Assignment 11

By srobertson8 | Published May 22, 2019

Condemned to Repeat by Fiona Terry

 

Background on the Author

  • Fiona Terry was the Head Research Director of the French section of Doctors Without Borders when it withdrew from the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire.
    • She says they withdrew after discovering that the aid intended for refugees actually ended up strengthening those responsible for the genocide.
    • In the book, she includes  documents from the former Rwandan army and government that were found in the refugee camps after they were attacked in late 1996. The documents illustrate how combatants manipulated humanitarian action to their benefit.
  • Fiona Terry has spent most of the last 20 years involved in humanitarian operations in different parts of the world, including northern Iraq, Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, North Korea, Sierra Leone and Angola, before spending three years with the ICRC in Myanmar.

Major Concepts Related to Our Coursework

  • Neutrality
    • Fiona Terry makes the case that many aid organizations have rejected neutrality, particularly since 9/11. She says that aid organizations have instead directed their aid in accordance with Western political agendas (particularly in the cases of Iraq & Afghanistan).
    • Throughout the book, she questions if aid workers should disassociate themselves from their political views in conflicts. She believes that theoretically, yes they should. However, due to her astounding knowledge of the humanitarian aid sector, she is very clear that she believes the time of neutrality has passed – She does offer the caveat that neutrality has been done away with based on multiple factors, such as the militarization of the affected communities for example. So it’s worth nothing that she doesn’t blame aid workers entirely for what she perceives to be the end of neutrality. She presents the scenario of aid workers offering humanitarian assistance to the armed opposition. Emphasizing to her reader that these are real life situations that aid workers have to deal with.
  • Repatriation
    • Essentially a process in which aid workers compel refugees to go back to their home country under the assumption that the hostile conditions are no longer present.
    • Humanitarian agencies (specifically UNHCR) have taken it one step further and cut off food to refugees so they’d be forced to go back, often getting killed on return or pushed back out of their home country yet again. What’s interesting about this is it is yet another example of humanitarian aid organizations exacerbating conflict rather than coming in and helping. This reminds me of our Skype chat with Genevieve and the story she shared with us.
    • In the book, this is one of Terry’s main issues that she tackles and it connects to the humanitarian imperative. She argues for integration over repatriation.
  • “Refugee-Warrior” Communities
    • Terry argues that international aid unwittingly plays into the hands of rebel movements. The result is “refugee-warrior” communities: militarized refugee camps that use their protected space to fight against their home state.
    • The protections accorded by international law and humanitarian assistance DO help refugee camp-based guerrilla movements gain control over the civilian population (ex. Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, Tutsi refugees who fled Rwanda, and Afghan refugees in Pakistan)
    • The result, Terry concludes, is a deep paradox at the heart of humanitarian action: The international community’s good intentions have created structures of aid and protection that, when injected into disintegrating states without authoritative rule, often fuel violence rather than reduce suffering.(This is essentially the thesis of the entire book)

Key Takeaways

  • This book is very informative, there was a lot of information I never knew, specifically terminology and practices that are specific to Humanitarian Aid that I learned (Terms like “repatriation” and “refugee-warrior communities”).
  • However, the book is a frustrating read at times. Terry never takes that necessary step to give her own, well thought-out plan of action to overcome this paradox. There are a few pages of vague suggestions, where she waxes on but essentially is just saying “stop forced repatriation,” but not much more than that. We know from her background where she stands in terms of the Nightingale-Dunant debate, so maybe therein lies the answer I’m looking for. However, her background in research and her credibility as an insider in the humanitarian world makes her the perfect person to lay out a plan of action, but it isn’t in this book. Definitely worth reading though, if only to become more aware of this serious problem.
  • Also, the book is written in an academic style, so there is theory and some quantitative analysis involved. Which I liked because it allowed me to see the “bigger picture” in some instances, while she also included anecdotal stories and case studies to supplement the flow of the book.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J45cWdDEbm0&t=498s

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