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June 19, 2002
Council on Foreign Relations
Speakers: Arthur C. Helton, Roberta Cohen, Princeton N. Lyman.
Presider: Roy Gutman
I guess refugees in the minds of journalists especially, and a lot of other people in the public, are evidence of a failed policy or a failure of policy by major governments, starting with our own. After all, they are fleeing places where they have been put upon, where they have been tortured, where people are being killed, and they flee en mass, and it indicates that something has gone terribly wrong. And the fact that people are fleeing in large numbers, and often it happens without anybody really noticing it except for the refugee agencies, too often is a case of major governments having closed their eyes, having tried to sweep problems under the rug. And the refugees, the people who have to leave everything behind because they fear for their lives, are the reminder of what has happened in that place.
I think ... and Arthur Helton has just confirmed my impression ... that the problem of refugees has increased in the last decade. This is really why he's done his book. And you have a handout on the book and a first chapter of it. And I myself covered the Balkan conflicts throughout the 1990s over the breakup of Yugoslavia. As I mentioned, it was the stories of refugees, individuals, about Omarska Camp, about the rape, about the destruction of the culture, that in a sense gave me my basis for covering ethnic cleansing and reporting on it in my then employer's newspaper, Newsday.
As I say, we in the media like to say it's the responsibility of governments to prevent the crises that lead to the outflow of refugees. We would like to put all the blame on them. I think frankly the media have also a task to do in looking at the refugee issue. I think we should look at refugees as the warning, the evidence, the symptom of something terrible happening, and we should try to get in there quickly and report what we're hearing, what they're saying, and look to refugees as a major news source. This is not being done enough.
But I noted in Arthur's book he quoted Richard Holbrooke with a really emblematic statement. He said, "How can the world turn away from people made homeless by political evil?" And he's talking about the aftermath. But for reporters, political evil is the kind of thing we're supposed to focus on as journalists. This is the kind of thing that you, the public, expect us to report on. So I think there isn't enough of that, and I hope in the time to come there will be more.
The panel tonight is about as expert on the subject as you could get, outside of having all the collected Directors of the UN High Commission for the last decade. Princeton Lyman, whom I'm sure many of you know, has played critical roles in the transition of South Africa to democracy, and he oversaw the refugee programs at the State Department, he helped see to it that Soviet Jews and Pentacostals were allowed to emigrate. He's had a career of doing these things. And he's now the Executive Director of the Global Interdependence Initiative at the Aspen Institute. Author of many books. This is somebody who's just ... I don't have to tell you what he's done on this issue.
Arthur Helton has just completed his book, and I've started to read it. The photograph is by Jeel(?) Peres, my buddy from Magnum, and it is of Tanzania. And in a sense if a photograph tells a thousand words this would certainly fill your first chapter, because it truly is moving. Now, tomorrow evening at 6:00 in Borders on 14th Street, which is kitty-corner from the National Press Building, he will be doing a signing and will be taking your questions directly. (Laughter) So please do attend that. And the book, from what I've read, it is probably authoritative. I say probably, because I haven't finished the book yet, (Laughter) and i want to be very precise. (Laughter)
Roberta Cohen [RC] It is. (Laughter)
RG: But it is. And in a way what he does is sum up the lessons of the past decade when the refugee problem has exploded so horribly as it has. And we were just agreeing that since he's now summed up the last decade, he doesn't get to do a new book until 2010. But I think that it will definitely help our discussion.
And then finally Roberta Cohen, last, but definitely not least, who is next door at the Brookings Institution, has been, along with Frances Dingh(?), I guess has been the path-breaking researcher on the related issue to refugees, namely internally displaced. You know, the UN High Commission is basically by mandate, it has to focus on people who cross borders and are fleeing whatever terrible things they're fleeing. But what about the people who can't ... ? Sometimes, like in the case of Kosovo in 1998 or 1999, Milosevic closed the borders, and so you had an internal displacement. And this is a fact of life that is often overlooked by people who speak about refugees, that sometimes ... in fact in the last several years, the number of refugees has actually gone down somewhat, but the number of internally displaced has gone up. And so this is not a matter of compensation, this is a terrible problem in its own right that has not gotten the attention it deserved until Roberta and Frances Dingh did their work.
We discussed this yesterday on the telephone, how we could bring this subject alive. And one of the things you'll see in your packet of data is a summary from this book called The World Refugee Survey 2001, which is a first class piece of work done by the US Committee for Refugees, some of the statistics. You know, if you add up the number of refugees and internally displaced people, you would have the equivalent of a medium sized country. And the numbers are really frightening.
But I wanted to ask the very basic question of the panel, because it might bring the subject home to everybody, what is the worst refugee problem on earth today. How did it get that way? Why is it still going on? And what are we going to do about it? So let me start, if I could, on the left with Roberta, if you'd like to take that on.
RC: I don't like to characterize one refugee situation as worse than another, but I'd like to focus on the situation in Afghanistan, because I feel you have a large group of people in jeopardy as they return to their country. You have about 3 to 4 million Afghans who were refugees, and you another million who are internally displaced. And now, beyond all expectations, you're having return. In fact, there are more than a million refugees that have returned to Afghanistan, mainly from Pakistan, and there are at least a half a million internally displaced persons who returned home.
But the part of it I'd like to focus on is the security element, because this is the one that we are just rather walking away from, and I think this is jeopardizing this return and the stability of this country. The security situation in Afghanistan, on the one hand you can say there are certain improvements. I mean, the Taliban is gone, and there is a government, at least in the capital, there are no big fights going on among warlords in the sense of open fighting, and there's a political process which, as you know, is going on.
But within the country there's tremendous banditry and lawlessness. Relief workers are abducted and killed, and most recently raped. US AID officials don't go out of the capital without armed escort. There are political candidates the Loya Jirga that have been assassinated. There's fighting between different warlords. Forty percent of the refugees have returned to Kabul, because they're afraid to go home. And what there is not, is there's no national army, there's no police force, and there's no strong central government.
