Afghanistan Da20042004 Cs

VOLUME 4 • NUMBER 137 • 2004BURUNDI URUNDDI CAMP MAS S A CRE

ctionDARFURRFUR A Death in the desert LEONE, ANGOLA Going Home Refuugees are people, not c ETURNEE GENEVAGE AFGHANISTAN DA20042004 CS

OPPEAN YEAR IN SA REVIEW THE EDITOR’S DESK

Good news and bad news

here was good news for refugees in the The European Union welcomed 10 new member most unlikely places in 2004. Exiles were states, but the Mediterranean region proved a deadly Tallowed to vote in Afghanistan’s first ever burial ground for hundreds of people trying to reach presidential elections and a refugee woman cast the the continent. Situations in places like Iraq and first symbolic ballot at a camp in neighboring Pak- Chechnya showed few signs of solution. istan. A world away, a former refugee was one of two Even the basic principle of offering the world’s women to represent Afghanistan for the first time most vulnerable people a modest degree of protec- ever at the Athens Olympics. tion was under threat in many countries preoccu- In the ruins of the Liberian capital of Monrovia, pied more with security issues than humanitarian refugees came back to find their homes destroyed, concerns. but neighbors willing Altogether, it was a “reasonably good year in a to share whatever lit- troublesome world,” according to High tle they had with old Commissioner Ruud Lubbers. DP/IRN•2004 friends once again re- united. There were For some frustrated aid officials, South and similar scenes across Central America is a “forgotten continent” and its most

UNHCR/Z.SOLEIMANI/ the continent, in Sier- vulnerable victims “invisible refugees”—ignored and ra Leone, Angola and overshadowed by more obvious crisis areas such as on the Horn of Africa. Africa and Afghanistan. The last stragglers But Latin American governments recently commem- who fled Rwanda’s orated a major milestone in refugee protection work— genocide stumbled the signing 20 years earlier of the Cartagena Going home from Iran. home, some to the as- Declaration—which helped to resolve a series of wars tounding news that in Central America in the 1980s and helped many their families had of the two million civilians who had been forced to flee survived a bloodletting in which an estimated their homes. 800,000 people were butchered. Building on that Declaration, a meeting in Global statistics showed that in the last three years Mexico City took the opportunity to launch a new plan the number of vulnerable people ‘of concern’ to UN- of action to tackle the region’s current problems, partic- HCR dropped by more than three million and the ularly the longtime crisis in Colombia where a further number of persons seeking asylum in industrialized two million plus people have been uprooted during countries fell to the lowest levels in 17 years. These decades of civil war. trends were expected to continue through 2005. Lubbers praised the initiative by noting that “In a There were also, of course, extremely troubling worldwide context of restrictive asylum policies and developments. Darfur became the world’s latest erosion of protection principles, it is encouraging to see mega-crisis with around two million people fleeing that countries in Latin America are committed to their villages and untold numbers slaughtered. uphold high protection standards.”

2 REFUGEES N°137 - 2004

Editor: Ray Wilkinson French editor: Mounira Skandrani 2 EDITORIAL Contributors: Good news was found in unusual places José Riera and UNHCR offices GETTY IMAGES worldwide in the last year. Editorial assistant: Virginia Zekrya COVER STORY F.NAEEM/AFP/ 4 Photo department: Suzy Hopper, Anne Kellner The crisis in Darfur overshadowed other, Design: often positive developments during 2004 Vincent Winter Associés including presidential elections in Production: Afghanistan, major repatriations in several Françoise Jaccoud African countries and the expansion of the Romain Leonarduzzi European Union to 25 member states. Photo engraving: Afghanistan held its Aloha Scan - Geneva first ever presidential Highlights Distribution: 4 elections in 2004 and 10 A quick glance at major developments John O’Connor, Frédéric Tissot new countries joined the European Union. However, throughout the world. Maps: another major catastrophe UNHCR - Mapping Unit exploded in Darfur, Sudan. Historical documents 16 INTERVIEW UNHCR archives High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers views 2004 as a reasonably positive year in a troubled REFUGEES is published by the Media

Relations and Public Information DP/TCD•2004 world. He says that as a humanitarian Service of the United Nations High organization UNHCR should do better. Commissioner for Refugees. The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of UNHCR.

UNHCR/H.CAUX/ CARTAGENA The designations and maps used do 22 not imply the expression of any The Cartagena Declaration, the major opinion or recognition on the part of cornerstone of refugee protection in Latin UNHCR concerning the legal status High Commissioner of a territory or of its authorities. Ruud Lubbers said America, marks its 20th anniversary. A new “there is a less friendly plan of action is announced to enhance and REFUGEES reserves the right to edit all 16 climate towards refugees in reinvigorate the Declaration. articles before publication. Articles many parts and photos not covered by copyright © of the world.” may be reprinted without prior Landmarks permission. Please credit UNHCR Some of the highlights of the Cartagena and the photographer. Glossy prints Declaration. and slide duplicates of photographs not covered by copyright © may be made History available for professional use only.

DP/COL•2004 Refugee protection in Latin America English and French editions printed down the ages. in Italy by AMILCARE PIZZI S.p.A., Milan. Circulation: 283,700 in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, UNHCR/B.HEGER/ Arabic, Russian and Chinese. ISSN 0252-791 X

Cover: The Cartagena 2004: the world’s headlines. Declaration, 22 cornerstone of UNHCR Latin American refugee P.O. Box 2500 protection efforts, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland commemorated its 20th www.unhcr.org anniversary in November.

REFUGEES 3 2004: YEAR

PROTECTION GOING HOME RESETTLEMENT ETHNIC CLEANSING DP/SDN•2004 S.NELSON/GETTY IMAGES/ IN REVIEW

Darfur burns. A Sudanese rebel at a destroyed village. 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW A reasonably good year

he bullet hole lodged deeply in Emmanuel Murangira’s long slop-

DP/RWA•2004 ing forehead bears eloquent testimony to genocide. Gangs of militias had rampaged through his hometown for several days slashing and

UNHCR/B. HEGER/ shooting their ethnic and political opponents. An astonishing 25,000 civilians—men, women,T young children, anyone they could catch— were murdered in just this one place in a matter of hours. The victims included Murangira’s wife, five children and more than 40 other members of his family. He was one of only four survivors, escaping the killers by feigning death at the bottom of a pile of Emmanuel corpses, blood flowing freely from his head wound. Murangira In all, an estimated 800,000 persons were killed

6 REFUGEES in a troublesome world DP/AFG•2004 ZALMAI/ ©

across the country in a 100-day orgy of blood. The positions, terrified screams still seemingly etched in- Back to school world stood by, horrified but largely mute as the to their ghostly skulls. in Afghanistan. tragedy ran its course, refusing to directly intervene, In just one short decade since those terrible events, embrace or even acknowledge the dreaded ‘G’ word. a fragile peace between the country’s major tribes, the Rwanda commemorated the 10th anniversary of Hutus and Tutsis, has been re-established. Kigali, the what was belatedly recognized as genocide on April 6, capital, bustles once more with commercial traffic 2004. Murangira played his own small but poignant and new buildings. Rwanda’s hills are alive with the role by guiding the occasional visitor through a sound of farming families busily growing and har- somber memorial to the slaughter in his hometown of vesting tea, coffee and other crops. Gikongoro in southern Rwanda, only yards from More than 2.5 million people fled in 1994, congre- where his own family was massacred. gating in massive camps in neighboring Zaire and The complex had once been a school. But in each Tanzania. In trying to help them and, inadvertently, room, desks had been replaced by low wicker shelves the many murderers (the Interahamwe) who had fled on which were stacked the skeletons of some of the the scene of their crime and infiltrated the camps, victims. Particularly heart-rending were the contort- UNHCR and other agencies became involved in the ed shapes of tiny children, coiled into protective foetal messiest and most complex humanitarian operation

REFUGEES 7 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW

LAST YEAR, EVEN AS RWANDA MARKED ITS OWN APPARENT DELIVERANCE, 1,500 KILOMETERS TO THE NORTH ANOTHER CATASTROPHE WAS BREWING.

since World War II (REFUGEES magazine N° 135). a rich melting pot of tribes and ancient caravan routes But by early 2004, the camps had disappeared, the crisscrossing Africa, are remote from today’s major bulk of those refugees and even many exiles from ear- communications networks, difficult to reach and cov- lier Rwandan crises—a total of 3.2 million people— ering one of the world’s most hostile environments of moved back to their shattered homeland, by air, on desert, scrub, mountains and searing heat. The fleets of trucks and buses and for some, many weeks of refugees brought with them lurid tales of massacre walking through rain forests, mountains and high sa- and mayhem, but it was difficult to independently vannah grasslands. confirm what was happening inside Darfur itself. National reconciliation remained fragile and in- UNHCR’s mandate is to work with refugees out- complete, but given the enormity of the task, could nevertheless be considered a modest miracle. “We must learn to live together again in peace,” Murangira told a visitor simply, reflecting an edgy uncertainty about the future. His hopes and the dozens of official genocide com- memorations held across this beautiful but haunted land in central Africa marked both a rebirth of sorts for Rwanda, and also a warning: that such events should never be allowed to happen again. A chastened former American President Bill Clin- ton, on whose watch the killings occurred, had admitted in a personal mea culpa that he had gotten it wrong: “We did not act quickly enough after the killings began. We did not immediately call these crimes by their right name: genocide.”

