ON THE RECORD

UN UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS AND

EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR, VALERIE AMOS:

DIPLOMACY IS KEY TO SECURING

UNIMPEDED HUMANITARIAN ACCESS

N humanitarian chief Valerie Amos is not one to mince words.

Amos, 58, spoke with Tempo journalists for nearly one hour at
the UN offices in Jakarta last Wednesday, pointing out that diplomacy was a power that should not be underestimated, especially when negotiating access for aid agencies to supply food,
water and medical aid to civilians in war-torn regions.
Amos visited Indonesia last week along with UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon and launched a package of disaster preparedness initiatives, to further
strengthen Indonesias response capacity.
Renowned for her international diplomacy skills, Amos is the first black
woman to be appointed to the British cabinet when then-Prime Minister Tony
Blair made her International Development Secretary in 2003, following the resignation of Clare Short. She then became the first black leader of the House of
Lords, Britains parliamentary upper chamber. She was appointed to the role
of UN humanitarian chief in 2010. In her interview with Tempos Gita Lal, Maria Hasugian and photographer Dwianto Wibowo, Baroness Amos spoke of the
devastation she witnessed herself in Syria a little over two weeks ago, and why
sometimes diplomacy does not necessarily work in securing access to conflict
areas. Excerpts:

What is the purpose of your visit to the

ASEAN nations?
We are looking at issues of preparedness. I visited Cambodia, Singapore, now
Indonesia and then Thailand. Indonesia
last year as chair of ASEAN was influential in some of the issues agreed upon toward the end of last year, particularly the
final creation of the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center. We
have a strong partnership with Indonesia,
and our Offices for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is here, where
we work closely with the government on
issues of building resilience within communities. I also spoke at the Jakarta International Defense Dialog on the role of the
military in non-war settings. The military
should play a key role when disaster strikes
in terms of logistical support, and of lifesaving operations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
during his address in Jakarta stressed
that conditions in Syria had become

64 |

| APRIL 1, 2012

the worlds most-troubling and mostconcerning issue today for humanity.

What was your visit to Syria like?
We know that a number of people fled
across the borders into neighboring countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. I was
in Syria about two weeks ago. In Damascus and in Homs. I visited a neighborhood
called Baba Amr. This is a neighborhood
that used to house up to 60,000 people. It
is now completely deserted. Not a single
building has been left untouched. We dont
know where all those people have gone to.
There were a couple of families salvaging
their possessions. A few men on a street
corner. That was it.
Those figures [of the dead] of 8,000
it comes from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. I have major concerns about what has been happening to people there. Where are they? We
are receiving alarming reports that people wounded are not going to hospitals because they fear what will happen to them

there. We know that when a city is in the

midst of the kind of conflict that is occurring there, people will run out of water.
And food.
There is of course the third element
a clear political element that the UN, the
secretary-general, with the League of the
Arab States has appointed a joint envoy to
work with Syria to negotiate a ceasefire.
How serious an impact can a UN
Security Council statement of support
make at this point, particularly if it is nonbinding?
I saw for myself the impact that such a
statement can make. I was very keen to get
into Syria to talk to the government about
what was happening. The government had
said that they welcomed my visit, but it was
very hard to actually agree on a date on
when I could go in. I was in Lebanon, and
then I went to Jordan, hoping that the government would agree. Nothing happened.
They had suggested to me the possibility
of going in on a particular day, then they
did not come back to confirm that. At that
point, the Security Council issued a statement, an agreed statement by all members of the Security Council that pressed
the Syrian government to allow me in. After this statement was issued, we received
a note from the Syrian authorities suggesting a day the following week. This statement had an absolute, direct impact. Anything that the Security Council says, one
that is agreed by all members of the Council, has an impact.
Did you meet with the opposition in
Syria?
When I was in Baba Amr, I was told that
some people had fled from Baba Amr into
an opposition-controlled area in another part of Homs. We tried to negotiate
through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, for
me to go there. The negotiations went on
for about an hour and a half. We then drove