And right now the Pentagon has rejected expanding the International Security Assistance Force, which is in the capital, of 4,500 troops. But the idea was to try to get them to fan out in the country and have an expanded force of maybe about 25,000. Twenty five thousand troops could not take on every warlord, and nor should they. But the certainly could be a deterrent to help make the returns more secure, to help economic recovery to begin. I mean, the development agencies, the reconstruction agencies, they're slow in coming. One of the reasons is the absence of security. The political process that is going on, security is needed to protect political leaders. You simply will not have stability in this country, or any kind of successful returns of refugees and IDPs without some kind of attention now to security. And it isn't just the military force, it would be something that would be combined with economic incentives to have the different warlords cooperate, and political pressures. It would have to be a mix.
But I just flag this, because we really do have an opportunity to try to help this country, as we promised to do, to really be able to build itself up again and have some source of stability. So I feel this is something that we really can do something about very directly, and we have an obligation to. So in that sense I don't know that it's the worst situation in the world, but it could well become that.
RG: Arthur, would you take on the same question? Do you agree with that it's Afghanistan, do you agree with the analysis, do you agree with the prescription?
Arthur Helton [AH]: I do. I wanted to say at the outset, I never thought I would have a chance to tell Roy Gutman that I still remember where I was when I read his stories about Omarska Camp, and I want to just thank him on behalf of much of the rest of the world for that. I think again, as Roberta noted, it's a hard comparison to make. You could certainly cite, you know, Palestinian exiles and refugees as a critical dimension awaiting the world's attention. You could look broadly at Africa as a place of not so benign neglect in terms of refugee affairs.
But I actually think I would put at the top of the list as a situation the situation of Afghanistan, in part because it is in the throes of change. We should indeed have realized that something terrible was going on when the Taliban still ruled Afghanistan and there were 4 million refugees. Instead we were slowly disengaging, slow ... and maybe not so slowly ... abandoning Afghanistan. Of course after September 11 that all changed, and Afghanistan for a brief period of time became, if you will, a sort of political celebrity in the eyes of decision makers. That I'm afraid may be changing as well. Certainly there are senior UN officials who have told me that Afghanistan has seen its high water mark in terms of international attention. We've moved on, if not to the West Bank or to the Philippines or to, you know, broad anticipatory thinking about Iraq, Afghanistan seems consigned largely to, you know, a relatively small part of our attention.
Nevertheless, I would offer Afghanistan as well. And it in part reflects some of the dilemmas in this modern effort to deal with refugees. As Roberta noted, over a million refugees have returned, more than the United Nations anticipated, and there is a terrible funding shortfall as a result. We have a system that's built on hoping that it won't be needed tomorrow, and so it's always created in the face of each emergency that comes along, and that's alive and well now and manifest in Afghanistan.
We've also taken a political strategy, we've decided to invest in a national government. And I just am dubious as to whether or not in recent history we can sustain that as really a viable approach. Afghanistan certainly has a government, largely a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Nations, in Kabul at this point, and a fairly messy political process playing out. Whether it will have a national government I will leave to other ultimately to predict, although I have my doubts.
Although our investment politically and financially is in a national government, that raises certain questions about whether or not as a matter of securing return, as a matter of establishing security and recovery in the country, we can do that having invested so heavily in a national government. I actually think we are at the throes of another form of abandonment in a way. The international community could easily say, "Well, look, there's not enough security for us to release these committed funds, we really can't do very much in terms of large development projects." It just seems a little too pat in my mind, and one that could come back to haunt us again in a variety of ways. Afghanistan I think is somewhere between a Marshall Plan and a light footprint, and I think it's closer to the light footprint, as far as I can tell.
My own suggestion is that we should look at refugees at the point of the spear in terms of national recovery in Afghanistan. Literally one million out of a 20 million population are returning refugees. How they fare and how they reestablish themselves, whether in the countryside or in Afghanistan, will matter a great deal. We could come up with a strategy that looks at them as a resource, and not a source of instability for recovery and development. Whether we will depends upon how smart we get in the way we look at these issues.
RG: Well, that's pretty grim. (Laughs) Princeton, do you share the view, or is there any light at the end of this tunnel?
Princeton Lyman [PL]: I'm not going to cite Afghanistan because, for a lot of reasons, you could almost say, as Arthur has suggested, that the problem has shifted from a refugee one to a reconstruction and development one. That's not to take away from the problem. But I would mention two, one very different from the other, and then why I mention it. And that would be the Palestinians in the Middle East. That they represent the worst manifestation of what happens when you allow a refugee situation to simply sit there for 50 years. Because now what you have are a third generation of people who have grown up as refugees, with all the incredible political consequences that flow from that. But in a way, for a lot of reasons, that situation was allowed to remain all these years, and we're paying a terrible price for it.
Now, I would turn as the more current problem that doesn't get enough attention, is the Great Lakes Region of Africa. And the numbers here on the refugee page here don't quite convey the seriousness of it, as many as the hundreds of thousands as they list, because it doesn't list some 2.5 million people inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are displaced by civil war and unrest, and whose fate is tied up in the relationships of all the countries around them.
We already know that a refugee situation in that area, as you said, Roy, the indication of something fundamentally going wrong. What went wrong in that region, as we know, in 1994 was the horrible genocide in Rwanda. But those problems continued to seethe in that area. And treating it solely as a refugee problem, as a humanitarian problem, doesn't get at the heart of it. In fact a lot of times we tend to respond in the humanitarian way as a substitute for getting involved in the heavy political work. A crisis comes up, and we're the first ones to send food or something like that and say, "Look what we're doing." And that's very important, but it's, in my experience, sometimes a substitute for saying, "What has to be done to resolve the underlying causes of this situation?" I think what we've got in Central Africa is the situation that is going to roil that part of the world for decades to come, unless a lot more is done about it.
