 I'm very happy to introduce this evening Dr. Ronny Broman. Just a few words about him. Ron was born in West Jerusalem, but lived most of his life in France. He studied, I mean, he's a medical doctor in atropical disease. And was active very, very soon in the humanitarian field since 1977 in international medical assistance. And became the president of Doctors Without Borders between 1982 and 1994. I remember seeing Ronny on television in 1999 when Doctors Without Borders was awarded the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize Prize. He was part of a delegation of three or four. I don't remember how many they were, but he was there. They were all there with his t-shirts and the name of their organization. That was very nice. For once I deserved his prize. Not all Nobel Priests, as you know, are deserved by this one. He is still involved in the even with Doctors Without Borders and its foundation and research activities. Ronny teaches at the Institut des Politiques in Paris, which is better known as Sciences Po. And he, since about, I mean, it's quite recent, I think, he's now teaching in the UK in the University of Manchester in the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute. I mean, on top of the activities that I mentioned, Ronny is a thinker about his own activity and the activities of the organizations in which he's been involved. He's written many books, starting from, I mean, the one probably the first one that, at least I heard of, it was in 93. I don't know if you've published anything before that. It was about Somalia. The humanitarian crime was the title. And it was followed by a constant flow of books. I don't read all the titles. Unfortunately, they are in French. I'm not aware of any book by Ronny Roman, but this should really be done. He translates his writings into English. At least, if you take just last year, you have three titles published. One is a small one about humanitarian and medical action, the Medizin Manitée. It's in a very widely distributed, small size, small pocket book, size edition in France. Another is a kind of long interview about why he became an activist doctor in the humanitarian field. And the third is a book of discussion, and the title is, let me translate it. I mean, the humanitarian action, let's say diplomacy and human rights. So these three books came out just last year, and I hope that some of all that will soon be available to English readership. In addition to all that, Ronny has been active in other fields. He has co-realized what I wrote with that film. I mean, it's a documentary based on documentary archives. I mean, it's based on inspired by Hannah Arendt's famous Aishman in Jerusalem. And it's a wonderful documentary. Has it been shown in English? Yeah, it has been, so it should be available in some form. And he is active also on the issue of Israel, Palestine. Ronny has taken strong positions in denouncing Israeli violence against the Palestinians and rejecting any use or pretence by the Israeli state of representing all Jews. But today we are here to listen to him speak about the humanitarian issue, humanitarianism at the risk of imperialism. Following that, as usual, we'll have a discussion, questions and answers. And let us focus on the topic of tonight among his many topics. Thank you very much. Thank you, Gilbert. Gilbert has not. Gilbert, for this very kind of presentation. I've read somewhere that if you want to make your audience fall asleep, you just have to say that you're so thrilled and glad to be here addressing this audience. Well, though I did not advise that I must say that I'm quite happy to be here and to speak to you. And as evidence of my being happy to be here, I must say that my main fear was to train across the channel and being stuck under 40 meters of fear, claustrophobic, and that was the main idea I had to go through. So I did it, it's fine, I'm here, and we're going to shift to serious matters. Humanitarianism is about relieving the suffering of people in need, regardless of their creed, political or philosophical affiliation. That is, more or less, a definition which I think anyone can accept. It is self-evidence in the name of humankind, in the name of humanity in general. Suffering has to be lived and edited. The issue of how we behave with respect to the root causes, whether we address the root causes or do we leave them aside is debatable, it's purely heated issue in humanitarian circles. I think we'll come back to this. I must say to be quite straightforward that I advocate the position of humanitarianism not addressing the root causes, and I hope that after this conference my position will be more understandable because, of course, it is rather counterintuitive to say this. But I would say that in the first place, this is both humanitarianism, strength and weakness, not addressing the root causes, but only addressing the consequences of disaster or any kind of crisis. That is my first introductory point. The second one is about, and then I will go to the catapult of the subject. The second one, just as an appetizer, is look at how the notion of humanitarianism and the world, the world, humanitarian, humanitarian, humanitarian crisis are used, are commonly used. Let's look at what happened recently in Haiti. I won't speak of Haiti in detail. I want to comment what has been done. Of course, I'll be quite happy to come back to this during the discussion. But it was described as a humanitarian crisis. This is a commonly