Transnational Non-Governmental Organizations: the Edge of Innocence

Abstract

Complex humanitarian emergencies are arenas of plunder by the ‘four modern horsemen’ of war, famine, disease, and displacement (Natsios 1997; Green 1994). Since 1945, the first of these has usually appeared in the shape of internal war rather than interstate conflict. The link between civil war and humanitarian catastrophe was a common factor in Biafra, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan during the Cold War, and the correlation persisted through the 1990s, as exemplified by Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo.