Can World Aid Agencies Be Politically Neutral? Groups Question Whether Humanitarian Needs Outweigh Ethical Issues

Judith Matloff, writer of The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor

Central Africa's refugee crisis has sparked aid agencies to question their uncomfortable role on the front line of world conflicts.

For 2-1/2 years, the United Nations maintained camps for Rwandan refugees in Zaire and Tanzania that doubled as bases for Rwandan Hutu militias, who used them to stage cross-border raids and hold thousands of refugees virtually hostage. This has prompted soul searching about the ethics of increasingly politicized aid work.

The camps have broken up. Some 600,000 refugees have returned from Zaire. Thousands more are streaming back from Tanzania. And aid groups are standing back to weigh the impact on their multimillion-dollar …

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Publication information: Article title: Can World Aid Agencies Be Politically Neutral? Groups Question Whether Humanitarian Needs Outweigh Ethical Issues. Contributors: Judith Matloff, writer of The Christian Science Monitor - Author. Newspaper title: The Christian Science Monitor. Publication date: December 16, 1996. Page number: 1. © 2009 The Christian Science Publishing Society. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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