“Operation Murambatsvina” and “Operation Restore Order” are the code names used by the police for a massive operation that began in Zimbabwe towards the end of May. This nationwide campaign, which has been conducted in the cities and towns, in peri-urban areas, and on farms settled after land invasions, has led to the destruction of many thousands of houses and means of shelter, trading stalls and markets. Whatever the reasons behind this, none of which can be morally justified, this campaign has created a huge humanitarian disaster causing enormous hardship and suffering. Within the space of a few weeks, Operation Murambatsvina has produced a massive internal refugee population who are homeless and without the means to earn a living.

On the 5th of July 2005, in the Johannesburg High Court, Professor Dennis Brutus and Jubilee will make ex-parte applications to the High Court, stating their opposition to the takeover of Absa by Barclays. The anti-apartheid activist and poet Professor Dennis Brutus will approach the Court, advising it that Barclays Bank aiding and abetted the Apartheid Regime and has been misleading in information provided to the JSE and SRP, including the glaring omission that Barclays is the lead defendant in ongoing litigation in the USA.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has met the leaders of the two main rebel movements in Sudan's Darfur region in an attempt to resurrect peace talks that have become bogged down by splits within the rebel ranks. Obasanjo is the current chairman of the African Union (AU) and the Nigerian government is hosting peace talks in Abuja between the rebels and the Sudanese government on behalf of the continental body.

The main human rights NGO in the Republic of Congo, the Congolese Human Rights Observatory (OCDH), pulled out of the state-sponsored National Commission of Human Rights last Thursday to protest what it says is the commission’s inaction on known abuses and lack of government independence. "The government does not consider the commission to be a constitutional institution with administrative and financial autonomy," Roger Bouka-Owoko, the OCDH executive director, said during a news conference to announce the NGO’s decision.

When doctors testing blood in this remote town in north-eastern Liberia discover that a donor is HIV-positive, they keep the information to themselves. There is nothing else they can do. "Probably about two out of ten donors for blood transfusions are HIV positive and it’s very frustrating not to be able to tell people," said Karolina Claesson, the head nurse from the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium team that runs Zwedru's main hospital.

"Where will I go when my caregivers leave? Who will look out for me when they are gone?" These are the questions asked by Marie, an unaccompanied refugee minor from Burundi living in Cairo as she faces an uncertain future. Aryah Somers examines the dilemmas facing refugee minors and concludes that much more needs to be done.

Mohammed Adam came to Cairo from the Sudan, separated from all of his family members when his village was destroyed in Darfur. He does not know the whereabouts of his family and suspects that his parents may have been killed, but he hopes that some of his siblings have also managed to survive.

While he now has his "blue card," the official UNHCR recognition document in Cairo, he is not eligible for resettlement according to the UNHCR. A local nonprofit for refugees in Cairo assisted Mohammed in entering a refugee run school. However, he says, "I have had to drop out of school because I have nowhere to sleep. I am not sure where I will go today or tomorrow."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ("UNHCR") plays multiple roles that are determinative in the life of a refugee. In 2004, the UNHCR reported that it operates in approximately 80 countries, either directly adjudicating refugee status or playing a role in government procedures for the adjudication of refugee status. In this role, it is in a position to model best practices and recognize greater substantive rights to refugees under international law.

UNHCR also facilitates the provision of basic forms of relief, such as food, healthcare and housing to refugees. For instance, in Cairo, Egypt, UNHCR coordinates and assists implementing partners in providing health care, financial assistance, and educational opportunities to refugees. As an advocate for refugees, UNHCR advises and lobbies in other countries on the treatment of refugees within their borders. For example, in the United States in March 2005, UNHCR lobbied for the creation of a National Center for Immigrant and Refugee Children to coordinate national efforts to provide pro bono and social services to immigrant and refugee children released from detention. UNHCR also acts as a gatekeeper for refugees being resettled to third countries.

All of these roles shift and contract or expand depending upon the context in which UNHCR is operating. This makes developing a consistent and coherent strategy difficult. Among the largest UNHCR operations is Cairo, Egypt, which is home to thousands of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa including, among others, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.

The situation of separated refugee minors in Cairo exemplifies the challenges that UNHCR faces in developing a comprehensive strategy to accommodate these conflicting roles. The failure to develop such a strategy severely and irreparably impacts the life of the separated refugee minor in Cairo leaving him, in many cases, to fend for himself, find his own housing, food, healthcare and education, and hopefully, not fall into exploitative situations.

