The aid organisations haven't come hammering angrily at her door yet. But journalist Linda Polman hopes her new book will spark off a debate. In With Friends Like These she describes the world behind the aid industry. Key words in the book are "contract fever", "playing golf" and "bad guys".
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In Goma in eastern Congo, for example, where in 1995 a million Rwandans fleeing the genocide congregated: "Hercules planes flew back and forth from the local airstrip, bringing in more and more aid. Canvas clinics and orphanages were set up." But Linda Polman also saw armed men in military uniforms among the tents, and here and there a tank. "While the West thought it was helping victims of the genocide, it turned out it was the perpetrators whom the aid organisations were looking after so well." Of course, the aid workers also saw the uniforms, Polman says,"But if that had leaked out, the donors would have stopped giving money."
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The disaster in Goma has been analysed thoroughly, and aid organisations have now admitted that at the time they were suffering from contract fever. When the "crisis caravan" (the Dutch title of Polman's book) sets up camp, everything revolves around contracts, says Polman.
Aid organisations can bid for jobs that the donors say need to be done, such as setting up tents and laying water pipes. What the aid organisations focus on is winning and extending contracts, and wheedling them out of competing organisations, she says.
The organisations travel around, following the flow of funds. As soon as donors start looking at other disasters and countries, the crisis caravan sets off again.
Beach balls
Ms Polman remembers when the caravan arrived in Sierra Leone after a bloody civil war. "When the city was still in ruins and people were living under pieces of cardboard, the first tennis courts and bars were opened and the beach balls were blown up." In other crisis areas, Polman saw the same contradictions. "Every time I find it horrible to see how the wealth arrives with the NGOs. That's what Westerners do. They come in and make it as pleasant a place to work for themselves as possible."Aid in the wrong pockets
Ms Polman says aid organisations also shut their eyes to the consequences of their actions. Even after the Goma debacle, a lot of aid still disappears into the wrong pockets.
In Darfur, for example, aid organisations pour millions of dollars a year into Sudanese government coffers, because they have to pay tax on every morsel they hand out in aid. "Three quarters of the government budget is spent on the army, which sends helicopters to set fire to villages in Darfur and force people to flee."
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What are the organisations supposed to do then? Polman is irritated by this constantly recurring question. "We want an easy option if it turns out giving a tenner doesn't work. I argue against this. The reality is much more complicated and aid organisations need to look into it much more carefully. And sometimes they will then have to take painful decisions to stay at home if it turns out the bad guys are profiting too much from the aid."Fellow journalists also come in for a ticking off. "They should show much more of the reality in crisis areas," says Polman. "Now the aid workers take them by the hand and lead them round the disaster area. They see the humanitarian tragedies through the eyes of the aid organisations." Polman wants not only journalists but also donors to ask more critical questions. "Don't just unthinkingly accept that it must be all right because it's an aid organisation."
*RNW Translation (mb)
Tags: "crisis caravan", aid organisations, Congo, Darfur, Goma, Linda Polman, Sierra Leone