NOT AGAIN the world is often given a breathing space of years or even decades before having to face a similar crisis, during which time the sheer horror of genocide and the emphatic pledges of ‘Never Again’ begin to blur and fade. The collective international conscience quickly forgets. But in 2004, even as Rwanda marked its own apparent deliverance, 1,500 kilometers to the north another catastrophe was brewing. The signs had been there for sometime, but had gone largely unnoticed. As early as the summer of 2003, UNHCR began to help a small but growing number of Su- danese refugees fleeing from the west of that country into neighboring Chad. By the end of that year, as the refugee population rose to 75,000, it warned the world for the first time of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of an ‘invisible emergency’ in Sudan’s Darfur region and eventually termed it the agency’s ‘worst humanitarian crisis.’ In an era of instant television, of emergencies measured in the hundreds of thousands and often in the millions, seemingly lesser crises take time to build a momen- tum of their own before impacting on the Under arrest in global conscience. Lampedusa, Italy. Chad and Darfur, though sitting astride

8 REFUGEES side their home countries and there were no oth- The mounted raiders, reputedly backed by Keeping watch along Europe’s new er international organizations working inside the central government, brandishing ancient borders. Darfur because the Sudanese government had flintlocks and modern AK47 rifles, swiftly effectively sealed it off from the outside world. sweeping down on villages to loot, rape and burn, Darfur festered in a vacuum and was largely were given an old Darfur epithet for bandits ignored. –janjaweed or ‘devils on horseback.’ Hundreds of Despite the refugee agency’s repeated warn- communities were destroyed. New guerrilla ings from Chad groups calling themselves the Sudan Liberation GETTY IMAGES/S.GALLUP/DP/POL•2004 “It was only six Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Move- months later, af- ment (JEM) emerged as champions of the vil- ter many hun- lagers. dreds of thou- Under threat of international sanctions, sands of people Khartoum, while still denying there was any emergency, reluctantly opened the area to outside scrutiny and assistance. Hundreds of aid officials, including UNHCR field staff, and a handful of peacekeepers poured into the region and were shocked by the devastation. By late 2004, some 200,000 civilians had stumbled into Chad where they were relatively safe but still lived on a knife-edge, receiving enough help to keep them barely alive, but little else. Many bore the scars of brutal assault and had been forced to leave wives, husbands and especially children behind to an uncertain fate. Inside Darfur, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated at least 70,000 civilians had died just from war-related problems such as dis- ease and malnutrition, but there was no accurate estimate of how many others had been killed directly by combatants. At least 1.8 million people fled their homes after watching wives and daugh- ters raped and abducted, friends and neighbors slaughtered and their homes destroyed. Sur- vivors escaped into the desert and mountains until they could find sanctuary in one of the rudimentary camps thrown up by aid workers, but even there, lives hung by a thread. “If our men go out (to search for food or loved DP/BIH•2000 ones) they die,” one group told a visitor recently. “If we go out, we are raped. That’s our choice.” Mindful of the world’s inaction in Rwanda, the ‘G’ word quickly surfaced in Darfur, so much so that in testimony before the Senate Foreign

PANOS PICTURES/A.TESTA/ Relations Committee in September 2004, U.S. Rebuilding Bosnia. Secretary of State Colin Powell used it twice in were driven out of their villages and many thou- the same sentence: “We (the government) con- sands or tens of thousands were killed that the included that genocide has been committed in Dar- ternational community did start talking about fur… and genocide may still be occurring.” getting access to Darfur,” High Commissioner The U.N. sent a mission to determine if the Ruud Lubbers recalled in a recent interview. events merited that most extreme of designa- The seeds of the crisis had been planted much tions. Some human rights organizations ac- earlier, in the 1980s when cataclysmic droughts knowledged that terrible events had happened destroyed the region’s delicate ecosystem, setting in Darfur, but hesitated to use the ultimate con- the stage for clashes between mainly black demnation of human behavior. DP/ITA•2004 African farmers and Arabic nomadic communi- The New York Times tried to make sense of ties (both, though, are largely Muslim) as cen- the chaos and uncertainty in a lengthy article: “If turies of co-mingling degenerated into battles for this is a genocide, it doesn’t look very much like

AFP/A. PIZZOLI/ diminishing land and water resources. those we’ve known before,” it said. “Instead, it is

REFUGEES 9 2004 global highlights – at a glance April 6 Rwanda marks the 10th anniversary of that country’s genocide. In a 100-day orgy of slaughter, as many as 800,000 people were murdered by Hutu extremists. Almost one half of Rwanda’s 6.5 million people were either killed or fled the country which has since made major strides in rebuilding itself. May 1 Ten new countries join the European Union, creating a 25- member bloc with 455 million people. The Union completes the first phase of an ambitious CS/LBR•1997 multi-year project to harmonize immigration and asylum policies, among the most complex and contentious of UNHCR/C.SHIRLEY/ issues facing the continent. Liberia: Returning home to an uncertain future. June 3 The ongoing and worsening one of the worst single by constant war in that West October 24 threat faced by unarmed atrocities committed anywhere African state. A similar number Minority Serb citizens boycott humanitarian workers globally is against refugees. of internally displaced persons general elections in the U.N.- underlined when five workers will also return home. administered Serb province of from Médecins Sans Frontières- September 9 Kosovo, jeopardizing its Holland are murdered in the American Secretary of State October 9 political future. Nearly 900,000 western Afghan province of Colin Powell declares that Afghanistan holds general ethnic Albanians fled or were Badghis. “Genocide has been committed elections and Hamid Karzai is forced from the region by Serb in Darfur and that the elected president as the authorities in 1999, before July 21 government of Sudan and the country continues to rebuild. NATO troops in turn halted the The last of an estimated janjaweed bear responsibility During the year, around ethnic cleansing. Most 280,000 Sierra Leonean and genocide may still be 800,000 people return home, Albanians went home but refugees return home after occurring.” Nearly two million joining the more than three around 220,000 Serbs remain fleeing a decade-long civil war people are uprooted by what million civilians who had displaced. in their country which ended in the U.N. describes as the already gone back in the 2000. High Commissioner Ruud world’s worst humanitarian previous two years. November 22 Lubbers said the repatriation crisis and at least 70,000 die as The 20th anniversary of the and similar movements in a result of the conflict. October 14 Cartagena Declaration is Liberia, Eritrea, Angola and The dysfunctional state of commemorated in Mexico City. other states marked “The Year September 21 Somalia on the Horn of Africa The non-binding Declaration, of Return” in Africa. The one millionth citizen of receives a slightly hopeful signed by 10 Central and Latin Bosnia and Herzegovina from boost when former soldier and American countries, was August 14 among the 2.2 million people warlord Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed designed to meet the Nevertheless, the fragility of who were uprooted during is sworn in as president in a challenges of a violent era of the situation in central Africa is three years of war in the mid- ceremony in neighboring Kenya. wars when more than two highlighted when thugs armed 1990s officially returns home. At least a half million persons million persons fled their with automatic weapons, were killed in the fighting and homes in Central America in the machetes and grenades October 1 millions more were uprooted as mid-1980s. It significantly slaughter 156 Congolese, mostly UNHCR begins a three-year the country imploded during expanded various areas of the women and children, at program to repatriate as many the 1990s. cornerstone 1951 Geneva Gatumba camp in Burundi. It is as 340,000 Liberians displaced Refugee Convention.

10 REFUGEES 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW

shadowy, informal; the killings take place offstage. It is an ambitious multi-year project to try to harmonize the destruction of a people in a place where it is virtu- immigration and asylum procedures. ally impossible to distinguish incompetence from The one millionth refugee from among an esti- conspiracy. Is that by design, the sheer evil genius of it mated 2.2 million people who were uprooted in Bosnia all, or just more evidence of a government’s utter hap- and Herzegovina during the war in that country in lessness? A genocide may, it seems, occur almost inad- the 1990s went home in the autumn. vertently.” Two major milestones were reached in international protection in 2004. NUMBERS FALL AGAIN It was the 50th anniversary of the 1954 Convention the darfur calamity overshadowed other refugee Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the major developments, both good and bad in 2004, a period legal instrument in trying to help millions of people Lubbers described overall as “a reasonably good year who do not have a country they can officially call in a troublesome world.” home. Because citizenship disputes sometimes trig- Since the High Commissioner took office at the ger displacement and refugee exoduses, the U.N. Gen- start of 2001, the number of refugees and other groups eral Assembly in 1974 turned to UNHCR as a natural ‘of concern’ to UNHCR dropped from 21.8 million to interlocutor in the absence of any other ‘dedicated’ between 16 and 17 million in 2004. The largest fall was statelessness organization to provide limited legal as- in 2003 when the numbers dropped dramatically by sistance to stateless persons. One notable success last more than three million. The number of people seek- year was the granting of Sri Lankan citizenship to ing asylum in advanced industrialized countries also some 300,000 heads of households of Indian origin. fell to their lowest levels in 17 years. During the first Latin American countries commemorated a mem- three quarters of 2004 alone, the number of asylum orable protection milestone at a ceremony in Mexico seekers dropped by 22 percent to 271,700. Both trends City in November—the 20th anniversary of the Carta- were expected to continue into 2005. gena Declaration. That non-binding document was “IF OUR MEN GO OUT THEY DIE. IF WE GO OUT, WE ARE RAPED. THAT’S OUR CHOICE.”