used formula which, in fact, I don't like at all because it brings together a number of, it covers a number of very different crises, massacres, civil wars, natural disasters, etc. So it's a rather blinding and lighting approach to a real crisis. So let's talk of an earthquake there. The earthquake which occurred in Haiti was an opportunity for a number of states, different governments to offer their aid. Of course, we all have in mind what the United States did sending a huge ship, and 10,000 soldiers put in the airport running to deliver the relief. This relief effort was, I must say, played away, was extremely useful and was highly appreciated by the Haitians regardless of any other consideration. But what I would like to insist on is the fact that it was called a humanitarian effort, something not just an emergency aid or solidarity or whatever. It was called humanitarian. Okay, fine, no one seems to be keen to debate, to put this in question. Now, let's think of what happened in Lebanon during the summer of 2006 when the Israelis attacked Lebanon and Ramzakh and destroy the whatever was on their way. We all have in mind the images of what was done at the time. It was like a huge tsunami, an earthquake. It was literally attacked. After this attack, no massive relief effort was launched, though a number of NGOs were in the field trying their best to help victims of this attack. But one thing remained totally unchecked and seen, and this thing is what the Hezbollah did in these areas where the world was not a fanatic of Hezbollah, not a fanatic of the United States policy in general. But just to be fair, it is worth noting that the Hezbollah sent a number of technical advisers and people who had both advice and finance the reconstruction of a number of houses which had been destroyed by the Israelis. And they never asked the team not to have been asking what was the religious affiliation or the political preferences of the people they were sending funds or giving advice to. This is, strictly speaking, a humanitarian aid. Of course, it is inspired by political consideration. Hezbollah is a political party and it has political goals, no one ignores them. But the US government has any government, it has its own political goals, it has its own political views. And the way this notion of humanitarian aid is distributed, the way it is applied in every one side way as an self-evident way of naming what the US is doing in Haiti and it didn't even cross the minds of the people who were talking about what was happening in Lebanon to use the word humanitarian in order to describe what the Hezbollah was doing in South Lebanon. That shows how history plays in our minds, how we have a kind of predetermined view of the world which inspires the way we describe it and the way we name it. Another aspect, another way of using the notion of humanitarianism or to apply the objective humanitarian is what happened in New Orleans in 2005 after the hurricane Katrina. First, let's note that no one, at least publicly, at least when we speak of government, no one there offer these sources to shoulder the US administration which obviously had failed in addressing the consequences of the Katrina hurricane in the New Orleans, I suppose everyone has in mind what happened at the time without any support, without any relief or any way to get out of the flooded areas. In fact, it's not exactly true. Some countries decided that they would offer their name in the name of humanitarian principles. These countries were Venezuela and Cuba and Chavez and Castro publicly offered to send relief teams and Venezuela offered to send oil to goods who needed it, etc. Of course, what the White House turned the blind eye, what turned the proposition down and did not accept anything from these people but it is interesting to observe, to consider that there was a real need for these people to relief, to get relief from any place it was coming from including Cuba or Venezuela but that it was self-evident. We had no discussion that the offers set forth by Castro and Chavez were at humidity, the US government, which in fact was absolutely true they had no other idea in mind that humidity the White House and for many people it was just good news and it's not the country that publicly, but the intimidation of the White House including me, I must say. But my point is that there is a kind of discrepancy there is a sharp contrast or there should be a sharp contrast between the two things I've just said. One is the obvious need of the people for relief and the way we usually think that there is a need, there is an offer and both should be, and this is what humidity is all about but this was not a match and the offer which was coming from Venezuela and Castro was evidently considered as a humiliation. In other terms, in certain circumstances offering humanitarian aid without any aggressive way but without any agenda it was just evident, can be considered a public humiliation and this I think should be always kept in mind because what applies to the White House, to Washington what applies as well to other countries except if we think that we sort of divide the notion of exceptionalism of US exceptionalism or US manifest destiny but I don't think many people would buy this argument in this room and I don't think many people in the world buy this argument so what applies to the United States and what applies to the rest of the world obviously in our mind there is a kind of split between who is