Respecting Refugees…

46 Pages·2000·2.19 MB·English

Respecting Refugees…
The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees has
helped approximately 50
million refugees to begin their
lives afresh since it was
established on 14 December,
1950.
To commemorate five decades
of refugee work, but even more
importantly as a mark of
respect to refugees
themselves—for the hardships
they have endured and the
resilience they have shown in
rebuilding their shattered
lives—a series of events has
been scheduled worldwide.
The program will begin 14
December, 2000, the
anniversary of the agency’s
founding, with a televised
public performance in Geneva
by prominent artists who were
once themselves refugees, a
news conference, a public
awareness campaign stressing
the positive impact refugees
make to their communities and
the launch of a Refugee
Education Trust which, it is
hoped, will become the
permanent legacy of the
commemoration. N
arTeh we ogmreeant manadjo crhitiyld oref nr,e bfuugte iens NEELEMA
the chaos of war, flight and Education is vitally important for / B.
exile young people are often millions of refugee children. HCR
deprived, sometimes for years, UN
of access to schooling. The fund
will try to address this problem
‘We were there’
at the post-primary level.
There will be dozens of other
exhibitions, festivals, the issue
This 30-minute video looks back on 50 years of
of special postage stamps,
refugee work, tracing the evolution of UNHCR from
books, publications and a
its modest beginnings in Geneva and its temporary
special website (www.UNHCR-
mandate to today’s worldwide organization which
50.org) has been established by
operates in 120 countries and helps more than 22
the UNHCR-50 Foundation.
million people. In addition to footage documenting
A Gallery of Prominent
the spread and increasing intensity of refugee crises,
Refugees will be launched to
the video includes interviews with former
underline the contributions
Guatemalan refugee and Nobel Peace Prize winner
refugees have made to society
Rigoberta Menchu and such leading humanitarian
at large for the last several
figures as Bernard Kouchner, Prince Sadruddin Aga
centuries, but most particularly
Khan, Olara Otunnu and High Commissioner Sadako
in the last few decades.
Ogata.
The U.N. General Assembly is
also expected to approve 20 Contact:
June, 2001 as the first ever UNHCR video unit at e-mail:
World Refugee Day. A month [email protected]
later July 28, 2001 will mark the Available in English/French
50thanniversary of the 1951 NTSC/Pal/Secam
Geneva Refugee Convention
when governments will be
urged to respect their
obligations towards asylum
seekers and refugees.
Correction: The photo credit in REFUGEESN° 119 of Fidel Castro, page 29, should read Jenny Muñoa.
V O L U M E 3 B N ° 1 2 0 B 2 0 0 0
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© S. SAL
Faces of exile.
Fifty years ago the world needed a emergency.
new organization to help the This special issue of REFUGEES
remaining victims of World War II. explores five decades of refugee life
The United Nations High and UNHCR’s role in text, pictures,
Commissioner for Refugees was cartoons, quotes and an interview
established with a limited three- with High Commissioner Sadako
year mandate to help these Ogata who leaves office at the end
civilians and then, hopefully, go of the year 2000.
out of business. This refugee world has often been
That early, mainly European crisis, heartbreaking, sometimes
did not go away, but instead rewarding and inspiring and
exploded into today’s truly global always turbulent.
COVER: Original painting ofrefugees by Yuroz.
HEADLINES: From historical newspaper collection ofJosep Bosch ([email protected]).
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© ASSOCIATED PRESS
Refuge has a value beyo
ond price. The ruins of Dresden, Germany, at the end of World War II.
It is a matter of life itself.
–Anonymous.
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C O V E R S T O R Y
MTZIS
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HCR
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U
(cid:27)Baggage:
Refugees often
have time to
collect only a few
possessions before
fleeing. Then,
whether in Africa
or Asia, they find
a series ofsimple
or ingenious ways
to transport them.
UNHCR / L. TAYLOR
by Ray Wilkinson
I
t was not an auspicious start for the
new organization. “I found three
empty rooms in the Palais des Na-
tions and I had to start from scratch”
with a staffof33 people, no field of- moment
fices and a miniscule annual budget of in time the
$300,000, Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart world was awash in
remembered. Money was so tight, a gold idealism. The United Nations
ingot which had been ‘inherited’ was sold had been established five years earli-
for $14,000 to help keep the agency afloat. er with a pledge to “save succeeding
Governments, split between the west- generations from the scourge ofwar,
ern democracies and a Soviet-dominated which twice in our lifetime has brought
communist bloc, had spent months hag- untold sorrow to mankind.”
