Interview with Mark Bowden on protecting civilians in conflict

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been mandated to develop a UN policy framework on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The first of a series of international workshops coordinated by OCHA was held in Pretoria, South Africa from 15 to 17 October to examine the issues and provide input to the UN Secretary-General's next report to the Security Council. IRIN spoke to Mark Bowden, chief of OCHA's Policy Development and Studies Branch, who is leading the consultative process. QUESTION: This workshop is part of a process, what is the end product? ANSWER: Part of the process is to get greater understanding of the concept of protection of civilians within regions, but also to get their [participants] feedback as to what are the main issues they see as particular threats to the security of civilians, and for them to be able to feed this back into the Security Council report and other reports on the protection of civilians that we do. One of the main aims of the workshop has been to take the concept of protection of civilians outside the Security Council to the UN's general membership to get a greater understanding of member states' responsibilities, and to identify the problems that they have in providing better protection for civilians which we see as having been seriously threatened over the last decade or so. Q: The issue of developing a legal framework is all well and good, but if we look at the particularities of conflict in Africa we have the issue of trying to identify combatants, we have the issue of the motivations that drive conflicts, do you find any problems in trying to reconcile the practical with the theory? A: One of the interesting things to come out of the conference is that despite the fact that this [Africa] is an extremely complex environment where I think there's more confusion between civilian status and combatant status than many other parts of the world, it is still possible to apply standards and principles when dealing with the problems of protection. Some of these things are actually very straightforward and practical issue to adopt, for example on refugees - to ensure that refugee camps are 50-km away from an international border is a practical measure that doesn't necessarily cost, it isn't an issue of capacity, it's primarily an issue of political will ... Again with IDPs [internally displaced persons], what was demonstrated very clearly in this meeting was that where the government feels it needs to move people out of the war zone to enable it to conduct its military operations, this doesn't mean they should ignore international standards for the treatment and care of that population. And again, there are very practical measures that can be put in place to get better implementation and compliance with those standards, including the government themselves introducing or legalising those international standards. So I think one of those things that will come out of this meeting is a very much more practical and focused approach to what actually can be done within the constraints that governments face, and indeed organisations face, that would make an appreciable difference to the protection and safety of individuals. Q: When as a government you are up against an opposition that doesn't hold those standards, the onus always seems to be on the government to act better than the rebels ...? A: I think that one of the salutary sides of the discussion here is the inability of [actors] in the region, so far, to have any meaningful engagement with armed non-state groups, by which we mean rebel groups. The dialogue has been very difficult or non-existent throughout the region as a whole. This has made it far more difficult to get acceptance of international norms and standards which apply to those groups just as much as they apply to the government. It is one of the more difficult problems this region has in dealing with the protection of civilians. Q: What do you think is behind this move towards international standards and architecture which means certain actions can no longer be tolerated? A: I think there's been a sea change in Africa and I thinks that's really quite important. Really, what's significant about NEPAD [New Partnership for African Development] and the African Union [AU] is that they are operating on a very different basis as regards to standards than the OAU [Organisation of African Union] did. There is a system of peer review which is a way of checking that standards are being upheld and there is a commitment, within the new African Union, to look at intervention in states that are not living up to their responsibilities towards their civilian populations. So in Africa there's been a very important change and I'm not sure how far this has been recognised internationally ... it's going to be very interesting to see how they [the AU] do this, it's a challenge for them, they are taking on a tremendous task. I'm sure there's still many sensitivities in Africa as a whole as to how these will be addressed, but at least there's been a shift in thinking in Africa which I think we need to recognise and acknowledge. In terms of the international community as a whole, I think with the concept of the war against terrorism there's less of an interest now in dealing with the root causes of conflict and that, I think, will have a great impact on the protection of civilians. Because unless we try to address the root causes, to look at issues of justice and reconciliation, ... [recognise] issues of social equity behind many of the conflicts, we'll provide no security in the longer term for civilians. I worry that internationally, to some extent, conflict prevention is slipping off the agenda, and with that a large element of the way civilians can be afforded protection. Q: How will findings from this workshop be incorporated into the Secretary-General's report? A: What I hope will come out of the workshop are two main things. First of all, a real sense of what are the issues that affect the region so that we can incorporate this into the Secretary-General's report to give some sense of the concerns that exist in the region about protection of civilians, where the emphasis should be and how that can be handled. What we also hope to get out of it is what areas we may have missed when looking at the aide memoir [a practical guide on protection issues prepared by OCHA for the Security Council], there are some issues here that strike one as fundamental to the protection of civilians that are not actually addressed by the aide memoir and the work of the Security Council. One example of this is the issue of property rights. That maintaining the respect of the property rights of displaced people, for example, is the key to their effective return and reintegration. There are other areas that may come out of this process as well that we haven't addressed. The other particular emphasis in the region are the links that exist here between the proliferation of small arms, organised crime, and insecurity of civilians. These are more particular to this region than many other parts of the world. We should be able to better reflect them in the report of the Secretary-General.