supposed to bring good things and who is supposed to receive good things and the nice world of humanitarian aid applies only to some, well to the usual substance and the rest is not supposed to use this word for themselves Now, having said that, I'd like to go back to recent history in order to clarify what I think are the main issues which are played in the humanitarian circles and in the humanitarian discourse Let's note that the 90s came to a close with the notion of humanitarian war They started with the humanitarian war in Somalia and they ended with another humanitarian war in Kosovo and I think this decade is extremely interesting to study and I won't have the time to do so but we might in discussion come back to some episodes and you might be more interested in but I think it's quite important to have this in mind in order to get closer to the subject which is the relationship between the humanitarian and, to some extent, imperialism or imperial wars etc I mentioned Somalia, I'd just like to dwell a few, a couple of minutes on this subject because Somalia was the laboratory for so-called humanitarian intervention As Gilbert said in his introduction, I wrote it's not a book, in fact, it's a small essay which, by the way, is available in this one because it's an essay, a notebook I ever wrote was translated in English but some articles and essays this one is available on the web so if you're interested you can get it but it was written more than 15 years ago so it might be outdated but still there's a description, a accurate, precise description of what happened in the country for this conference I would just mention that Somalia was not a country at the time I'm not meaning that it was not a country in real what I'm saying is that it was considered a laboratory which was launched by the UN Secretary General and the day Secretary General, which was Galli and it became a laboratory for the UN system in general and the number of western countries and as you probably all know the world is still raging in Somalia in the name of civilization, of the western world, of democracies day after day, civilian population is being shelled it's being arrested by the UN label and western-supported forces in this country that all started in the war the war in the early 90s and Somalia was close to a massive UN-sponsored intervention named Rest of Hope after 18 years now it's rather funny though it's not a debatable issue but it's rather funny to remember that it was about hope and what happened in this country is that hundreds, maybe more than a thousand people in fact there was no body count there was no way to evaluate just a number of casualties which were caused by this intervention but by the end of 1992 through 1993 hundreds of civilians fell and the bullets shot by this Rest of Hope coalition which ended in the UNison and it rapidly became the kind of cowboy movie with a wanted guy in the general idea who was searched, was chased by both the UN and the US troops and in this hunt, in this mad hunt more civilians were still killed and for the first time since the colonial era many people died in the name of life-saving operation in the name of so-called humanitarian principles I finished with Somalia by reminding that in March 1993 those who work on the UN system and the general relief system is quite interesting to note that in March 1993 one of the most ambitious and probably the most ambitious ever resolution was passed at the UN Security Council the number of three it was called the I Not Really Member now but it was about setting up a full-fledged state including police, justice, health, education public works, everything so this intervention was supposed to lead to the process of state building which by the way is how we call Western intervention in Afghanistan it's about the nation and state building and this operation includes a number of NGOs which work to this which even to build a nation and to build a state just as our predecessors in the 50s and the 60s many in the 60s were working on this too state building was how they were describing what they were doing for the refugees for people's education in the name of democracy and in the name of building a fair and decent state to resist the assaults of barbarity which was launched by the Northerners i.e. the Communists the other side were the Communists were the Reds at the time it became the Islamists it became the Green in modern time but the idea remains the same there is civilization there is barbarity and there is a clear line which divides both and humanitarianism is about in a way about say involving humanitarian aid from decades now and this is my idea of what humanitarianism is or can be but common wisdom calls humanitarianism what we would call the defense of Western civilization this is exactly the ongoing problem again another mark on Samaria which is extremely important also to have in mind when you consider for instance what happens now in Bafour what's been happening in Bafour over the last 5 to 6 years the world started exactly 6 years ago 7 years ago there was and Bouchos Gali is the one who did this there was a huge manipulation of figures when Bouchos Gali decided that there should be an intervention because he wanted to be the first secretary general who had reactivated the original means he wanted to hand it over to the UN system after the Second World War so he wanted to set up the UN ministry force and set up a real state a UN-sponsored state in Samaria and