gling over the makeup and terms ofrefer- In 1948, the Universal Declaration of
ence for the fledgling organization, the Human Rights was proclaimed, followed a
United Nations High Commissioner for year later by the fourth ofthe Geneva Con-
Refugees. But both sides were determined ventions on the protection of civilians for a quick fix. People have been persecut-
on at least one common goal—to maintain caught up in conflict. They were ed and expelled from the moment they
a tight political and financial rein on the harbingers ofa virtual blizzard ofother hu- came together to form communities. En-
agency as Goedhart, the new refugee czar manitarian conventions, laws and procla- couragingly, the tradition ofoffering sanc-
or High Commissioner, and his small team mations including the 1951 Geneva Refugee tuary began at almost the same time. An-
began their task ofhelping around one mil- Convention. In such a heady atmosphere, cient religious texts refer repeatedly to asy-
lion mainly European civilians who were UNHCR was given a three-year mandate lum—a word of Greek origin meaning
still homeless five years after the end of to complete its work and then dissolve it- “without capture, without violation, with-
World War II. self, the global refugee crisis, it was hoped, out devastation.” Theseus, King ofAthens,
No one expected the job to be a long one resolved. counseled Oedipus, the King ofThebes:
when UNHCR opened its doors for busi- The diplomatic optimists, however, had “Like you, I well remember that I grew up
ness on January 1, 1951. For a briefshining apparently forgotten history in the search in the house ofothers and in a foreign land
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UNHCR / L. TAYLOR
HIVES
N.ARC
U.
/
NI
AR
DIT:
CRE
©
UNHCR / B. PRESS
I faced deadly dangers. So that, who- By the end ofthe century traditional host
ever asks my hospitality as you do nations had taken fright as the number of
now, I would not know how to turn uprooted people climbed inexorably, and
away.” ‘voluntary repatriation’ rather than reset- read: “Sir, forgive the small gift, I
When individual nations began to de- tlement became the preferred solution in cannot do more. I am very old (89)
velop an international conscience in the the great majority ofcases. without family and without help.”
early 20thcentury, the tradition ofhelping UNHCR’s first ‘crisis’ was not over —Help often came from the most
uprooted people also went global and a suc- refugees but money. FridtjofNansen had unlikely, and touching, ofsources.
cession ofagencies was created. In 1921, the harangued the League ofNations over its
League ofNations, forerunner ofthe Unit- parsimony: “Let us have no hypocrisy,” he In the event, the private Ford Founda-
ed Nations, appointed Norwegian explor- said. “Governments cannot rake up that tion gave UNHCR its first major cash in-
er FridtjofNansen as its High Commis- sum (needed to help the Russian refugees) jection of$3.1 million, helping it to weath-
sioner to help 800,000 mainly Russian which is merely halfofwhat it costs to er that crisis. It set the stage for a 50-year
refugees. During the chaos and aftermath build one battleship.” Three decades later, odyssey during which the organization and
ofWorld War II, the United Nations Relief UNHCR’s Goedhart, a former journalist the entire refugee world changed beyond
and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) as- and Dutch anti-Nazi resistance fighter, recognition.
sisted seven million people, both refugees echoed Nansen’s frustration as he lobbied The refugee contagion spread from Eu-
and other groups, to ‘repatriate’ to their for a small emergency fund: “What does rope to Africa in the 1960s, as colonial em-
homes. protection mean for a man who dies of pires crumbled. A decade later, Asia was
A third group, the International Refu- hunger?” he asked. “Passports are neces- engulfed. Superpower cold war maneu-
gee Organization (IRO) was created in 1946, sary, but hunger can’t be stilled with them.” verings spawned their own refugee crises
but took a different direction to its UNR- He worried that because of the lack of in the 1980s. By the end ofthe century the
RA predecessor. Instead ofrepatriating the money he would simply end up ‘adminis- trail ofmisery had come full circle, back
majority of civilians, the IRO resettled tering misery.’ through Africa and to Europe where it had
more than one million refugees in new all begun and where the Balkans exploded
countries around the world. The emphasis UNHCR received a contribution into flames and violence in the 1990s.
on either ‘resettlement’ or ‘repatriation’ from an anonymous donor in The number ofuprooted people climb-
would fluctuate in the following decades, Marseille. The amount—four ed steadily during the century’s middle
depending on the particular crisis and the stamps of 25 centimes or one decades, from the original one million ‘of
political profile ofthe refugees themselves. French franc. An enclosed letter concern’ to UNHCR, to eight million by
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(cid:27)Transport:
Most refugees flee to
safety on foot. Others
take tractors, cars,
trucks, planes and in
one famous case in
Tanzania, they used
the vessel Liemba, a
UNHCR / M. KOBAYASHI
former World War I
German gunboat,
which later played a
starring role in the
Hollywood classic
movie “African Queen”
starring Humphrey ©
Bogart and Katherine
Hepburn.
