High-Level Standards of Living - Essay Example

Introduction In advanced nations such as the United States, Canada, and Japan, the standard of living is very high. Most people do not have to worry about where their next meal will be coming from. The governments of these nations have access to large amounts of money thanks to their flourishing economies. Governments in such countries, along with international aid agencies such as Oxfam try to do their best to alleviate the sufferings of poor people by donating money or aid in kind. In some parts of the world, such aid is really the only way by which many people can survive. In other words, in the absence of aid, there would be a catastrophe of immense proportions, one that might haunt the conscience of so-called civilized nations for years to come. Although aid is supposed to assist the poor and ameliorate dire conditions for the suffering around the world, there are indications that such aid, either directly or indirectly, contribute to the exacerbation of conflict, thus visiting wretchedness on some of the very same populations that are supposed to benefit from the aid. This paper will examine the conditions under which aid can worsen conflict, which include competition for resources among different groups, the presence of factions along tribal, military, religious, or sectarian lines. In all these aspects, examples abound from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and it is surprising how long it has taken non-governmental agencies, governments, and others who have made aid their business to realize that rather than helping to ease the pain and suffering of the people for whom they try to provide succour, in fact, sometimes such assistance leads to rather terrible consequences as the biggest test case – Rwanda – clearly shows. Corruption and plain robbery The United Nations and some of the more prosperous nations have come to believe that a world with such an inequitable distribution of wealth is not a safe one. In some cases, the motivation is not just because of the practical politics of ensuring that poor people are fed so that they do not invade the more advanced countries. There is a sense that sine we are all human beings inhabiting the planet we have a responsibility toward one another. The provision of such aid has a long history though surprisingly extreme poverty continues to persist in many parts of the world, leading to questions of whether such aid has any value at all. In 2006, for example, USAID granted aid of up to $18 million to West African states under the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) umbrella and the purpose was “to support activities in trade, health, conflict mitigation and governance in the sub-region” (US aid agency grants West African bloc 18 m dollars in aid 2006). Some of the aid was also meant to promote agriculture in the Sahel region and to check further desertification in West Africa. Such provision of aid has become a longstanding pattern and many developing countries look forward to it almost as a matter of course. On the surface, it appears that without such aid the world would have to witness more devastation, more famines, more disease-ravaged populations and more helplessness. But does it hold true that aid always leads to positive outcomes? Not necessarily because there are many individuals and groups who do not care about alleviating poverty or improving the lives of the populations for whom the aid might have been earmarked in the first place. Such individuals and groups might only care about their own survival and “prosperity” and may be ruthless enough to do anything necessary to disrupt the flow of aid or divert such aid in order to benefit themselves. The conflict in Darfur, Sudan, has attracted a great deal of attention in the last few years though efforts to deal with the issue continue to be stymied at every turn by the Sudanese government. Meanwhile, the number of displaced people continues to grow. Some of the people who have been victims of the Janjaweed, the Arab militias that routinely hunt down their black African compatriots, have headed west and made their way to Chad to live in refugee camps. As the government of Chad is unable to support a large population of new arrivals the United Nations, through its World Food Programme, and other organizations have been feeding the more than 300,000 people in the refugee camps. Chad, while serving as a center of refuge for people from Darfur, is far from being a stable place. This is because there are some rebel Chadian soldiers who have been fighting for many years to overthrow the government. The rebels do not have ready access to food and medical supplies. Sometimes, they see the food earmarked for aid as their only possible source of sustenance as they battle against the government. The conflict has hampered aid efforts and perhaps fuelled the continuing battle in Chad as the rebels are able to count on United Nations food supplies. This is very worrisome to James Morris, World Food Programme Executive Director. As the article “Chad: UN Aid Agencies Said Concerned About Refugees Fate Following Chad Fighting,” notes, “About 483 tonnes of food was taken from one warehouse in the town center and about more than one million dollars of relief supplies including blankets and tents disappeared from another” (Chad: UN Aid Agencies…2006). Rebel groups may have support from outside the country but their supply lines might not be reliable so they cannot necessarily always guarantee that they will have the food or medicine that they need or that they will have the ammunition that they need. Such uncertainties for the rebels set the stage for their taking advantage of any food aid that may be in their vicinity, without regard, of