the Trusted Sheet Council which was the status of the UN in 45 to achieve this he manipulated the figures stating that 80% of the full aid which was sent to Samaria was taken by so-called warlords by militia men and therefore enhancing famine and plunging hundreds of millions of people hundreds of thousands or even millions of people into starvation and were being responsible for massive death that was absolutely false but I can tell you I have said I want to thank the President of the État d'Orthier in France we had a rather clear idea of the amount of aid which was so-called inverted by militia men and so-called I mean it is rather a quotation a word I would really use I'm not saying that it was not a diversion of aid what I'm saying is that part of this diversion of aid was done by people who really needed this food and the young militia men were belonging to families who were in a very bad situation and they were thought it was a kind of unorganized redistribution of what was supposed to be distributed so it was not an orderly distribution of aid but it was a distribution of aid I think it was not as which was very and a number of people were affirming it was not about resharing this food aid on the international market it was nothing except for those who were starving so it had no financial value it just had a value for those who needed it to survive and our estimation along with the international Red Cross and yes you need to know that the Red Cross, the international Red Cross the international committee of the Red Cross to be the ICRC our CRC estimation and MSF Ms. Asafontia's estimation about diversion of aid were ranging from 10% to 30% and again the important part of this aid was just to feed the people which was the idea of sending aid to Somalia so from 10% to 30% and even probably to 90% which in fact as it was perceived and perceived meant the totality of food aid which was sent to Somalia and what I heard was stolen and was feeding the world that was the common cliché which was pervasive which was absolutely everywhere so that was this is what set the world in motion this is what triggered the friendly troops being in Somalia and getting in a humanitarian bloodshed which I call the humanitarian crime in my small business but having now an end with my infected not far from ending my which way and 30 minutes that's really good why am I actually calling some aspects of Somalia I'm aware that Somalia some aspects of complex situation more details but well we don't have the time for this but why am I recalling this it because it was the day at abortion it was a kind of scientific social scientific experience but what you usually do when you carry out an experience is that when you interpret it you reflect on it you draw some lessons from what you see and what you've done and what you've tried it seems that no lesson was learned from Somalia and more in the NGO's humanitarian NGO's world than anywhere at the UN world than anywhere else I think that part of the military in the world reflected on this though and it's difficult to see what's happening in Afghanistan it might be over optimistic about the military but at least I know the humanitarian world also the NGO and the human parts and my impression is that we haven't learned a lot from it we haven't learned that for instance weapons are a very ineffective and very dangerous humanitarian truth and if I said so it's because the subsequent decade was marked by a number of a couple of very important initiatives which I think show that these lessons were not and these two initiatives are the responsibility to protect which later on in the late 90s early 20s in 2007 and the ICC the International Criminal Court let's remember that throughout the 90s most NGOs including Mike MSF although I was one of the group but it's not very interesting but at the time towards this initiative most NGOs that were saying might show a very big enthusiasm on the idea of establishing the International Criminal Court in the name of peace of building peace building stability security for the people and under the slope of that there could not be possible peace without justice which many of you belong to this category which for those who are familiar with history in general is rather ludicrous if there was no peace without justice the whole world would be at war because there's never been such a scene as justice to the crew in the war so we must have made the fact that war can come to an end without any kind of trial and the criminals being judged and condemned to custody but what is really striking is that including when I have started my trajectory in my career so to speak in this small world with humanised organisation fighting for the liberation of people who were unfairly unjustly detained in custody and I must say that I still adhere to this way of doing things and to these objectives but what I'm struck by is that nowadays and that has started most humanised organisation are mobilised on another object though this one the one I've just mentioned has not disappeared fortunately it's still present but it is sort of outweighed by another object which is to put people in jail and having cops and judges as evident humanised figures is a situation which has appeared through the 90s the process through which this occurred is the massive support brought to this notion of international criminal court and achieving peace through justice and through the judgment of the massive criminals so this is one