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Wednesday, 13 October 1999: UNICEF called today for a sea-change in the way
the international community handles the protection of humanitarian aid workers.
The call came one day after the killings in Burundi of the UNICEF Representative
and a staff member from the World Food Programme.
"What we saw yesterday in Burundi was a calculated, cold-blooded murder
of humanitarian workers, plain and simple," said UNICEF Executive Director
Carol Bellamy.
"We cannot and should not view these killings as an isolated incident.
They are part of a contemporary and continually expanding pattern in which humanitarian
workers are being identified and targeted for death -- a pattern the world simply
can no longer tolerate," she said.
Ms. Bellamy noted that Tuesday's deaths brought to four the number of UN workers
killed in the field in as many weeks.
"Individual states must now clearly understand that the growing number
of killings constitutes a crisis requiring urgent action, rather than mere hand-wringing
and polite expressions of condolence," she said. "Even as the world
demands that humanitarian relief be provided to civilians in need - and properly
so -- there has been a simultaneous lack of regard for the realities in which
aid workers operate. Put simply, there has been too much looking away from what
needs to be done, and people are paying with their lives."
Ms. Bellamy pointed out that humanitarian organisations and their staff in the
field depend for their physical protection on universal adherence to humanitarian
conventions and international law.
"But in a world in which the number of militant groups failing to respect
the sanctity of life -- much less the sanctity of humanitarian principles --
is multiplying, it is our conviction that governments must demand such respect
through strict enforcement of laws," Ms. Bellamy said. "The international
community and individual states must not allow those who kill humanitarian workers
to do so with impunity."
She said hard choices must be made regarding the disarmament of militias and
other armed groups around the world, and noted that governments and international
bodies that allow these violent groups to flourish unwittingly contribute to
the destruction and loss of life that all-too-often follows in their wake. The
killing of humanitarian workers in the Great Lakes Region of Africa can be traced
directly to the failure of the international community to disarm the genocidaires
in the refugee camps of former Zaire after their exodus from Rwanda.
Acknowledging that solutions are not easy, Ms. Bellamy observed that simply
pulling out of dangerous environments must be a step of last resort for the
UN agencies. "It is really not an acceptable solution at all," she
said, "because it is precisely in these situations that civilian populations
are most at risk."
"In East and West Timor, in Kosovo, in Colombia and in countries all over
Africa, people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. And dozens of
agencies and thousands of courageous individuals are willing to stay there to
provide that assistance," Ms. Bellamy said. "We are now calling on
the international community -- and governments in particular -- to put their
heads and their collective wills together to reverse the tide of violence that
is eating away at the very idea of humanitarian relief."
She added: "UN agencies cannot by themselves bring about the needed changes.
Nor can they continue to operate in flashpoints of danger and conflict without
full security guarantees for all their personnel. Clearly, the governments on
whose behalf the UN agencies act must assume total responsibility for ensuring
that security. If they continue to avoid that responsibility, they abandon defenseless
men, women and children to the mindless brutality of armed thugs and terrorists.
"We owe it to those courageous humanitarian workers who have already given
their lives to set a new course: one that allows relief assistance to be provided
wherever and whenever necessary, but which is also founded upon an unshakeable
and shared commitment to protect those who serve."
See also the press release on the killing of the UN workers.
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