RG: In fact I think your observation is one that we can also see from the period of the Holocaust. That you have a terrible ... not just an abuse of human rights ... a massive crime, and a huge displacement, and in this case a displacement to another region, in a way, of those who survived, and the crisis then multiplies and festers. And everybody feels guilty about every crisis, but nobody figures out what to do about it. And it seems to me, I wonder, since this has gone on now for 50 years in the Middle East, is there a 50 year period of roiling, or is it a century? (Laughs) Or do we have any estimate of what happens once you allow this to happen once?
PL: It does vary by situation. Look, we had a long, long civil war in Mozambique, but when it ended a million refugees went home, and they are now a part of the reconstruction of Mozambique. And, God willing, we may see the same in Angola with the end of that war. And there's, you know, you could look positively to some extent at the Afghanistan situation if a million people can eventually get resettled, although all the problems that have been mentioned are there. So the situations do vary. But we know that for example in the Rwanda situation, there were refugees living in Uganda becoming part of the Ugandan army, and later coming back to invade their home country, that at least precipitated a good deal of the crisis that led to the situation.
Now, one of the things that's happening is that more and more countries are saying refugees are a political liability. I mean, you know, they're not just poor women and children, they're people with a political grudge. The camps are often armed, or the camps are R&R places for soldiers who are out there fighting, etc. And so you're seeing, and Arthur has detailed this in the book and elsewhere, that lots of countries are no longer willing to allow large movements of people to come into their country and stay there for long periods of time, even if the international community were willing to pay for it.
RG: Including the West Europeans and probably even the United States. Well, one of the questions that this brings up is if ... there are some cases it seems where refugees have gone home. But I was just sort of curious, if you look through this list of refugees and displaced, do every one of these groups here, you know, 50,000, 20,000, 150,000, sometimes millions, does that represent a war that people were fleeing, or torture, or some kind of a totalitarian takeover or something? And does that mean that like every one of these groups represents a problem that was never dealt with? Let me ask you, Arthur.
AH: I mean, the two broad causes of political migration, if you will, or arbitrary displacement, would be armed conflict or widespread and grave human rights abuses. When I first began working on this question it was as a lawyer representing applicants for asylum in the United States, and these provided little windows on the world to me, which I thought was an incredibly dangerous and nasty place. I began following through and visiting some of these places and I found, thankfully, there was a bit more nuance and a bit more ambiguity in that setting, but a fair amount of indifference and a fair amount of abuse.
I suppose, just picking up on something that Princeton said, one of the great frustrations, whether you're rep an individual applicant for asylum, or whether you're trying to dig bore holes in a refugee camp, or otherwise address these questions, is you know that the causes, you know, the political causes, war and human rights violations, are unrelated to what you're doing. You're involved in what an early High Commissioner for Refugees called the administration of misery. So those who end up managing misery in these settings develop a deep and abiding frustration. It's one of the reasons I suggest why we need to reach toward new, more proactive policies.
RG: That is fascinating. I meant to ask you both in fact, do you agree with ... ? Obviously it is insecurity that leads people to flee, and the possibility of security is one of the things that might attract people to come back. Well, if we take the case of Afghanistan, Roberta had a very pointed criticism of US policy for not supporting a UN peace keeping force. And we all know the arguments within the administration are still raging, and maybe there's somebody here who can bring us up to date. But basically they were that UN peace keepers in a situation like Afghanistan would be sitting ducks, and that they'd be devoting much more energy (Laughs) to protecting themselves than providing any security for ... But can you give me, because just to finish up with the Afghanistan portion, can you give me some idea of what should be done in Afghanistan on security?
AH: Well, I would find highly desirable (Laughs) the notion of an extension of the International Security Assistance Force. I also believe, for the reasons that you cited, that it's rather unlikely, in part because in Afghanistan we're in the unusual setting of engaging in war fighting at the same time as we are delivering humanitarian assistance, at the same time as we are undertaking a development strategy. That's relatively rare. Usually you sequence those things, but here we're doing them all together.
My suggestion is that, again, assuming that we're not likely to have a national government, and may not, although a national government may indeed be desirable, and may not have an extension of the Assistance Force ... and again I would regard that as desirable ... we may have to look to other alternatives. My suggestion there is we come up with a strategy that focuses more on small projects and civil society, non governmental organizations, who, once you give people a little bit to invest in, whether it's tools or land or animals, they create a little bubble of stability that can spread in these settings. So we need to take that example of what the UNDP, the United Nations Development Program, did during the Taliban's rule, sort of community based, small scale development, and really focus a strategy on that. I predict that's what Afghanistan will look like in terms of development. Why not focus now in terms of a strategy?
RC: May I just add something on this?
RG: Sure.
RC: I just want to point out that I don't know that it's a really done deal yet that there's no expansion of the International Security Force. The President of Afghanistan has gone to the Security Council to appeal for a Force. He's pointed out that there are many Afghans that join him. The Vice President of Afghanistan, one of the Vice Presidents, who's also the Minister for Women, also went to the Security Council, because she argued that if you're interested in promoting women's rights in Afghanistan, the prerequisite for this is security, and she called for an expansion of the Security Force. Every UN official that's out there has done likewise. They're on the ground and they see that is what is needed. And there are people in the State Department that agree with that as well.
On the Hill I know that there is ... the House I think has passed some sort of ... I don't know now exactly what it is, but it's going to the Senate, and it's asking for some kind protection strategy. Because I think there is recognition, even Mr. Rumsfeld has recognized ... initially he didn't want to recognize the security situation, and said it was "Like some American cities, what's the difference?" I think he has now recognized there really is a security problem. And as far as the sitting ducks go, what is going on right now is that US combat troops who are in different places are actually acting in part as the deterrent. And that their presence there, I'm told, even in small numbers, and they know it, is deterring certain violence, is deterring certain warlord fighting. I mean, they're beginning to recognize it's not ... I think that would answer part of the sitting duck issue.
