Associated Press - November 11, 2003

Suicide bombings at the Baghdad offices of the Red Cross in October and the United Nations in August have left aid groups fearful for their ability to help Iraqi civilians as well as for their own lives. In Afghanistan, attacks on humanitarian workers have increased, with at least six killed in September alone.

Aid workers have been killed in Chechnya, Congo, East Timor and elsewhere in recent years. But many humanitarian groups have been forced to reduce their services to people in need in Afghanistan and Iraq as they have found themselves increasingly targeted by militants.

One fear is that the U.S.-led war on terrorism has compromised the neutrality aid groups feel is their only protection in the field as military forces take on humanitarian efforts as well as combat.

Nicola Reindorp, head of Oxfam International's New York office, says Western governments are trying to use aid to serve public relations purposes and to legitimize their use of military force.

"The blurred boundaries between humanitarian actors and military actors pose problems for (our) staff security, ability to access people in need and overall effectiveness," she told The Associated Press. "Humanitarian aid gets co-opted."

Aid officials also argue that the war on terrorism has put the focus on crises that are essentially political and drawn resources away from more fundamentally humanitarian problems like hunger in Africa, AIDS and civil conflict.

Reindorp pointed to Congo, where aid groups estimate that more than 3 million people have died of disease, hunger and fighting during five years of war.

Where humanitarian groups work in a zone that is central to anti-terrorism efforts, as Save the Children does in Afghanistan, "our long-term commitment to the country, the people, is likely to be misconstrued as short-term commitment to the Western agenda," said Rudy von Bernuth, vice president of Save the Children.

Humanitarian groups also have become targets for those in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to score political points against the West, Charles Vincent of the U.N. World Food Program said.

"We are worried the war on terrorism might polarize political feelings and (local people) will take it out on our people in the field," he said.

"We're very exposed."

A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disputed the idea that humanitarian groups are targeted because they are seen as linked to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

"That is a gross misunderstanding of the threat that exists with the world terrorism movement," he said.

The turning point was the attack on the Red Cross, he said. "It's not U.S. interests that are being targeted. It's anything that's trying to do good, to bring order out of chaos."

Joel Charny, vice president of Refugees International, said aid groups are resisting what they see as pressure to serve the political aims of Western governments. Organizations that count on U.S. government donations are told they must credit the United States, he said.

"The war has winners and losers, good guys and bad guys. What its adherents are saying to NGOs (non-governmental organizations) is: Whose side are you on?" Charny said.

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