The New York Times

Sunday, October 17, 1999

Protecting the UN's Rescuers

Last week was one of tragedy for the United Nations. On Monday, Valentin Krumov, a Bulgarian, was mobbed and then shot by ethnic Albanians on his first day working for the U.N. mission in Kosovo, apparently after being mistaken for a Serb.

The next day in Burundi, Luis Zufliga, a Chilean who was the Unicef representative there, and Saskia von Meijenfeldt, a Dutch employee of the World Food Program, were murdered. Their equipment was stolen and they were executed by Hutu rebels upon entering a refugee camp to evaluate conditions.

Such deaths are not unusual Since 1992,180 civilian U.N. employees have been murdered on the job, in such places as Rwanda, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, East Timor, Sudan and Angola. About 60 percent were people hired locally. Eighty more people are detained without charges or missing. It is riskier to be a civilian working for a U.N. observer mission or humanitarian program for food, children's health or refugee protection than to be an armed U.N. peacekeeper. The U.N., in fact, sends civilians into dozens of danger zones to which its members will not send peacekeepers, in part for fear of casualties.

Given the human calamity that so often accompanies conflict, the U.N.'s civilians must continue to risk their lives to save those of countless others. But it is inexcusable that the U.N.'s member nations have refused to pay for the security or training that would give these workers adequate protection.

The death toll began to rise in 1992 because the nature of conflict altered sharply. Wars used to be fought mainly between states whose patrons - the United States or Soviet Union - had an interest in respecting the U.N. With the cold war's end, conflicts are increasingly internal ethnic struggles that target civilians. Many warlords and clan leaders today consider international organizations part of the enemy, or see them as little more than suppliers of easily stolen trucks or food. Some groups also believe that killing or kidnapping foreigners is the most effective way to draw attention to their cause - and the U.N. is often the only foreign presence.

The U.N. has 188 duty stations around the globe. Its security office has a staff of 40 - the State Department, by contrast, has 311 - and 45 or so more people fly in and out for U.N. agencies, such as the refugee protection office. The U.N. hires local guards around the world, but all are unarmed. Staff members in dangerous places are supposed to be trained to protect themselves. But in practice, the U.N. says it has too few security experts to provide thorough training.

Secretary General Kofi Annan has been asking for donations to improve security, so far with little result. Four nations have contributed minor amounts, ranging from a $500 gift from Senegal to a $1 million donation from Japan. Instead of paying for better security, the U.N.'s members regularly pass resolutions "strongly condemning" the attacks. These words offer little protection for the food, refugee and health workers who do the U.N.'s real work and experience real peril.