Government refugee status determination procedures are usually scrutinized by refugee advocacy organizations both locally and globally, including UNHCR. However, UNHCR is the adjudicator in Cairo and thus, it is virtually impossible to truly advocate or critique on a substantive level. For instance, a guiding principle to any decision affecting a separated minor is determining the best interests of the minor as set forth in Article 3 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

However, the lack of transparency in the decision-making process at UNHCR-Cairo makes it difficult to know how the best interests of the minor are being analyzed. This is further muddled by confusion over the standards governing minors’ asylum claims. Last year, UNHCR-Cairo created a Best Interests Determination Committee composed of implementing partner agencies and other non-governmental organizations working with refugees in Cairo. However, the Committee lacked operating guidelines leading to organizational confusion. Furthermore, there were misunderstandings on how to analyze best interests such that extraneous considerations, such as budgetary and time constraints, seemed to creep into the analysis.

Marie is an unaccompanied refugee minor from Burundi and she is living with fellow Burundians who offered her a place to live when she arrived to Cairo. She has been recognized by UNHCR-Cairo, but has been refused resettlement. Her caregivers are in the process of being resettled and as one of the few female Burundians in Cairo, she will be left behind to make her way on her own in the face of substantial language and gender barriers. She asks, "Where will I go when my caregivers leave? Who will look out for me when they are gone?"

UNHCR-Cairo’s role as facilitator for basic forms of relief for separated minors also conflicts with its roles as adjudicator and enforcer of refugee law and gatekeeper. This type of conflict is very similar to the conflict between law enforcement and provision of services that led to the dismantling of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. As a result, in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security is in charge of enforcing immigration laws, the Department of Justice is the adjudicator of immigration law, and the Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) oversees the custody and care of separated minors. This was viewed as a solution that would create, at least in theory, an agency exclusively concerned with the care, custody and best interests of unaccompanied minors.

While in Cairo there is fortunately not a system of detaining unaccompanied minors, unaccompanied or separated minors are in a different situation of having to find their own way to UNHCR or have the assistance of community members to register and initiate the refugee status adjudication procedure.

Prior to recognition, which in some cases has lasted up to seven months, the minor receives very limited assistance related to her care and custody. The minor will then be granted refugee status and referred for resettlement, or granted refugee status and referred for local integration, or denied refugee status.

In the case of minors who are referred for local integration, there is supposed to be more comprehensive provisions for the care and custody of the unaccompanied minor. However, there seems to be an ad hoc form of assistance and minimal strategy on how these unaccompanied minors can access opportunities for education and long-term housing. In the case of unaccompanied minors denied refugee status, there is no assistance, as the minor is no longer considered to be within the mandate of UNHCR protection.

With this type of system, it is difficult to determine who is looking out for the best interests of the minor. The UNHCR in Cairo has taken recent positive steps towards improving the situation for separated minors by creating a Best Interests Determination Committee and by developing more expansive approaches to community refugee associations and governmental agencies that work directly with women and children. However, it is critical that a comprehensive strategy that takes into account these conflicting roles be developed to address the precarious life of the separated refugee minor in Cairo. Local nongovernmental organizations have stepped into the void advocating for improved legal representation and provision of services, but much more needs to be done.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

World Refugee Day took place on June 20 and is followed by World Refugee Week from 20-26 June. The week of action is intended to raise awareness about the situation of refugees, who continue to be one of the most marginalised, least heard and worst treated populations. Pambazuka News emailed questions to Barbara Harrell-Bond, Distinguished Visiting Professor, Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Programme, American University in Cairo.

Pambazuka News: Rwanda and Burundi have recently announced the closure of a refugee camp in Burundi and the repatriation of thousands of Rwandese asylum seekers to Rwanda. The UN has condemned this move as a violation of international refugee law. What are your views?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: Any effort to forcefully repatriate refugees is a breach of international law. In the case of the Rwandans who have recently sought safety in Burundi (and Tanzania and Uganda), they have the right to have their claim for refugee status determined by a fair and just procedure. The notion that people who were not involved in the genocide have no reason to fear the gacaca courts in Rwanda is naïve in the extreme. For example, I currently have a Rwandan of mixed Tutsi/Hutu origins living in my house. His father was studying in Belgium at the time of the genocide. He returned and found his property had been occupied by a member of the RPA. When he tried to reclaim them, he was shot in cold blood. Eventually, all the members of his family – except one sister – disappeared or were killed. Community-based 'justice' is fraught with dangers. Petty jealousies and quarrels or long-standing grievances that are totally unrelated can easily be the basis genocide accusations.

