An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir July / August 2020 www.dfmagazine.ie 20 | ENGAGEMENT WITH NGOS The relationship between EUFOR and more than 70 NGOs on the ground in the region could reasonably be argued to have been among the most problematic of all EUFOR's key stakeholders. According to force commanders, painstaking effort was put into first establishing and then developing relationships with these organisations and their staffs – both international and local. The mandate of the operation included protection of humanitarians, their facilities and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Security had been and was a very serious issue with NGO compounds being loot- ed, vehicles carjacked and international and local staff being beaten, kidnapped, shot at and receiving death threats. Re- lationships were ultimately successfully established with 71 NGOs operating in the region. These were based on a range of mechanisms and standard operating procedures designed to ensure effective communication between the NGO's and EUFOR and to facilitate EUFOR support when and where necessary. Six NGO's refused to engage with EUFOR at any level. Tensions between the two sides reflected contrasting roles. According to one senior military interviewee many NGOs were reluctant to be seen with, or supported by, EUFOR. While EUFOR could not substitute for effective local policing, investigation and prosecution, EUFOR could deliver the wide area security it was designed to supply, but only with a level of basic cooperation and engagement. For example, NGOs were asked to advise EUFOR about their personnel movements and aid shipments if they wanted re- sources to be assigned to their security. Several refused. For their part NGOs were determined to preserve and protect their 'humanitarian space'. Only this would allow them to be able to assess needs, deliver aid and control its use while respecting the basic humanitarian principles of impartial- ity, neutrality and independence. Reliance upon – or even engagement with – EUFOR was seen by some as compro- mising those key principles. Over time, relationships did successfully develop, illustrat- ed as when rebel activity near the town of Kerfi in July 2008 threatened NGO staff and facilities. EUFOR troops helped evacuate NGO staff and remained on the ground for several days until tensions subsided. By contrast, the previous May, the project director of Save the Children in Chad, Pascal Marlinge and his driver Ramadan Djon were shot dead by armed men who stopped their three-car convoy near the town of Forchana, just 20 km from a EUFOR base. To square the circle, EUFOR began to share information with NGOs as to some of its own patrol movements on major routes, thus allowing NGOs to synchronise their own movements with, or against, those of EUFOR as they chose. This did not pro- vide military escorts per se, but it served to open routes for the flow of aid shipments. EUFOR thus 'went out of its way to adapt to the situation within its mandate and, through creative ways of patrolling and the provision of area security, helped the humanitarian community to operate in eastern Chad and northeastern CAR' (Kollies and Reck 2011:155). There was positive engagement in the other direction too. EUFOR's mandate included the facilitation of the return of both refugees and Internally Displaced People (IDP) to their homes and this was a high political priority, especially in Paris. On initial deployment in March, EUFOR thus preoc- cupied itself with encouraging IDPs to return to their homes before the start of the rainy season and sought to focus its efforts on securing the areas of origin of some of these IDPs. These efforts were put on hold when NGOs shared their local knowledge and experience of what was going on the ground in these areas and the inadvisability of trying to move populations prematurely or under pressure as some specious indicator of operational success. This was an argu-

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