course, to the poor people for whom the food supplies are meant. Aid as a source of finance for conflict Aid, it must be remembered, does not only come in the form of milk powder. Sometimes, it comes in the form of guns and bullets, as has been the case in Columbia for many years with the U.S. government` attempt to help the government fight off cocaine smugglers. The United States, in an effort to cut off the flow of drugs to the country at its source, has been sending advisers, money, and equipment to aid the government in its efforts against the coca trade. The so-called “war on drugs” which has hardly made a dent in the flow of coca or cocaine to the United States has had other grave repercussions. Even as government forces battle with various factions in the coca trade in Columbia, the insatiable demand in the United States for such drugs virtually guarantees no end to the cultivation of coca, meaning that the war will continue in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, as an after effect of the war, “Afro-Colombians and the indigenous people suffer displacement in greater proportions that others do…Poverty and oppression in Latin America make fertile ground for continued coca production as farmers desperately seek means of income to feed their families and preserve a treasured way of life on their land. Spraying coca fields will succeed only if alternative crops can get to the market at a profit. Shooting people, dropping bombs and spraying the cultivated land are not the solution. If the United States really has $1.6 billion to spend on the anti-drug effort in Colombia, it should be part of a long-term effort to eliminate the reasons Colombians choose to cultivate coca in the first place” (Humphrey 2003). The war on drugs, in fact, has become a war on poor people as many of the poor are not only displaced from their land but also are cut off from their sources of income and sometimes killed or maimed in the name of this war. Few people, however, are aware of how aid, indirectly, led to one of the most shocking massacres in history, the 1994 case of mass slaughter in Rwanda. Rwanda had been unstable many years before 1994 so the country had a rich presence of foreign aid groups. One would have thought that having aid agencies ensuring that all the people were well fed would be enough to avoid conflict. Not so. In fact, over several decades the governments of France and Belgium had been providing military aid to the government of Rwanda right up to the time of the massacre. The shook that ran through the international community when bands of armed Hutus set upon their Tutsi neighbors has baffled many people over the years and various attempts have been made to explain how such a thing could happen. In the article, “How multilateral development assistance triggered conflict in Rwanda,” Regine Andersen provides an almost direct link between aid and the conflict in Rwanda in a way that is revealing. Actually, the connection has been made before, by scholars such as Uvin, Scherrer (1997) and Klinghoffer (1998) who pinpointed the role that French and Belgian military assistance played in the genocide. The main point that Andersen makes, however, is that pressure from multinational groups that were responsible for providing aid to Rwanda, through their demands created conditions that exacerbated the degeneration into conflict and ultimate terror of genocide. It would be simplistic, as many scholars have found, to trace the origins of the Rwandan conflict to a single item. In 1959, for example, the Hutus stirred violently against the Tutsi who had been dominant in government since the colonial era. When the Hutus had the chance of gaining power in 1960, they did not holdback from continuing the segregation of people along ethnic lines. As far back as 1933 there had been identity cards that were required of all Rwandan citizens. Between 600,000 and 700,000 Tutsi, on account of the ethnic conflicts left the country looking for a safe haven in neighbouring countries, and when President Habyarimana softened the discrimination against Tutsis by providing them with a quota of at least 10% of jobs, the society flourished without any major incidents of violence. “During his rule before 1990 there were no reported cases of ethnic violence, though there were instances of regional conflicts…This is a strong indication that the cause of the genocide did not lie in the ethnic relations between the Hutu and Tutsi per se, as ethnicity was not really an item on the agenda in the years before the outbreak of civil war in 1990” (Andersen 2000). Despite the heavy concentration of scholars in such organizations as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank they are hardly ever able to predict the consequences of their actions. This may be in part because most of the scholars may come from the more advanced countries, that is, countries that can provide top notch education after the fashion desired by these organizations. Without enough experts from the countries that really need the aid, it may be difficult for the banks to really understand what I happening on the ground, the dynamics of relationships. In any case, multilateral development banks and agencies promoted economic structural adjustment programs in Rwanda as a condition for aid. In addition, they called for multiparty democracy, and a peace negotiation between the Tutsi backed rebels and the government. These were based on good intentions but it weakened the regime, which was seen by the government’s closest advisors as bending to foreign pressure and giving too much consideration to the rebels. One of the consequences of the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme was a devaluation of the Rwandan franc by as much as 