Outstanding Ituri issue to limit ICRC activities in 2002

The repercussions from the assassination of six staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ituri District, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on 26 April will continue to be felt in Uganda through next year, the organisation reported this week.

The effects of the attack, which led to the suspension of most of the organisation's aid programmes in that region and in neighbouring Uganda, would continue to affect its capacity to bring assistance and protection to rural areas of Uganda in 2002, it said in a preview of planned operations for the year on Monday.

"As we are not sure that the conditions necessary for the resumption of all our programmes [in Uganda] will be met, our appeal for 2002 covers only six months and is limited to activities that can be pursued in the short term," it added.

One area of operations that would continue in 2002 would be a programme of support and assistance to the Uganda Red Cross Society, Florian Westphal, ICRC spokesman in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said on Friday. Included in this would be continued financial support, training, and assistance with disaster preparedness and public dissemination of the Red Cross aims and objectives, he said.

For the ICRC, security problems - from the Ituri assassinations, to the premature halt to an aid programme in northern Burundi and the forced withdrawal of its expatriates from Afghanistan in September 2001, after more than 20 years' uninterrupted presence - were among the most telling obstacles to its humanitarian work this year.

These were reminders of how difficult, but how important, it was for a neutral and independent humanitarian organisation to maintain access to the victims of conflict or internal violence and work in close proximity to them.

"These very serious, even tragic, setbacks underline the fact that, in 2002, the ICRC must gain wider acceptance of its action and obtain the security guarantees essential for long-term access to victims," it said.

In Uganda, except for special circumstances, "the ICRC will not be able to have activities out in the field - in the north and in the west, especially - until it gets information on what happened in Ituri," the organisation's Head of Delegation in Uganda, Thomas Merkelbach, told IRIN.

"The same is true for detention visits outside the area of the capital, Kampala," he added.

Until April, ICRC was providing assistance to displaced people in northern and western Uganda, as well as engaging in health interventions, but these remain suspended as a result of the Ituri killings. A tracing service for missing persons is continuing.

Over 715,000 refugees, displaced persons and victims of drought remain idle in camps throughout Uganda, but predominantly in the north and west, without sufficient land, shelter, income and other basic and inalienable rights, according to the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the capital, Kampala.

Before resuming normal operations, the ICRC needed to receive sufficient information on what happened in Ituri - to know who was involved and what had led to the killings - in order to look out for warning signals, know if it needed to adapt security arrangements and avoid any repetition, Merkelbach said on Friday.

With a primary condition for action being security, the organisation said it intended to make more thorough analyses of the dangers in situations in which it worked. Among the elements it would look at in establishing a threshold beyond which its presence could be seriously compromised were:

ethnic factors - for example, the degree of antagonism among the ethnic groups on the spot;
sociological factors - eg, the degree of militancy and polarisation among the representatives of civil society;
economic factors - eg, access to natural resources on the local, national, sub-regional and international levels;
political developments, especially on the sub-regional level - eg, peace processes and electoral processes;
differences of approach among humanitarian agencies - eg, giving priority to maintaining access to victims rather than to denunciation;
and, the specific scope of ICRC operations in relation to those conducted by other humanitarian organisations.

More than ever before, the ICRC must refrain from - and must be perceived as refraining from - taking political positions and must act in compliance with its fundamental principles of independence, impartiality and humanity, the 2002 action plan stated.

The protection of victims, which required the presence of ICRC delegates in the field, was crucial to all the organisation's other activities - in protection, health, relief, water and habitat improvement, and particularly to try to protect the safety of women, children and forcibly displaced civilians in conflict situations, it added.

After the terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September this year, some countries would be affected in various ways in 2002 for allegedly harbouring on their territory groups proven or alleged to have links with those responsible for terrorism, according to the ICRC.

In humanitarian terms, it said, the most immediate foreseeable consequences would be: an increase in the number of people deprived of their freedom (prisoners of war, civilian internees, security detainees); more civilians affected by the events (internally displaced persons, women, children); and, more wounded (civilians, combatants), as well as civilians who would inevitably suffer from the economic repercussions of the crisis.

There was also the risk that certain familiar and persistent humanitarian issues would be sidelined by the international community over the coming months or even years," the organisation warned. Such disinterest would only aggravate the humanitarian situation in the countries concerned, especially in Africa, it said.

"The primary responsibility of humanitarian agencies of whatever type is to steer clear of the polemics," according to the ICRC.

"Rising to this challenge is at once a simple and a complex matter, but it must be done if a vital space for independent humanitarian action is to be preserved," it added.