Experts debate humanitarian intervention.

• Author: Sura, Vikram
• Position: 'Distinguishing Help from Harm'

Four panelists, experienced in their areas of work, offered differing views as to how--not whether--humanitarianism was in crisis at the first of a planned series of debates sponsored by the United Nations Department of Public Information.

Carolyn McAskie, UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator; David Rieff, author and journalist; William Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International, USA; and Sir Brian Urquhart, author and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs debated and rebutted one another. Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, moderated the event. The occasion was the publication by David Rieff of his book, "A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis".

The four speakers accepted that humanitarianism was in crisis, but clashed as to why and who was responsible, diverging from Rieffs thesis that the marriage between humanitarianism and human rights had been a historic mistake. "Ws not an attack on humanitarianism", Mr. Rieff said. "It is, however, a claim that the marriage of human action and human rights, perhaps very good for the human rights movement, and perhaps very convenient to western governments, is a historic mistake." He said if humanitarianism became a part of a more vast project, it betrayed its own specific moral gravity.

Ms. McAskie and Mr. Schulz, notably, took issue with the criticism in the book that they felt was neither very helpful nor clear on the issues surrounding humanitarianism. "Criticism must be savage, unhelpful", Mr. Rieff said. Ms. McAskie said that Rieff's argument had its merits, but added: "I'm not sure he can put this on the table without a more substantive alternative to propose. Where I part company with his thesis is that I would not chastise humanitarians who seek to work closely with those who seek solutions."

She had always believed, she said, that the humanitarian and development communities she worked with could be divided into reformers and radicals. "The radical is the one who creates the environment in which the reformer can change society", she said, complimenting Rieff as a radical. There were "lot of things" in his book with which all must agree. However, Ms. McAskie noted, "realism dictates that his cry for a return to pure, unquestioning humanitarianism, devoid of political contamination, is neither realistic nor helpful". She said that the link between the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian...