Internally Displaced People in Colombia Lack Vital Services

Tumaco is an island off the coast of southern Colombia, just north of the border with Ecuador, and just about one degree north of the equator. It’s a humid, tropical zone and today, while we were visiting a community of displaced people known as Bajo Tuma, the heavens opened up and soaked us to the bone. The community was built around a mangrove swamp and all the sand around us quickly turned to mud. It was amazing how fast the entire town flooded — the sea just rushed into the town.

The conditions in Bajo Tuma are some of the worst we’ve seen. People flee to these swamps since there’s nowhere else for them to go. They then cut down the trees, build stilt houses in the swamp, and build a series of very, very rickety bridges throughout the community to get from house to house and to leave the area. Most houses use plastic sheeting for roofing, which means that during the prevalent rains, water comes into the homes through holes that pop up when anything hits it. We were told that a new “roof” gets holes almost immediately, and people must constantly scrounge for money to replace the plastic.

They also have no fresh water and must rely on an elaborate series of garden hoses that run from public water sources closer to town. Bajo Tuma had one hose to service the entire community of 400 families, and the water often arrives so dirty that residents insist on boiling the water before using it.

Sanitary conditions are abhorrent. In the community of Brisa de los Angeles (translated as Angel’s Breeze), bathrooms are just holes in the floor, which empty out right below the house. Trash is just thrown into the water, but since this is a tidal zone, the water becomes a trashy, fecal stew that floats around beneath the houses. In Bajo Tuma, the people are forced to relieve themselves in plastic bags and throw them into the sea. Since the town floods regularly, excrement and garbage wash right back into town and then spread.

These conditions are prevalent in virtually every community we’ve visited in Tumaco. It raises serious questions in our heads when the government of Colombia says they are tackling displacement seriously. In a community meeting in Bajo Tuma, only four residents were able to claim getting any assistance at all – and it was from the Red Cross. Tumaco’s displaced have been abandoned by their government.

--Sean Garcia

Andrea Lari and Sean Garcia are currently in Colombia assessing the situation with internally displaced persons. Andrea's new report on IDP's "Striving For Better Days" can be found on our website: www.refugeesinternational.org/betterdays

President’s Corner: Cyclone Sidr Teaches Lessons for a Warming World

Cyclone Sidr inflicted death and destruction on Bangladesh, but the damage was limited by well planned actions to protect people in the storm’s path. In this respect, Bangladesh has lessons to teach the rest of the world as it struggles to deal with rising sea levels and other impacts of global warming.

I don’t mean to minimize the impact of the Nov. 15 storm: more than 3,200 people were killed, and 880 remain missing; an estimated 34,708 were injured; more than one million houses were damaged, and 366,000 were totally destroyed. According to the government of Bangladesh, more than seven million people were affected by the storm. The UN reports that 2.6 million people need immediate life-saving assistance, such as food, water, shelter and medical care.

These losses are terrible by any measure, but they are far less than storms of similar ferocity inflicted on Bangladesh in the past. An estimated 138,000 people died in 1991 when Cyclone Gorky hit, and Cyclone Bhola killed an estimated 500,000 people in 1970, when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan.

Sidr’s lower death toll reflects more than good luck. Over the last two decades Bangladesh, a low-lying country that endures frequent floods and storm damage, has built an extensive system of storm shelters. It has also installed an early warning system and set up evacuation routes. Improved storm-tracking techniques, plus radio broadcasts and loud speaker systems, enabled the government to warn residents in the path of the cyclone. As a result, an estimated 3.2 million people were evacuated from coastal areas before the storm hit.

It is clear that preparation saves lives, and this is a lesson we have to act on as we struggle to adapt to global warming. Recent reports on climate change predict rising sea levels and more severe storms as the world continues to warm, causing massive displacement. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore this year, has said that Bangladesh will lose 10% of its surface area if sea levels rise 18 inches.

Last year a report by Sir Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change, predicted that “by the middle of the century, 200 million more people may become permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods, and more intense droughts” as a result of global warming. The world is currently struggling to deal with 35 million refugees and internally displaced people forced from their homes by conflict, so the prospect of 200 million environmental refugees is daunting, to say the least.

Although we often think that the main victims of climate change will be in the developing world, the impact will be much greater. Rising sea levels could also pose risks to Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, London, Miami, New York, Shanghai, St. Petersburg and Tokyo.

Bangladesh’s response to Sidr shows that we can mitigate natural disasters with planning and enlightened public policies. The same applies to expected problems from climate change. The first challenge, of course, is to reduce hydrocarbon fuel consumption and greenhouse gases as quickly as possible. The next is to start thoughtful systematic planning for dealing with the consequences of a warmer planet characterized by rising sea levels, more devastating droughts and radically changed growing patterns.

