As Alain Destexhe writes, if humanitarian assistance is to be worthy of its name, it must work in parallel with efforts to meet the demands of justice and respect for human rights . All the ambiguities of intervention lie in this essential link. Humanitarian agencies are caught between governments seeking an alibi for their political inaction, and media tending to focus on human tragedy rather than its political roots. On Aid Fuelling War Humanitarian intervention can also fuel the crises it seeks to alleviate, and all the more so since the number of NGOs and their funding multiplied in the 1990 s. Aid can be taxed, hijacked, looted, racketeered. Interventions can be manipulated to build internal or international legitimacy, to freeze military gains, to sustain ethnic cleansing, to enforce population displacement, to support famine policies.
Every situation requires careful analysis.
Despite all contradictions attached to the act, striving to save lives and alleviate distress remain fundamental. Humanitarian action cannot be considered as the small change of larger political considerations. But to recognize that humanitarian aid could have perverse effects and lengthens the war, leads one to at least ask the right questions on the type of program to design, on the control to exercise, on the level of aid to channel . This was the case in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania, from which MSF withdrew in late 1994. Humanitarian aid has always been fraught with tremendous political and ethical controversies.