Negative Effects of Humanitarian Aid in Civil War: The Case of Operation Life Line Sudan

It is assumed that humanitarian aid in civil war does good by relieving the suffering of the civilians undergoing hardship. However, some authors claim that aid can also lead to the exasperation and prolongation of conflict. In this paper we test the hypothesis that humanitarian aid can lead to the exasperation of conflict in civil wars. Taking Operation Life line Sudan as an example this thesis present different ways in which humanitarian aid interacted negatively with the Second Sudanese Civil war 1983- 2005. Three theories are applied: capacity building theory, structural conflict and conflict dynamics theory. Each of these theories present a perspective on how the conflict was exasperated. We argue that the separation of the OLS into different sectors and the different ways they applied relief strategies aided the structural division between both sides. Aid help increase the conflict, both in a latent way via increasing the institutionalized repression of certain groups in society and in a manifest way through interacting with the war dynamics. We also argue that OLS aided the factionalization of the Southern Movement as well as increasing repression over the Nuba Mountains inhabitants and displaced population around Khartoum. We end this paper with a comparison with the different effects of aid in the North and South based on the three theories named above