RG: Roberta, I wonder though, I think this just illustrates the difficulty of putting Humpty Dumpty together again ... providing a basis so that you can ... I mean, 4 million people abroad last year prior to their return, really was an astonishing figure, and especially when you consider the United States was providing a lot of the aid that went into Afghanistan. But when you really consider that US policy was geared to solving anything but the problem of Afghanistan, it was certainly the last administration and at the beginning of this administration, it was looking elsewhere.
But it just brings up in my mind, your focus on the internally displaced, is it a case that, since it's hard enough to focus on let's say the world's biggest refugee problem, like Afghanistan was, that the problem of the internally displaced is exponentially less interesting? Or maybe I'm reversing my metaphors here. You know, that literally you cannot get a government, starting with our government, to focus on something where it doesn't even spill over the borders? Because it seems to me that that is sort of the hidden, you know, mine field for future policy in much of the Third World.
RC: Well, there's some good news on this. I think the issue of people who were forcibly displaced in their own countries, who don't cross the border, are now on the international agenda. They may not get as much attention as I would like, but they have gotten on to the international agenda. They're no longer considered a strictly national problem, which was the case ten years ago. The sovereignty issue made it impossible to deal with.
Now I think international organizations are in countries all over the world quite intrusively to deal with trying to assist and protect internally displaced persons. A legal framework has emerged for them, guiding principles on internally displaced, which is being used by international organizations, and even governments, and there's an information base that's developed. In addition to the US Committee for Refugees, which does such a wonderful job, the Global IDP Survey ... this is a database just on IDPs, run out of Geneva. And there's movement on the institutional level. It's certainly weak, but there is movement.
For the first time in January of this year a unit was set up for internally displaced persons within the UN, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. And you in addition have representatives of the Secretary General on internally displaced persons which I closely work. This is on kind of the plus side.
But if I can look at the minus side of this, I would say that it still remains a very ad hoc and selective system. Institutionally there really is no institutional responsibility as such. There is no one organization. And even as a group of organizations, they just sort of pick and choose, and if they run out of money they walk away, as we saw some of them do in Afghanistan. I mean, I could never picture UNHCR just saying, "We have no money, and good bye, refugees. But you can just leave IDPs in camps, and just leave them alone."
But I would like to, if I may, do it at this moment, to make an appeal on the occasion of World Refugee Day, to the UNHCR, and get at who represents the office has heard me on this before. But I wanted to make the point that anybody who studies internally displaced persons, anyone who takes a serious look at the problem, there are 25 million internally displaced persons, they outnumber refugees, if anyone looks at the problem, they realize that the one organization that should become more involves is UNHCR.
This is something that, say, going back to 1993, the Dutch government made the recommended that UNHCR take this issue on. Francis Dingh, the representative of the Secretary General in his 1993 report, also pointed out that UNHCR should take on this issue because of their protection role and their experience with uprooted people. The Secretary General's Reform Program before it took place, 1997, UNHCR was asked, "Can you expand your role here?" 2000, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke came on the scene very loudly asking UNHCR to take on the whole problem. 2002, Arthur Helton ... I did read your book, Arthur, and congratulations ... (Laughter) ... and in it he comes to the conclusion that UNHCR should take on a policy planning role for IDPs, but it's obviously an expansion of what it already does. And in addition there's a group of international experts being organized in large part at Georgetown University, the Institute of International Migration, that's seriously looking at a High Commissioner for Forced Migrants.
So I would say that anyone seriously looking at this comes to the conclusion that UNHCR ought to have more of an institutional responsibility. But on World Refugee Day what we find is that is not the case. Princeton mentioned Africa before, which I thought was very important, because there are 13 million internally displaced persons in Africa, and UNHCR is by and large not very involved with these people. Where are most of them? In the Sudan, in Angola, in the Congo. There are also very large numbers in Burundi and Sierra Leone. And UNHCR is hardly involved in any of these cases. I would appeal to them ... they are largely irrelevant to IDPs in Africa where most of them are ... that I would appeal to them on World Refugee Day to broaden their approach, look at this seriously, and expand a bit to those people who are displace within their countries.
RG: You can see how Roberta has put this issue before the public, as she's done it tonight. And we're going to have to obviously UNHCR the right of reply. (Laughter) First, Princeton Lyman, please.
PL: You know, from a humanitarian point of view, I don't have a problem with identifying UNHCR as a responsible agency. But I think the reason, and Mrs. Ogata resisted it, and I listened to her on these frontiers, that when you get involved with internally displaced people, you're usually involving yourself in the middle of a very insecure situation, maybe even a war situation. Look at the Congo today. And what Mrs. Ogata said was, "Okay, if we take it on, who's going to provide the security? Who is going to guarantee that we can get to these people, that we're not going to be shot at, killed, displaced ourselves inside a country?"
And if you look at the problem of the displaced as part of a political process and sometimes a conflict process, then it's more than a humanitarian agency. I think it's fine to say that UNHCR ought to be the humanitarian arm for internally displaced people, but that only answers part of the question. Then the question is how do you enable the UNHCR to operate in those situations. Now, the ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross, has done this over the years, but does not reach all the people that Roberta is talking about. So I think we have to look at what it really means to address the problem of the internally displaced, and all the political side of it that's involved.
Now, there is a silver lining, if I can, in the trends that are going on in the world on refugees. I think that there's kind of a backlash, and people don't want people pouring across their borders. That has led in some cases to more attention on the internal problems, and I'd cite three examples. One was Iraq, when Turkey would now allow the Kurds to cross at the end of the Gulf War into Turkey. It forced the United States to enable the Kurds to go home by creating in effect an autonomous region in Iraq in protecting them.