40%. In addition to the inflation that followed, the government, in response to attacks from the Tutsi rebels, began to direct some of the more than $500 million received from the IMF and the World Bank, in fact, about 40% of this money, to the purchase of arms. The ensuing economic malaise from failed crops and the creeping war in the north began to sow despair among the population. Indeed, Whereas there is sparse evidence of a direct causal relationship between this economic malaise and the massacres of 1994, there is reason to believe that there were indirect links: because of the economic downswing, the Habryarimana regime was forced into negotiations with the IMF and the WB on the structural adjustment loans to get the economy back on track…For a country like Rwanda with impending social unrest, the imposition of a process of democratizations brought with it a higher level of instability. (Andersen 2000) One of the parties that emerged in the scramble to meet the demands of the WB and IMF for multiparty democracy was the racist party, Mouvement Revolutionnaire National pour le Developpement (MRND). Another was the CRD or the Coalition pour la Defense de la Republique which taunted the government for being soft towards the Tutsi backed rebels, the RPF. The CDR, which grew more and more powerful, eventually set up the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collins, which was to play a role in stoking the Hutus towards the massacre of their Tutsi cousins. For clarity’s sake, the calls for democratization by the aid agencies and banks weakened the hand of the government of Habyarimana and strengthened the ethnic mobilization and divisions that eventually led to the mass slaughter of Tutsis. Of course, the intention of the WB and IMF had been to improve the economic conditions and to bring about democratization, all of which were supposed to help the people of Rwanda. That the effects turned out so terribly adds to the reality that while aid can have a powerfully positive effect on those for whom it is granted it can also in some cases, indirectly, at least, contribute to fanning long-buried rivalries and divisions, with results of monumental proportions, as was the case in Rwanda. Sectarianism; Alignment between factions and foreign governments Whether in Afghanistan or Rwanda there are indications that aid itself has sometimes exacerbated or been the trigger for violence and conflict that has embroiled thousands of people. Conventional wisdom has it that where populations are left without any legitimate means of survival, one can expect bleakness. Many people in the world, and in particular the West, which continues to flourish, feel that there is a moral obligation on the part of those who have access to money and food to help those in trouble. In the case of such places as Afghanistan, which had a spill-over refugee population of 3.5 million in the early 1980s, NGOs stepped in to provide assistance and to do for the Afghans what the United Nations High Commission for Refugees alone could not do. More than 200 such aid groups went to Afghanistan or neighbouring Pakistan to provide much needed assistance. Such aid has sometimes been seen as a key to helping the populations in question focus more on peace building rather than continually engaging in destructive wars with one another. As Jonathan Goodhand writes, “During the late 1990s aid donors, through the Strategic Framework process, increasingly saw aid as an instrument for building peace. Moreover, before 11 September 2001 there was a growing realization that reconstruction and institution building needed to precede and act as a catalyst for political agreements” (Goodhand 2002). But when aid is offered in a system where there are many competing factions, the aid itself can play a part in exacerbating the divisions or sometimes even contribute directly towards the sustenance of conflict. Many organizations that are involved in providing aid take pride in affirming their neutrality. In some cases, however, the aid that is being provided, whether in terms of direct food aid, rehabilitation or development has to go through one leader or another. With such resources on hand, the hand of such leaders or commanders are strengthened which can push them into adventurous activities that only go to make the conflicts worse. Afghanistan is a prime example of a society that has a long history of receiving aid and it is arguable that the aid has in one way prevented the Afghanistan people from developing the sustained economic capabilities that would have made them self-sufficient. As Goodhand explains, “By the 1960s foreign aid accounted for more than 40% of the state budget. Aid enabled a fractious dynasty to maintain its precarious rule, and it also contributed to the creation of new elites who emerged from aid-funded schools and the bureaucracy” (Goodhand 2002). When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 those areas under Soviet control got aid form the Soviets while the Mujaheddin who were fighting against the Soviets urged the populations under their control to register with them so that they could receive aid; the aid that the numerous political and military factions received often came through non-governmental agencies as the United Nations tried to hold back from giving the appearance of backing one group or another. Even though there were governments such as that of the United States that sought to support the Muhaheddin against the Soviet Union they felt that it was best done covertly through non-governmental agencies, some of which were located in Pakistan, across the border from Afghanistan, and with access to millions of dollars, they made sure that the Mujaheddin were well-fed and had the means to continue to resist the