Afghanistan remained the agency’s largest single drawn up in response to a series of wars in the 1980s repatriation operation and nearly 800,000 uprooted which devastated Central America and forced more peoples returned home in 2004. They joined more than two million people to abandon their towns and than three million compatriots who had already gone villages. back to their towns and villages since the Taliban After several years during which the numbers of regime was overthrown by American-led forces and especially vulnerable refugees selected for permanent an interim government was established in late 2001. resettlement places in countries such as Australia and The country held its first ever democratic presiden- Canada had fallen by more than 50 percent, the trend tial ballot last October, one of the most important de- reversed in 2004, particularly in the United States. velopments of the year, overwhelmingly electing in- The European Union indicated it would explore terim leader Hamid Karzai. the possibility of accepting a large increase in the Despite Darfur, much of the rest of Africa was de- number of resettlement refugees it admits, but only at scribed as a “continent on the march home.” Years of some distant point in the future. civil war ended in Liberia and UNHCR began a three- year operation to help 340,000 refugees living in PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS neighboring states and an equal number of people dis- to be sure, there was a lot of bad news out there, too. placed within Liberia itself to start life afresh. Though the numbers of refugees and asylum seek- A separate operation to assist 280,000 Sierra ers continued to drop steadily throughout 2004, im- Leoneans repatriate in the wake of a disastrous migration issues remained highly politicized and pro- decade-long war in that neighboring state was suc- tection for the world’s vulnerable people continued to cessfully completed. There were major returns in An- deteriorate. gola, central Africa and in the Horn of Africa. A new Their safety, the agency’s director of international president was sworn in for the failed state of Somalia, protection Erika Feller had to remind governments albeit in neighboring Kenya, bringing at least a sliver “is a humanitarian necessity not a political choice.” of hope for that benighted region and untold numbers And High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers added: “In of homeless Somalis. the past few years the politicization of immigration, Ten new states joined the European Union on May confusion between refugees and economic migrants 1, creating the world’s largest political and trading bloc and fears of criminal and terrorist networks have of 25 nations and 455 million people. At the same time, combined to erode asylum in many states. Paradoxi- the EU put the finishing touches to the first phase of cally, this has taken place against a backdrop of declin-

REFUGEES 11 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW

ing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers.” Agencies had hoped to begin the repatriation of as many as 500,000 Sudanese refugees to the south of that country during 2004 following the end of 21 years of civil conflict there, but because of events in Darfur and other problems, that major repatriation was put on hold, at least temporarily. There had been similar hopes that the first of hundreds of thousands of longtime Iraqi exiles might go home in 2004 following the downfall of Saddam Hus- sein, but though some 100,000 exiles returned from neighboring countries, many spontaneously (UN- HCR helped some 19,000 people go back, particularly from Iran), a large-scale repatriation was post- poned while the country remained so unstable. In an otherwise relatively benign environment throughout Latin America, more than two million people remained uprooted in Colombia, and hundreds of thousands of persons had fled to neighboring states. It remained by far the largest humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere. SINCE THE START OF 2001, THE NUMBER OF REFUGEES AND OTHERS OF CONCERN TO UNHCR HAS DROPPED NEARLY 22 PERCENT.

Ethnic Serbs boycotted general elections in U.N.- administered Kosovo, throwing the future of that troubled province into renewed doubt. There was little progress in resolving the futures of more than 534,000 uprooted peoples living in Serbia and Mon- tenegro in southern Europe, including 220,000 Serbs from Kosovo. The story was similar for 104,000 refugees from Bhutan who have been confined to camps for more than a decade in neighboring Nepal. In all, as many as seven million refugees continued to languish for years without end in what are officially described as ‘protracted crises’ in trouble spots around the world. Though progress has been made to solve some of the longest and worst of them, including Afghanistan, Angola and Sri Lanka, at least 38 other ‘black spots’ remained. A new buzz word referred to people caught up in these emergencies as refugees who had been ‘warehoused.’ In addition to these long-term refugees, an estimated 25 million people, 4.4 million of them helped by UNHCR, remained uprooted within their native countries and subject to the authority of their own governments rather than the protection of international agencies and international refugee law. The situation in the Russian Republic of Chech- nya and the fate of some 50,000 civilians displaced in neighboring Ingushetia became even more in- tractable following perhaps the most grisly terrorist outrage of the year when Chechen separatists seized a school in the now infamous town of Beslan and 344

12 REFUGEES children, teachers and other innocents were slaugh- Refugees and aid tered during a shootout with security forces. workers continued Danger lurked everywhere, for refugees and field to face persecution and murder in 2004. staff trying to help them. In addition to unknown Some of the victims numbers of civilians killed directly in conflicts such of an attack on a as Darfur or indirectly as a result of war (an estimated refugee camp in 3.3 million people died as a result of years of fighting in Burundi in which the Democratic Republic of Congo), one exhaustive 156 persons were report suggested that at least 4,000 would-be asylum killed. seekers drown each year, principally trying to reach safety in Europe, Australia or North America. Even when civilians reached the apparent sanctuary of refugee camps, it sometimes turned out to be illusory. More than 150 mainly Congolese women and children were slaughtered in August when thugs with automatic weapons, machetes and grenades rampaged through the Gatumba refugee camp in the African state of Burundi. The humanitarian and advocacy group Médecins Sans Frontières pulled out of Afghanistan after five of its workers were murdered there. Two field staff from Save the Children were killed when their vehi- cle hit a landmine in Darfur. Iraq became a virtual no- go region as humanitarians were kidnapped when- ever insurgents wanted to make headlines. A year earlier, following the destruction of U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad and the death of 22 people there, Refugees wrote: “The bottom line could be that whatever agencies decide to do will be less criti- cal than the policies adopted by the irregular militias and armies involved in global hot spots. Should they continue to ignore humanitarian considerations in favor of what they obviously believe to be political and military advantages in attacking aid workers, it could be difficult to devise compromise strategies which allow humanitarian officials to work effectively in even a minimally safe environment.” Little seemed to have changed in the intervening one year.

EUROPE AND PROTECTION the friction between hard political reality and humanitarian obligations was no more evident than along the beaches of just one obscure Italian holiday hideaway called Lampedusa. Because it is only 100 kilometers off the coast of Africa, Lampedusa by last September had become a magnet for thousands of Africans—a mixture of economic migrants and genuine asylum seekers—and human traffickers only too willing to cram them into leaking boats to try to gate-crash Europe. In one September weekend alone, more than 1,200 people poured ashore at Lampedusa, a 12 square kilo- meter rock outcrop jutting out of the Mediterranean Sea. The picturesque harbor became the graveyard

DP/BDI•2004 for a motley collection of craft lying at crazy angles, half sunk like toys in the oily water after they had de- livered their human cargo.

AFP/S.MAINA/ Italy had had enough. It called time on what Inte-

REFUGEES 13 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW

rior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu described as an “orga- In a reflection of the ugly mood of suspicion and re- nized assault on our coasts.” Authorities airlifted jection in some parts of the Union, Danish Minister of many of the would-be émigrés directly back to Libya Refugees, Immigrants and Integration Bertel Haarder without giving them a chance to lodge asylum claims, tabled a proposal aimed at sorting out socially disad- a contravention of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Conven- vantaged refugees from those who could read, write tion which Italy and all other EU countries have and speak foreign languages and overall “can con- signed onto. tribute to Danish society and find themselves a job.” Pisanu was unrepentant, declaring that “The des- In a revealingly honest description of one problem perate people who think they can land in Italy illegal- she faced in finding appropriate lodgings for asylum ly must know that applicants, a spokesperson for the Swiss Police and Mi- they will be sent back gration Service in the capital, Bern, explained bluntly: to where they came “The accommodation we provide for refugees is al- from as soon as they ready very basic. So for rejected asylum seekers, I had

DP/ALG.2004 have received human- to find something of an even lower standard and that itarian aid.” meant it had to be underground.” He got support from some other Eu- FAULT LINES UNHCR/S.HOPPER/ ropean countries. Ger- raymond hall, director of UNHCR’s Europe Bureau, many unveiled a fuzzy said events in the Mediterranean highlighted the con- plan to establish a se- tinuing fault lines in the continent’s overall approach ries of centers in towards asylum seekers, even after years of harmo- North Africa to vet or nization attempts. control the flow of des- So-called frontline states such as Italy in the south perate Africans before and new member states in eastern Europe carried a they could make a fi- disproportionate share of the financial and physical nal dash for Europe. It burden in having to assess, house, accept or ultimately was short on specifics, reject the bulk of people trying to enter Europe. Dur- but drew howls of ing incidents such as Lampedusa this “creates a sense protest from other of panic about what to do and that translates itself into countries such as a phenomenon of trying to close Europe’s doors,” ac- France whose Interior cording to Hall. Minister Dominique States needed to more equitably “share this bur- de Villepin insisted: den”—a key phrase in the debate over asylum—High “For France, it’s out of Commissioner Ruud Lubbers insisted, but “instead the question to accept we see a tendency to shift the burden—to other EU transit camps or shel- states or even countries outside the EU that are ill- ters of any kind.” equipped to handle asylum claims.” Relatives and Undeterred, North The lack of a common benchmark among member friends meet for European states sug- states in assessing asylum claims was another major the first time in gested that other centers should be established out- headache. Austria, for instance, recognizes around 95 years in the almost side Europe in neighboring states such as the Ukraine percent of claims by Chechen asylum seekers—Rus- forgotten where would-be asylum seekers would be screened. sians are the largest single group trying to enter Eu- emergency in Predictably, Kiev rejected that approach. rope—while the recognition rate was virtually zero Western Sahara. Britain toughened its own restrictions and said among the same group in Slovakia. asylum seekers arriving without identification could “This is not a harmonized Europe,” Raymond Hall be jailed for up to two years—a move also in contraven- said. “Europe therefore doesn’t have the right to be tion of the Geneva Convention. surprised if asylum seekers move from one country to Spain, another popular point of entry along Eu- another looking for the best place for them to make a rope’s soft underbelly in the Mediterranean, began to claim.” lay electronic barriers along parts of its southern coast Lubbers pointed out that if the efficiency of indi- nearest Morocco and around parts of the Canary Is- vidual asylum systems was improved, a longtime lands to detect—and stop—incoming flotillas of immi- UNHCR proposal, and more sound decisions were grants. reached during initial assessments rather than hav-

DESPITE THE POTENTIAL PITFALLS OF NEW CRISES, SENIOR REFUGEE OFFICIALS PREDICTED THAT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE WOULD CONTINUE TO FALL STEADILY IN 2005.