Pambazuka News: You have written several articles about the negative impact of refugee camps on refugees and host communities. Why do you think that they are still being used as the main 'solution' to refugees in Africa?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: Although governments are blamed for the camp policy, in fact, it is UNHCR's policy that refugees usually only receive assistance if they live in camps. The major reasons for camps is the convenience of the agencies supplying the relief programmes and for pursuing UNHCR's main 'durable' solution for refugees, repatriation. As we show in 'Rights in Exile' (see below), confining refugees to camps violates their rights, in particular, their right to freedom of movement which is essential to realize other social and economic rights.

Pambazuka News: What do you propose as alternatives?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: The majority of refugees already take the best alternative, becoming self-settled among their hosts. However, they are denied refugee identification, and their lives are always insecure. In Malawi, UNHCR worked through the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Welfare and most of the 1m Mozambican refugees lived among their hosts. Food aid was delivered at certain points and refugees shared their rations with their neighbours. Confining refugees to camps cuts them off from the opportunity to contribute their expertise and labour to the host's economy. However, since the donors expect the poorest countries to host the refugees today, they should also contribute to their health and education budgets so that host governments can expand their capacity to absorb refugees.

Pambazuka News: Development and humanitarian assistance policy makers often emphasise the importance of participation in project planning. Why do you think we hear so few refugee voices, despite this participation rhetoric?

The problem is that it is just that, rhetoric. The first thing that any agency assisting refugees would have to do to allow them to meaningfully participate in 'planning' is to tell them how much was the budget for a particular project. Can you imagine an Oxfam or a Save the Children or a UNHCR actually sharing such information with refugees?

Pambazuka News: How do you think the international refugee system could be changed to be more accountable to refugees?

UNHCR and its implementing partners enjoy total immunity from any charge that refugees might bring against individuals who have violated their rights. So long as that situation exists there will continue to be no accountability in the refugee system. For example, even some of those refugees who served as witnesses in the corruption scandal in the resettlement programme in Nairobi, are not being protected nor are they able to find protection when they move to neighbouring countries. This is unlike the Special Court in Sierra Leone, where before witnesses are brought into the court, a new identity and a new country has been found for their protection.

Pambazuka News: How successfully is UNHCR playing its protection role, and what shifts in its roles have you noticed in recent years?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: UNHCR is a victim of 'mission creep'; without guaranteed funding of its core budget, it is a victim of what donor governments (and hence UNHCR) perceive to be 'relevant', i.e. becoming the world's humanitarian welfare agency. Protection of refugees and the promotion the 1951 Convention on the Rights of Refugees as laid down in its 1950 Statute, has taken a back seat since the 1980s. I was shocked when the first voice on BBC in the middle of the night (26 December 2004) concerning the tsunami, was a UNHCR spokesman from Sri Lanka, offering to bring supplies from 'as far away' as Ghana. I was equally shocked to see the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, put this natural disaster on its web page.

Pambazuka News: How do you think refugees themselves perceive the refugee system?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: I think you should ask refugees.

Pambazuka News: People often talk about 'Refugees and forced migration' – Pambazuka News even has a section by that name – but people have also criticised us for using that term. What's wrong with that?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: Your critics are right. I have to take the responsibility of introducing the term, forced migration, for which I have profound regrets. One scholar (forgive me, but I do not have a reference at hand, but it was published in the Journal of Refugee Studies), tore the term apart, showing that even in the direst situation, people's choices may be restricted, but they always have some choice, even if it is the choice to stay and die. A refugee is someone who has crossed a border and behind refugees stands international law - the 1951 Convention, the OAU Convention and the Cartegena Declaration. People who have been displaced by war are now termed 'internally displaced people', who are dependent on their own state for protection. There are also people who have been displaced by 'development' projects, who also are dependent on their own states for the exercise of their rights. So who are forced migrants? It is a non-sequitor!

Pambazuka News: You are well-known as the "Activist Academic". But some would say that to be an advocate is to bias the independence of your research? Is there a conflict between these roles?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: I see no conflict between scholarly research and being able to use this research to comment on policy. John Davis, in his 'The Anthropology of Suffering' (1992 Journal of Refugee Studies 5(2): 149-6) laid that notion to rest that there is 'real' anthropology and then 'applied' (or activist) anthropology. He called the two 'types 'the anthropology of maintenance (of the status quo) and the anthropology of 'repair'. In my view, it is not possible to be an honest academic without also doing something about your research findings, especially when the subject with which you are concerned involves such massive suffering. Refugees are among the most voiceless, powerless populations in the world.