Soviet Union. Of course, these aid agencies, especially at the beginning, were really just engaged in making sure that people without food were fed. In time, however, the aid began to lose any spectre of neutrality attached to it. As Goodhand writes, Western aid was part of a conscious strategy to undermine the communist government. By avoiding official structures and working with commanders at the local level, NGOs inevitably accentuated national-regional tensions and legitimized military strongmen. Access depended on accepting the legitimacy and control of Mujaheddin groups in rural areas. The pattern of distribution reflected political ties and proximity rather than absolute humanitarian need. Consequently, urban populations controlled by the government and populations in the central highlands were largely bypassed in favour of populations in the east. (Goodhand 2002) The US provided wheat to commanders that were resisting the Soviet occupation. Various armed groups set up check points to “tax” the flow of this wheat, to the point where it was possible to lose as much as 40% of the wheat from aid sources to the final recipients. In fact, “the aid and arms pipelines provided the capital which subsequently led to the expansion of smuggling and other businesses” (Goodhand 2002). The alignment of the non-governmental organizations with the freedom fighters essentially put paid to any notion of impartiality. It was very clear that the sympathies of nongovernmental agencies (often supported secretly by the United States), was with those who were standing up to the Soviets. These people needed to be able to sustain themselves in terms of food and for this the nongovernmental organizations stood ready to assist. As Baitenman (1990) points out, “The degree of collaboration with the rebel parties of the so-called Alliance – and the Afghan Interim Government (AIG) which the Alliance had created – in Peshawar varies. Some groups such s the French AFRANE have very close ties to the parties, and a number of NGOs have been providing health care inside Afghanistan through the Alliance health committee” (Baitenman 1990). The proliferation of aid agencies into Afghanistan came from the designation of the country as a failed state. With such a declaration, agencies under the United Nations, International Red Cross, and countless NGOs set up both in Kabul and in the provinces. This was in addition to those agencies that operated in Pakistan but were really geared towards helping Afghans. In the 1990s many of the NGOs backed away from providing aid to particular war lords or parties, in effect, disengaging themselves from any efforts that might be construed as aiding the fighting efforts. In fairness, thanks to the assistance of various NGOs thee was success in programs that contributed to road building, farming and the support of small businesses. While Pakistan had always allowed Afghanistan refugees to come within its borders, in the early 1970s, a new kind of Afghan refugee began to enter Pakistan. This was the group made up of Islamic fundamentalists that had been planning to overthrow the president of the country at the time, Mohammad Daoud. By the time the Soviets invaded, the number of such refugees in Pakistan, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, stood at 3.5 million. Within Pakistan itself, divisions among the refugees were heightened when the government of Pakistan forced the refugees to register, which often meant aligning themselves with one political group or another. Some of the refugees were also part of the armed resistance to the Soviets but the NGOs did not hold back from providing these people with the food or other assistance they needed. As Baitenman (1990) writes, “in practical terms, UN agencies and NGOs working with refugees have been actively aiding a large armed resistance force…NGOs that aid refugees, willingly or unwillingly, have also aided armed fighters since the refugee camps in Pakistan are not confined: Afghans are free to come and go, to look for work or to cross the border and fight” (Baitenman 1990). Millions of dollars, even from the United Nations coffers, sometimes went missing, ending up in the pockets of resistance fighters. The US government’s increasing interest in NGOs as potential tools began around August 1979 when through congressional support, millions of dollars were funneled to NGOs serving in Pakistan and elsewhere such as Catholic Relief Services, the Salvation Army, and International Rescue Committee. Worryingly, for those who care about peace has been the unmistakable reality that many of the cross-border NGOs were strengthening the base of the freedom-fighters by not only feeding the rebels but also giving the commanders the financial strength that they needed to feel secure in their efforts to resist the Soviets. The NGOs may have been focused on giving aid but they became willing pawns of the US government. As Baitenman explains, “Much of the US aid has been an extension of the war effort, and NGOs have been used as the instruments of this policy. When the USA has wanted to strengthen certain commanders, it has done so through NGOs. Afghanaid is a good illustration: it received 65-70 percent of its annual budget from US government sources, including DOS funds specifically for aid to the Panjshir Valley where the militarily effective forces of Commander Massoud operate” (Baitenman 1990). The American support of the insurgents was not limited to US NGOs. In fact, perhaps to provide the perfect disguise the American government provided funding for many European NGOs whose funds ended up with the insurgents. Through such American aid agencies such as USAID there was also technical assistance provided to the Alliance. Some of this aid included the