The Silent Integration of Refugees on the Zambia-Angolan Borderlands

Negotiating Local Protection and Emplacement: The Silent Integration of Refugees on the Zambia-Angolan Borderlands Oliver Bakewell [email protected] International Migration Institute Oxford Department of International Development University of Oxford Paper presented at the African Borders Research Network Conference Centro de Estudos Africanos ISCTE-IUL Instituto Universitário de Lisboa 21st-24th September 2011 FIRST DRAFT – NOT FOR CIRCULATION OR CITATION Abstract Over many years, the formal policy of Zambian government has a) required refugees to live in officially recognised settlements and b) offered no route to citizenship for those who enter the country as refugees. For long term refugees such as those from Angola, this appears to be a recipe for keeping people in a precarious position over generations. Nonetheless, many thousands of those who fled the civil war in Angola remained living in Zambian villages in the borderlands far from the settlements and they have effectively acquired citizenship. Drawing on fieldwork over the last 14 years, this paper will explore how the distinctive socio-political conditions in these borderlands have facilitated this ‘silent integration’ of Angolans, which is only now being belatedly recognised by the state. This can be contrasted with the formal settlements where Angolans have continued to be seen as refugees and the ‘solution’ of repatriation has been imposed. August2011 FirstDraft–NotForCirculationOrCitation Introduction In this paper, I show how many of the Angolan refugees who moved into Zambia in the 1980s and 90s established a relatively secure and stable position in Zambian villages, largely beyond the reach of any aid interventions or the direct control of the state. Instead, they came under the protection of the local chief, who secured their place as local villagers and even Zambian citizens. While this local integration of refugees has been very effective, it runs counter to the formal policy of the Zambian government, which requires refugees to reside in camps and settlements. Moreover, Zambian law has no legal mechanism for transforming refugees into citizens. I contrast the situation of those Angolans who settled themselves in the borderlands with those who moved into the settlements. Since the war in Angola ended in 2002, the differences have become more stark. Those in the camps and settlements have been subject to extensive repatriation exercises which have seen a large majority of Angolans return. In the villages, many people have moved into Angola, but largely following patterns of movement they have chosen for themselves. For those who want to stay in Zambia, their integration has not been disturbed by the changes in Angola. In the camps and settlements, people continue to be labelled as displaced and subject to the imposition of ‘durable solutions’ in UNHCR parlance. The paper draws on fieldwork carried out over a fourteen year period. This started in 1996, with a project looking at the prospects for repatriation among these self-settled refugees in Mwinilunga District of Zambia’s North-Western Province. During one year in the field, detailed interviews were conducted with 195 individuals in a village in the area of Senior Chief Kanongesha. These interviews enquired about individual’s history of movement, their links across the border, and their livelihoods. In addition, further interviews, focus group discussions and many other observations explored the wider social, economic and historical landscape. After a prolonged absence during which news of the regions was only available through correspondence, two further field visits were made in 2008 and 2010. In 2008, the time available was very short and it was only possible to conduct a very limited number of interviews. A six week visit in 2010 allowed for a more systematic exercise of re- interviewing original respondents from the 1996-7 round, reaching one quarter of the original group. These repeat interviews, focused on people’s links with Angola, intentions to go there, their livelihoods and ideas of nationality. It is important to note that throughout the research, no distinction was made between Angolans and Zambians; the same questions were asked of all. In the next section of this paper, I start by setting the scene looking first at the arrival of Angolan refugees in Zambia and the formal policy responses, then narrowing the focus to the case study area in Mwinilunga. The following section starts by defining the concept of integration. It then applies this to the settlement of Angolans into local villages and shows how the refugee category largely dissolved making them virtually indistinguishable to 1 August2011 FirstDraft–NotForCirculationOrCitation Zambians, especially to external eyes. I then show how people have moved into Angola since the end of the war leaving those who remained behind more Zambian than ever. This is contrasted to the very limited extent of integration that has been available to refugees in the formal settlements. Instead, they have been kept apart and