Strengthening staff security: priorities and challenges. ('Protecting the Protectors').

"We are waiting for the enemy. We sit here like bait, unarmed, waiting for the wave while waiting for the militia to do what they have to do; I will draft the agenda for the meeting tomorrow on Kapang. The aim of the meeting: to examine how we are going to continue this operation. I have to go now. I hear screaming outside." These chilling words written by Carlos Caceres, one of three United Nations staff brutally murdered on 6 September 2000 in Atambua, West Timor, have been immortalized. But most humanitarian workers leave as quietly as they enter their field.

Much has been written about the heroes of war, but the unsung heroes of peace, development and humanitarian relief remain a shadowy group. Every day, somewhere in the world, a humanitarian worker puts himself or herself in harm's way to further the cause of peace and security for others. To name just a few recent incidents: on 30 March 2003, a water supply engineer with the International Committee of the Red Cross was shot by unidentified assailants in Afghanistan while helping the country's neediest citizens; on 6 March in Timor-Leste, five UN peacekeepers drowned in a swift-moving river when the driver of their vehicle lost control; on the same day, three aid workers went missing in a highly volatile border region between Liberia and Cote d'lvoire.

In the past decade, we have seen more than a hundred armed conflicts claiming millions of civilian lives and displacing large populations; of these, only seven have been between States. Increased intra-State conflicts in the past few years have resulted in the deployment of more humanitarian workers than ever before in conflict zones. There has been an increased disregard by warring parties for international humanitarian and human rights law, partly due to a perception of humanitarian agencies as partisan obstacles to the attainment of military goals.

According to British and Canadian studies on the Bosnian conflict, as much as 70 to 90 per cent of soldiers in certain missions between 1992 and 1995 were faced with life-threatening situations involving weapons and mortar fire, being held at gunpoint and sniper activity. Other risks included exposure to mine threat, environmental toxins, hostage-taking, witnessing suicide, death by accident, and sexual assault. Observing ethnic cleansing, torture, rape and mutilation of innocents, such as women, children and the elderly, had the greatest impact on the psyches of these international workers.

The primary responsibility for the safety and security of UN personnel in field operations rests with host Governments. No security measures can be effective without their full commitment and efficacy. National and regional safety regulations for international civil servants are as important as UN-mandated initiatives. Unfortunately, the riskiest situation for humanitarian personnel also tend to be those where local government structures have frayed and the international community has been unable to prevent or stop conflicts, giving rise to displacement of populations and a dangerous breakdown of legal and administrative instruments. Additionally, most States still define security more in terms of sovereignty and territorial integrity than in terms of the rights and welfare of the civilian population and humanitarian workers.

Another risk to UN personnel is host governments' lack of awareness of their responsibility for staff security during field operations in their country. In some cases, threats may be generated or fuelled by negative statements by government officials themselves through the media; or local staff belonging to specific ethnic, linguistic or cultural affiliations might be targeted in unwarranted hate attacks. In other cases, local and regional actors perpetrate such attacks as a means of gaining political visibility and recognition. All too often, threats come from non-State actors motivated by economic gain. Control and exploitation of diamonds, timber and other raw materials in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the arms and drug trade in Afghanistan, as well as the plunder of natural resources in Cambodia and the Congo, are all examples of criminal profiteering as a by-product of intra-state strife which might result in attacks on relief workers.

Each organization is obligated to protect and care for the staff it dispatches to troubled areas. Humanitarian assistance cannot be successfully provided if humanitarian relief workers are themselves potential casualties. Futher political, legal and financial measures for enhancing staff security are needed to enable the UN system to advance the cause of peace, development and security.

Over the past decade, threats against the safety and security of UN personnel have escalated at an unprecedented pace. Forced to operate in increasingly dangerous environments and in complex emergencies, the mortality and distress rates of field staff have increased dramatically. From January 1992 to April 2003, 220 civilian UN staff members lost their lives through the deliberate machinations of perpetrators, only 22 of whom have been brought to justice. In 2002 alone, seven staff members gave their lives in the line of duty in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, Palestine and Somalia. Another three died in helicopter accidents in Georgia and Sierra Leone.

Between January 1994 and October 2002, 74 incidents involving hostage-taking or kidnapping involving 262 staff occurred--eight in 2002 in separate incidents in Somalia, the Sudan and Guyana. To date, there are still 39 UN personnel in detention at various locations in the world. This list does not include the growing number of incidents of rape, sexual assault, armed robbery, car-jacking, attack on humanitarian convoys and operations and harassment perpetrated upon UN staff. Nor have the psychological costs of war been included.

