Dying on a Full Stomach

One of the interviews affecting me most relating the issue of displacement is the wish of a non-Serb from Banja Luka during the Yugoslavian civil war when he complained about the genre of the international assistance: “We do not need food, we are not starving to death. We are being persecuted and we prefer to be hungry for a week than not to sleep every night, in fear of being beaten, raped, or killed” (Cohen & Deng 1998, Pg.255). It is true that when issue is internal displacement and international aid to IDPs, the first thing comes to mind is not how to protect them but how to feed or shelter them. There are different reasons of this general attitude: First of all, international law gives the main responsibility of protection to the related states. “The Guiding Principles acknowledge that in crisis, conflict and emergency situations, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) have technically not lost the protection of their state and the primary responsibility for their protection remains with the state” (McDowell & Morrell 2010, Pg.62). Second, it is easier for international agencies to assist IDPs with food and shelter than protect their lives. One reality, however, is forgotten that without protection, assistance will eventually become impossible. When there is fear of life inside a state, how can one consider delivering humanitarian assistance to its people with no fear? How can you guarantee that those who threaten the lives of the civilian people will easily let you assist them with aid?    

Third, sovereignty as an inhibitive element and states’ comprehension of international aid as intervention to their domestic affairs or at least their trying to create a general perception as such is another important obstacle in front of the provision of international protection. Even those states that have ratified the Geneva Conventions and Protocols may prevent international agencies to work in their territories. For instance, “International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not been allowed to assist internally displaced populations in Guatemala and Turkey even though conflicts in those countries have produced substantial numbers of internally displaced persons” (Cohen & Deng 1998, Pg.132). And, fourth, although many organizations ranging from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to Medecin Sans Frontieres (MSF) or the World Health Organisation (WHO) extended their mandates including internally displaced persons into their interest groups, most of them focus on humanitarian aid such as delivering food or shelter while ignoring physical safety of the people. Among those organizations, ICRC is the most important one when it comes to the protection of civilian communities. Its actions, however, depend on the cooperation will of the states.

When the protection is pushed into the background vis-à-vis assistance, innocent people are allowed to ‘die on a full stomach’ as how it is described in the book of Cohen and Deng. It should not be forgotten that if the protection is ensured, the secure flow of the assistance of food, water, shelter and etc. will be guaranteed. Unfortunate events that occurred in Kibeho, Rwanda and in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995 prove the importance of protection beside assistance. In both examples, unarmed internally displaced persons who were gathered in so called safe areas by the UN bodies were massacred by armed opposition groups.       

International law indirectly and partially provides protection to the internally displaced. IDPs are protected indirectly because they take the advantage of civilian protection during the conflicts and there is no mentioning of the concept of internal displacement in the law. They are partially protected because the law does not cover all the aspects and phases of displacement, especially the process of return. Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions refers to a non-international armed conflict and prohibits each party from all kinds of violence. Protocol I, on the other hand, can be used by IDPs during the instances of international conflicts. Protocol II Article 13 states that “1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations. 2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be, the object of attack.”    

Although existing international law is, for many people, adequate for the protection of internally displaced persons, that is not really the case. Firstly, there are no specific definitions of the internal displacement or IDPs in the current law. Secondly, it does not formally bind the states that have not ratified related agreements and treaties. Thirdly, while the humanitarian law cannot be applicable to some small sized non-international conflicts, the human rights law mostly does not bind insurgent groups but only states. Despite all the deficiencies of the law considering IDPs, international organizations can still take the advantage of selected parts if protection is searched. Moreover, what I believe is that when the human life is in danger, all the human-made rules and concepts can be ignored including the concept of sovereignty. The idea of ‘what is happening in one state does not consider other states’ is illogical, outdated and incompatible with today’s perception of human rights.         

Protection is a prolonged process that should start from even before the displacement and continue until the end of safe return or satisfied settlement. The ideal protection is the preventive one. “It is preferable to act before people feel compelled to leave their homes, rather than intervening ex post when displacement has already taken place. Effective preventive protection requires an early and active involvement in a potential crisis, including efficient early-warning systems” (Phuong 2006, Pg.122). For this, as a matter of course, a strong cooperation among the related state, civil society, NGOs, international aid agencies and internally displaced persons themselves is indispensable. 