subject to repeated repatriation exercises over the last eight years. The paper concludes be reflecting on the implications of the successful but silent integration of refugees in the Zambian-Angolan borderlands for the notion of ‘durable solutions’ to refugee problems. Angolan refugees in Zambia Angolan refugees first arrived in post‐colonial Zambia in 1966 when an eastern front opened in the liberation war against the Portuguese that had started in 1961. The country had no respite after independence in 1975, when it was gripped by civil war that only ended in March 2002 with the death of Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the UNITA rebels. During these decades of conflict, the movement of people into Zambia ebbed and flowed with the security situation. There were major influxes in the mid-1980s with an escalation of violence in Moxico Province which borders Zambia. This struggle resulted in UNITA taking control of the border area. The numbers of Angolans arriving tailed off in the 1990s as UNITA maintained its grip through the 1992 elections and the resumption of war when Savimbi rejected the election results. The final major influxes started in late 1999 as the Angolan government forces launched a major offensive in the east to drive UNITA out of Jamba, its capital in Cuando Cubango Province, and Moxico Province. They numbers of refugees a peak in the final crescendo of fighting in 2001, when UNHCR estimated that there were over 220,000 Angolan refugees in the country. Throughout this period the majority of refugees settled outside the formal camps and settlements and lived unassisted by UNHCR or any aid agencies. In 2001, only 41% of Angolans in Zambia were receiving aid from UNHCR according to their statistics (UNHCR 2007). Zambian government responses When the first refugees from the Angolan independence war arrived in Zambia in 1966 and the Zambian government was faced not only with humanitarian but also major security problems. There were various incidents on the border with Angola, where Portuguese troops entered Zambia. For example, in one incident in Mwinilunga District in October, they set fire to a village and kidnapped a woman.1 Cabinet papers from 1967 show that the government remained committed to providing support for refugees and meeting their international obligations to provide protection, despite the complaints of some residents that assistance was being given to refugees and Zambians were excluded. However, they were 1 Telegram report 31/10/1966, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MFA/101/7/3/Loc 514 Incidents on the Zambia Border, Zambian National Archives 2 August2011 FirstDraft–NotForCirculationOrCitation concerned about the prospect of increasing numbers of refugees and were already hoping to persuade neighbouring independent states to accept some. Moreover, they were adamant that the refugees should neither be allowed to settle in Zambian villages nor stay permanently in Zambia. [The Cabinet] agreed that under no circumstances should refugees be permanently settled in Zambia and no impression should be given to them of any prospects of permanent settlement; agreed that refugees should all live in camps and that they should not be allowed to infiltrate into villages…’2 Moreover, they agreed that refugees in the camps should be assigned land to cultivate their own food. This position was formalized in 1969 by Zambia’s accession to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol, and in 1970 the Refugee (Control) Act entered Zambian law. This law still governs the treatment of refugees within Zambia today. A government department under the Ministry of the Interior was established to deal with refugees headed by the Commissioner for Refugees. As its name suggests the Refugee (Control) Act is concerned mainly with the control of refugees. It stipulates that any refugee entering Zambia should register with the authorities and carry a refugee identity card at all times. They may be ordered to live in a designated area and are only allowed to move outside that area with written permission. Zambia made reservations to various articles of the UN 1951 Convention3 including Article 26, which governs the freedom of movement of refugees (Chisanga 1996; Wulff 1989). It has also made reservations to Article 34, which obliges contracting states to ‘as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees’. The Refugee (Control) Act makes no mention of naturalization of refugees, and the Commissioner for Refugees and immigration officers have consistently stated that there is no provision for refugees to obtain citizenship. This is still the formal position today. The first two refugee settlements were opened at Mayukwayukwa in Kaoma district of Western Province and Lwatembo near Zambezi in North Western Province. People were rounded up from the villages where they first stayed and sent to these sites. The Lwatembo settlement proved not to be viable and a new settlement was started at Meheba, 80km from Solwezi, the provincial capital of North-Western Province.

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