Humanitarian Action under Fire: Reflections on the Role of NGOs in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations

The spate of attacks against humanitarian NGOs since 2003 has raised a series of fundamental questions for humanitarian operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict and post-conflict situations. This article reflects on the ‘new humanitarianism’ and how increasingly, this humanitarianism is under attack in violation of the Geneva Conventions on the Laws and Customs of War. It argues that humanitarian action is under attack because of efforts by Western governments (particularly the United States) to make humanitarian NGOs an extension of their military and political agendas. In circumstances of the politicization of humanitarian aid, it becomes difficult for combatants to distinguish between Western governments' agendas and those of NGOs. The article concludes by calling for the insulation of humanitarian aid from politics. This separation of politics and humanitarianism can only be realized by returning to traditional principles that have guided humanitarian action.