The Secretary-General deplored these deadly statistics and again stressed the importance of legal protection for staff, urging all Member States to sign the 1994 Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel and approve a Protocol that would extend the scope of the Convention's application to all UN operations and categories of personnel beyond those currently covered. Less than one third of the 191 Member States are parties to the Convention. Mr. Annan also urged signing of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which classifies attacks on peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel as war crimes and would provide another layer of protection by taking away the impunity of perpetrators of violence.

In order to arrive at solutions to security issues and responses to threats, it is important to understand the nature of these threats. Sean Greenaway and Andrew J. Harris, in their 1998 paper, Humanitarian Security: Challenges and Responses, cite four categories of threats: accident, criminality, banditry and targeting. According to their statistics, most lives are lost due to accidents; criminality and banditry come next, followed by targeting, which is the least prevalent but deadliest threat whenever it does occur.

Accidents might refer to being caught inadvertently in crossfire, stepping on landmines or becoming involved with road or air mishaps. As Catherine A. Bertini writes in her essay, Protecting the Protectors: "In regions where humanitarian staff are deployed, the roads are all too often bad, drivers negligent, mosquitoes infectious and water contaminated. In all these guises, mortality haunts the front lines, claiming its victims at random."

Criminality is an obvious danger in situations where there is a total breakdown of civic and legal structures resulting in total lawlessness. Banditry might involve the looting of aid agency assets by armed local factions feeding either their war machine or doing it for personal gain, as well as hostage-taking for ransom. Targeting refers to deliberate attacks or threats to agency personnel aimed at disruption of their activities, which could have any number of motives: a desire to influence a third party, force withdrawal of the agency, or invite greater force in the conflict.

Often the brutal nature of internal conflicts blurs the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, undermines respect for the legal status of relief workers and might even make them valuable targets to subvert the war effort of an adversary. It is important to note that when relief is deployed, it changes the dynamics of the conflict and becomes inextricably linked to the war economy. The recent trend of declining development expenditures and soaring aid funds also contribute to a deteriorating security climate for relief workers.

Warring factions consider humanitarian and development organizations in conflict settings "soft targets". This causes these organizations to resist being equated with armed units in order not to compromise the stamp of neutrality and impartiality that provides them with immunity from attack. Leaving the protective umbrella of the army, however, can sometimes backfire since civilian security measures are usually inadequate to counter sudden violence. Another method employed by relief staff is the "anthropological" approach to security--creating close association and bonds with the distressed population who are expected to provide protection and early warning in case of any impending attacks. This method often works well in cases where the relief workers are well-experienced and trained actors who have the judgement and ability to adapt to sudden adverse changes.

The Secretary-General recently initiated a two-year programme for the reinforcement of the UN Security Management System, and in his millennium report to the General Assembly in 2000 called the security of the 30,000 personnel overseas a legal responsibility. He has appointed Tun Myat of Myanmar as United Nations Security Coordinator at the Assistant Secretary-General level. The Office of the UN Security Coordinator (UNSECOORD) provides a sharp focus on strengthening security coordination and management and on sustaining initiatives aimed at increasing the efficacy of the security management system.

Accountability measures have been established and the roles of personnel clearly defined. Some 24 professional staff have been recruited and there is a renewed push for facilitating the monitoring and backstopping of field operations, increasing Headquarters' participation in interagency assessments and security training missions, and enhancing support to critical incident management in the field. Mr. Myat currently manages a cadre of 100 international field security officers and over 200 local-level support staff approved by the General Assembly in 2001.

The United Nations has created Minimum Operational Security Standards (MOSS) to help determine the minimum requirements for the field security management system, provide a mechanism to increase the security consciousness of personnel, reduce risk and establish standard field-based criteria to assume responsibility and accountability. MOSS is divided into four sections: security planning, training of staff, telecommunications and security equipment. Its purpose for each duty station is to review the various country-specific threats and their associated risks, using a standardized threat-assessment system to help determine the safety measures undertaken to enable staff to operate effectively and safely at that location. Each agency has been made responsible for providing resources to its duty stations to enable them to become MOSS-compliant.

UNSECOORD is assisting countries proactively to implement MOSS, with the active participation of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The United Nations and its partners constantly negotiate access agreements with all warring parties; these agreements have to be seen as transparent, neutral and a humanitarian necessity. Armed groups need to be engaged in constructive dialogue, and Governments need to understand that such dialogue does not confer legitimacy on any group. Inter-agency coordination and action enable UNSECOORD to enhance its ability to respond to critical incidents, with special emphasis on relief agencies such as UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP. An integrated network of professional security officers has been created and placed on the security roster for rapid assignment.

