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Shortly after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, former Mountie Gilles Michaud was confronted by a man with a $10 million US bounty on his head.
In his role as the secretary general of the United Nations, Michaud is in Afghanistan in 2021 to meet with the new Taliban interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani. The purpose of that day – just two weeks after the hasty and chaotic departure of American troops – was to negotiate the conditions under which UN workers would work in Afghanistan.
As soon as the deal was made, Haqqani left. He is on the FBI’s wanted list as a “specially designated global terrorist” and lives in fear of drone strikes.
Michaud, 57, who runs the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), left the meeting knowing he would not be collecting a reward for Haqqani – but confident he had done what he could to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers in his absence. of American soldiers.
The meeting with Haqqani was one of the most unusual events in the former RCMP deputy commissioner’s career. During his 33 years in the national police force, Michaud moved from small-town drug busts in the 1980s to international investigations into Russian espionage activities and global terrorist networks in the 2000s.
“Criminals, usually, I want to put in jail. In this case, I have to deal with them because they are the ones who will give access to our humanitarian partners,” he said in a recent interview at the UN headquarters in New York.
As head of the UNDSS, Michaud — a native of Saint-Léonard in northern New Brunswick — is responsible for protecting hundreds of thousands of UN employees and their families, the organization’s buildings around the globe, and tens of billions of dollars in humanitarian aid for high-risk areas.
This last task only gets more complicated every day. The humanitarian crisis is escalating. When catastrophic earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria in early February, the UN was dealing with the war in Ukraine, the drought in Somalia, armed conflicts in Ethiopia and Congo, unrest in Haiti and waves of refugees around the world.
Michaud’s department operates with an annual budget of US$300 million that remains stable, even as requests for aid continue to rise. Rapid inflation has helped make the situation untenable.
In recent weeks, he has reached out to potential donor countries with requests for extra-budgetary funding to modernize the department. The goal is to build an emergency response team that can move quickly to high-risk areas and ensure a more effective UN deployment.
Since last November, Michaud has asked the Canadian government to commit $10 million to the program. This, he said, would make it easier to convince other countries to finance his project, which is estimated to cost US$15 million over two years.
“They have accepted what I want, but I still don’t have an answer if they will and how much,” Michaud said.
“No humanitarian program is possible without security.”
The UNDSS was created a year after a suicide bombing in Baghdad in 2003 killed 22 people, including the organization’s representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
UN operations remain dangerous to this day. Every year, hundreds of employees are injured, robbed or assaulted, kidnapped or killed. Five UN workers have been held hostage in Yemen since last year. Three UN workers were killed in Benghazi, Libya in August 2019 when a vehicle exploded.
“Normally, we would invest in security when something happens… When something doesn’t happen, people don’t recognize the preventive work we do in terms of safety,” Michaud said.
When it comes to building support in international circles for UN operations, he said, it helps to be Canadian.
“Globally, in every setting, there is one thing about presenting yourself as from the United Nations. [People] respect that, they respect the neutrality that brings. But as soon as you know you are Canadian, it changes the dynamics in the room,” said Michaud. “For me, it has been very helpful.”
Joyce Msuya, UN assistant secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs, is a native of Tanzania who attended the University of Ottawa. Although his humanitarian aid program is constantly in need of additional funding, he said he supports the UNDSS’s request for more money.
“It takes two hands to clap. Humanitarians work very closely with UNDSS,” he said. “To have access to send humanitarian aid anywhere in the world, the first and fundamental criterion, not only for UN agencies but also for humanitarian partners such as NGOs, is security.”
In his own experience in countries like Yemen and Somalia, he said, UN security teams were “underrepresented” on the ground.
Calls for humanitarian aid are exploding around the world. The UN plans to spend US$51.5 billion to help 230 million people in 70 countries this year.
UN teams on the ground take risks every day. Without the input of the UNDSS – which coordinates security with other agencies and organizations, makes risk assessments and negotiates access with local authorities – humanitarian work could grind to a halt in high-risk areas.
“We deal with crises every day. We cannot have a crisis while responding to a crisis. So we must have a certain calmness in crisis management and the ability to respond to these crises that are permanent and unrelated. mobilization of funds for specific crises,” said Florence Poussin, representative director of regional operations for UNDSS.
Beyond the guns and guards
To ensure the security of humanitarian deployment, the UN is constantly negotiating access with warring parties. In Ukraine, for example, UNDSS teams work with Moscow and Kyiv to find out when the fighting will stop on a daily basis so that they can deliver aid to the displaced population.
To assure all parties of its impartiality, the UN is prohibited from receiving information from the intelligence services of member states. The situation can undermine confidence – but it also increases the risks faced by UN workers.
“My concern is that you will see a situation where the UN staff will not be able to go and deliver where they need to. You may find that the UN staff is in one country, but they may be sitting in a bunker somewhere or in several countries. because they are afraid to go out because the situation is very dangerous, which will end up denying their purpose,” said Esther Kuisch Laroche, director of partnerships at UNDSS.
The UN is active in 125 countries, including 40 that qualify as high-risk locations. Ensuring security in the country goes beyond the presence of armed guards.
The UN said it expects the humanitarian mission to take knowledge of the local situation and diplomatic affairs with the authorities (including armed groups and terrorists), and to coordinate with various humanitarian agencies, including non-governmental organizations.
“When we say the word ‘security,’ it always comes back to guns, gates and guards. And that’s one element of what we do, but a very small element,” Michaud said. “The real element that we do when it comes to security is to allow the delivery of programs for UN entities.”
Richard Gowan, an international affairs expert with the International Crisis Group, said the UN often finds itself in trouble when engaging with countries in crisis.
“There are places like Afghanistan or Syria where you don’t have NATO troops and Western troops are not on the ground in significant numbers, but aid agencies. In some of these places, like Syria, we leave it to the UN to help people who, frankly, we have abandoned it,” he said.
An ‘insurance policy’ for humanitarian aid
Michaud is seeking a permanent budget increase for UNDSS. In the meantime, he proposed a project worth US$15 million over two years – better psychological services for workers, IT modernization tools to improve communication with teams in the field, and a planned emergency response team.
He approached Ottawa in November, saying he wanted to give Canada “first dibs.”
“It comes back to Canada, knowing that Canada has a lot of investment in humanitarian aid around the world and can have a more significant impact by having a small investment. [in security]”he said.
Michaud said the additional investment in the UNDSS would be an “insurance policy” that would help ensure the delivery of the US$52 billion in humanitarian aid planned for 2023.
“That $52 billion isn’t going anywhere unless you have an agile and responsive security element to support those operations,” Michaud said.
Global Affairs Canada told CBC/Radio Canada it is studying the UNDSS funding request.
With his five-year term ending next year, Michaud is growing impatient. While he did not take his current position with a mandate to reform the UNDSS, the idea has been in the works since 2019.
While waiting for responses from potential donor countries, Michaud continued to visit operations in the field. Every day they face the fact that millions of people depend on UN aid in parts of the world where normal order has broken down.
“The most terrible thing is to see how much the UN is needed to help them. We are talking about basic needs, providing water, food, blankets. To see children, women, their families. separated due to displacement, it is touching,” he said.
“There are so many people who need us to take risks, because we are really talking about taking risks to save lives every day.”
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