UNHCR / P. MOUMTZIS
the start ofthe 1980s and then to a peak of In 1981, when 452 boats arrived in religious fundamentalists to specialist or-
more than 27 million in 1995. By that time Thailand carrying 15,479 refugees, ganizations ofneurosurgeons setting up
the disenfranchised included not only UNHCR’s statistics were a study shop in some of the remotest spots on
refugees but other categories ofpeople not of horror: 349 boats had been earth.
directly covered by the organization’s man- attacked an average of three times Communication and transportation rev-
date—persons displaced within their own each; 578 women were raped, 228 olutionized the ‘refugee business.’ In the
country, later to be tagged with the clum- women were abducted, and 881 1960s one African sent a message for help
sy bureaucratic term ofinternally displaced people were dead or missing. to the High Commissioner in a most un-
persons (IDPs), ‘returnees’ going home and —A report detailing the type of orthodox way, writing “I think you will be
asylum seekers. regular abuse Indochinese boat pleased to hear me talking to you through
People fled wars and persecution in a va- people endured trying to escape. this piece of(tree) leaf.” The leafreached
riety ofways—on foot, by canoe, car, truck Geneva by regular mail. By the late 1990s,
or aircraft—alone, with families, or increas- UNHCR’s first budget of $300,000 Kosovar refugees were using free satellite
ingly as part ofa mass exodus. Ten million swelled to a record $1.4 billion in 1996 as it phones to call relatives.
civilians escaped to India in 1971 from the grappled with the global crisis. The origi- Ifthe means offlight were chaotic and
death throes ofEast Pakistan (which sub- nal group of34 staffmembers climbed to primitive throughout the five decades, op-
sequently became Bangladesh) in the more than 5,000 operating in 120 coun- erations to help refugees became sophisti-
largest single human displacement in mod- tries. They included not only lawyers help- cated, high-tech affairs. In1973 UNHCR
ern history. ing protect the legal rights ofrefugees but, began what has been described as the
Three million mainly ‘boat people’ left as operations became more complex, lo- largest airlift ofcivilians ever organized,
Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the gistic experts, water and building engi- carrying tens ofthousands ofvictims ofthe
Viet Nam war and six million Afghans fled neers, psychologists, nutritionists, de-min- war in Pakistan back to their homes via an
their homeland. More than one million ing specialists, academics, environmental- air bridge which crisscrossed the Indian
Rwandans crossed into Zaire in only three ists, journalists, mapping and satellite subcontinent.
days in 1994. In the early and mid-1990s, imagery experts, air traffic controllers and Ifthat was the ‘largest’ humanitarian
UNHCR cared for more than four million others. The number of humanitarian airlift, another UNHCR operation to feed
people in the Balkan region. A single agencies, especially non-governmental or- the people ofthe besieged Bosnian capital
refugee camp could house hundreds of ganizations (NGOs), also proliferated. In ofSarajevo through four harsh winters, be-
thousands ofpeople, sometimes becoming the 1990s it became a common sight to see came the ‘longest’ humanitarian air bridge
the largest ‘city’ in a particular country. literally hundreds ofgroups ranging from in history, lasting 1,279 days.
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COPYRIGHT
© S. SALGADO
The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) even
launched the first, and to date,
only ‘humanitarian’ air war in
history with a 78-day blitzkrieg
against Serbian forces in the
spring of1999 to try to protect eth-
nic Albanians in the Yugoslav
province ofKosovo.
kind,
We were forced to lie down in the live in fear and
snow with our hands behind our need.” That hope
heads and we were beaten. We were was not realized. Twen-
then ordered up a hillside and when ty-five years later, UNHCR
we panicked and started running was honored with a second million
the police opened fire. Some were Peace Prize which then High persons
shot down, others were executed Commissioner Poul Hartling were massa-
where they lay. called a “statement to the world’s cred in Rwan-
—A survivor ofone atrocity in Kosovo. refugees that you are not forgotten.” da’s genocide in 1994,
In all this turbulence and change, a few tens of thousands of other Rwandan
In all ofits operations, UNHCR helped fundamentals did remain the same—espe- refugees perished from cholera and other
roughly 50 million people to restart their cially the appalling suffering and hardship diseases, often in front oflive television
lives, either by assisting them to return to ofthe people forced to flee their homes, and cameras, in the camps ofKivu in central
their original homes or resettling them in also their fortitude and resilience in forg- Africa. More than seven thousand men
new countries. In 1954, the organization ing new lives all over again. and boys were executed in the U.N. ‘safe
won the first oftwo Nobel Peace Prizes by Unknown numbers of women were haven’ ofSrebrenica in 1995 in the worst
trying to create what High Commissioner raped and entire boatloads ofpeople were massacre ofits kind in Europe since the
Goedhart at the time described as a global murdered in the worst act ofsustained end ofthe Second World War. Virtually
environment “in which no people ofany piracy in modern times during the exodus any refugee, anywhere, could relate a per-
country, in fact no group ofpeople ofany from Southeast Asia. After as many as one sonal horror story.