provision of agricultural equipment. But aid, in the case of the Afghan war, was not only limited to food and agriculture or technical assistance. There was also direct and indirect military aid to the insurgents. The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States sent weapons shipments to the rebels. Some of these arms and weapons were stolen en route to the insurgents. As they were often passed through intermediaries, there was also a lot of room for corruption. Psychological operations in support of the Afghan insurgents were set up in the form of distribution of tapes or the broadcasting of clandestine radio programs to Afghanistan. One of the more direct programs, it must be noted, was “Project Boots,”…a joint project of the United States Council for World Freedom and the Committee for a Free Afghanistan,, included direct aid for rebels, cash for several top commanders, medical supplies, clothing and communications equipment” (Baitenman 1990). This removes any doubt that aid, in fact, sometimes goes to fuel fighting among factions. In the article, “Collateral Damage,” researcher Sarah Kenyon Lischer, without mincing words, notes “Refugee relief can feed militants; sustain and protect the militants’s supporters; contribute to the war economy; and provide legitimacy to combatants” (Kenyon 2003). Among the conditions that can lead to the exacerbation of conflict is the high level of togetherness or politician cohesion that might exist among refugees. When militants have access to food through aid mechanisms they do not have to invest any energy into finding food and so they can concentrate on their chief goal, which may be to fight. Even at the height of the massacre of Tutsis some of the Hutus who had murdered others and left their country, perhaps out of fear of being held to account in the future, became the beneficiaries of international aid in such countries as Zaire. “In some cases, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have intentionally provided food directly to militants. In the Zaire camps, some NGOs rationalized that if the Hutu militants did not receive aid, they would steal it from the refugees” (Kenyon 2003). For some NGOs the rationalization was based on the notion of strict impartiality. This meant that they would be just as eager to feed an axe murderer as they would an innocent baby. As Fabrizio Hochchild, a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees official explained during the height of the Rwanda problem, “Even the guilty need to be fed” (Kenyon 2003). Though one would like to disagree with this, the fact of the matter is that, in most civilized nations, the guilty, suspects, and those who are alleged to have committed crimes, still get the benefit of two or three square meals a day. Another way in which aid helps fuel conflict is that the fighters who might have tried to do honest labour in order to fend for their families may be relieved of this responsibility thanks to food aid from NGOs. As explained above with regards to levies charged by some Afghan warriors this also happened in Rwanda and Zaire. Food, in the world of refugees is as powerful a commodity as weapons and cash. For some, the kind of aid that NGOs directly or inadvertently give to combatants is minimal. Kenyon disagrees because $20million of stolen equipment may have contributed to the financing of the terror activities of the rebels which degenerated into the cutting of limbs of innocent civilians. Another element is the psychological boost that militants get when they gain access to food aid or some other forms of aid. When aid was directed to Rwanda, for example, it fed the perception that the people were helpless even though many of them were guilty of chopping up their fellow countrymen and women. There is no question that trying to tie aid with the exacerbation of conflict is a difficult one. On the surface, it seems counterintuitive. After all, people who are in the throes of suffering may only care about how they can survive. The reality is that when people have food to eat, they are then able to free themselves from engaging in the arduous work of finding their daily bread. With so much freedom on their hands, they turn to idle pursuits or feel free to participate in activities that may endanger themselves or their fellow human beings. It is gratifying that researchers are beginning to look closely at aid and to see those lapses that lead to terrible outcomes for millions of people who are may be at the wrong end of terrors that stem from criminals’ access to international food aid, medicine, or even sometimes arms. Bibliography Addison, Tony & McGillivaray. “Aid to conflict-affected countries: lessons for donors.” Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 4 Issue 3 (December 2004):347-367. Andersen, Regine. “How multilateral development assistance triggered the conflict in Rwanda.” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 21 Issue 3 (2004):441-456. Baitenman, Helga. “NGOs and the Afghan war: the politicization of humanitarian aid.” Third World Quarterly, (January 1990). Bilchik, Nadia et al. “Darfur Conflict at Standstill; The Floating City of Bongo.” Inside Africa (CNN International) (09/02/2006) “Chad: UN Aid Agencies Said Concerned About Refugees Fate Following Chad Fighting.” World News Connection, (1/27/2007) Goodhand, Jonathan. “Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in Afghanistan.” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23 Issue 5 (2002):837-859. Humphrey, Brenda. “US Aid Worsens Poverty, Oppression.” Winston-Salem Journal (Saturday, September 27, 2003) Lischer, Sarah Kenyon. “Collateral Damage: Humanitarian Assistance as a Cause of Conflict.” International Security, Vol. 28 No 1 (Summer 2003):79-109. Read More