REFUGEES: Millions Rely on the Generosity of Poor Countries

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Dec 15 2001 (IPS) - The difficulties faced by the more than 22 million refugees and asylum seekers dispersed around the globe have long reflected the inequalities between the countries of the industrialised North and the developing South, but this imbalance stands out even more clearly following the Sep 11 attacks in the United States.

At least three industrialised countries – Australia, Britain and the United States – have violated the international standards on the protection of peoples who are forced to abandon their places of origin and identity to save their own lives.

The governments of these three countries and others, members of the European Union, have sent refugees back to places where their lives or liberty are under threat, according to denunciations by Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based international organisation.

In contrast, several developing countries, some with very scant resources, take in millions of refugees without receiving sufficient assistance from international donors to provide for their basic needs.

At mid-year 2001, Iran and Pakistan alone were providing shelter for an estimated 3.5 million Afghan refugees, many of whom have had refugee status for two decades – the result of Afghanistan’s series of wars.

The assistance the international community has provided the Iranian government to finance the costs of maintaining the refugees has been “very limited” said Iran’s vice-minister of the Interior, M.R. Bahzadian.

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, an international treaty that has been ratified by 141 nations, establishes the obligation of countries to share the burden resulting from providing a place for refugees.

But the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ruud Lubbers, of the Netherlands, reports that the two countries hosting the greatest number of refugees in the world, Pakistan and Iran, have expressed their disappointment arising from the lack of cooperation from the international community.

In a UNHCR study of the top 50 countries, ranked according to the number of refugees received per million dollars of gross domestic product (GDP), Armenia is number one.

Next in line are Guinea, Zambia, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo, Djibouti, Uganda and Sudan.

The only industrialised country to appear on the list is Sweden, which is ranked 50th.

In another classification of countries, based on the number of refugees per 1,000 inhabitants, Armenia once again comes in first.

The ranking continues with Guinea, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Congo, Djibouti, Iran, Zambia, Liberia and Tanzania. But this time, Sweden appears in tenth place.

At a gathering of ministers in Geneva, Dec 12-13, to commemorate the 50 years since the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted, many of the representatives from African countries criticised the absence of international solidarity in confronting the problem.

Sule Lamido, Nigeria’s Foreign Relations minister, commented that the Convention obligates the signatories to respect the principles of international solidarity, cooperation and shared responsibility in responding to the refugee problem.

According to the London-based human rights group Amnesty International, Australia has ignored the principle of “burden sharing”. In October, the Australian government turned back a boatload of refugees – mostly Afghans – who were subsequently distributed among several Pacific island nations.

The industrialised countries have disappointed the world in their failure to provide adequate support, in financial and technical terms, to the countries that host refugees, said Rachael Reilly, head of refugee policy at Human Rights Watch.

The grim panorama only worsened after the Sep 11 terror attacks because the anti-terrorist measures the Western countries adopted seriously interfered with the norms for the protection of refugees.

Human Rights Watch condemned the anti-terrorist legislation enacted in the United States, and the bill on the same matter being debated in the British Parliament.

In the two countries, says Human Rights Watch, the new laws “contain an overly broad and vague definition of terrorism that includes individuals with links to a terrorist organisation, no matter how tenuous or distant in time, thus risking guilt by association.”

According to High Commissioner Lubbers, it is unfortunate that government policies on refugees and asylum-seekers are often based on fear and distrust.

Politicians can no longer be considered leaders when they foment attitudes against foreigners and refugees, because they are contributing to that very cycle of fear and distrust, he said.

The UNHCR, which seeks to protect the lives and interests of more than 22 million people, including refugees, asylum applicants and the internally displaced, has seen its budget shrink by nearly 30 percent in the last two years.

Expenses for 2002 are calculated to reach 828 million dollars. The Nigerian minister issued an appeal for an increase in funds for the UNHCR from the regular budget of the United Nations.