In Haiti, we didn't want all those people on boats coming into Florida. And it led the United States eventually to put a great deal of pressure on ending the military government in Haiti, so that there wasn't a justification, if you will, for thousands of people to come to the United States. It was a very self-interested approach, but at least it dealt with the internal politics of Haiti. And finally Kosovo is another example. The refugee situation was destabilizing Macedonia, it was creating problems in Europe. And the way to solve it wasn't to set up more camps in Macedonia, it was to solve the problem in Kosovo.
Now, that isn't happening everywhere, but if one does get a real focus on problems of both refugees and internally displaced, and one doesn't want to have them coming across the borders, then the question is what does one do about the internal problems, and there are precedents of the international community turning in that direction.
RG: You know, what's so fascinating as you're elaborating there, is that the refugee issue is, you know, the symbol and the surface, or the IDP problem ... a manifestation of so many worse things that have happened, and that eventually have to be tackled. Because, you know, you mentioned war, intervention, and return home. And essentially it's as if it's become the security problem of our era, or at least a manifestation of a security problem of this era.
A final question then before we go to questions, is if Arthur might be wiling to ... we've had some of the indications of the grim side of things, but also some of the good news, or let's say some of the more positive developments, even in a kind of a bureaucratic institutional sense, as Roberta was saying, you know, they're finally focusing on IDPs. But I wonder, Arthur, since your book and your effort here is to sum up the lessons of the last decade, other than the bureaucratic reshuffling and so on, could you just give us some the political or moral or, you know, broader conclusions that you drew after your research?
AH: Interestingly enough, all of those audacious measures, and some others that Princeton mentioned, were really innovations over the last decade. It was an interesting time. Now, there are a lot of tools in the tool box that should be there and stay there, like ready access for people to have asylum, you know, the right to run away, as I call it. I suppose in looking at this problem, at the Council we like to, you know, ask ourselves three questions, is it a policy problem, is it a problem on how you organize policy, is it a money problem? And I actually, after undertaking this inquiry, have decided that for the most part we can imagine better policies. They're not that hard to imagine.
They would be more proactive, the humanitarian imperative would be more front and center in urging earlier political action, maybe even military action in certain circumstances. That we would be better adept at helping people reestablish themselves as they return to their home countries, or in places where they have initially found asylum, or in being resettled in other places. And we would have some of those tools that Princeton hinted at, whether it be, you know, workable, truly safe areas, some of those things that were invented a bit on the fly, greater forms of international cooperation. We can imagine better policy.
I also don't think ... and I say this with all respect to UNHCR's recent concerns about the under funding in not only Afghanistan, but else where ... I also think it's not principally a money problem. More effective action I think would actually attract more money. In part the money problem is because we have a system that is built on a hope that it won't be needed tomorrow. It's as though we try to build a municipal fire department by organizing the fire brigade every day, as opposed to thinking that indeed there will be fires next week, next year or whatever. And clearly there will be. And I actually think while this decade was extraordinary, we may be facing just as deadly a set of circumstances over the next decade. I don't want to write that book, (Laughs) but ...
So the ultimate problem is one, in my view, of the sort of politics and bureaucracy and how your organize policy. It is terribly fragmented at the international system. I think the internally displacement question will bedevil international institutions for years to come, they will twist and turn. But there's a terrible impasse between the North and South in the UN system, and this will all become embroiled in a sovereignty debate, and a debate about privilege and need.
Within the US government we have a terribly fragmented set of agencies. We have the Justice Department involved in some matters, the State Department, and others, I guess the Department of Homeland Security will be involved, and others, Treasury, the National Security Council, the Executive Branch Congress. It led in the last administration to a recommendation for a new agency, which died with the last administration. But we clearly need better ways to organize policy, which is really the heart of the recommendations in my book, new mechanisms to organize policy, and to try to make for a more comprehensive and proactive policy.
RG: Are you then saying that we basically learned the lessons, we've absorbed, you know, the horrors of the last decade, and they've kind of ... but the only thing we haven't done is gotten ourselves organized to carry out the lessons?
AH: You know, I think there are a lot of people around who lived the lessons. We don't have a system that collects their experiences, we don't have a way to get smarter as it stands now. There are more and more people ... we re-settled 2 million refugees since 1980 in the US, people have refugee neighbors and entrepreneurs they've dealt with, more people know about this. We have sent young people on missions to former Yugoslavia, to Africa, to East Timor, whereafter. There's a small community of concern that's developed. But we don't have a system that really collects the expertise, or even decides whether it wants to collect the expertise, and that's the fundamental finding.
RG: So let me open this to questions from our audience. We should give UNHCR first right of reply, if you'd like to have it. And if you can just wait for the microphone, and introduce yourself by name, please. Here we go, yes, it's coming to you right away.
[Audience]: My name is Gannett Gariktos(?), I'm the Regional Representative here in Washington. In some ways I agree with Roberta that refugees might be sort of thought of as passe, and that maybe we'll see more and more IDPs, especially in Africa, as countries close their borders, and the refugees are considered to be a political liability and so on. But there is a reluctance, also should be clearly understood in a sense that we were created by nations who gave us the mandate, but did not give us the means to deal with the problems that we've been assigned to deal with. And the financial crisis of UNHCR is very clear, and we are not able to deal with refugees and expanding another population. It would be unfair to the workers who are extremely frustrated by this inability of nations to support UNHCR and the refugees. And that's probably why we have refugees rotting in refugee camps for 30, 40 years. And I'm not capacitated to contribute to the host country, or to go back and reconstruct a country, or to contribute to that country of resettlement.
And we know that refugees are extremely resourceful, able population. They're the leaders of their countries. The current President of South Africa was a refugee, the current President of Rwanda was a refugee, the whole Cabinet of many countries today are refugees who grew up in refugee camps, were educated through the generosity of the international community, but that generosity is no longer here. And I will take your message to UNHCR, but I also want you to take a message to the US government and to the rest, that unless we're given the means, we cannot do the job. Thank you.
