AGAIN, as the world dithers non governmental organisations (NGOs) are launching a major operation to try to prevent a humanitarian calamity. This morning the trucks and jeeps will start rolling towards the Zairean border to save as many of the hungry and diseased Rwandan Hutu refugees as possible.
Nine agencies are involved and they agree that they do not have the capacity to avert disaster immediately. Huge amounts of food and supplies have still to be flown in. And nine agencies, dealing with 1.2 million refugees is, according to Concern's country director, Mr Dominic McSorley "a David and Goliath situation".
The operation is being launched with neither official international political approval nor international military protection. "It's not an ideal situation," says Trocaire's emergencies co ordinator, Mr Niall Toibin, "but it is the only hope for the million refugees."
For the Rwandan government which invited the agencies to take on the operation, the decision has a highly political aim. For two years they have wanted to separate the armed Hutu militias who were the main perpetrators of the 1994 genocide from the rest of the Hutu population in the camps. Now they are seizing their chance.
The NGOs have agreed to a Rwandan condition that the food and medical attention will not be brought to the refugees; the refugees will have to come to them. Food and medical services will be set up in Zaire within rebel held territory as a lure to bring the refugees back.
For almost two years the 1.2 million Hutu refugees have been sustained in camps in Zaire on Rwanda's border by international humanitarian assistance. Now that the camps have been dispersed by the recent fighting Rwanda is determined they will not re form somewhere else. No longer will armed Hutus use refugee camps as bases from which to destabilise Rwanda, the Kigali government insists.
If Hutus want to survive, they must keep moving in one direction - towards Rwanda. Two routes into the country, through Goma and Bukavu, have been chosen to be lined with food and medical stations. Ringleaders and enthusiastic participants in the genocide will fear arrest or worse should they cross into rebel territory. Those with less to fear, however, may be driven by hunger and desperation to take their chances and cross. It is difficult to assess whether it will work.
The hope is that once those regarded as innocent are separated from those seen as guilty, they will return to be resettled in Rwanda, reassured by the presence of western agencies.
Eight NGOs, including Concern and Trocaire, have been chosen to conduct the operation. With up to 200 agencies operating in Rwanda, the authorities chose just eight to avoid a disorganised free for all. Each agency will be given specific tasks. Trocaire, for example, is to establish sanitation and health services, provide some food and organisational back up. Concern is providing food distribution, medical help and will build some of the "way stations" from which services will be distributed.
The political nature of the operation was emphasised at a meeting in Kigali on Saturday. EU political and humanitarian representatives turned up uninvited, and were asked to leave by the Rwandan government. They were told that because they were pushing another agenda - the idea of an international military force - they could not be part of this operation. EU protests that they were the main funders of development and relief work in the region went unheeded.
The Rwandan government is understood to fear that the arrival of an international force would allow the re establishment of refugee camps in Zaire. The international inaction has allowed them to launch an initiative to do it their way.
The NGOs, motivated primarily by the need to prevent up to a million deaths, acknowledge that they are being used by the Rwandan government. But faced with the alternative of allowing up to a million die, they have signed up for the plan.
"It's an enormously complex political situation," says Mr McSorley, "but it's a humanitarian crisis. The NGOs must focus on that, not political games. There's no alternative plan on offer."
The UN agencies here, however, will not be going into Zaire with the NGOs. Zaire has refused to accept the Rwandan plan, and therefore the western agencies will be going into sovereign Zairean territory without permission. NGOs can ignore such diplomatic niceties and concentrate on saving lives. The United Nations cannot, although its agencies may provide materials to the NGOs.
The world's apparent impotence in the face of such a calamity makes the NGO decision easier. "If we wait for the UN to agree on an international force," according to Mr Toibin, we might have a situation with a million dead. That's not hype; it's the truth."
The agencies also hope their action will put moral pressure on the UN to act.