Espacio para respirar: El humanitarismo en Afganistán

The abominable acts of terrorism of September 11 led to the opening of a new period of international assistance in Afghanistan. Staged in a geopolitically complicated regional setting, Afghanistan’s current situation accepts no simple definitions, for it reflects the simultaneous efforts of “post-conflict” reconstruction, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, peacebuilding and anti-drug campaigns. Nevertheless, recent developments place the insurgency and the counterinsurgency as the conflict’s defining traits. Hence, providing humanitarian action in Afghanistan’s complex conflict system is not an easy task. The afghan setting is characterized by the coexistence and clash of several agendas and their correspondent actors, where humanitarianism runs the risk of serving the interests of other agendas. In this paper I argue that the humanitarian principles, source of humanitarian legitimacy and credibility, and consequently key to accede to those most in need are at stake. The cohabitation of humanitarian action, peacebuilding efforts and the Global War on Terror, have placed humanitarian action in a vulnerable position and at risk of being subordinated to metahumanitarian imperatives, namely international political and military imperatives. This paper contends that the afghan context reflects the urgent need for a principlebased humanitarian space.