RG: I think that statement will stand. Next question? Yes, sir.
[Audience]: I'm Mike McNernie(?)…. I feel the need to defend the honor of the people who pay my salary, the US government. I think there's a little bit of a tendency to blame the US for a lot of Afghanistan's problems. You know, this idea that we abandoned Afghanistan, and that even now, you know, the assistance is just not sufficient, the sense that we're not providing for security within Afghanistan, kind of creates this sense that it's on our shoulders. And I think the reality is different. I think that, at least on the assistance side, before September 11th the US was the number one provider of humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan. After September 11th we've pledged hundreds of millions of dollars, I think it was $1.2 billion pledged in Tokyo overall. And I know the money is not streaming in to fulfill those pledges, but the US is actually meeting its pledges. It's the rest of the world that is lagging on that end.
On the piece of ... security in Afghanistan, I think you're right, that debate is not quite dead yet, but it's a tough fight to get it to expand beyond Kabul, I think. And I think not enough attention has been given to the work that the US has been doing to try to support the security in Afghanistan. Like you mentioned, the combat forces who are there are doing probably the biggest job in keeping security, which is keeping the Taliban and al Qaeda still out of the scene. And that by far is the most important piece. The rest of it is also important, but without that first step we wouldn't be where we are today. Also the training of the Afghan National Army. I know that's going to be a slow process, but that's in there. And there are a number of other steps that are being taken.
So I guess my point is there is a lot that the US has done. And I worry that this sort of doom and gloom approach to saying that, you know, we're still not doing enough, we're still not doing enough, could backfire over the intermediate term when people say, "Well ... " They throw up their hands, and "We can't do this, this is hopeless, we're not going to be able to fix this." And people really will turn their backs, and Capital Hill will say, "Why are we throwing hundreds of millions of dollars, when everybody says it's not working, it's not working, it's a terrible situation there no matter what we do." And I wonder if you all have considered that piece of things, and whether we need to look at the bright side a little bit on this situation as well.
RG: But do you acknowledge that there is a security problem now in Afghanistan that may be hampering the return of refugees?
[Audience]: No question there's a security problem there, absolutely, and I think it probably hampers some refugees. Although the fact that 1.2 million have returned, surpassing even the most optimistic projections of returns, tells me that there is some hope there, and we need to keep pushing and advancing. But the sort of atmosphere of criticism, I just wonder if that becomes counter productive.
RG: But my follow up question is then what are you doing about it in a real sense so that ... ? I mean, because if you had a secure enough place, you'd have ... and of course there's a whole economic development and infrastructure issue as well. But basically if you had a secure enough place, Afghanistan might be able to pull itself up from this terrible situation that it's in. It seems to me it's not the case. And I'm not clear myself even listening to you, and with all respect for the debate that's gone on, I don't quite understand what you are planning to do to bring that security.
[Audience]: I mean, the training of the Afghan National Army is your first and biggest step. The Germans are helping with training the police force in Afghanistan. And then, as you said, the humanitarian assistance in general, trying to provide an economic stabilization. And then the ISAF that is in Kabul really is having a great impact, it's having a tremendous impact. The fact that it would be great to expand that is true, but the core group that is in Kabul is having a positive impact that's sort of being ignored. And the question of raising the numbers of ISAF from 4,500 to 25,000, then you have to ask yourself, "Well, where are we going to get the 25,000?" The UK has just announced that they're cutting back their troops, so ...
RG: But you say it would be a great thing if there were a greater number and if they were in other cities?
[Audience]: Yes. If we had infinite resources and infinite manpower to do that, or if there were other countries who were willing to step up and fill these slots, I think that would be a big help. But so far there are no countries that are willing to step up there and say "We want to send more troops in to patrol Afghanistan, but those darn Americans won't let us." We have asked around, and nobody's interested, and, like I said, the UK is going to be pulling people out. So where are we going to look?
RG: Okay, well, just one comment from ... my research is that the US signals that it didn't feel that there should be any expansion, may well have also influenced the willingness of allies, especially our European allies, to fill those gaps. And it seems to me that the wrong signals ... Because if this is your conclusion now, which it sounds quite reasonable, then it seems to me I wish it had been the conclusion earlier, and we might have actually had more security. Roberta, do you want to speak?
RC: Yes, always. (Laughter)
RG: And I think Arthur has something to say.
RC: Maybe at the end I can speak about it.
RG: Yes, that's what will be.
[Audience]: Thank you. Howard Wolpey(?) with the Wilson Center. The Great Lakes was mentioned by Princeton. And the same set of issues in some ways that we're facing in Afghanistan were present earlier. And one is policy, and the other is political in the broader sense. And in the Great Lakes you had a situation where implementation of refugee policy, at least as it was administered, had the effect of compounding the crisis. I'm thinking of the failure to address the issue of that the genocidaires had taken over the refugee camps, and we really ended up, the international community, helping to finance this larger conflict. And I don't know that UNHCR or the international community collectively has addressed that. Mrs. Ogata correctly made the point that she didn't have the course, the capacity to do anything about that in a serious way.
And which points to the failure of what policy to get into when we separate the need for some course and capacity for humanitarian operations. I mean, in terms of policy terms, that is a circle that's got to be closed, because there are so many of these situations where the failure to have minimal force which would do the job, creates horrendously greater problems after the fact.
And the second issue is political will. I mean, I was present at those meetings when the United States was so nervous about the creation of a multinational force even that might deal with the problem of the refugee camps. And one we got up enough courage to accept the concept of the force, and then we spent all of our energy to make sure that they would have no course or capacity. I mean, it's craziness. And then we bemoan all the enormous costs and the destabilizing effects of that kind of effort. But I'd be curious as to how you dealt with that. And I haven't had a chance yet to read the book, but in terms of policy.