14 REFUGEES “WE SHOULD ABANDON THE ARTIFICIAL AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE AMBITION TO RETURN ALL REMAINING UPROOTED PEOPLES.” ing to resort to second or third appeals, there would be as ambitious and noble as we would have liked? In fact, multiple payoffs—speedier and fairer decisions, more despite some gains, it’s been disappointing overall in efficient systems and major savings in an area where terms of providing greater protection to bona fide leading countries currently spend at least $10 billion refugees. The process has not lived up to the expecta- annually. tions we had when we started down this road.” “The reality (today), I’m afraid, is that Europe’s asy- There was, he said, a glaring paradox at the center of lum systems do not always afford refugees the protec- Europe’s attitude. While national capitals recognized tion they need or even the chance to state their claim,” the only effective way to tackle immigration and asy- Lubbers wrote in a recent newspaper opinion piece. lum issues was by fully harmonizing their national There was an unintended degree of irony in all of systems, they remained unwilling to cede the degree of this. At a time when it remained extremely difficult if national sovereignty necessary to bring that about. not almost impossible to legally enter and live in Eu- Lampedusa and other incidents later in the year rope, the International Labor Organization issued a only reinforced that view. report indicating that because of its aging and shrink- ing population, the continent will soon need a massive GLOBAL ASSAULT infusion of new blood, including refugees. protecting refugees in a legal or physical sense was “Increased immigration is likely to be one of the el- never going to be easy in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist ements necessary to be sure that the well-being of Eu- attacks against the United States and the subsequent rope in 45 years (time) is going to be similar to what it global war on terror. Increasingly, governments saw is today,” the report said. “Evidence indicates that immigration and asylum issues through a security newcomers rejuvenate populations and stimulate prism. Foreigners, especially from unstable regions growth without inflation.” such as the Middle East or Africa, were viewed with increasing suspicion. Refugee camps were seen as A LONG PROCESS centers for terrorists rather than being shelters for on the eve of the pomp and ceremonysurrounding victims of terrorists. The 1951 Convention itself was a Europe’s largest ever expansion on May 1, ministers legal screen behind which terrorists could hide. quietly approved the last of five pieces of legislation, If some of those reactions were regrettable but un- officially known as directives or regulations, designed derstandable in the immediate aftermath of perhaps to harmonize national asylum policies. This mile- the most spectacular terrorist atrocity in history, hu- stone, however, marked only the end of the first phase manitarian advocates worried that the global environ- of an ongoing process which has now entered into ment remained extremely hostile three years later. phase two. There were Italy’s reactions to the ‘invasion’ of It had begun years earlier in June 1990, when gov- Lampedusa, increasing suggestions for the establish- ernments met in the Irish capital and approved the ment of transit centers outside asylum countries and Dublin Convention which, for the first time, estab- the selection of only educated refugees for resettle- lished the responsibility of individual countries to ex- ment, as noted above. amine asylum requests. When that Convention Britain’s shadow Prime Minister Michael Howard, proved ineffectual, the role of member states was re- himself the son of refugees, said if he were elected defined under what became known as Dublin II. next year, his government would tackle asylum prob- Other treaties followed and in 1999 the Tampere lems “at their roots. We will pull out ofthe 1951 Refugee Conclusions established political objectives for the Convention, as is our right, by giving 12 months notice Union. These, it was carefully underlined, were based to the secretary general.” on “the absolute respect for the right to claim asylum” Using some of the toughest language for years, his and the “full and inclusive application” of the 1951 prospective Home Secretary, David Davis, said what Convention. he called uncontrolled immigration “endangers the There were major advances in these new directives values that we in Britain rightly treasure.” and regulations including a common definition of who At the 2004 annual meeting of UNHCR’s govern- could qualify as a refugee; agreement for other groups ing body, the 66-nation Executive Committee, both to receive so-called ‘subsidiary’ protection; a recogni- Russia and China denounced what they called terror- tion of gender-based persecution; and fixed minimum ist abuse of asylum procedures. levels of social, employment and health benefits. Erika Feller had to remind delegates “Refugees are The legislation, welcome as it was in some areas, people, not statistics and global trends. Their protec- received mixed reviews. Raymond Hall at the time de- tion is a humanitarian necessity, not a policy choice.” scribed it as a genuine first step but then asked, “Was it Continued on page 18

REFUGEES 15 “We can do better. W High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers discusses UNHCR’s 2004 performanc including the successful return of Afghan refugees, a Liberian

REFUGEES: The period of your A year ago you spoke optimistically of late to different nations and cultures, but stewardship starting in 2001 appears trying to forge a special identity for we have to do this against a very difficult to be paradoxical with the number of UNHCR and other humanitarian background. refugees and asylum seekers falling agencies to allow them to work significantly, but conversely an effectively within the turmoil of Iraq Looking at Europe specifically, increasing erosion of refugee and the Islamic world in general. there has been a dramatic drop in protection. There has been absolutely no progress on the number of asylum seekers, but a LUBBERS: They are different things. In that. Things have deteriorated sharply. widespread tightening of the first instance there have been suc- anti-legislation. cessful repatriations in places like So can you anticipate any meaningful Ministers might argue that tougher re- Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Angola UNHCR presence in Iraq or indeed the strictions explain the lower asylum num- involving millions of people. And there return of some of the hundreds of bers, but I don’t think so. There are fewer are also fewer outflows of new refugees thousands of Iraqis who have been Afghans, Angolans or Tamils traveling because there are fewer conflicts at the living overseas for many years? to Europe simply because the situations moment (a major exception is the situa- The answer to the first question is no. in their countries have improved. But it tion in Darfur, in Sudan). On the second And the answer to the second question is would be unfair to say that there is a whol- point, yes there is a less friendly climate also no, not for the foreseeable future. I ly negative European attitude towards towards refugees for several reasons: am more pessimistic than a year ago. I refugee problems. The European Union heightened security and terrorism con- hope I am wrong. and individual states have increased their cerns globally; a widespread xenophobia, assistance to UNHCR and protection often stoked by politicians, in which for- The ongoing war on terrorism, projects in places like Zambia, Uganda, eigners, including refugees, are blamed Muslim rage and atrocities such as Burundi and other areas have benefited. for any perceived problem and are con- Beslan when hundreds of Russian sidered threatening. children were killed must undermine Europe recently underwent its UNHCR efforts to help many people, largest ever expansion of 10 additional From the humanitarian perspective, including specific groups such as the member states, creating new refugee how would you characterize Chechens? and asylum concerns. In the latter developments in 2004? It makes our help both more needed, but part of the year there were new It has been a reasonably good year in a more difficult to administer. For (Rus- crises in the Mediterranean as troublesome world, a period more in- sian) President Putin and his govern- thousands of civilians tried to tense than last year. More than three mil- ment the word Chechen brings to mind gate-crash the region. Where does lion Afghans have returned home and I the word ‘terrorist’ and he sees this ‘Is- Europe stand today? find it fantastic that that country held lamic poison’ spreading throughout the Basically Europe is still confused about democratic elections last October. In Caucasus. Then we go to another U.N. Se- what to do next. Do we continue to em- Liberia we started the repatriation of curity Council member, China, where phasize the harmonization of (individu- around 700,000 people or 25 percent of for many officials the Uighurs, a Muslim al) national asylum systems or should we the entire population. But then we have minority, are equated with terrorists. In communitarize (centralize) certain as- the deep black hole of Darfur where a Washington, Secretary of State Colin pects of asylum? Some studies suggest system of terror resulted in widespread Powell celebrated the resettlement of that an overwhelming number of Euro- ethnic cleansing, the deaths of tens of thousands of people last year in the Unit- peans favor a pan-European approach thousands of people and the flight of ed States, but at the same time many Is- and find it rather stupid that the Union is around two million people. There is also lamic people were screened out of the not doing more in this direction. the scourge of ongoing terrorism which process simply because they are Mus- is very much related to the world of Islam lims. Then there is the Islamic backlash Proposals have been floated that and very much related to Islamic youth to this. For the High Commissioner for European countries, which currently which doesn’t see the rest of the world as Refugees, this is very scary. We try to be accept only extremely limited having any respect for their religion. impartial. We try to be fair. We try to re- numbers of refugees for official