Pambazuka News: This is 'Refugee Week'. What difference do you think that makes to refugees?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: I would hope that wherever Refugee Week is being commemorated, that it is used to raise awareness of the situation of refugees around the world.

Pambazuka News: What actions should activists be taking in Africa today that could make a qualitative difference to the lives of refugees in the region?

Barbara Harrell-Bond: I am a researcher because I continue to believe that documenting the situation of refugees is the most powerful tool I have at my hand. But others have many other things that they can do. Providing refugees with legal aid makes a qualitative difference in their lives. Just a few months ago, AMERA, the refugee legal aid project in Cairo was able with UNHCR to save 7 refugees from being refouled to face a certain death sentence. They were saved because 4 of their mates came to AMERA to raise the alarm. The Refugee Legal Aid Project in Uganda, where I am now, is working with a minor who bravely resisted an arranged marriage and fled to Kampala. Journalists, who are informed and prepared, are perhaps the most important to the refugee situation, for without the media, no one is even alerted to crises or to abuses of refugee rights.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

World Refugee Day: Background reading

1. Pambazuka News: World Refugee Day 2004: A time to celebrate
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22709

2. Pambazuka News: Protecting the rights of refugees in Africa: Beginning with the UN gatekeeper
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=182

3. The latest edition of id21 News, a free service that communicates the latest UK-based international development research to decision-makers and practitioners working in developing countries, featured links to articles about refugees. Visit http://www.id21.org or click on the links below.

* Integrating refugees locally could be a durable solution
http://www.id21.org/society/s10cjc3g1.html

* Bridging development and humanitarian work in protracted crises
http://www.id21.org/society/s10ajm1g2.html

4. "Internal Refugees" need attention on World Refugee Day
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/cohenr/20050620.htm

World Refugee Day: Useful Websites

1. Forced Migration Online
http://www.forcedmigration.org/

2. Global IDP Project
http://www.idpproject.org/

3. International Journal of Refugee Law
http://ijrl.oxfordjournals.org/

4. Ockenden International
http://www.ockenden.org.uk/

5. UNHCR
http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

6. US Committee on Refugees
http://www.refugees.org/

7. Human Rights Education Associates feature on World Refugee Day
http://www.hrea.org/feature-events/world-refugee-day.php

On 25 May, Africa Day, the Government of Zimbabwe began an operation labelled "Operation Murambatsvina". While Government has translated this to mean "Operation Clean-up", the more literal translation of "murambatsvina" is "getting rid of the filth". The operation has continued throughout the month of June, and has affected virtually every town and rural business centre in the country. From Mount Darwin in the north, to Beitbridge in the south, Mutare in the East and Bulawayo in the west, no part of the nation has been spared the impact of what could be termed a slow-moving earthquake; every day the nation awakes to find more buildings have fallen around them, more families have been displaced. Families are often having their homes and possessions ruthlessly burnt to the ground, or are given a few hours to remove what they can save before bulldozers come in to demolish entire structures.

G8 member states are undermining their commitments to poverty reduction, stability and human rights with irresponsible arms exports to some of the world's poorest and most conflict-ridden countries, according to new research. G8 weapons have been exported to countries including Sudan, Myanmar (Burma), the Republic of Congo, Colombia and the Philippines. On the eve of a meeting of G8 foreign ministers in London (23-24 June), a new report reveals how the G8 countries - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the USA - are still supplying military equipment, weapons and munitions to destinations where they contribute to gross violations of human rights.

With trials of Sahrawi demonstrators beginning this week in Laayoune, Amnesty International has called on the Moroccan government to ensure that all reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees held in connection with recent disturbances in Western Sahara are fully and impartially investigated and that all those charged are guaranteed fair trials. Amnesty International said it was greatly disturbed by reports of torture and excessive use of force by Moroccan security personnel when dispersing Sahrawi protestors during demonstrations in Laayoune and several other cities in Morocco and Western Sahara in late May and early June.

According to Rehabilitation International (RI) the African continent has over 80 million persons with disabilities today. With malnutrition, accidents, crime, diseases and all manner of violent conflicts prevalent on this continent, Africa risks yet another dubious distinction of being the place with the fastest growing number of persons with disabilities in the world. It is estimated that between 350-500 people become amputees due to landmines per day.

