Left to Their Own Devices

LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICES: The Impact of Informal Information and Communication Networks on Security in the Tanzanian Refugee Camps December 2003 © ARTICLE 19 ISBN 1-902 598-53-9 Acknowledgements This report was written by Amy R. West, ARTICLE 19 Consultant and Lydia W. Wambugu, Ph.D. candidate, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was edited by John Barker, ARTICLE 19 Africa Programme Director. The authors and ARTICLE 19 express their immense gratitude and immeasurable respect for the refugees living in Tanzanian camps, whose daily survival demonstrates the true importance of human dignity and indomitable hope. They are grateful to representatives from the following organizations for their time and assistance in the field: Jesuit Refugee Services and Radio Kwizera; The Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs; Centre for the Study of Forced Migration, Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam; The Tanzanian Red Cross Society; Southern Africa Extension Unit, Tanzania; CONCERN Worldwide, Tanzania; Sero Enterprise Initiatives, LTD; and UNHCR, Tanzania and South Africa. In addition, the authors would also like to acknowledge the encouragement and support of John Barker, Audrey Selian, Shawn O’Donnell, Hurst Hannum, Tawana Kupe, Courtney Mireille O’Connor, Edward Ryan, Elizabeth Hopper, Brigid Schiano, Kaplan, O’Sullivan & Friedman, LLP, and, their families. ARTICLE 19 is grateful to the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) for its financial support for the research and publication of this report. The views expressed by ARTICLE 19 and the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the SIDA. Cover photograph: Amy R. West Report photos: Lydia W. Wambugu ARTICLE 19 Africa Programme Lancaster House 33 Islington High Street London N1 9LH United Kingdom Tel: +44 20 7278 9292 Fax: +44 20 7713 1356 Email: [email protected] Website: www.article19.org All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, recorded or otherwise reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any electronic or technical means without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher. Left to Their Own Devices CONTENTS Executive Summary 1. Background . 4 2. Legal Framework . 7 Article 19, Freedom of Expression and Information . 7 Definition of a Refugee . 7 1950 Statute of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees . 8 Focusing on Obligations and Interests . 9 Restrictions on Freedom of Information . 12 Tanzania Refugee Act, 1998 . 14 Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania . 15 3. Information: A Theoretical Framework . 17 4. Analysis . 23 Sources of Information and Creation of an Information Monopoly . 29 Social Organisation . 30 Mobility . 31 Food Distribution Centres . 32 Markets . .33 Water Wells . 34 Farming Initiatives . 35 Health Clinics . 36 Limited Technologies . 36 Radios . .36 Tracing Facilities . 38 Internet . 38 Other Mobile Entities . 38 Spiritual Centres . 39 New Arrivals . 39 Rebels . .40 5. Conclusions and Recommendations . 42 Annex 1: Chart representing radio stations in western Tanzania . 47 Left to Their Own Devices EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. - Erasmus, Adagia (III, IV, 96) This report will focus on the necessity of Freedom of Information, for security and development, in protracted refugee populated areas, using Tanzania as a case study.1 Tanzania was chosen because, historically, it has been generous in accepting refugees within its borders. However, it has not always been clear on its protection policies for refugees. In recent years, the unstable security situation along its western border has caused Tanzania to threaten forced repatriations of refugees, and in some cases, to execute such returns. In addition, the crucial lack of military and police presence, through an area prey to rebel movements and the arms trade, has heightened insecurity in the region. These facts alone should compel advocates in the refugee, human rights and development fields to look critically at the country’s security issues. By discussing the creation and utilization of informal information and communication systems in western Tanzania, the role of that informal network, and the strategic points that feed into it, will be analysed in light of the region’s volatility. Emphasis will be placed on the critical connection between the free flow of information and a sustainable security. Security, an issue that comes up frequently in humanitarian and human rights theory, is essential to areas where traumatized masses have been reduced to one very human and desperate desire, the need to survive. Security is not just a physical entity in conflict and post-conflict areas, requiring military or police presence and the assurance of economic survival, it includes the rather psychological and emotional element of an individual’s inherent need to have some control over what he or she understands of a situation and to whom he or she is able to communicate his or her understanding. Where there is political stability, peace and the rule of law, there is likely to be an effective set of formal communication networks that magnify the influence of a small number 1 ARTICLE 19 conducted interviews with over 175 respondents from the international, governmental, local Tanzanian and refugee communities. Camps in Kigoma and Kagera regions were visited with the permission and cooperation of the Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs. In all, the research was collected in a period of two and a half months (June-August) in 2001, and then updated across a period of one and a half months (April-May) in 2003. Interviews were conducted in French and Swahili, as well as with the assistance, when needed, of an interpreter fluent in both the Kirundi and Kinyarwandan languages. 1 Left to Their Own Devices of well-positioned institutions, corporations or individuals. Where there is poor governance, political instability and populations displaced through conflict, there is likely to be a significant distrust of any existing formal communication networks (and the information borne through them), leading to the emergence of informal communication networks, that may also be centralized enough to give a certain few disproportionate power, or, a mobilized multitude proportionate control. Informal information and communication technologies, or the human network upon which they flourish, will be defined for the purposes of this report as the resourceful means of verbal exchange dependent upon sources of extremely basic economic and social needs and access to limited technologies, such as bicycle riders carrying megaphones, or, transistor radios. The significance of the need rests in the lengths refugees will go to recreate systems of information transmission and direct communication; especially when more advanced or formal means of acquiring the same end are not accessible to them. In contrast, formal information and communication technologies, then, will be considered broad enough to encompass anything from the use of telephones, to broadcast television, and internet services. Technologies have advanced so greatly in industrialized countries that the power of direct communication and informal information structures, relied upon in unstable and developing countries, is forgotten. However, “technologies that improve people’s lives do not have to contain microchips, nor do they have to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.”2 The ingenuity of humankind, especially in the face of great stakes and with limited resources at its disposal, should never be underestimated. The bottom line is constituted by a series of questions: where do the greatest numbers of people go in order to get information that is intentionally restricted, what sources do they believe to be legitimate, and how does the nature of information that a refugee has access to affect security? Furthermore, are the Tanzanian government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) guilty of actively suppressing the flow of information to refugees, or are they merely resigned to passive indifference with regard to a refugee’s need for and right to information? Is, therefore, an act of commission versus an act of omission any less acceptable when people’s lives are in danger? With these points in mind, a critical evaluation of informal information and communication networks will show how curbing the 2 “A Survey of Technology and Governance: Keep it Simple”, The Economist, November 10, 2001, p. 13. 2 Left to Their Own Devices availability of information to refugees strengthens not only the power of a single message (and its messenger), but also reinforces a particular perspective on the conflict and the different players within it. In such a context, tensions are stoked over and over again, rather than quenched. ARTICLE 19 sincerely hopes that this discussion on the importance of protecting Freedom of Information, as well as any active engagement in supplying information to refugees, will widen the scope on how Freedoms of Expression and Information are perceived in the context of security and development. In addition, it is ARTICLE 19’s desire that where there are gaps between policy and practice, considerable and very real efforts are made to address ways in which such glaring divides can be narrowed. Lastly, ARTICLE 19 believes that protecting Freedom of Information is a crucial tool that both the Tanzanian government and the international community can use to protect not only the dignity

Load more