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Do International Ethics Matter? Humanitarian Politics in the Sudan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Thomas G. Weiss  and
Larry Minear
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Abstract

Weiss and Minear explore the problems associated with attempting to operationalize the evolving international humanitarian norm that civilians, regardless of location, are entitled to sustenance and medical assistance. In a host of recent civil wars in Africa, the attention of the international community has been drawn to the use of food deprivation by both governments and insurgents. The use of such deprivation has traditionally been part of the arsenals of warring factions, but the widespread and active mobilization of international public opinion against such tactics is relatively new. The authors argue that, while all historical situations are in some sense unique, Sudan is not so idiosyncratic that the lessons and the precedents cannot be replicated elsewhere to protect civilians caught between warring sides in civil wars.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 5 , March 1991 , pp. 197 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1991

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References

2 Except where otherwise noted, the term “Operation Lifeline Sudan” or “Lifeline” connotes this first and precedent-setting phase of activities. The second phase, begun in March 1990 after many delays and still proceeding as of this writing in late 1990 with considerable difficulty, is not the focus of this analysis.

3 We do not wish to imply that humanitarian aid is all that can be undertaken by the international community in civil wars, but it is the focus here. For a discussion about the continuum between emergency relief and development assistance, see Mary B. Anderson and Peter J. Woodrow, Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disaster (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989). For a discussion of the reconstruction needs arising from the winding down of civil wars in Afghanistan, Indochina, Central America, southern Africa, and the Horn of Africa, see Anthony Lake, ed., After the Wars (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990).

4 For a general discussion, see Donald J. Puchala and Roger A. Coate, The Challenge of Relevance: The United Nations in a Changing World Environment (Hanover, NH: Academic Council on the United Nations System, 1989). For more specific examinations of recent developments in the field of conflict resolution as the Cold War wanes, see Augustus Richard Norton and Thomas G. Weiss, UN Peacekeepers: Soldiers With a Difference (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1990); George L. Sherry, “The United Nations Reborn,”Council on Foreign Relations Critical Issues (1990), Vol. 2; and a special issue of Survival, Vol. 32, No. 3 (May/June 1990).

5 The New York Times, September 10, 1990, p. A1.

6 For a discussion of the importance of these types of operations, see Barbara Hendrie, “Cross-border Relief Operations in Eritrea and Tigray,”Disasters, Vol. 13, No. 4 (1989), pp. 351–60.

7 For further details, see Sudan: A Human Rights Disaster (New York: Africa Watch, 1990), pp. 103–37.

8 “Emergency Assistance to the Sudan: Summary of Urgent Humanitarian Requirements,” UN General Assembly document A/43/755, October 27, 1988.

9 Cf. “Special Economic and Disaster Assistance: Special Programmes of Economic Assistance,” UN General Assembly document A/43/918/Add. 1, December 2,1988.

10 “Plan of Action: Sudan Emergency Relief Operations,” mimeographed conference document dated March 14,1989.

11 The needs of southerners displaced to the north were noted but not featured in the Plan, an omission that would be redressed in negotiations for the second phase of the operation.

12 For relevant provisions and a discussion, see Frits Kalshoven, ed., Assisting Victims of Armed Conflict and Other Disasters (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Nijhoff, 1989).

13 Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Winning the Human Race (London: Zed Books, 1988), pp. 71–2.

14 “Operation Lifeline Sudan Phase II, Draft Plans of Action,” Government of the Sudan and the United Nations Donor Consultation Meeting, mimeographed document dated March 26, 1990, pp. 1–2.

15 “SPLM/SPLA Press Statement on Operation Lifeline Sudan,” mimeographed document dated March 18, 1990, p.3.

16 Independent Commission, Winning the Human Race, p. 11.

17 Raymond Bonner, “Famine,”The New Yorker, March 13, 1989, p. 86. Cf. also a series of 1988 and 1989 articles by Colin Campbell and Deborah Scroggins in The Atlanta Constitution.

18 Some observers trace the June 1989 coup to the fact that the critics of the al-Mahdi government used his embrace of Lifeline as a prima facie indication of weakness and ineptitude.

19 A report prepared by the case study team containing detailed findings and recommendations has been well received by aid professionals. Entitled Report to the Aid Agencies: A Critical Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan and including a description of an initial round of debriefings in New York, Nairobi, Geneva, and Ottawa, the report is available from the Refugee Policy Group, Washington, DC.

20 Salim Salim, “Address to the 51st Session of the OAU Council of Ministers, February 1990,” quoted in “Stop the Suffering!”Refugees (May 1990), p. 8. See also his “Conflict Resolution, Crisis Prevention and Management, and Confidence-Building Among African States,”Disarmament, Vol. XIII, No. 3 (1990), pp. 174–89.

21 For a discussion of this basic structural dilemma by the longest-serving UN official, see Brian Urquhart, “The United Nations & Its Discontents,”The New York Review of Books, Vol. 37, No. 4 (March, 1990), pp. 11–16, and, with Erskine Childers, A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation,1990).