16 REFUGEES We should do better.” ce during a “reasonably good year in a troublesome world,” n repatriation, Europe’s ‘big bang’ and the ‘deep black hole’ that is Darfur

resettlement, might eventually greatly mistake to think you will have more jobs to prevent new outflows of refugees. expand this approach. for locals if you send all of these people There are still 38 so-called It would be great news and a turning away. No, you will have fewer jobs. The protracted global crises where people point if Europe committed itself to an ex- majority of Pashtuns who live in Pak- have been uprooted for at least five panded resettlement program. Current- istan did not come as refugees, but during years. Do you foresee any major ly, the major receiving nations such as normal migratory flows and have become breakthroughs in any of these? the United States, Canada and Australia, a very precious part of that country. Two of the oldest problems are in West- with a combined population of more than ern Sahara and with Bhutanese refugees 300 million people accept 80,000 reset- Would you characterize the in Nepal. At the moment both are totally tlement cases annually. I think it is possi- international and U.N. responses to blocked and more international atten- ble that Europe, with a similar popula- the crisis in Darfur as being ‘too little, tion is needed, but I still have a feeling tion, could accept a similar number of too late?’ that at some point (in the near future) refugees, within a four to five year peri- Not too little, but too late. It’s been too late. there will be breakthroughs. od. This would not only directly help the In November 2003, UNHCR was the first most needy refugees but, among other to use the phrase ‘ethnic cleansing’ about You are scheduled to end your term as things, would probably substantially re- Darfur. Only six months later, after many High Commissioner in 2005. What will duce the number of people trying to hundreds of thousands were driven out be your legacy to UNHCR? reach Europe in so-called ‘secondary of their villages and many thousands or This organization has recalibrated itself flows’ of migrants. tens of thousands were killed did the in- to tackle not only emergency and hu- ternational community start talking manitarian advocacy, but to promote bur- The one millionth uprooted person about getting access to Darfur. In that den sharing among nations and long- returned home to Bosnia and sense we were really too late. Now it’s the term solutions for refugees themselves. Herzegovina in 2004 and the one place to go with massive numbers of hu- For the latter you need major financial millionth refugee went back from Iran manitarians present. It’s no longer a ‘for- resources and political will—for local in- to Afghanistan. In both regions is it gotten crisis’ but it is still not totally well tegration and for resettlement. Security now time to emphasize not so much organized. also became a major political priority, but further returns, but on trying to help I would like to emphasize that the best people still displaced to rebuild their There was optimism a year ago about way to reduce terrorism is to find timely lives in asylum countries? the return of hundreds of thousands of solutions for uprooted peoples. This takes We have to continue to emphasize return civilians to another part of Sudan, the the oxygen out of human traffickers; it as our priority. However, helping some south. What do you foresee for Darfur takes the oxygen away from local war- refugees to restart their lives in countries and the south in the coming year? lords who capitalize on uprooted people of asylum or to seek permanent resettle- It was a very bad year in Sudan. But we and it takes the oxygen away from terror- ment in other states will also be impor- sometimes become too skeptical in life. ist groups. tant components of our overall strategy. Look at the surprise of neighboring So- malia where, after so many years of blood- Two years ago you said UNHCR risked But hundreds of thousands of Afghans shed, there is suddenly a new president becoming irrelevant to governments, remain in Pakistan and Iran and and parliament. Let’s hope it will be a bet- but had begun to reshape itself in neither of those countries have ter year in Sudan. providing permanent solutions to expressed any enthusiasm for large global refugee problems. Where do we numbers of people to remain The number of refugees and asylum stand today? permanently. seekers has dropped steadily since There has been progress, slow progress. We must remind Iran that many Afghans your tenure began. Will that continue? We can still do better. 2004 was the year have lived there for a long time. They are Yes, but I cannot guarantee it. It is fair to of the Olympics. We trained hard, but we totally integrated and contribute many measure me against this progress, were not always good enough to be sent to skills to the economy. As an economist I against the reality of finding permanent the Olympics. I think we can do better. have said to my friends in Iran, it will be a solutions for people and, where possible, We should do better.

REFUGEES 17 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW

International refugee instruments, including the lapse, is a deeply scarred continent. During that peri- Geneva Convention, she said, did not provide a safe od, there were 186 coups, 26 major wars and innumer- haven for terrorists. “They specifically provide for able smaller conflicts. More than seven million people their exclusion”—a fact which is regularly distorted by were killed in violence which cost, in stark financial some politicians and journalists pursuing an anti- terms, 250 billion dollars and helped create a current asylum agenda. continental debt of 305 billion dollars. An estimated 15 “Equating asylum with a safe haven for terrorists is million people died from AIDS and 26 million are in- not only legally wrong and unsupported by the facts,” fected with the virus, many of them refugees. Feller said, “but it serves to vilify refugees in the pub- At a time a little more than a year ago when Africa lic mind and promotes the singling out of persons of appeared to be finally overcoming most of its major particular races or religions for discrimination and crises, along came Darfur. Still, David Lambo, head of hate-based harassment.” UNHCR’s Africa desk, remained relatively upbeat at DP/LBR•2004 UNHCR/P. FLOMOKU/

UNHCR/S.HOPPER/DP/AGO•2004 African repatriations: Liberia, Angola, She was particularly troubled by assaults on one of the end of 2004. “I still think we are winning,” he said. Sierra Leone and the major planks of the Refugee Convention, that of “There’s more good news than bad news.” Eritrea. non-refoulementor the non-forcible return of people to If one took that determinedly optimistic view, look countries where they faced persecution. “It is difficult at Liberia. A nation founded by freed American slaves, to imagine that the right NOT to be sent back to be the West African country has been in permanent tur- killed can be contested by any right thinking person,” moil since the last president linked to those earlier re- she told delegates. turnees to Africa, William R. Tolbert, was brutally And she emphasized an obvious, but often over- murdered in 1980 by a rebellious army sergeant, looked truism: “Genuine refugees are themselves es- Samuel Kanyon Doe. Doe suffered an even more caping persecution and violence, including terrorist macabre fate a decade later when he was disembow- acts.” eled by opposition thugs. In separate testimony in Washington, Democratic Between almost constant bouts of upheaval, UN- Senator Edward Kennedy also made the point that HCR had tried twice before to return civilians to their refugee camps and their inhabitants should not be homes. Each time the country fell back into chaos. In judged harshly as terrorist centers, but sympatheti- October, it began its third and hopefully last repatria- cally as places in need of assistance—before they be- tion of as many as 700,000 uprooted civilians—an came breeding grounds for violence. operation which will take at least three years. “Especially in the post 9/11 world,” Kennedy told a As the first freedom flight landed at the capital hearing on refugee issues, “we cannot let refugee Monrovia’s battered airport, government vice-chair- youth waste years of their lives in harsh camps. If we man Wesley Johnson issued an extraordinary appeal don’t provide them with the opportunity to receive an to the returnees: “If you meet someone who forced you education or earn a living, some of them may be sus- out of the country, who may have killed your family, ceptible to influence by terrorist groups who want to open up your arms, forgive them, put the past in the do us harm.” past and move forward.” Africa has been the scene of frighteningly brutal WHITHER AFRICA? conflicts, but also of wonderful reconciliation, as hap- many of the campsKennedy referred to are in Africa pened earlier and successfully in Mozambique, and at which, a half century after colonialism began to col- least tentatively last year in Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

18 REFUGEES Now it is Liberia’s turn to try again. A neighbor offered him temporary shelter, but As a youngster, Joe Geetoe was cut off from his there was no work in Monrovia. Without a job, a home home on a routine visit to a Monrovia market in 1996 and with his family still missing, Joe mused after sev- and after sheltering for three days in the besieged eral days that “Sometimes I feel like going back to port, took a boat to Ghana and years of exile. He was on Ghana. There we were all Liberians together and ev- the first organized flight home to the Liberian capital erybody stretched out their hands to each other. Here, and as a correspondent from the Christian Science people are always afraid the war will return.” Monitor followed him, he experienced the kind of al- ternate bouts of happiness, apprehension and uncer- THE FUTURE tainty most refugees returning home undergo. as europe entered phase two of its grand harmo- Monrovia, a battered shell of a city without any nization project in 2005, EU member states will take regular amenities such as running water and electric- the next couple of years or so to meld their own na- DP/ERI•2003 UNHCR/E. PARSONS/

DP/SLE•2004 tional legislation with EU law. The whole process is scheduled to be completed by 2010. The refugee agency will shift its own focus to, as one official said, “make sure governments do not slip below the minimum

UNHCR/E.KANALSTEIN/ standards established by the first round of harmonization. We must try to prevent minimum standards becoming maximum standards.” This new phase will ity, was in darkness when Geetoe’s minibus ap- be monitored and evaluated by the EU itself under a proached the city, but he had no difficulty in spotting mechanism known as The Hague Program. his old home. Raymond Hall admitted that although UNHCR “That’s my place,” he yelped as he grabbed his bag had already tabled “an ambitious set” of proposals and hopped out. As he picked his way gingerly around dealing with national, regional and global protection pools of stagnant water, someone yelled from the issues, it was perhaps “time to be a little bit more mod- darkness: “Joe, my brother!” A young woman joined est.” in: “Joe, it’s really you.” Joe responded, “It’s been so long. “At the moment, there doesn’t seem to be the polit- It’s been so long” over and over again. ical will or the political space in Europe for more radi- His joy is short lived. His home, little more than a cal legislation,” he said, so now the emphasis should be roofless skeleton of ruined walls now, was occupied by placed on practical issues such as ironing out the ma- a family of 16, themselves displaced by the war but jor imbalances between countries on recognition rates who had purchased Joe’s place for the equivalent of for different groups of asylum seekers. A European 220 dollars from another faceless squatter several asylum office could be created to monitor and harmo- years ago. nize these rates, he suggested.

IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM ISSUES REMAINED HIGHLY POLITICIZED AND PROTECTION FOR THE WORLD’S VULNERABLE PEOPLE CONTINUED TO ERODE.

REFUGEES 19 2004: YEAR IN REVIEW

“REFUGEES ARE PEOPLE, NOT STATISTICS AND GLOBAL TRENDS. THEIR PROTECTION IS A HUMANITARIAN NECESSITY, NOT A POLITICAL CHOICE.”

