Fighting for the rights of Africa's refugees: World Refugee Day 2005
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