TEMPO/DWIANTO WIBOWO

to that part of Homs and came to an opposition-controlled checkpoint. At that point,

we heard gunfire. We do not know where
it came from and the person at that checkpoint would not allow us to go any further.
I dont know whether they would not allow
us to go any further because of the gunfire,
or because the results of the negotiations
had filtered down to that particular individual. I was not able to actually speak to
any members of the opposition there.
Do you think you can depend on
diplomacy now for opening up unhindered
humanitarian access in Syria?
One element that [UN-Arab League envoy] Kofi Annan will argue for is unimpeded humanitarian access. How that works,
will be for me to negotiate. But he will
make the call for that to happen. We need
to do everything that is in our power and
diplomacy is part of that. There are discussions going on at the UN in the Security Council, and at the General Assembly. I
went to Syria. Kofi Annan has been to Syria. There are member states of the UN that
are engaged in bilateral conversations with
the Syrian authorities. All of this is absolutely important.
Diplomacy is a key element. This is why
we have the United Nationsto ensure that
the kind of talking that needs to happen, is
happening in different places for a number
of different reasons. People in conflict
zones want to be able to go back to their
normal lives. This is what they want the international community to deliver.
What efforts need to be immediately
taken to end the bloodshed in Syria?
The important thing about the work that
we do is that it has to be impartial. We do
not take sides. If there are people in opposition-controlled areas of Syria who need
help, we will negotiate with those in the opposition-held areas to get in. If there are
people who need help in government-controlled areas, we will negotiate with the
Syrian government to attempt to get in. We
dont make any comment on whether we
prefer X or Y. It is the people that we need
to get tothey are the major concern.
We need to support Kofi Annans efforts.
In the meantimebecause I dont think
that anybody exactly knows how long it
might take to negotiate an end to the conflictwe make everyone aware that ordinary people are suffering as a result of this.
They are dying. We have to do everything
we can to give them as much help and as-

sistance that we can manage to do so.

How can diplomacy from your end
help humanitarian efforts to reach
disaster-struck regions like Haiti, Libya
or Somalia?
The reason you cant get into a particular country is about the particular political dynamics in that country. We are trying
to get access into South Kordofan and Blue
Nile in Sudan. There are reasons why this
has not been agreed. The Sudanese government has a concern about some of the
history of engagement of humanitarian organizations going back many years. They
feel very strongly that they are engaged in
a conflict with a rebel group on their own
territory. And that the fighting has to stop
and that they have to reassert their authority. And they are also concerned about the
relationship that they will have with their
neighbors. This is their perspective. And it
is not necessarily a perspective that I agree
with, but it is their perspective and I have
to work with the government to build a degree of trust to enable us to move on from
that position.
If you look at what is happening in Syr-

ia, the context is different. This

is not a country with the same
kind of history of conflict, but
the narrative of the government
is very clearthey feel very
strongly that they are facing internal armed resistance, as well
as resistance from some external forces. This is something
that they believe they have to,
as a government, deal with militarily. Again, this is a perspective that I not necessarily may
agree with but this is the perspective of that government.
There are times when our efforts to unlock that access either take a very, very long time
or are just unsuccessful.
Last year in Libya for instance, I traveled to Tripoli and
I was able to within a day, secure an agreement between the
government and ourselves that
enabled us to get into Tripoli.
However, security was so difficult that again we were not able
to get to all the places that we
wanted to get into.
What did your talks with
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
al-Moualem focus on?
Aside from requesting for unimpeded
humanitarian access, I asked that we could
conduct comprehensive assessments to
find out exactly what had happened to
people. What their needs were, and what
we needed to do to be able to bring in supplies to those people. I asked for additional UN staff to be able to come in, for visas
to be agreed. I also supported the call by
the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) for a pause in the area where
there was fightinga two-hour pauseto
allow supplies to be brought in, and for the
wounded to be brought out.
The government came back and said
that they needed more time to respond to
those proposals because they were so comprehensive. They said that they would lead
an assessment mission which we could
join, to enable us to get data. That mission
left Damascus last Sunday [March 18]. And
they have a number of places that they
would like to go, to get a much better sense
of what has happened to people. When
they have completed, we will have a report
about what we found.

APRIL 1, 2012 |

| 65