Zimbabwe police have extended a demolition campaign targeting the homes and livelihoods of the urban poor to the vegetable gardens they rely on for food, saying the crops planted on vacant lots are damaging the environment. The crackdown on urban farming - at a time of food shortages in Zimbabwe - is the latest escalation in the government's month-long Operation Murambatsvina (or Drive Out Trash). The UN estimates the campaign has left at least 1,5-million people homeless in the winter cold. Police say more than 30 000 have also been arrested.
* Visit www.kubatana.net for more information and photographs.

The Charlbury Press, Oxfordshire, 2005, 95pp, rrp £5

This small book of poems and prose is the product of an unusual creative writing class – one that was put on especially for refugees and asylum seekers living in Oxford. The teacher thought the class might help these newcomers to Britain exorcise their memories and tell the rest of us what they had been through. For many, the recalling of their memories was almost unbearably painful. But as the classes continued the students discovered that while writing about their experiences made them no easier to bear, their stories and poems became objects of value in their own right. Although English was not the native tongue of any of these writers, they soon stopped being happy to use just any word; they had to find the best.

Four of the seven authors came from Africa. They write movingly of their childhoods and the lives they have left behind, but also of their thoughts and feelings as they adjust to life in Oxford. It is often not a happy experience. Filda Otunnu reflects in her poem 'What is it like to live here?' on how she's been on all the training courses but struggles to find a job, and it reminds her of the many times back in Uganda when she tilled and sowed the land but just as she was about to reap, her harvest was taken from her. In 'Secretary' Eden Habtemichael writes of sitting outside her solicitor's office listening to his secretary talking to the waiting clients as though she was 'policeman and lawyer, judge and jury'. But they also write with beauty and simplicity about their lives turning around and what love means to them.

The proceeds from the sale of this book go to Asylum Welcome, the charity that commendably organised the writing classes. It would be good to see refugees given further opportunities to express their own voices – and for us to hear them.

* Reviewed by Shereen Karmali, Fahamu.

World Migration 2005 analyses the effects of globalization, trade liberalization, economic integration and the widening gap between rich and poor nations on migration flows. It looks at the impact of the world's 185 million migrants and their potential contribution to socioeconomic development and cultural enrichment both at home and abroad. And it identifies the multidimensional migration management policies needed by governments to create the optimal return to both migrants and society, while minimizing the abuses associated with irregular migration.

More than 140 cartoons from 36 countries are featured in the month-long exhibition organised by UNHCR and the Association of East African Cartoonists (KATUNI) to mark World Refugee Day. The exhibition also included a caricature competition with cartoonists invited to present their caricatures of prominent persons who were once refugees. South African President Thabo Mbeki, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Kenyan MP Koigi Wa Wamwere, former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright and South African musician Miriam Makeba were among those featured.

In a reverse of the usual flow of refugees, the UN refugee agency last week organised the first convoy for 42 Congolese living in Angola to return to their home in western Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Congolese returnees will be living in areas which previously provided asylum to Angolan refugees. Just weeks earlier, a final convoy of Angolan refugees returned home in late May from the same Kisenge region, ending a refugee programme that ran for more than 20 years.

Internal displacement in Eritrea stems from a combination of war and drought. At the height of the 1998-2000 border war there were 1.1 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Eritrea. This number has fallen sharply but there are still over 45,000 IDPs who cannot return home, mainly because of the tensions that persist due to the deadlock over the border.

The fifth objective adopted by the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000 focuses on the rights of children in emergencies. Dakar participants called on national Education for All (EFA) plans to include provision for education in emergency situations. Achieving this goal, however, is complicated by the lack of clarity concerning the responsibilities of international and local stakeholders during emergencies and the early stages of reconstruction. A book from UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning examines the co-ordination – or lack of it – of education in emergencies and early reconstruction.

Fighting has broken out in north-eastern Sudan, where government forces are battling rebels for control of a town south of the main port. The fighting around Tokar, some 120km (75 miles) from Port Sudan, began on Sunday. Both sides say there have been heavy casualties. The Beja Congress, which complains of marginalisation, says it has launched its biggest offensive in years.

This discussion revolves around issues raised at 2 public forums held during the 2004 annual meeting of the world economic forum. Both these forums raised interesting issues about responsible reporting of public health emergencies. Most participants agreed that the public interest had to come first.