Humanitarian Intervention

Humanitarian Intervention
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Humanitarian intervention
Humanitarian intervention play the role of intervening or stopping the violation of human rights in a given state, where a state is unable, or not willing to protect its people, or in cases where the state is itself actively violating its citizen’s rights. It includes military intervention, provision of humanitarian aid and international sanctions. Over time different interventions have significantly contributed to protecting human rights, however, with time the responses have been used by powerful nations and organizations to promote ulterior motives, such as financial gains, geopolitical control, and exploitation of natural resources in other sovereign states.
Geopolitical agenda involving fights over control in territories by powerful states have seen conflict among such nations in intervening in countries with humanitarian needs. The disputes cripple the efficiency of the intended purpose, example the Syrian crisis which has seen a severe violation of human rights such as mass murder continue whereas Russia and USA continue to gauge on a fight of superiority. The incidence has seen the two powers support different sides of the conflict by equipping them with weapons. Therefore, the situation worsens whereas the two states continue to wage war on regional political control agendas in the region. The actions see the exploitation of the weak countries where the Countries of the north continue to exert their influence over the Southern nations and in spreading ideologies such as democracy and capitalism (Falk, 2011).

Organizations use the provision of humanitarian aid as a source of economic gains. The competition between the increased numbers of aid agencies for funds from donors pegs the question of whether the intervention is to alleviate the human suffering or to get financial gains. Instead of the underlying motive being to respond to a moral responsibility of helping in protecting human life, economic targets significantly influence the actions of the organizations. These result to a situation where agencies rush to every case for appearances to continue attracting more donor funds for their short time economic benefits without necessarily providing the much-needed aid efficiently and effectively. The competition leads to the biased provision of services most directed to the cases with more coverage such as the Haiti earthquake with over 250 organizations responding in comparison to the Rwanda genocide where the number of aid response was negligible (Evermeulen, 2013).
Humanitarian interventions have been used by countries to exploit the natural resources. There are circumstances where states intervene in conflicts with a goal of establishing bargaining power by supporting some groups to access authority, whom they have to give preferential treatment to them. The approach makes the fight for human right a secondary priority whereas fronting selfish agendas of gaining the resources. There is a definite demonstration of bias on the desire to intervene in different conflicts in different states based on resources. For example is the quick intervention by the USA and NATO in Libya, which is a rich in oil as opposed to delayed intervention in Syria, with similar violation of human rights (Guiora, 2009).
Although the phenomenon of personal interest is identifiable in some incidents, it is worth noting that most initiatives have resulted with the primary motive of promoting human rights. It is therefore essential that the interventions are well structured to ensure the provision of equal importance on the different cases and prevent bias. However, it is clear that ulterior motive continues to motivate the interventions in different circumstances thus negatively affecting the sole purpose of the response. Therefore, it is clear that some instances of intervention results in exploitation as opposed to the primary intention of such exercises.
References
Evermeulen. (2013). The Skewed Motives behind Humanitarian Aid. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from http://blogs.elon.edu/soc376ol/?p=1738Falk, R. (2011). Humanitarian Intervention and its Non-Humanitarian Agenda. Globalpolicy.org. Retrieved 11 February 2018, from https://www.globalpolicy.org/qhumanitarianq-intervention/50591-humanitarian-intervention-and-its-non-humanitarian-agenda.html?itemid=591
Guiora, A. (2009). Humanitarian Intervention and Geo-Politics: A Complicated Confluence. E-International Relations. Retrieved 11 February 2018, from http://www.e-ir.info/2012/09/11/humanitarian-intervention-and-geo-politics-a-complicated-confluence/