There was need for a general debate on the crisis in women at the world games, the first ever women to the Mediterranean and “putting into place alterna- represent their country, and she had returned to tives which would mean that people wouldn’t neces- Afghanistan only in 2002 after spending most of her sarily need to get into small boats and risk their lives young life as a refugee in Pakistan. “It gave me so much in order to claim asylum.” pleasure just to be there,” she said later, “to represent However, the refugee agency was emphatic that, as all of the women of Afghanistan who have had no Hall said, “This does not mean that people who do ar- rights at all for such a long time. Women have always rive in Europe can be expelled” without having their been ignored and always told what to do. Now we have claims heard. a chance to change that.” “If Europe starts to re-export people outside of Eu- rope, why wouldn’t every country start doing that?” he asked. “That would be to endanger the whole fabric of international protection for refugees.” In the Balkans, where a major milestone was reached in 2004 with the return home of the one millionth Bosnian, another will be marked in December 2005, on the 10th anniversary of the Dayton Accord which ended the wars in that region. Many civilians displaced by those conflicts and, later, by turmoil in Kosovo in 1999, have already gone back or found new permanent homes abroad, but hundreds of thousands remain in limbo. Lubbers has warned that it would be unrealistic to expect that every displaced person would eventually go back and creative solutions must be found for them. “We should abandon the artificial and counterproductive ambition to return all remaining uprooted peoples,” he said in one speech. “Europe must reflect on how best to promote sustainability and stability in its southeastern corner.” That same argument applied to Afghanistan. Though more than four million Afghans have already returned, an estimated one million remain in camps in Pakistan, an undetermined number in that country’s cities and one million in Iran. Another 700,000 are expected to go back in 2005, but a tripartite agreement covering refugees in Iran expires in 2005 and a similar one for Pakistan the following year. Delicate talks on the future of these groups, many of whom have lived in their adopted countries their Despite those encouraging signs, difficulties re- entire lives, have been underway for months amid mained. The capital, Kabul, might be awash with new dire warnings that unless equitable solutions could be restaurants, mobile phones and four-wheel drive ve- reached, the entire region might face renewed tur- hicles, but many returnees continued to live in ap- moil. palling conditions with little hope of work. Inside Afghanistan itself, the election of Karzai, Like Joe Geetoe a half world away in Liberia, some and the participation of millions of men and women were nostalgic for the safety, the food, the medicine in the voting process, was one of the most important that they were guaranteed in a refugee camp. political developments in the country’s history. Many schools have not reopened, Afghanistan’s in- A more unusual moment symbolic of Afghani- frastructure remains largely destroyed, security is stan’s progress occurred thousands of miles away in tenuous, parts of the country are off limits to aid offi- the unlikely venue of the Olympic Games judo hall. cials and drought has either returned or never gone There, in August, 17-year-old Feriba Rizai was knock- away across large swathes of the landscape—though ed out in the first round of the judo competition. But farmers nevertheless did manage to produce its that was not the point. She was one of two Afghan largest ever opium crop.

20 REFUGEES Westwards around the globe, High Commissioner “Maybe we will wait here one, two or three years. Just Lubbers said in an interview (page 16) that it was to confirm that it’s as peaceful as they say.” highly unlikely foreign UNHCR staff would return While expressing optimism that humanitarian to Iraq anytime soon or that large numbers of exiled agencies were “winning” the battle in Africa, UN- Iraqis would be headed home in 2005. HCR’s David Lambo nevertheless said that across the continent there were still 4.3 million uprooted GLOOMY OUTLOOK peoples of direct concern to the refugee agency and the chances of an early settlement in Darfur millions more desperately needing assistance, but seemed equally bleak. Though the level of violence outside its mandate. And, Lambo said, he had no- had subsided overall by the end of 2004, many people ticed another disturbing development—a global re- who had been forced to flee saw no way back. “They luctance to fund emergencies and repatriations. can never come back here,” one villager from the Fur “The world talks so much and pays so little,” Lambo tribe told a visiting delegation when asked if his fam- said. “During the Rwanda crisis, donors talked and ily would return to a smoldering village in front of paid up. Today, there is talk and no action. I have never seen such a level of cynicism.” Dr. David Nabarro, head of crisis operations for The number of WHO concurred over the situation in Darfur: “We refugees being

DP/USA•2003 are running on a threadbare, hand to mouth exis- officially resettled in new countries tence,” he said late in the year. “If the plight of these increased sharply in people in Darfur is as important to the international 2004. A Somali community as it seems to be, then we would have ex- UNHCR/H.CAUX/ Bantu woman pected more long-term support.” enjoys a new life in Despite the potential pitfalls of new crises, senior the United States. refugee officials predicted that the overall number of people in need of UNHCR assistance would continue to fall steadily in 2005. Helping that four-year-long trend was the modest increase in the number of refugees being officially resettled as part of UNHCR’s overall efforts to help people restart their lives. Europe said it would consider opening its doors wider—member states currently allocate only around 4,000 places annually—and Lubbers said the continent could easily accommodate 80,000. The United States said it might increase its own allocation to as many as 90,000 refugees in 2005 and during Senate testimony in Washington, several speakers extolled the examples of recent refugee groups who had settled in the United States. Gene Dewey, the Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said Somali Bantu refugees arriving from the Horn of Africa had been a “wonderful group” who had been particularly welcomed in the town of Utica, the small crowd. “They will all be killed. This is not New York. “Utica loves refugees,” he said. “Utica has our land anymore. We can never come back here.” benefited from refugees. The town was going down- The knock-on effects from that emergency were hill, but it is now reviving because of refugees.” at least partially responsible for the stalled repatria- Senator Edward Kennedy responded that “That’s tion efforts in southern Sudan. As many as two mil- a good story. Now Lowell, Massachusetts, has the lion unregistered Sudanese may have already gone second highest number of Cambodians outside (the back without any official assistance, but others Cambodian capital of) Phnom Penh. Last year, of our among a diaspora of at least a half million refugees 12 high schools, I think seven of the valedictorians were wary. were the sons of Cambodians. That’s very impres- That mood was reflected in the sprawling Kaku- sive.” ma camp in northern Kenya, home to 60,000 Su- Those tributes to refugee resilience were heart- danese refugees. “Our life here is boring. Boring,” warming, as were Rwanda’s decade-long struggle one young Sudanese said recently. “But it’s safer than and Liberia’s latest efforts to reconciliate murderous Sudan. How can we believe anything the politicians neighbors. Unfortunately, the lasting images of 2004 tell us today?” A colleague nodded in agreement, could be from Darfur and Lampedusa.

REFUGEES 21 The chaos of a refugee camp for Salvadorans in neighboring Honduras during the 1980s.

22 REFUGEES 20 years later BW/HND•1990

REFUGEES 23 UNHCR/D.BREGNARD/ CARTAGENA “It could have been

he violence had been growing for decades before ex- ploding into the worst anarchy the Tregion had ever known. Three countries tumbled into bloody civil wars. Insurgency and counterinsurgency swept across the landscape. As many as 200,000 persons were killed or simply disappeared. Surrounding states were sucked into the chaos as more than two million people fled from their homes and sought refuge elsewhere. Landless poor were pitted against landowning elites. Ex- treme left-wing ideology was pitted against the extreme right, the United States against the Soviet Union through local proxies. Society as a whole appeared on the point of meltdown. In the event, the results of the conference on Novem- In a pretty seaside town on the edge of the chaos ber 22, 1984, had far-reaching consequences.

sweeping across Central America, and after three years The final document, the Cartagena Declaration on CS/HND•1988 of on-off discussions, a group of some 30 diplomats, aca- Refugees, named after the town in Colombia in which it demics and humanitarian officials met to try to salvage was drawn up, was approved by 10 states.* something from the wreckage and help embattled It was designed principally to help the victims of the UNHCR/S.LAMB/ civilian populations and refugees. three Central American wars in El Salvador, The site of the meeting was itself no stranger to vio- Guatemala and Nicaragua, the majority of whom were lence and intrigue and centuries earlier had once been displaced within their own countries, but also includ- one of the most famous places on earth. At the height of ing hundreds of thousands of others who subsequently the Spanish empire in the Americas, treasure galleons fled to neighboring states and North America. had sailed from there to Europe laden with gold and It did that, and much more. In the intervening 20 jewels. Buccaneers such as Sir Francis Drake robbed years, its ideals were incorporated into national legisla- and pillaged the Spanish Main. tion throughout Latin America and became a major In such august surroundings, this meeting was de- building block in UNHCR’s overall protection man- liberately low key and the results were expected to be date. Daily camp life. modest. “It could have been a total non-event,” Leonar- A 20th anniversary ceremony held in Mexico City do Franco, one of the participants, recalled with a satis- in November 2004 commemorated the Declaration’s Salvadoran fied chuckle years later. achievements. An ambitious new plan of action was an- refugees eke out a After one last minute quibble about the official nounced at the same meeting to breathe life into the living in exile in name of the document, a simple show of hands signaled document with a series of projects to try to tackle cur- Honduras in 1987. approval. “There were no grand formalities and per- rent regional problems, the overwhelming one being in Nicaraguan haps as we left, we didn’t have that feeling that we had Colombia, the birthplace of the Declaration. refugees get used accomplished anything overwhelming,” Leonardo to camp life in Franco said. “We did not realize how important our de- *Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras. liberations would be for the future.” Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela.

24 REFUGEES a total non-event”

principles (of the Declara- tion) continue to guide us today.”

WHY CARTAGENA? the newly created U.N. refugee agency established a first modest presence in Latin America shortly after it first began operations in 1951. It wasn’t until around 20 years later, however, that UNHCR faced its first major crisis there. Nine days after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Chile’s democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende

CS/HND•1987 in September 1973, it opened an office in the capital, Santi- ago. Its initial task was to help thousands of refugees who UNHCR/P. JAXA/ had fled to the relatively benign political climate of Chile from neighboring states and then, shortly afterwards, to assist thousands of Chileans fleeing the anarchy now visited on their own country. As that emergency continued to unfold and a military junta seized power in Argentina, trouble was also brewing far to the north in a band of Central American states. For decades, there had been conflicts between right-wing landowning elites and dirt-poor disenfran- chised peasantry who were subsequently joined in their struggle by students, labor unions and parts of the Catholic church. These up- heavals were fueled by the Cuban rev- UNHCR/P. JAXA/CS/HND•1987 olution of 1959. “Cartagena In 1979, the troubles exploded onto the international codified the his- stage. Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle torical and exem- who had been supported for decades by the United plary commit- States, was toppled. Two years later widespread con- ment of an entire region to refugee rights,” High Com- flicts erupted in El Salvador and Guatemala. In a region missioner Ruud Lubbers told the gathering. “And in an of 18 million people, in addition to huge numbers of era of growing national security concerns, the global civilians killed, one in every nine people abandoned war on terror and increasing migratory controls the their homes and fled.