aspect with this one track of mobilisation which was taken by most NGOs the other one a bit later on that it appeared late 90s and was really successful in 2005 when in September 2005 it was adopted by both the Security Council and the General Assembly of the Nations I mean of course I'm talking of this document the responsibility to protect the R2P document in fact I'm not a law person I'm not very familiar with the document it's not a resolution it's not a vote I know exactly what it is in the law terms but what I say is that what I'm seeing and what I want to insist about is that in political terms it was widely unanimously accepted as a common goal for the human kind in general through the United Nations so what is how to be all about two different things one very classical which doesn't need any time to understand it's about putting together all the diplomatic and usual means to bring about peace when in a situation of war okay that's about diplomacy negotiations, mediation et cetera nothing really new it's just various tools which are just put together in a small document and there are three to four lines which are important in this document which is a five page document three or four lines which more or less say that in case of crimes of war crimes against humanity or genocide military action should be taken and truth should be sent to put an end to these mass violence or these mass atrocities so it is a re-activation of the notion of just wars which is at play in the art of war and by the way, the main principles which are involved basically stated in this document relate very clearly to Saint Thomas notions of just war so it is clearly sitting on this notion of just war and again most NGOs either didn't really state anything or most declared their enthusiasm for the mass atrocities would be in the middle and coming to France some of you might be familiar with French political life we have a Minister of Foreign Affairs named Bernard Mouchner of Médecins so frontier and he is the author with a few other names he is the author of the notion of Devoir de Gérance the right of the duty to interfere there is no exact satisfactory translation of a Gérance as far as we can observe in English but we all see what it means by this it's the right to say well this is forbidden to go to a country and impose a kind of liberal peace that has no translation to French that's actually English notion but again it's I think very useful so of course which was imposed in Iraq or in Afghanistan or in Palestine where do we what is the observation point which enables us to say well this is an unjust war and we should stop it and this is a decent war and well ok let's go for it it's fine that is the hardcore of what is usually called soft power soft power is not only not only enforced through music and Hollywood movies and so on but it's quite important by the way for those who have seen Black Hawk Down they will understand what I mean by soft power coming from Hollywood because I mean the way Somalia and the rest of hope operation is this crime really telling and really very interesting to analyze but the point I want to make is that this newly notion of R2P which draws on the notion of but makes it more palatable to human circles to the international community and as evidence of this as I said it was unanimously accepted probably rather passively accepted but still there was no objection to it so the idea that just war exists and that in the name of humanitarian principles the protection of civilians prevention of methodologies wars which should be launched wars this is the new humanitarian paradox which is quite vivid and widely supported probably more in England and in the UK and the United States than anywhere else you've got the main NGO coalition English speaking coalition which really care of human rights world, international price group and a number of prominent relief and human rights NGOs involved in this R2P coalition which made in this war for good coalition and this is exactly what I would call that is modern embarrassed which doesn't deal with concurring new land with dominating new resources it's just about establishing the order it's fair the order which has been decided by a certain part of the order without consulting the other part of the order and what is really look at Darfur and I will finish on this in order to leave time for the discussion but look at Darfur know that that mass atrocities happen as they happen in any war Darfur is a civil war no less, no more terrible than any other civil war but again as it was done in Somalia big and still ongoing manipulation of figures was there figures of 300 to 500,000 people killed by by the government troops is probably 10 times what really happened in the ground so my own figure is about 50 to 50 60,000 people 60,000 casualties which is enormous which is humanized who in Darfur but still it's not 500,000 or million as it was but these figures were used to justify massive opinion campaign in order to send troops to Darfur and I'm not really aware of what happened here in the UK more aware of what happened in the United States where it's all started we may be interested to come back on this but let's leave it for the discussion it all started in the States and it continued massively in France as well and during the presidential campaign in 2007 most candidates gathered in one night to be in a very famous meeting place in Paris in order to denounce the ongoing genocide and to promise that