            Sometimes, only the presence of NGOs, watch groups or international communities can provide protection. If presence, however, turns into silence against brutal actions of security forces or insurgent groups, instead of deterring, it validates the violence. “As UNHCR’s special envoy to the former Yugoslavia has explained: ‘To be silent could be a form of partiality in favour of the criminals. If by neutrality, one means to help all victims without discrimination … that is correct. But if neutrality means not to take sides, not even in favour of the victims, that would be a wrong interpretation: we chose to be on the side of the victims’.” (Cohen & Deng 1998, Pg.269) 

            If the protection is not provided by the official authorities such as the governments or the international agencies, then the opposition armed groups make use of the situation by offering security to unarmed civilians. In return of this favour though, they may recruit men, sometimes children, abuse women, demand food and drink for their troops and use civilians as their shields. Moreover, these populations may be reduced to “accept its (opposition groups’) de facto political, social and military control and to obey the newly imposed rules of social conduct” (Vincent & Sorensen 2001, Pg.210).

            Protection strategies must cover not only displaced people but also other civilians such as those who host displaced populations. These host communities can be family members of the displaced people or complete strangers who would like to open their houses to people in need and ready to share their food with them. This voluntary support, however, sometimes brings dangers to hosting people, “for example, in situations of armed conflict, helping IDPs may carry the risk of being perceived to be sympathising with one of the parties to the conflict” (IDMC, July 2010). The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (or Kampala Convention) attach more importance to this issue than any other official document. In the article 9 with the title of “Obligations of States Parties Relating to Protection and Assistance during Internal Displacement” under the substrate 2-b, Convention asks states to “extend … assistance to local and host communities.

            Protection of displaced people should not come to a halt upon return. Displacements generally take long years and when people return to their original places they may encounter different threats. Among those, maybe the most hazardous ones are the life-threatening land mines, “in Mozambique alone, mines killed more than 10,000 displaced persons over the course of the return and resettlement program” (Cohen & Deng 1998, Pg.289). Mines are not only used by insurgent groups but also used by state security forces as part of their struggle against armed oppositions. “According to official data (provided by Turkish Parliament), initially used ‘to prevent illegal border crossings,’ later on, landmines started to be used, ‘as part of the fight against terror and only for security reasons” (Kurban, Celik, Unalan and Aker 2007, Pg.88). These mines, however, put the lives of IDPs in risk upon their return.

As a conclusion, I can say that instead of preferring one to the other, protection and assistance of IDPs must be integrated. Sovereignty does not only give states some rights inside recognised borders but also gives them responsibilities like protecting their own citizens. If they are not able or not willing to provide protection to their own citizens, if they are a party of violence against unarmed innocent civilians then states cannot claim rights upon those people. In such cases, international community must step in via humanitarian agencies, NGOs or international organizations. Providing food and shelter while ignoring the necessity of protection of the displaced populations and legitimizing this action by sovereign rights of related states, international community connive in IDPs’ dying on a full stomach.     

REFERENCES

Cohen R. & Deng F.M. (1998) “Masses in Flight” The Brookings Institution

African Union Convention for The Protection And Assistance Of Internally Displaced Persons In Africa (Kampala Convention) (2009)

Geneva Convention (1949) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

IDMC (July 2010) Making the Kampala Convention Work for IDPs

Kurban D., Yükseker D., Çelik A.B., Ünalan T., Aker A.T. (2007) “Coming to Terms with Forced Migration: Post-Displacement Restitution of Citizenship Rights in Turkey (TESEV Publications)

McDowell C. and Morrell G. (2010) “Displacement Beyond Conflict: Challenges for the 21st Century” Berghahn Books

Phuong C. (2006) “The International Protection of Internally Displaced Persons” Cambridge University Press

Vincent M. & Sorensen B.R. (2001) “Caught Between Borders” Pluto Press