REFUGEES 25 CARTAGENA

IN A REGION OF 18 MILLION PEOPLE, IN ADDITION TO 200,000 CIVILIANS KILLED, ONE IN EVERY NINE PEOPLE HAD TO ABANDON THEIR HOMES AND FLEE.

Latin America had been involved as early as the which accede to it, a process which may take years to ac- 1880s in contributing to the development of interna- complish and is often politically sensitive. tional refugee law, but in its own backyard it had relied The Cartagena Declaration greatly expanded the mainly on a series of local but fragile agreements to refugee definition to include not just individuals but solve its humanitarian problems. Those rickety instru- people, including those caught-up in large-scale flight, ments and the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 who had left their homes because of “generalized vio- Protocol were overwhelmed by the new crises. lence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive vi- The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention was the cor- olation of human rights or other circumstances which nerstone of UNHCR’s protection mandate but it fo- have seriously disturbed public order.” cused mainly on helping displaced Europeans in the It urged governments for the first time to “offer pro- wake of World War II and defined the very term tection and assistance” to the internally displaced. ‘refugee’ narrowly, as a person who had fled his or her According to Leonardo Franco, an architect of Carta- country “owing to a well-founded fear of being perse- gena and UNHCR’s representative in Mexico and Costa cuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, member- Rica during that turbulent period, the Declaration was ship of a particular social group or political opinion.” groundbreaking in other areas such as promoting It highlighted the plight of individuals rather than refugee integration in countries of asylum and foster- people caught-up in a mass exodus and did not even ing direct refugee participation in shaping peaceful cover another huge group, bureaucratically referred to conclusions to conflict itself. as internally displaced persons (IDPs). Unlike refugees Unlike the Geneva Convention, it was non-binding. who had reached another country and were protected That allowed affected Latin American countries to ap- by the 1951 Convention, uprooted persons staying in prove it both more quickly and with far less political their own country remained subject to national law and controversy than may otherwise have been the case. were often ‘invisible’ to the outside world. In sum “Cartagena was a very clever device, to the The Geneva treaty is legally binding for countries extent that it was a flexible and pragmatic system incor-

A better deal for Central Americans… he Cartagena Declaration broke internal conflicts, massive violation of integrating them into the productive life of new ground in several areas of human rights or other circumstances which the country by allocating to the creation or international refugee protection. have seriously disturbed public order.” generation of employment the resources Compared with the cornerstone made available by the international T1951 Geneva Convention, it expanded the reiterated “the importance and meaning of community through UNHCR, thus making it numbers of uprooted peoples who would in the principle of non-refoulement (the non- possible for refugees to enjoy their future be eligible for refugee status. It tackled forcible return of persons to a country economic, social and cultural rights.” the issues of internally displaced persons, where their lives might be endangered), family reunification and helping uprooted including the prohibition of rejection at the reiterated “the voluntary and individual persons to restart their lives in asylum frontier, as a cornerstone of the character of repatriation of refugees and countries. It also reiterated the fundamental international protection of refugees.” the need for it to be carried out under principles of the voluntary return of any conditions of absolute safety, preferably to refugees electing to go home and the non- expressed “its concern at the situation of the place of residence of the refugee in his refoulement (the prohibition of forcible displaced persons within their own country of origin.” return) of asylum seekers. countries.” It called on “national authorities and the competent international underlined that the “reunification of Among its conclusions, the Declaration: organizations to offer protection and families constitutes a fundamental principle in addition to “containing the elements of assistance to those persons and to help in regard to refugees and one which should the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, relieve the hardship which many of them be the basis for the regime of humanitarian includes among refugees persons who have face.” treatment in the country of asylum, as well fled their country because their lives, safety as for facilities granted in cases of voluntary or freedom have been threatened by encouraged countries “which have a large repatriation.” generalized violence, foreign aggression, number of refugees, of the possibilities of

26 REFUGEES porating universal standards of protection, and some new ideas too, into the

Latin American context,” according to DP/COL•2003 Franco who later became UNHCR’s Di- rector of International Protection in Geneva. UNHCR/P.SMITH/

BUILDING BLOCK most civil conflicts are messy and bloody. The Central American crisis was a particularly troubling quagmire involving, as it did, three separate wars, religion, ideology and Cold War politics. For humanitarian organizations, the emergency turned into a quicksand. Ini- tially, at least, there were few enforceable legal instruments to help the civilian populations under fire. There were strong civil societies in most countries, but these were disintegrating under the pressure of conflict. Agencies relatively new to the region such as UNHCR were often A UNHCR mobile viewed suspiciously by just about all sides—govern- might also influence other crises such as the flight of registration unit for ments, non-governmental organizations, the church Haitian boat people to the U.S. displaced persons and the refugees themselves. “In no other country Eventually, however, Cartagena became one of sev- in Colombia. where I had previously worked was the staff of volun- eral major building blocks in resolving the Central tary agencies so hostile to UNHCR,” one field official American debacle. Three years after the Declaration wrote at the time. was adopted, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hon- In Honduras, for example, the government wel- duras and Nicaragua signed the Esquipulas II Agree- comed Nicaraguan refugees fleeing the newly estab- ment (the Arias Peace Plan) pledging not to use their re- lished left-wing Sandinista regime, but was highly sus- spective territories to destabilize neighboring coun- picious of Salvadoran refugees. Nicaraguans were al- tries and promising to develop policies to help the poor lowed to move around relatively freely, but the and landless—in the process helping to avoid future Salvadoran refugees were restricted to closed camps refugee emergencies. guarded by troops. In 1989, a landmark meeting organized by UNHCR At one compound, Salvadorans were locked away for involving governments and other agencies and known a decade and their newborn children for years saw as the Conference on Central American Refugees nothing but tents and the barbed wire perimeter as (CIREFCA in Spanish) developed new approaches to they grew up. Internal atrocities were committed and help an estimated two million refugees, returnees and children were forcibly recruited into local militias, of- displaced persons. In the next several years some $420 ten under the eyes of aid organizations impotent to in- million was spent on innovative projects. tervene. So-called Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) were Refugees elsewhere were equally unwelcome. When launched in 1991 in Nicaragua. As the name suggests, thousands of Guatemalans arrived in Mexico in 1981, those programs were small-scale, inexpensive and rela- the government, which was not then a signatory to the tively easy to implement—the reconstruction of a coun- 1951 Geneva Convention, promptly deported most of try health clinic, rebuilding a bridge to a village or pro- them. viding tools and seed for the next harvest. There was diplomatic resistance to the Cartagena They were designed to help both returning refugees Declaration even as it began to take shape. Washington and local communities and to bridge the ‘infamous’ gap was cautious, to say the least, to parts of the document, between emergency aid to refugees and more long- fearing that possibly hundreds of thousands of fleeing term development assistance to entire regions. civilians might seek asylum there based on the Declara- The concept was so successful, it was later incorpo- tion’s broadened definition of a refugee and that it rated into UNHCR’s global operations.

BEFORE 1984, ONLY A HANDFUL OF REGIONAL COUNTRIES WERE SIGNATORIES TO THE 1951 CONVENTION. TODAY, ONLY CUBA HAS NOT SIGNED ON.

REFUGEES 27 CARTAGENA

Mexico, which only a few years earlier had been Ten countries had adopted the original agreement, openly hostile to people seeking sanctuary there, by the but by the time of the November 2004 Mexico City mid-1990s had totally changed its approach and began meeting, most Latin American and Caribbean coun- accepting nearly 22,000 refugees as legal residents or tries had incorporated its provisions into national leg- citizens. islation or were honoring its principles. At the end of the 1990s, UNHCR wound down its Too, according to Carlos Maldonado, one of the key Central American programs after helping the last organizers of the Mexico City meeting, Cartagena was refugees return home or relocate. the catalyst which propelled Latin America back into the mainstream of international refugee protection. WHAT NEXT? Before 1984, only a handful of regional countries so what was nextfor the Cartagena Declaration and were signatories to the 1951 Convention. Today, only did it have any continuing relevance? Cuba has not signed on.