if one of them had to be elected who would be elected would not allow this genocide to continue and would do whatever he or she could to stop it which was by the way which was a way to enact this notion of responsibility to protect all the right to interfere but stated and re-taken by one of the most French political most prominent French political figures just to give you an idea of how serious or it may be of course about the next day after the election or let's say the next week the week but still they said it in politics words of meaning the importance and the idea that that country was perpetrating that this year the President of Sudan was perpetrating a genocide once pervasive was accepted by everything and people like Fautier or like me in a more personal way who were criticizing using the notion of genocide who were talking on the civil war who were accused of downsizing the plight of the foreign accused of playing into the hands of the cartoum regime of being complicit of those criminals they were very fishy it was what was playing I think was the idea that there was a new notion of curateria which was opposed or which could be denounced or criticized by people like MSF and some others but it was not very well low position at the time at least who opposed the notion of humanitarian war as an imperial war so now this notion of responsibility to protect if it is still debated if it is still an issue which is discussed in the United Nations I'm not really afraid that we will see in the next in the in the close future massive military interventions all over the place because the resources are not there and maybe for bad reasons but for objectives and objective ends that is from the reasons these wars won't take place but the notion is there the and for humanitarian volunteers having the idea that they work in the field but as a kind of an excuse and this is what's happening as a kind of alibi a professional temporary presence which should be sooner or later replaced or without to be replaced by military who will do the real job which is to kill the killers to occupy the land to establish security and as everyone can say you love Lebanon, you love Iraq you like Lebanon, you like Iraq you will love Darfur and other places like this where humanitarian intervention will take place but just imagine how in what state in what mind state you are when you think you're just an excuse or just a kind of hangar which should be followed by troops and if troops don't come it would mean that the so-called international community doesn't do the job and you're just an educated, this is a way to forget what should be to diminish, to reduce to nothing what the humanitarian community is doing in the ground and by the way talking of Darfur is a good opportunity to just put an emphasis on an aspect which is very rarely taken up which is the new efficiency of the new professionalism of the humanitarian community at large including both new agencies and NGOs without this massive peaceful intervention times and tens of thousands of Darfurians would have died and thanks to this intervention I'm not sure how much is the right quality because it has some military connotation maybe in English so if it has just forget that it doesn't entail any kind of military connotation thanks to this massive intervention well, many Darfurs we believe and the future of Darfur and the future of Sudan as inclusive can be envisaged and this is quite important I think the main political outcome of this intervention though some shortcoming some drawbacks in this intervention but still I think that positive aspect including the political ones are really what characterize this intervention and well thanks God so to speak there was no there was only a threat of this intervention but never a real intervention so now to cover this my shortcoming I would like and I will just jump not to my conclusion because I don't have any conclusion but just a closing remark I think that what is at play now in a small but sorry humanitarian is to liberate our set of free our set from a sentiment of all mightiness this notion that is closely related to the 19th century colonialism approach colonialism approach which in practical terms for us a temporary humanitarian translate into the fact that we seem to think that we are the voice of the voices that we speak in their behalf that not only do we try to release their plight but we also try to speak on their their behalf and that is I think what should be absolutely avoided and speaking of this of course I mean also that Jibber mentioned that the work of the Anaheim that are quite interesting approach the notion she worked on the politics of pity the way she articulates pity and terror and how you justify terror in the name of the pity you feel towards these people these voiceless people who deserve to be defended but defended in a way that you are ready to kill to release their plight and you are especially ready to speak in their name so eliminating violence from the humanitarian toolbox so to speak is an urgent issue and to my regret I must see I must observe that most NGOs do not seem to be very enthusiastic at taking firm stances against the use of violence on behalf of humanitarianism on the culturally good part about them as I said support this art to be art to be notion and art to be coalition which is exactly the in fact I am sorry I should be more but this would be my last work and this is the time for me to thank you for your attention