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(cid:27)Housing:
Accommodation can
be one ofextremes.
Asylum seekers in
Denmark enjoy the
luxury of
apartments and
television and in
Tbilisi, Georgia,
have taken over
a downtown hotel.
Elsewhere, people
have lived in
N
ccoonnvtaeirnteedrs, tent NCIS J. DEA
cities and pipes. HCR / FRA
N
U
abstentions, split clearly between the west-
ern-led democracies and the Soviet-dom-
inated countries. After that, communist
nations simply ignored the organization
for years.
Ages they would States tried to influence UNHCR’s op-
have burnt me. Today, erational decisions, either overtly or
they only burn my books.” covertly, by bluntly wielding the most
Years later, Albert Einstein, who powerful weapon ofall, money, as an ex-
fled Nazi Germany to settle at Princeton tension offoreign policy. At the height of
University in the United States wrote: “I the Afghan exodus, Iran sheltered 3.2 mil-
am almost ashamed to be living in such lion refugees, becoming the world’s most
peace while all the rest struggle and suffer. generous refugee host. Pro-western Pak-
But after all, it is still the best to concern istan looked after 2.9 million people. In a
oneselfwith eternals, for from them alone reflection ofbig power realities, the West
flows the spirit that can restore peace and spent vast sums ofassistance in the latter
serenity to the world ofhumans.” country and virtually nothing in Iran. In
The UNHCR statute, which was adopt- 1999, there was outrage in many humani-
François Preziosi. ed by the General Assembly on 14 De- tarian groups at the huge sums lavished on
cember, 1950, described the new organiza- the Kosovar refugees, who after all were in
Millions ofpeople did successfully re- tion as one ‘ofan entirely non-political Europe, compared with far smaller bud-
build their lives, often quietly and without character.’ It struggled to maintain this gets for Africa where conditions had been
fanfare. Famous people became refugees. neutrality and ‘humanitarian and social’ extremely harsh for refugees and increas-
Others became famous after they had fled. character for the next 50 years, but of ingly difficult for the people trying to help
The list ofluminaries is long: Frederic course the very core ofits work was high- them.
Chopin, Lenin, Marlene Dietrich, Made- ly political. The great majority ofrefugees
leine Albright, Henry Kissinger. In the were created by political decisions and mis- People were hiding in the bushes;
1930s as his works were being burned in calculations which often led to war and they were armed with submachine
public squares, Sigmund Freud comment- mass exodus. The agency’s very birth came guns, machetes and Molotov
ed acidly, “What progress. In the Middle after harsh debate on a vote of36-5 with 11 cocktails. Preziosi’s and Plicque’s car
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OLL
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UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN © S. SALGADO
was stopped and encircled by a humanitarian agenda, and not for the first
crowd of Congolese with automatic or last time advocates criticized UNHCR
guns and Tutsi refugees with spears for its seeming inability to protect all ofthe
and machetes. Two searched Plicque people in a given situation.
and Preziosi. The crowd started Sadruddin Aga Khan was the longest © USIS
hitting them with all kinds of arms, serving High Commissioner (1966-77) and
in particular with machetes. in a recent interview recalled his constant
Plicque shouted, “The only reason battle to ‘de-politicize’ UN-
we are here is to help you.” HCR by broadening the
—A UNHCR cable describing the makeup of its work-
murder ofstaffmember François force, improving still
Preziosi and a U.N. colleague in the frosty relations with
Congo in 1963, the first UNHCR east-bloc countries
official killed while on duty. and keeping partisan
NGOs in line.
Two million people were uprooted dur- “When I took over,
ing the 1980s in Central America in a se- UNHCR was a western
ries of wars which pitted American- club with mostly western
backed right-wing governments against personnel. Some people wanted to
left-wing insurgents. The fate ofindivid- keep the organization as their private Some non-govern-
ual refugees was determined, ironically, by preserve,” he said. “I began recruiting mental organizations were
the political leaning ofthe governments new people but everybody said ‘Oh also operating in a ‘cold war
they were fleeing from. Honduras wel- you’re going to have a lot ofinfiltration. mode’ with their own very specific
comed Nicaraguans escaping a newly in- The KGB will be working in Geneva.’ I agendas, according to Sadruddin Aga
stalled leftist government in Managua and said: Who cares? The office is an open Khan and he added: “I was absolutely in-
actively encouraged Contra guerrilla op- book. We’ve got nothing to hide. I’m de- transigent on one point. We could not op-
erations from the safety ofrefugee camps lighted ifsome KGB fellow sends reports erate with partners who could be dis-
against that regime. Salvadorans escaping back to Moscow on what UNHCR is doing. tributing food on the one hand and the
a right-wing clique received a much frosti- That’s the best way to show them we are Bible on the other. This was simply unac-
er reception. Power politics dominated the non-political.” ceptable.”
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