I. Introduction
I knew all the time that the Australian handling of asylum-seekers was criminal, but it was never condemned, or feebly so, by UNHCR. If we fail to condemn the first time, we will certainly experience constraints in trying to condemn the second time. By the third time, those transgressing will take cue from our attitude to precedents and attempt something bigger, more brazen and more open.
And so, from out-posting the processing of asylum-seekers from Australia into Nauru and Papua New Guinea[1], we jumped into the deportation pure and simple of asylum-seekers, lumped together with job-seekers, from Israel to Rwanda and Uganda[2]. And we hardly raised our voices.
And so, here comes the real Mccoy: the persistent effort of the UK to export the processing of asylum-seekers[3], again mixed up with unskilled migrants, to Rwanda. And Rwanda is receptive to collaborating. Strong UK institutions have thus far stood firmly against and forced the postponement of the externalization of the problem onto a foreign small country[4]. For this review, my reflection does not discuss this legal stand-off.
Let me hasten to say from the start that when I describe Rwanda, I am in no way targeting the country, its people or any of its leaders. I am dealing with a whole unbalanced, unequal system that is first articulated somewhere outside of Africa and uses Africa as the theatre for experimenting and dumping, by exploiting their knowledge of the dependencies, weaknesses and strengths of our African national systems.
But facts remain facts, and consequences will follow, if we do not take a leaf or two from history. History tends to repeat itself, from Babylon to Chinese empire. The first and Second World Wars started In Europe, and the third World War will start in Europe, a Continent that has already proven to be violent, despite the veneer of respectability, sold by a captured media. Again, history will repeat itself, the aggressor will remain violent, while continuing to attempt to monopolize the narrative.
II. The institution of asylum under assault
Sorry reader, for my tendency to digress. Back to it: The asylum system has been under strain from the start. The first High Commissioner for Refugees was given a mandate: to return people to their countries of origin, after WWI (1920), and in order to achieve that, the power to negotiate agreements with countries of passage on behalf of the international community gathered as the General Assembly, so that Europeans could freely traverse the different countries they had first crossed, in their return to their home countries. That was the origin of Nansen Passport (Refugee Travel Document). And of the Tripartite Agreements.
Except, in the time he was given, he did not manage to take them refugees all back to their countries. So he went back to the UN General Assembly to report that the job was not finished. And he was given an extension of mandate (again 3 years initially); meanwhile, he created a secretariat, to-day known as the Refugee Agency (UNHCR). And so, from extension into extension, we arrived at the High Commissioner that went to the UN General Assembly and convinced the world that history showed that the refugee problem is with us forever. Ruud Lubbers[5] thus obtained from the General Assembly an open mandate for subsequent High Commissioners and their secretariat, the office of UNHCR.
With this recital, I am also arguing the fact that refugees are a permanent problem of humanity. The WWI only highlighted a problem that existed even before Jesus Crist became a refugee in Egypt (note again the African hospitality that is seldom acknowledged).
If refugees are a perennial problem, one would think that we would have preserved our achievements: a clear and strong mandate as far as refugees are concerned is vital for a strong responsive international system. This has always been the fight of the High Commissioner for Refugees and his/her Secretariat, where I am forever proud to have served a total of 33 years of my life.
However, attempts were made early in my time with this organization, to conflate refugees and migrants. UNHCR has always defended a clear demarcation line. While refugees and migrants may share some of the same humanitarian challenges, the distinction should be preserved. Except that with the passage of time, humanitarian work has become also a source of funding from donors, and in the obsessive competition for funding, many organizations fell prey to donors whose interest was to dilute the strong concept of refugee, amalgamate it with the migration elements. And to seek some organization, some country ready to do the job according to their designs.
With time, IOM has become increasingly involved in refugees, first and mostly through the management of repatriation programmes on behalf of UNHCR, then resettlement programmes on behalf of countries that offer resettlement. With IOM becoming a UN-Associate organization, a major attempt has been made by donors to lump together refugees and migrants in Myanmar, and actually trying to consider them more migrants than refugees.
Promoted by donors, those are weaknesses internal to the UN system, which make the definition of refugee and migrant a bit confusing to the outsider. Remember the two Compacts: the Global Compact on Refugees[6] and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration[7]? That did not escape the donor-encouraged competition: while UNHCR clearly managed to keep the distinction, still the processes were taken concurrently, and showed how the international system has become relativized. It will continue to require a strong leadership, to maintain at bay the distraction brought about by donor peripheral policy priorities, so that refugees remain the centre of the High Commissioner’s gold plate. Geopolitics and instrumentalization also play an important part in this, we are aware.
III. The Strain on the Asylum System Becomes a Threat
Having said that, let me take you back to the current asylum export from the UK to Rwanda[8]. To make my point, I will borrow and trace a thread from the history of the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe, their spread around the world, and the attempt to create a homeland for them, first in Uganda/Kenya, then later and more definitely in Palestine. I will spare you the whole history, but let me proffer the Sykes-Picot Agreement[9], as the beginning. And the whole history of occupation of Palestine since the creation of Israel, the gradual chipping away of Palestinian territories, until to-day: there is no contiguity of the ever-dwindling Palestinian territory because of the creation of islands of Israeli settlements dotting Palestinian land, resulting in the still-undefined borders of Israel since its creation.
