ACERCAMIENTO METODOLÓGICO

Operating in the midst of new wars such as that in northern Uganda has increased humanitarian actors’ vulnerability to violence (see section 3.1). As a result, the relations between humanitarian actors and security forces have been renegotiated under transformed humanitarianism. One of the classic principles of humanitarian assistance, which has also been set down in recent codes of conduct for relief and development assistance, is that relief and development assistance are to be impartial and neutral (see for instance ICRC 1995, and section 3.5 in this study). Working amid conflict poses

intervening agencies with particular challenges to maintaining these principles. These challenges were also apparent in Kitgum.

The impartiality of aid was not self-evident to the displaced women I interviewed in the district. At one camp I was told that the World Food Programme’s (WFP) food rations were being cut down under orders from the Ugandan government, and at another camp women explained that NGOs made decisions on whom to help based on recommendations from the government. Similarly some of Finnström’s (2003) informants were under the impression that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been sent to the camps by the Ugandan government.

Many of the development and humanitarian workers I interviewed emphatically stressed the need for agencies to uphold neutrality, and would have agreed with the claim that “humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality are necessary to maintain the confidence of the [Ugandan] government (and other parties) about the NGOs’ humanitarian intentions” (ICVA 2006a: 10). Yet despite common goodwill, the reality was far from the principles, as is suggested by how a field office director of an international organisation responded to my question on the neutrality of intervention in northern Uganda: “Oh, we’re all in bed with the government!” (interview in Kitgum, 11 August 2006).

The neutrality of humanitarian and development assistance in northern Uganda was particularly challenged by the need to provide security for intervening actors. After the LRA rebels attacked development workers in October 2005 (see section 5.3), a number of humanitarian actors withdrew their operations, and before returning to the area, were forced to scale up procedures with which to ensure safe access to the displacement camps. For all other international actors except the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Medécins Sans Frontièrers (MSF), the strategy of choice has been to rent trucks with which UPDF soldiers escorted agency staff to the displacement camps. Views varied in Kitgum on how the use of escorts affected the neutrality of intervening organisations. The use of escorts was not seen as a sign of lacking conflict sensitivity by most of those I interviewed, yet at the same time, many acknowledged the problems linked to using escorts. As a UN representative told me:

Of course the NGOs have been conflict sensitive, [but] we have breached some of our fundamental principles by, you know, for instance, principle of neutrality and independence, those ones have been completely compromised by the mere fact that we

have been using military escorts. (Interview, Kitgum, 10/08/06)

Many argued that using UPDF escorts was appropriate because as a representative of a UN organisation put it “the Government of Uganda has a responsibility to ensure humanitarian access, okay. In this context the UNDSS, which is the security department of the UN… has found that it is necessary and appropriate to use armed escorts in order to ensure the delivery of assistance” (Interview in Kitgum, 16 August 2006). When I asked an NGO worker whether he thought that using the escorts implied that the intervening organisations were siding with the government, he replied: “You are siding because your security is supposed to be guaranteed by the government”, after which he continued, laughing, “You cannot move with an escort of the LRA!” (Interview in Kitgum, 8 August 2006). The sardonic comment was of course true; the LRA does not provide armed escort services; yet the dilemma of taking sides cannot be brushed aside this simply (see for instance Anderson 1999, IASC 2001).

Whatever the responsibilities of the Ugandan government to protect humanitarian assistance, the government is a party to conflict in northern Uganda, and it seems naïve to propose that using escorts provided by a conflict party has no unintended or negative impacts on the dynamics of conflict. Yet this was exactly what a number of those I interviewed in Kitgum argued. Others however; both in organisations which did and did not use escorts; were immensely critical of the use of escorts, and both the Ugandan government and the humanitarian community in northern Uganda were criticised for having given insufficient consideration to alternative strategies for the military escorts (see also CSOPNU 2004: 7). None of the displaced women I interviewed, however, criticised aid agencies for using military escorts. Rather it was argued that the escorts were needed to ensure that relief workers were safe, and to make sure that “the rebels don’t attack and take away the things they [aid organisations] are bringing to the camps” (Interview at Palabek Gem camp, 10 August 2006).

A number of my informants referred to the risks included in using UPDF escorts. I was told that some organisations had learned from LRA returnees that the rebels had been specifically instructed not to attack the ICRC and MSF, because they did not use escorts. On the other hand, I was told that government officials had accused agencies that had not taken to using UPDF escorts of rebel collaboration. According to NGO staff I spoke with, such suspicions had particularly surrounded the ICRC, which does not use escorts, nor does it deny assistance to injured LRA rebels.

Some of those interviewed were also sceptical of the ability of the UPDF soldiers to actually provide humanitarian workers with any meaningful amount of security in the event of a rebel attack on a convoy. The story of what a senior development professional I spoke to in Kampala had personally experienced highlighted such doubts. A group of NGO staff had visited a remote displacement settlement in Gulu district. Driving to the location, the group had passed a group of UPDF soldiers parked by the road. Soon after, the driver, a local man, had said he felt there was something wrong, and suggested they turn back immediately. As they again approached the group of government soldiers, they noticed the soldiers had changed their attire, and were pulling on masks. The team had managed to tear their way through the impending roadblock, just in time to see guns being drawn. As the person who shared this experience with me understood the situation, they were about to be ambushed by a group of soldiers who would then have put the blame on the LRA. The story, though unverified, serves to highlight the complexities and challenges of operating within the complex reality of conflict in northern Uganda.