Security training is another vital pillar for risk reduction. All UN personnel are being given mandatory training to participate effectively in the UN security management system. UNSECOORD also continues to present its "personal security awareness and stress management training" at a number of duty stations, having addressed the needs of about 5,000 UN staff in 2001 and 2002 alone. With the support of OCHA, the Office has also developed a training programme for staff serving at high-risk duty stations. This programme has a contextual approach addressing specific security situations and has proven to be more effective than the previous generic initiatives. Other programmes include training field security officers as trainers at special MOSS workshops, issuing special security publications and, with the help of UNHCR, developing a CD-ROM for field staff.

Stress counselling is a new initiative designed to address the psychological cost of war and counsel staff directly exposed to trauma. Awareness is growing of other byproducts of extreme humanitarian crises, such as loneliness, the terror of being targeted by both sides, abuse, horror of refugee camps, family breakups, alcohol and drug problems, fatal accidents, mine injuries, orphaned children and abandoned spouses. Stress counsellors have been appointed to help field staff through difficulties.

Security collaboration between the United Nations and other organizations is another important issue, as more and more inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) work in close collaboration with the UN system. These external agencies typically have a freer hand in decisions related to the extent of their penetration in dangerous situations. This independence and diversity of mandates make for greater vulnerability of their staff. In crisis situations, the interdependence of these various actors also means greater vulnerability for all, since the actions of one group can seriously impact the operational security of the others. To address this vulnerability, a guideline on "UN/NGO Security Collaboration" has been developed, outlining common security standards and ground rules. It also describes best practices in complex emergencies and calls for greater interaction and pooling of resources and training capacities. The guideline has been available in the field since early 2002.

The inter-agency staff security management agenda of the United Nations encompasses a wide range of activities, including monitoring of new security arrangements, budgetary matters both in field offices and at Headquarters, issues of accountability, implementation of MOSS, telecommunication standards, security training, field security officers, malicious acts insurance policy, minimum air safety and security standards, transportation of cash, security entitlements for locally-recruited staff, residential security measures, use of military/armed escorts and investigations into the death of staff members.

Donor support is an essential component, but given the rapidity and unpredictability of most crises, it was agreed in 2001 that field security requirements should be included in the United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeals for countries in crisis. UNSECOORD coordinates with donor countries and other UN agencies to determine where and how extrabudgetary contributions can be used most effectively and expeditiously. Only eight Member States have made extrabudgetary contributions thus far: Canada, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The total costs of the expanded UN security system are shared by all UN agencies, programmes and funds. Since operational security has become a core function of the United Nations and an integral element of humanitarian assistance, the four specialized agencies involved in extreme emergency situations--UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF and UNDP--had asked that the cost of security be covered by the UN regular budget. This proposal, however, has not yet been accepted. Each agency's share is based on the number of staff deployed in the field benefiting from the central security system, and is established through a census conducted every two years. Based on the July 2001 census, the UNHCR contribution to the UNSECOORD budget of $53.32 million for the 2002-2003 biennium will be 7.53 per cent. In 2002, this translates to $2,006,750, which represent the payment made to UNSECOORD based on actual expenditures.

But there are other related though slightly more obscure costs. The costs of inaction--both to those who provide assistance and protection and those who need it--are huge. It is imperative to initiate a broad-based humanitarian dialogue that includes State and non-State actors to lift impunity from perpetrators of violence, in accordance with a strengthened international legal regime.

RELATED ARTICLE: Remembering 'The Forgotten Staff'

The United Nations has given the issue of staff security special attention in recent years through a number of summits on staff security. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a statement commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members on 25 March 2003, emphasized the "need to create support systems that will be in place before, during and after deployment of staff and that will be fully sensitive not only to the physical security of those at risk but also to their mental and emotional health". With these words, Mr. Annan brought a very serious issue to the forefront: "The Forgotten Staff", which was the theme of the most recent Summit on Staff Security held in New York in June 2002.

The fifth since 1998, the Summit was designed to bring attention to the incredible odds United Nations field staff face while saving millions of lives and working towards easing the suffering of many more. Often operating in some of the most isolated, hostile and dangerous places on earth, peacekeepers, humanitarian workers, human rights observers, journalists and volunteers devote themselves at great personal sacrifice to helping others. The Summit especially highlighted: problems of detained, abducted, missing and murdered staff; the status of local staff who are afforded less protection than international recruited personnel; and the emotional trauma of those returning from mission assignments.