All of these preparations—such as sea walls, planned population movements, stiffer building standards, new agricultural and irrigation techniques—will be complex, controversial and costly. They will also take time. An early start will reduce the potential human toll of climate change; a late start will increase future death, displacement, and destruction. The decision should be a no-brainer.

--Ken Bacon

Iraqi Refugees: Challenges for Iraqis Detained in Lebanon

Every refugee crisis creates tragic stories, but in the case of the Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, part of the tragedy lies in how absurd people’s situations become. A visit to the Rumieh prison in Beirut confirmed this. Meeting with Iraqis who are imprisoned in Rumieh is heartbreaking, as their stories are tragic, and even more so in that they are all so common and similar. The Iraqis we met were either victims of or threatened by violence, and felt that their only choice was to leave Iraq, often on a moments notice.

Rumieh prison now houses over 400 Iraqis, nearly all of whom were arrested for being in the country illegally. In the prison, over a hundred prisoners share a room no bigger than 35 square meters. We met with 6 Iraqis of all faiths (sunni, shia, christian) who were arrested for being in Lebanon, and who are now sharing cells and space with common Lebanese criminals. One man, much older than the majority of the inmates, had owned a factory in Baghdad and was forced to leave because of his religion. He purchased what he thought was a legitimate visa from an Iraqi government official, only to be arrested in Beirut when trying to fly to Europe. The man was clearly humiliated by his plight, and the anguish on his face was apparent.

Other Iraqis shared similarly distressing stories. One person was arrested for trying to sneak back out of Lebanon to go back to Iraq. He left Iraq after receiving a death threat, but decided to go back to support his family, risking his life by returning to the center of the violence. He now sits in jail, unsure of his future, and unable to communicate with his loved ones. Two brothers we met with shared their separate stories - the one was tortured by Saddam, the other by the Mehdi army. One man was threatened because he used to help his father sell liquor, and said he would only return when he could drink in the streets. Another laughed when we asked if he wanted to go back to Iraq- "I’d go to Darfur before I go to Iraq" was his answer.

The risks Iraqis run in Lebanon are not unique. Our mission also included stops in Syria and Egypt where we met with Iraqi refugees whose stories encompassed the many dangers they have faced in Iraq and across the border. Throughout the region, Iraqi refugees are living in continual fear in the very places they seek to find refuge.

--Jake Kurtzer

Jake Kurzter and Kristele Younes have recently returned from a mission to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan assessing the humanitarian response to the Iraqi refugee crisis.

President’s Corner: The U.S. Needs To Do More in Darfur

Two news articles last week made me question whether the U.S. and its allies are really serious about ending the killing and displacement in the Darfur region of Sudan. On Nov. 14, the Associated Press reported a warning by the UN peacekeeping chief, Jean-Marie Guehenno, that an expanded peacekeeping force currently deploying to Darfur could be a “failure” unless it gets more sophisticated equipment from donor countries to support the mission. In particular, he said that the 26,000 member UN-African Union force that is to police an area as big as Texas needs 18 transport helicopters and six light support helicopters for a rapid reaction force. “I think it tells a sad story on the commitment for Darfur, frankly,” Guehenno said of the lack of helicopters.

On Nov. 15, the BBC reported that British Foreign Secretary David Miliband excoriated European Union countries for not committing badly needed helicopters to the large, new Darfur force. “EU countries have around 1,200 transport helicopters, yet only about 35 are deployed to Afghanistan. And EU member states haven’t provided any helicopters in Darfur despite a desperate need there,” he said in a speech.

President Bush has accused the government of Sudan of committing genocide in Darfur. The Genocide Convention makes it clear that signatories, such as the U.S. and all major European powers, must act “to prevent and punish the crime of genocide”, yet the U.S. and Europe can’t find 24 helicopters between them to help the new force.

So it seems reasonable to ask: how deep is our commitment to deploying a larger, more capable peacekeeping force in Darfur with the hope of stopping genocide there? After news of the helicopter shortage, a reporter at a Pentagon news conference asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates if the U.S. could provide the helicopters. Gates said he was not aware of any request for helicopters from the UN-AU force. But even if the U.S. got a request, “I would say just as a matter of general principle, our helicopter resources are pretty…pushed between Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Don’t get me wrong. The U.S. is doing a lot to support the so-called hybrid UN-AU force. The new 26,000 member force of troops and police will replace a 7,000 member AU force that is currently deployed.

