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Logical Analysis Of The United Nations High Commissioner For Refugee "dogma" Of The West And For The West

 

  LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES (UHNCR) AS THE   “DOGMA” OF THE WEST AND FOR THE WEST.

”I propose, taking men as they are and laws as they can be, to inquire whether the political order admits of organizing principle that is both justifiable and conducive to stability. I shall endeavour, throughout the inquiry, to wed that which is right permits to that which interest prescribes, so as to reconcile justice and utility at every point ”1.      

There is no truth in ignoring the fact that the establishment of UNHCR is for political purposes of the west and for the west. This could be traced to the historical overview of the west during the world wars. The League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was created for the purpose of the problems created by Russian refugees. I shall briefly explore the roles of UNHCR as a dogma in some countries of the world to lay a foundation for my arguments. Also, I shall use three logical propositions for my arguments.

                UNHCR was a product of cold war established to cater for the protection of some set of people called ‘refugees'. The term refugee was defined in Article 1A of the 1951 Convention as follow:

‘For the purpose of the present convention, the term ‘refugee' shall apply to any person who...as a results of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or owing, to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country: or who, not having a nationality as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to fear, is unwilling to return to it'.2

The representation of the above definition is analysed as follows:

Proposition 1.    If A is a citizen of C

                                Then A moves from C to D (due to violence, war, persecution etc)

                                Therefore A is covered under the obligation of UNHCR in D.

Proposition 2.    If B is also a citizen of C

                                Then B moves from point p to q within C. (due to violence, earthquakes, etc)

                                Therefore B is not under the obligations of UNHCR in C.

 

 

 

In this paper, I seek to based on the above propositions, reveal the inadequacies of the 1951 Convention and to argue that UNHCR is a political weapon of the West, meant to achieve personal interests.

Proposition 1 above shows that a refugee is any person who crosses the border of his or her country due to violence, persecution, war and so on. And it is the role of UNHCR to cater for such person irrespective of the person's background and race. Looking critically into the roles of UNHCR recently, there is need to question its existence and policies. A recent example that readily comes to mind is the fall-out of the earthquake that happened in in inHaiti, January, 2010. This earthquake left hundreds of thousands homeless and caused the death of so many people.  Jamaica radio online reported on January 27th that some ‘Haitians were arrested at Bahamas and detained because Bahamas government claimed that they moved illegally to its territory'3. .US government official made a statement that any Haitian in US before the earthquake shall be given protection. The implication of this statement is that those that were forced to move as a result of earthquake are not welcomed. The most unpalatable statement came from one UN representative during one of the radio programme that any country that wants to receive Haitians should ignore their voodoo. Besides, UNHCR has no presence in Haiti, then why these comments. I reflected on the roles of UNHCR having seen what happened in Haiti. Basically, the role of UNHCR is to protect such people that left their country to another country in search of security and not to be detained in another country. Though, UNHCR might want to claim that the state has legal power to do that but what about the 1951 convention that stated that such person or people should be given protection at that point in time. I am not surprised at the statements of world powers (US&UN) because UNHCR was created as a tool of the world powers. Another example that is very obvious was seen in  in      Tara Polzer's work on legal framework. According to her “Mozambicans in South Africa have never been subject to or protected by an established and structured refugee law” 4. The implication of this statement is that the Mozambicans that moved to South Africa due to civil war in their country were faced with so many problems concerning their refugee status. I can't imagine that the UNHCR that was supposed to protect the rights of the Mozambican refugees in South Africa during this period was used as a tool to traumatize the Mozambican refugees. Mozambican refugees were supposed to enjoy their refugee status under the objectives of UNHCR but reverse was the case. Tara maintains that ‘ in contrast, outside the territory of the homelands, Mozambicans refugees were treated as illegal aliens under the Aliens Act(Act 96 of 1991) and its predecessors, and were actively sought out and deported'5. Crush and McDonald cited in the work of Tara also claimed that “ACA's draconian deportation regime was designed as a ‘thinly disguised state assault on forced migrants from war-ravaged Mozambique”6.  Furthermore, the UNHCR that was supposed to protect the rights of the Mozambican refugees in South Africa unlawfully deported some of them. Tara posits that ‘ UNHCR colluded with violation of the right of the free movement through the continued de facto spatial restriction of the refugees to the rural homeland areas, and the violation of Articles 27 and 28of the 1951 UN convention...'7. This means the contradiction of law that was supposed to guide UNHCR due to political interests in the state-Mozambican refugees matter. I learnt that some Mozambican refugees also were traumatized mainly because of their participation in the South Africa election. To Tara,”...the deportation of Mozambican refugees was a ‘party-political act' of revenge by

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the IFP minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs...”8. Also, Tara stated that UNHCR' campaigned the reduction of National and Social Development Programme funding for food for Mozambican refugees from R11million to R4million arguing that food aid would keep people wanting to return to Mozambique'9. The above examples really showed that UNHCR was not meant for some countries or continents refugees because there is an element of bias and political interests in what they did.