AH: Sure. I actually agree with you, both here and in the book. Because we didn't have one of the tools that we would have if we had a better refined tool box, if you will, something like an international police force or a capacity to in those circumstances provide a measure of security. Clearly the authorities in Kagali rightly recognized that those camps were ominous and threatening. And in fact they had just invaded from Uganda to suppress the genocide. So they could see that coming, and so they attacked the camps in order to protect themselves.
If we had had that tool in the tool box, something like a measure of coercion, if you will, international policing ... that's one of the great weaknesses in our repertoire of international ... If you look at the Department of Peace Keeping, or even within the US government or in the crisis management capacities evolving in the European Union, they have a little bit of policing, and not enough, and not adequate, and never thought about it that situation. Having those tools in place also affect political will, I'm certain. Most people don't put opposition to doing these things in the category of, "Well, genocide is okay." They do it in the category of "It's just too hard to do." And if you had some things that you could show worked, it would help on the political will side.
RG: Well, we could ask our friend from the Department of Defense whether the DOD expects to be carrying out such a course of roles in future camps in East Africa. I think I know the answer to that one. (Laughs) Ambassador Quentin(?), please.
[Audience]: Yes, Tony Quentin from the National Policy Association. Let me bring the debate back home a little from darkest Afghanistan here. And that's the question of refugee admission policy as we are administrating it, and as we are applying it to our closest neighbor to the north. It does seem to me that we have developed a view of refugee admissions which is substantially more restrictive in the aftermath of 9/11, which applies to the whole world, or perhaps not to the whole world. And that we've been leaning very hard on our Canadian friends to have a refugee admissions policy which is far more restrictive than their historic pattern has been.
And I'd like the panel's view about the role that we actually not now in solving refugee problems in the field, but in what our obligations ought to be, or what our policy ought to be with regard to the admission of refugees into this country, and how we ought to deal with it with regard to our nearest neighbor.
RG: Sir?
[?]: You know, there always has been a very important symbiotic relationship in American refugee policy between admissions and overseas humanitarian affairs. And when I was in the Refugee Bureau, it worked to our advantage. But there were always very strong lobbies in the United States for certain groups to be admitted in the United States, whether it was Soviet Jews or Vietnamese children or people from Tibet, etc. There was a group always that was very concerned about it, and that was reflected in the Congress. And the understanding was that, yes, we would bring in so many into the United States, and to pick a barrier, it was 80,000, 100,000, 120,000. But at the same time, for the 25 million overseas, you've got to vote the humanitarian finance.
Now, since 9/11 there are two things, it seems to me, is happening. One, a feeling about we have to be more restrictive, not just on refugees, but on immigration and visas. And, second, when you look at the refugee population around the world, I don't see the lobbies. I don't see the strength of particular lobbies ... and I use "lobbies" in the positive sense, democratic processes at work ... advocating on behalf. Now, there are some, there are a number of NGOs who care deeply about refugee asylum, etc. But I think that we're going to have a tougher time on admissions. And I'm not up to date on the numbers, but I think they've gone down substantially.
And I think because the United States is a very important player in the worldwide asylum system, because resettlement has to be one of the tools in Arthur's tool box, if we don't play that role, then other countries are going to probably play it less. And we know there's a lot of backlash elsewhere in the world. So I think you put your finger on a very important issue, and I think it deserves a lot of attention.
RG: It sounds like some of the people here tonight ought to consider forming this lobby, if they haven't already. One last question, if we could. Or maybe I'll just take a few questions, and then we'll allow the panelists to sum up. Yes, sir.
[Audience]: Andy Sullivan(?) with Georgetown University. I wanted to pick up on the security discussion, because I agree with the esteemed panelists who identified that as one of the most important issues with regards to protection of forced migrants. And rather than think about it in the ad hoc way of whether or not the United States in any particular moment is going to send in a force to a particular country, can the panelists say anything about the status of the idea that has been around for a while that Arthur points out is the major gap. Either an international police force or some type of international ... a standing protection force. Where does it stand today? What are the obstacles politically in the way of that moving ahead? And do you see anything even far in the future that will develop?
RG: We may not want to answer that until the next administration. (Laughter) Yes, Ma'am, here in the front row please?
[Audience]: My question actually builds on the point the Ambassador made. My name is Lailey Miller Murrow, I'm with the Tahuray(?) Justice Center. The Tahuray Justice Center prior to September 11th advocated hard for the admittance of Afghan, particularly women. As you all are probably familiar, in 1996, the year the Taliban took over in the year that Afghans became the world's largest refugee population, the United States began to admit zero refugees from Afghanistan. In '97 they admitted zero refugees. In '98 it was 87. So since that time we've been advocating heavily. We were advocating for P-2 status particularly, and making some progress, and then September 11th happened. So my question to you is what do you suggest we do, where can we put our greatest energy, having a large interest in wanting particularly women to be improved, the situation of refugees to be improved? Is our energy best put where it was prior to September 11th? We can do that. Or is it best put now in other areas, maybe beefing up UNHCR, issues dealing with re-settlement and treatment in camps, etc., what is your advice?
RG: A very fine question. Thank you. Sir, yes, here in the second row?
[Audience]: I'm Michael Scott with Catholic Relief Services. And I just wanted to comment perhaps on the idea of bubbles of security and stability that Dr. Helton conveyed to us. With some news from Afghanistan this morning, Abarushedie-Doostum(?), who is the famous warlord from Mazar- i-Shariff(?), vowed to President Karzai that he would no longer be involved in military affairs.
RG: Hmm.
[Audience]: At the same time, the incidence of rape of an international NGO worker, which Dr. Cohen conveyed to us, that took place in the area of Mazar. So is it not possible for colleagues in the Department of Defense to consider maybe an incremental extension or support to the extension of ISAF, not to the entire country of Afghanistan, but maybe after Kabul, Mizar, now that Abarushedie-Doostum has turned in his badge?
RG: You mean the coast is clear. (Laughter) One last question from anybody? Let me turn to then to the panel. Princeton, if you would start, and take on as many of these questions as you care to. And also if you want to give one summary of what you think the audience should take away from this discussion, please.