Latin America and the history 1889 as far afield as Hong Kong. its attention northwards the 1951 Geneva Refugee A body of international towards Central America Convention, which anyway humanitarian and refugee 20 Sept. 1973 where there is turmoil does not apply to the protection legislation Nine days after General between the landless poor specific circumstances of developed slowly in the Augusto Pinochet demanding social and many of the victims of late 19th and early 20th overthrows the agrarian reform and these latest wars. centuries. Latin America democratically elected landowning elites in several Eventually, six Central makes its first contribution government of President countries. The first of what American states—Belize, as early as 1889 with the so- Salvador Allende, UNHCR will later become a network Costa Rica, El Salvador, called Montevideo Treaty opens an office in Santiago, of regional field offices is Guatemala, Honduras and on International Penal Law Chile, and undertakes its opened in 1977 in San José, Nicaragua—plus four other which excludes some first ‘major’ operation in Costa Rica. countries—Colombia, political crimes and Latin America. It helps Mexico, Panama and refugees from extradition. thousands of refugees 1979 Venezuela approve the Other instruments such as trapped in the country to Dictator Anastasio Somoza Cartagena Declaration on the American Declaration leave and then assists some Debayle flees Nicaragua and Refugees. Unlike the 1951 of Rights and Duties of Man of the tens of thousands of the left-wing Sandinista Convention, Cartagena is in 1948, which preceded the Chileans who also fled the National Liberation Front non-binding, but does Declaration of Human country to find new homes. seizes power. It is the start embrace some displaced Rights, and the American It appeals to eastern of a domino effect and groups not covered by the Convention on Human European countries to other wars begin in El Geneva treaty. Rights in 1969 follow. resettle Chilean exiles, a Salvador and Guatemala. novelty at a time when the The entire Central American 7 August 1987 1954 Soviet-dominated bloc region, the United States Costa Rica, El Salvador, In the wake of World War II, views the agency with grave and Canada are drawn into Guatemala, Honduras and the International Refugee suspicion. the conflict as more than Nicaragua sign the Organization (IRO) resettled two million people are Esquipulas II Agreement an estimated 100,000 1970s uprooted, many of them (the Arias Peace Plan). Each Europeans in Latin America. Other parts of Latin fleeing abroad for safety. state pledges to prevent the When UNHCR begins America and Central Some 200,000 Central use of its territory for the operations in 1951 all America are wracked by Americans are formally destabilization of the refugees fall within its violence. In 1976, a military recognized as refugees. others and recognizes the mandate and in 1954 the junta seizes power in need to develop policies to agency opens its first Argentina. Thousands of 22 Nov. 1984 help the poor, landless and regional office in Bogota, persons are ‘disappeared’ International refugee socially deprived to prevent Colombia, and a branch during the country’s ‘Dirty protection is rudimentary in future conflict. office in Brazil, and War’ and many others flee Central America at this continues to resettle new abroad. For the first time, time. Only a handful of 29-31 May 1989 refugees from Europe and UNHCR also begins to turn countries have acceded to The International

28 REFUGEES “CARTAGENA WAS A VERY CLEVER DEVICE, TO THE EXTENT THAT IT WAS A VERY FLEXIBLE AND PRAGMATIC SYSTEM, INCORPORATING UNIVERSAL STANDARDS OF PROTECTION, AND SOME NEW IDEAS TOO, INTO THE LATIN AMERICAN CONTEXT.”

But even as those legal links were quietly being headlines, there was little time to spare for a region strengthened, Latin America appeared to be slipping which appeared relatively peaceful. off the international radar screen. It became, according to Maldonado “a forgotten While mega-crises such as the Balkans, Af- continent” and groups of new victims “invisible ghanistan, Timor and Rwanda dominated the global refugees.” of refugee protection Conference on Central negotiate the terms of their American Refugees (known return, in particular access

as CIREFCA for its Spanish to land. CS/MEX•1986 acronym) involving regional states, UNHCR 14 August 1996 and other agencies, Mexico announces an

adopts an ambitious innovative policy enabling UNHCR/L.TAYLOR/ program to find practical refugees unwilling to solutions for refugees, repatriate to become legal returnees and other residents in Mexico and displaced persons. In 1989, accelerated access to the refugee agency is still citizenship for spouses or helping 150,000 persons in parents of Mexican citizens, camps in Mexico, Honduras a significant provision given and Costa Rica. that almost half of the remaining Guatemalan 1991 refugees were born in Starting in Nicaragua, Mexico. An estimated UNHCR pioneers the 22,000 Guatemalans elect concept of Quick Impact to stay in Mexico. Projects (QIPs), small-scale Guatemalan refugees make a new home in Mexico. and inexpensive 1997-1999 transportation, health, With peace re-established agricultural and in Central America, UNHCR Colombia, at least two resolve the Colombia infrastructure projects to winds down its programs million were displaced problem through such help both returnees and and repatriates the last within the country and innovative suggestions as local communities. QIPs refugees. However, the several hundred thousands establishing a Latin later become a mainstay in agency opens a new bureau moved to neighboring American resettlement UNHCR programs around in Colombia to help both states. program. the world. refugees and internally displaced persons in what 15-16 November December 2004 20 January 1993 quickly becomes the worst The 20th anniversary of the With offices in Argentina, An organized voluntary humanitarian crisis in the Cartagena Declaration is Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, repatriation program for Western Hemisphere. marked in ceremonies in Ecuador, Mexico, Panama 46,000 Guatemalan Mexico City. A new plan of and Venezuela, as well as in refugees living in Mexico 2004 action is announced to the United States and gets underway. For the first After more than 40 years of rejuvenate the Cartagena Canada, UNHCR’s budget time in UNHCR’s history, the conflict, over 200,000 process with particular for the Americas totalled refugees themselves people were killed in emphasis on trying to $25 million.

REFUGEES 29 CARTAGENA DP/ECU•2004 L-R FIRST TWO PHOTOS - UNHCR/B. HEGER/ OFFICIALLY, THERE ARE AN ESTIMATED 40,000 COLOMBIAN REFUGEES IN NEIGHBORING ECUADOR, VENEZUELA AND PANAMA, BUT THE REAL FIGURE COULD BE AT LEAST 400,000.

Welcome to In fact another major crisis had been developing for UNHCR operation anywhere. Ecuador. several decades, ironically perhaps, in Colombia itself. But Latin American states, like countries across For more than 40 years the civilian government, the globe, also face other complex issues which spill Latin America’s oldest functioning democracy, the over into the humanitarian arena and which were not military, several left-wing guerrilla groups and right- present during the Central American troubles. wing paramilitaries had battled for control of territo- Governments today tend to view immigration and ry, wealth and power. asylum issues largely through a security prism rather The human toll was similar to the earlier Central than putting humanitarian concerns near the top of American crises. More than 200,000 people were the agenda. The global war on terror has thrown its killed in the Colombian troubles, more than two mil- lengthy shadow over parts of the Latin American re- lion had been internally displaced since 1985 and huge gion. Migratory routes and human trafficking have numbers of people fled to neighboring countries. become more complex. While there are untold num- The world paid little attention because regional bers of displaced Latin Americans moving between governments downplayed the scope of the emergency regional states, there are also increasing numbers of and perhaps also because the majority of its victims people from further afield, especially Africa, moving were displaced within the country and therefore out- into the region or through it, en route to North Amer- side the responsibility of direct international over- ica. sight. The plan of action adopted in Mexico City tried to Today, along with many other agencies, UNHCR address not only ‘traditional’ refugee concerns, but al- provides assistance to more than 1.2 million IDPs, the so these new challenges. highest figure in the world, and is grappling with the From UNHCR’s perspective, High Commissioner burgeoning refugee problem in surrounding coun- Lubbers said the agency had two general aims: rein- tries. forcing and further developing refugee protection throughout Latin America and applying ‘the spirit of FAR HIGHER Cartagena’ in addressing regional humanitarian colombia has becomethe worst humanitarian crisis needs. in the Western Hemisphere, and in total numbers of “In a worldwide context of restrictive asylum poli- people receiving assistance the second largest single cies and erosion of protection principles, it is encour-

30 REFUGEES Helping new arrivals in Venezuela. DP/VEN•2004 FINAL TWO PHOTOS - UNHCR/B. HEGER/ aging to see that countries in Latin America are com- of so many people on the move and then how best to mitted to uphold high protection standards,” Lubbers help them. told the Mexico City gathering. Key elements in the plan of action were the so- Carlos Maldonado added that on a practical level a called ‘three solidarities’ projects—solidarity cities, bor- major part of the plan was designed “to help regional ders of solidarity and solidarity resettlements. Each of countries identify the real scope of the humanitarian these programs was designed to address specific prob- crisis and then help them to solve that problem. It will lems—helping urban refugees in regional towns and enable governments to move beyond the ‘atmospher- cities; developing the infrastructures of border regions ics’ surrounding the Colombian crisis and tackle real so that both refugees and local communities could ben- issues.” efit; and a proposal by Brazil to develop Latin Ameri- Even knowing the scope of the problem has been ca’s own resettlement program whereby regional difficult to assess until now. Accurate figures on the countries would take in uprooted persons from region- number of people forced to abandon their homes, and al troublespots. especially for those who fled to neighboring countries, Such a program would be particularly poignant for have been difficult to compute for a variety of reasons. both Brazil and UNHCR. A half century ago, when the Borders are relatively porous and easy to cross. refugee agency began operations in Latin America, its Neighbors from the same ethnic background and first priority was to help resettle an estimated 100,000 speaking the same language often simply meld into European victims of World War II—principally in local rural border communities or disappear into the Brazil. Those early efforts may now have come full cir- cities and fail to register for fear of official reprisals. cle. Regional asylum systems are minimal and starved of States have already taken one practical step, for the resources. first time tackling the issue on a collective rather than Officially, there are an estimated 40,000 Colom- a bilateral basis. It is also hoped that Colombia, which bian refugees and asylum seekers in neighboring several years ago withdrew from the Cartagena Decla- Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama, but according to one ration, would soon ‘readopt’ the provisions of the agree- senior refugee official “The actual numbers are far, far ment. higher.” A conservative estimate culled from regional In the interim, according to Carlos Maldonado, government statistics suggested the number of people Latin America as a whole must overcome the stigma of who could qualify as ‘Cartagena refugees’ under the being a ‘forgotten continent’ in the eyes of the interna- broader refugee definition that document spells out, tional community. “The region has already demon- was at least 400,000. strated the resolve and capacity to solve its own refugee Such high figures carry major implications for An- crises,” he said. “With modest assistance and encour- dean states—effectively how best to sort out the status agement from outside donors we can do so again.”

REFUGEES 31