                I shall elaborate further in the second proposition stated above concerning the roles of UNHCR. Those in category B as stated above are the Internally Displaced People (IDPs). For instance Haiti experienced the greatest lost of life and materials in the history of the country due to the earthquake that occurred January, 2010. Hundreds of thousands of people were internally displaced while some crossed the border to neighbouring countries. UN 1951 convention does not recognize this set of forced migrants because they did not cross the border of their country as in contradiction with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 which stated that human beings shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms. Even the so called ‘refugees' the UN 1951 convention claimed to cater for are not enjoying the stated laws especially African refugees. My question from the above stated proposition is this: does it mean that just because citizen B was internally displaced due to religious crises, environmental hazards, earthquakes etc he/she ,     has no right under the UNHCR obligations?

I discovered that there is no single legally binding law or convention that the IDPs fall under. There were so many debates that the IDPs should be included in 1951 convention but to no avail. Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs seems to be the best option but due to international politics, the body was never given such mandate. The IDPs suffer so much neglect from both national and international bodies. For example in Nigeria, there was religious crises recently in northern part of the country where Christians and Muslims attacked each other and this left so many people homeless because houses, mosques, churches, etc were burnt . Hundreds of people also lost their lives. At least, there should be a body(other than Red Cross) legally binding to take the ordeal of such people to consideration because the national government might not want to do anything to help those involved but if international law like that of refugees is binding on them believe the national government will see to their case. At the later end of the Jos crises in Nigeria, so many families went there to pick their loved ones home while some were sent money to come home. My question is this, what about victims who do not have anybody? What would be their fate?

PROGNOSIS

There are so many scholars who have discussed and contributed to the amendments of some refugees laws. Susan Martins proposed that UNHCR should: “(1) advocate alleviation of the causes of forced migration;(2) stimulate early warning of and response to refugee emergencies to prevent displacements and mitigate longer-term impacts;(3)utilize humanitarian assistance in a manner that reduces tensions, stabilises communities, limits the potential for its diversion to military purposes, and reaches those in need without unnecessarily requiring their movements towards the aid;(4)encourage safe and orderly repatriation in a manner that supports peace and reconciliation”10.

In addition to Susan Martin's view, I suggest the regional Convention or laws that will include both refugees and IDPs and other forms of forced migrants for future occurrences. What I meant by this regional law is that each continent should have a law that caters for every form of forced migrants because migration cannot be stopped and so, we shall always have refugees.  My position

that International refugee law is made for the West can be seen in the below statement. Of Jeff Crisp in the work of Laura Barnett:

“The O.A.U definition makes sense in Africa, but not in industrialised states. Taking the pragmatic line, you need public opinion on your side and European Western context is not ready for an O.A.U definition...Pragmatically, no new definition will be accepted and agreed upon(by relevant actors)”11.

The question is who are the relevant and the irrelevant actors? Gervais Appave, Director of the Migration Policy Research at IOM, Geneva cited in the work of Laura Barnett contends that “no country even wants to reopen the debate on the convention refugee's definition”12.

The implication of the above statements is that the international migration laws are meant for political purpose to favour the West (has its root for Russian refugees after the world wars) and traumatize other continents or countries of their interests. We could see that 1951 convention was established basically for refugees of events that occurred before 1st January, 1951 and not for universal or general purpose.

                I therefore call on African leaders, stakeholders, NGOs, media, political leaders and the concerned bodies and countries to rise up to the challenge of protecting refugees, IDPs, forced migrants and other forms of migrants under the same law irrespective of the race or religion. Also, they should be base on universal law of human rights and freedoms.  The below proposition is generated from the two propositions above and this represents how the laws governing refugees and other forms of migrant should be:

Proposition 3.    If A and B are from C.

                                Therefore A and B are under the same law U whether in C or not.

The implication of the above proposition is that if there is bad occurrence like war, and A is able to move out of the country and B is internally displaced, the law that guides the protection of A in the country of destination should also guide B within its own country.

Finally, I recommend the definition of refugee as stated in the 1969 Convention of OAU in Article 1 section 2, which states that the term

“refugee shall also apply to every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality”13.

The above definition of refugee under 1969 OAU convention brings in every other form of forced migrants under its umbrella and I recommend this as a plausible definition to merge with or replace the old traditional definition of 1951 Convention till there is formulation of a law that would be legally binding on all kinds of forced migrants.

                               

                                                               

                               

REFERENCES

1. Jean Rousseau. The Social Contract, translated by Willmore kendall, (Chicago-Henry Regnery Company, 1961).P1.
2. United Nations. Conference on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons,Geneva.2-25th July,1951.P2
3. Jamaica radio online. www. Carribean-radio.com
4. Tara Polzer. “Adapting to Changing Legal Frameworks: Mozambican Refugees in South Africa” in International Journal of Refugee Law. Vol.19.No.1.P23
5. Ibid.P.30
6. Ibid.P.30(cf)
7. Ibid.P.31
8. Ibid.p.36
9. Ibid.p31.
10. Susan.F.Martin,.Global Migration Trends and Asylum,(UNHCR 2001).P.21
11. CF. Laura Barnett. “Global Governance and the Evolution of the International Refugee Law” in International Journal of Refugee Law.Vol.14.No.273.2002.P.258
12. Ibid.P.258
13. O.A.U, Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee problems in Africa, Addis Ababa, 6-10th,1969.P.2

 

 

 

 

 

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