PL: Well, let me deal with a couple of the specific questions. I think the idea of an international security component that is specifically available for refugees, or in some cases internally displaced, it's not a bad idea. It's tricky, but if UNHCR had access to some kind of practiced force when you're setting up camps that can disarm people and maintain order, it would make a lot of difference. Mrs. Ogata at one point even toyed with hiring mercenaries. She didn't go down that far. But I think it's worth looking at.
I'm fascinated by this question about where should the lobbying effort be. And I think if I were to pick an issue that brings together an awful lot of other issues, it would be the protection of women in refugee situations. They're extraordinarily vulnerable. And this goes up and down, UNHCR has spent a lot of time on it for a while, and then dropped it off. And I say it gets at a lot of issues, because once you start dealing with that issue, you start dealing with security in the camps, you start dealing with a lot of these other issues and why are they so vulnerable. So if I had to pick one ... there are lots ... I would pick that one.
And finally the one message? Well, I think, you know, Arthur's book is an extremely fine book, and I would recommend it to everybody. I think the fact that we think about this question both as a moral question of great political consequence, that is, it's morally important to deal with people who are so displaced, internally or externally, and to understand that there's a political process behind that that we need to address.
And a comment someone made, I think the gentlemen from the Defense Department, about getting overwhelmed with the problem and getting discouraged, I think that's a very serious problem, and I think you're right. These are long term difficult problems. There are success stories out there, there are things we can do, and they're not always that expensive, that make a difference. And I think it does help to get those success stories out there, and people say, "Hey, you know, this works, we've avoided this crisis, or we ameliorated this crisis." And there lots of examples of that.
RG: This has a certain ring of brainstorming to it, and I'm glad to hear that. And especially that one suggestion about women, that's a very fascinating one.
AH: You know, I actually am a big proponent of brainstorming. And I actually think we need more thinking in the way that we begin to design policy and how to achieve it. There is something terribly reactive about the system we find ourselves in, and that, as I said before, is the reason for such deep frustration, is that people feel, who are involved in humanitarian endeavors. Refugees are just an optic through which to see, in my view, much broader forms of humanitarian action. I would not segment these things.
I think Princeton makes a good and interesting tactical choice, you know, and that has been the approach taken in the past, you know, refugee children, you know, the sort of innocents. I actually when I went to the Council, I never thought I would write the chapter that I've ended up writing, the first chapter, which I've made available here, "Why Refugees Matter." And I've decided that they matter to people in a fairly personal way. We can all appreciate being between situations, homes, you know, we've had experiences in family, work, whatever, and we can relate to.
And I would urge that we actually try to broaden the discussion, as opposed to trying to narrow and sort of segment the discussion. You know, the re-settlement community should interrelate with the immigrant rights community. The broad sort of community of concern on other social issues should see refugees as a way to look at development problems, look at inequality issues. In one way it's a terrible flesh and blood manifestation of the have and have-not problem that the world is afflicted with. And I think it's simply a point of entry to a much broader discussion about justice and human rights.
RG: Roberta, would you take on any questions that haven't been answered, (Laughter) and give us your summary of what to take away from this discussion.
RC: To take away. I want to deal with a few disparate things. First, I just wanted to turn to Afghanistan. The reason that we are critical is because we would like to see a success there, and because we would like to see the returns of refugees and IDPs be sustainable. We would like to see that they have jobs and they have homes and they have security. This is important for the stability of that country, and I think therefore is the reason that I am emphasizing the security aspect.
And I do think that US military policy right now, but we can discuss this thereafter, is somewhat at cross purposes with humanitarian and development objectives right now in Afghanistan. Because the policy of either not wanting to detract from the war in the Southeast is making us less likely to want to bring security and stability to the rest of the country. The military priorities are also dictating that we arm and finance or support in some way warlords, even though at the same time the humanitarian and development of our political policy is to support a strong central government, and as well as local government. So I think there are a lot of tremendous cross purposes going on, and I would hope that some of that could be reconciled, and then I would become a bit more optimistic on the front of Afghanistan.
With regard to a bigger worldwide something to take away from this meeting, I guess I come back to the point I make an awful lot. But I do look at humanitarian crises around the world, and we do see that there are people forcibly displaced on both sides of the border. But we still do not have equitable attention and resources going to both sides of the border. Those people displaced in their own countries, which is true, as Princeton has pointed out, this is really a very difficult ... I'm not trying to make it seem as something you just sort of take on and do. It's extremely difficult. But you cannot just look narrowly at one side of the border and say you've dealt with the humanitarian crisis. You haven't.
And given the trend of backlash against refugees, you're going to see further, further increases in the number of internally displaced persons, and you're going to have to find ways. And if an international police force that was mentioned, this I would welcome very much in the sense of at least in times of humanitarian crises, having technical advice on how you might bring security to different areas. If you had some sort of group that you could rely upon based on police or constabulary, based on security officers, humanitarian and human rights people, who would at least go out. And so you look at not just how much food, medicine and shelter is going on, but what is possible in the security area, what are even the suggestions for what we do, even if they can't be fulfilled. And so that you end up with I think 3,000 troops in the Congo, which is just a sort of symbolic presence. But just to have kind of planning, which Arthur's book is full of in terms of prevention. We ought to have that on the security fronts.
And I do think this is ... tomorrow is World Refugee Day. And I feel a great big mistake is going on right now international, and that mistake is the narrowing of UNHCR to its mandate and to its under funding and too little resources. And whether it's the question of donors, or whether UNHCR ... Arthur says this is not a question of resources, I tend to agree with him. I think if you're proactive and you have a vision, then you begin to look at the big picture of these emergencies, and you begin to try to plan and get that money, and bring it to at least the attention of the world of what we can do. But I think the shortfalls UNHCR is facing is really quite
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