutu government, army, and militia. And therein lies a second tragedy of Goma. This government in exile levied a "war tax" on relief supplies, diverting them to provision its army--which continually mounted raids across the border into Rwanda. In the end, Rwanda's Tutsi army entered Zaire and fired on the camps until they were empty. Nearly 600,000 Hutus returned home while another 200,000 fled deeper into the bush to join what has become the bloodiest ongoing war worldwide.

The Red Cross Code of Conduct, created in 1994, had spelled out the standards for relief work that were meant to prevent situations like Goma. The code declares that there is an obligation to help in cases of extreme human suffering--the "humanitarian imperative." Assistance should be neutral, given solely on the basis of need. At the same time, the code lays down the duty of the host government to facilitate entry of staff and delivery of supplies. Many of those working with refugees in Zaire were not Code of Conduct signatories. But even those who were faced a dilemma: when the humanitarian imperative meets a regime that will not live up to its obligations, what then?

That problem is hardly unique to Goma--in fact it is the usual state of affairs in crisis situations. In the modern world, famine is not an act of God; it is an act of war. Thanks to the global food trade and the availability of food relief, willing regimes can ensure that local shortages do not provoke widespread starvation, however strapped their...