Humanitarian action man longs for frontline

19 Oct, 2001 11:07 AM5 mins to read

By EUGENE BINGHAM

New Zealander Ross Mountain paces his office floor, itching to get to Afghanistan.

After a career dodging bullets around the world to help people in desperate need, the high-ranking United Nations official has an urge to get in the thick of it.

Right now, though, he must wait. His immediate job is to manage the UN's humanitarian operation from Geneva.

"Personally, I would very much always prefer being on the ground," Mr Mountain says.

"For a long time I sort of had minimum numbers of next-of-kin, so I was possibly shunted to places where most people with families were not keen to go, doing development work in places like Afghanistan, Haiti, Liberia and Lebanon."

Recently, though, Mr Mountain's circumstances changed.

He was promoted to the role of director of the UN's Geneva-based Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and made the UN's assistant emergency relief coordinator.

He also got married. "But that should not necessarily limit my involvement on the ground. [My wife] understands ... She's from Lebanon."

Mr Mountain will probably get to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in the next few weeks, but his first task has been to assess the scale of the emergency and make sure all UN and aid agencies are working together as best they can.

"We work with the likes of Unicef, the World Food Programme, UNHCR [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] and the World Health Organisation as well as ensuring there is liaison with the International Red Cross and non-governmental organisations."

Mr Mountain's first job was to help draw up a plan for how best to deal with the situation over the next six months and launch a $US584 million ($1.3 billion) international appeal to pay for it.

"We need to be prepared for all eventualities in a very uncertain situation. We are not privy to the military plans, and therefore it's very hard to anticipate what the humanitarian situation will be."

The first stage of the Afghanistan operation was the evacuation of the UN's international staff, a move that curtailed much of the work inside the country.

"Let us not pretend that we have the same ability as before the hostilities began.

"We still have national staff inside, so a number of our programmes are going on - there is heroic work being done by our Afghan staff.

"We are still managing to use commercial trucks to get supplies in.

"The World Food Programme is doing that and they are looking at plans for possible flights."

The UN is expecting about 1.5 million people to flood across the borders, but it is the people trapped within the country who are causing most concern.

"While the burden of the refugees is heavy for the surrounding countries, at least when people are out they can be reached," says Mr Mountain.

"The worst-case scenario is that nobody gets out."

Even after his involvement in countless dire situations, Mr Mountain is particularly touched by the plight of the Afghans.

"Apart from the 30 years of war, it's now in its third year of the worst drought in half a century.

"You are dealing with one of the most miserable and impoverished nations on Earth.

"I had three years in Afghanistan from 1988, so I have a sense of the ongoing agony of the Afghan people."

Christchurch-born Mr Mountain graduated from Victoria University in Wellington in 1968 and embarked on his career in the UN several years later.

He has spent 30 years dealing with social and economic development and humanitarian affairs around the world. Two years ago he went to East Timor to oversee the UN humanitarian programme there.

"Every one of these emergencies has its difficult phases. The beginning of Timor was difficult too when we were having to resort to airdrops. We had to start the operation from scratch when we were able to get in."

From what he saw in Timor and of New Zealand's time on the UN Security Council, Mr Mountain is impressed with his country's efforts on the world stage.

"I have noticed in the last couple of years in particular that New Zealand has played a much greater role in the multi-lateral area.

"The period on the Security Council did great credit to New Zealand."

Mr Mountain says New Zealand's $1 million contribution towards the UN's Afghan appeal is also significant.

"It is most certainly not just another drop in the bucket."

Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the donation was a quarter of the Government's entire budget for international appeals and at least twice as big as most other contributions.

The Government had decided to help by putting money towards the UN's consolidated fund because the coordinated approach meant money would be spent where it was most needed.

For the moment, all the effort is going into saving lives, although Mr Mountain and the others whose job it is to help the people of Afghanistan would prefer to be helping develop the country.

"Certainly we would all hope that it would be possible to use resources on the much more productive side of reconstruction, getting this poor country back on its feet.

"But you don't build nations with dead bodies. The immediate challenge is to get the amount of food in that will be needed by mid-November when the winter sets in."

* eugene_bingham@nzherald.co.nz

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