These are the results of the British imperialist legacy, a continuous war on the people of Palestine, a war where the aggressor has perfected the lie and monopolized the entire narrative and with the help of a compliant media, manages to portray itself as the eternal victim.
Learning from history allows us the lucidity to ask pointed questions: when the UK tried to foist a similar arrangement on Botswana, the foreign Minister of Botswana stated: “we reject this proposal because we cannot commit to hosting people, not knowing what the end-game will be”[10].
As for refugees, Botswana has a long experience with protracted refugee situations in a refugee camp called Dukwi, created in 1978 by UNHCR/Lutheran World Federation. Never big in capacity (with less than a 1,000 refugees and asylum-seekers today), this camp has been in existence since (46 year, only beaten record by Mayukwayukwa in 1966 and Meheba in 1971, both in Zambia). The real challenge of solutions.
And so, my argument is based on the challenge of achieving solutions, seeing that refugee situations tend to be quite protracted. With the pointed exception of the second Rwanda refugee crisis itself, which started in 1994, and was forced to end in 1997. Curiously by the combined effort of Rwandan and Tanzanian armies, as far as those that were received in Tanzania.
With hindsight, it is clear to-day that this refugee situation would have degenerated immensely if Rwanda, UNHCR and governments had not agreed on some form of early forced repatriation. There would not be peace and stability in Rwanda, a stability that we see and appreciate today. I personally worked in the Kagera Region in those years, and was part of those who were protesting the forced repatriation. As Programme Officer, I ended up financing the separation camp in the Mwisa prison in Karagwe District. All an effort to ensure that there was no impediment to repatriation. We thank all those that had that foresight.
IV. Conclusion
And we are entitled to expect today the same foresight in receiving asylum-seekers for processing. The problem with processing asylum-seekers is that it takes long, and most often, we do not know what to do with the rejected cases. Would they go back to UK? No. They would be expected to go back to their countries. Who transports them? The UK? Or will they be milling around in Rwanda?
Let me just paint an imaginary situation: Asylum-seekers from Yemen, Afghanistan, Eritrea and other semi-desertic countries are denied refugee status and suddenly they realize that they are living in countries full of potential. And they hear about the possibility of engaging in mining explorations very nearby in Eastern DRC, if they are adventurous enough! Anyone who took a rickety boat to cross the ocean into the UK will have no compunction on his life or fear of adventuring into Eastern DRC if they can find gold, diamonds, and other minerals. Slowly we realize this and we also realize that no one can really dissuade them from trying the adventure. We will have brought the seed of more complex problems in Africa, by accepting its importation, to bail Europe of its own problems.
Governments come and go and fifty years from now, we will be managing the consequences of an unequal colonial agreement that probably will not even have benefited Rwanda.
Migration management fostered on a country that is densely populated may create real problems with refugees and asylum-seekers that remain permanently in reception centres that are supposed to be temporary.
Result: the further weakening of the institution of asylum and the degenerative exposure and abuse of a system of international norms and standards built precisely by those who today are throwing money into undermining it.
What choices does this leave us in Africa, the developing world? Where else can we seek examples of moral conduct and internationally acceptable standards to follow? Not here, certainly. The system does not inspire confidence any more: suffice it to recall two dramatic events:
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the international community looked the other way.
The ongoing blatant and arrogant genocide in Palestine: the international community is financing the massacre of tens of thousands of Palestinians, hundreds of UN staff, dozens of journalists, dozens of medical doctors and teachers, and the destruction of hundreds of schools, hospitals, ambulances and refugee camps; and at the same time airdropping a few food crumbs on the hapless Palestinian people. This time, only Africa constituted an exception and rose against this genocide.
And this effort of the UK of outsourcing the management of the refugee and migrant conundrum still persists. We thank Botswana for rejecting the proposition that would further destroy one of the few institutions that still stand and in which we still believe. We are not the ones destroying the international system. And perhaps if we were stronger we could be in a position to resist better the enticement of money to help bring down a system that we adhered to, gave us asylum when we needed it in the fifties and sixties, and all the way to now.
UNHCR could consider issuing a strong position paper for public consumption and education. We believe the UK courts have understood the High Commissioners. The public will appreciate the lecture.
[1] https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/hrw-2017-report/ precisely at a time when the UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection globally was an Australian, contradictions we remain afraid to raise.
[3] https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/14366/After_meeting_with_Kagame%2c_Braverman_ploughs_on_with_cash_for_asylum-seekers_scheme
[4] https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/14424/London_courts_to_rule_again_on_legality_of_London-Kigali%c2%a0asylum_plan
[8] https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/14736/London_moves_to_salvage_%27cash_for_asylum_seekers%27_deal
[10] https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/14954/Gaborone_turns_down_London_after_Rwanda_law_comes_into_force
Jose
Tete, Mozambique, 01 May 2024
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