First, the U.S. pays at least 25% of the cost of all UN peacekeeping operations. According to a State Department official, this means that the U.S. will pay the UN $884 million to help support the force through June 30, 2009, if Congress appropriates the money. Second, we are in the process of turning over to the new force 34 bases that we built for the AU in Darfur and about $40 million of equipment, including vehicles and satellite communications gear. Third, we recently transported about 800 Rwandan troops into North Darfur. Finally, we have been a major promoter of peace talks to end the war. So far, however, the peace talks have gotten nowhere.

Still, the question remains: Is President Bush doing enough to stop genocide in Darfur. The answer is no.

--Ken Bacon

RI Guest Blogger: Eileen Shields-West on Burma Asylum Seekers

Refugees International Board Vice-Chair Eileen Shields-West recently finished a mission in Thailand focusing on the situation for Burmese refugees and how the impact of the ongoing conflict inside Burma affects the stability of neighboring countries.

When I traveled to Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border, I was upset to see that so many Burmese who are fleeing persecution and fighting in Burma are forced to endure an incredibly difficult situation when they arrive in Thailand. There are140,000 official refugees in seven camps along the Thai-Burma border who make few demands, have little to do and wait for their fate to be decided. Then, there are all of the others who have not been able to register as refugees after crossing the border into Thailand. Even the 75-80 people who recently arrived here after the September crackdown by the Burmese junta have no clear path to asylum.

Standing in line also are thousands of “slip-holders” – 1,000 in Bangkok alone – who at one point were given a slip by the UNHCR, designating them as individuals seeking refugee status. They have never been processed by the Provincial Admissions Boards (PABs) – the agency that the Royal Thai Government put in control of registration and admission to the camps.

There are also thousands of “new entrants” who either recently fled across the border, or had been in Thailand for some time but were unable to enter the crowded camps. We were told that there were 3,000 “new entrants” alone in Mae La Camp which is situated just a few miles from the border and houses about 44,000 Karen refugees from the Karen State in Burma. These people are not entitled to food or shelter, usually sharing with relatives already in the camp, nor to participate in the large international re-settlement program now underway. The “unregistered” are also under constant threat of deportation by the Thai officials who run the camp. And I can only guess how many of the estimated 1.5 million migrant workers from Burma now in Thailand would opt to apply for refugee status if a system were in place.

All these people are in limbo, waiting for Godot, so to speak. One reason that the Thai Government gives for shutting down registration is that the camps are already cramped and that there is no more space. Critics counter that the Thai government is really concerned that if officials increase registration, more refugees will come into the country. But if they procrastinate, the problem will go away.

But one of the things that is clear from our mission to Thailand and the worsening situation in Burma is that the problem is not going to disappear. Something needs to be done. The Thai government needs to put in place a reliable registration system to recognize all those who are truly refugees so that they can receive identity documents, the rights that come with refugee status and the opportunity to be permanently resettled in a third country, if that is what they choose. This is particularly imperative now as more are coming across the border every day, fleeing the latest suppression in Burma. Otherwise, all of those “in limbo” will continue to live in a world of constant fear and uncertainty.

Things You Never Knew About the D.R. Congo

The expression "You are driving me around the bend" originates here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the 18th century, explorer Lord Stanley ventured up the Congo river in search of the source of the Nile, but when he reached the point of the river now known as Stanley Falls (and the site of modern day Kisangani) he found himself literally going ‘round the bend’, as the river took a sharp turn south, confirming to a disappointed Stanley that this could not be the source that he was seeking.

It is perhaps fitting that today Stanley Falls (a fairly disappointing blip in the river, and hardly a ‘falls’, by the way) are overlooked by the Eastern Brigade Headquarters of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping force in D.R. Congo and the largest peacekeeping deployment in the world. Their presence and inability to secure a peace in the east are a source of huge frustration and disappointment for the international community, the Congolese people, and – perhaps most of all - MONUC staff themselves. After eight years of deployment there has been no solution to the challenges in DRC, and North Kivu is on fire again.

Since the relative success of the 2006 election in which the Congolese people chose the first democratically elected government since DRC’s independence, MONUC has faced severe criticism for the human rights abuses and humanitarian crises that continue to plague the country. While it is true that MONUC has made mistakes, the diatribes of critics tend to vastly oversimplify the world that MONUC is operating in.

The real situation in the DRC looks something like this:

• Half a dozen armed internal and foreign armed groups with divergent allegiances and political -- or personal -- priorities;
• A weak and under-resourced Congolese military (the FARDC), who are themselves responsible for a huge number of human rights abuses, and are sharpening ethnic tensions. (Not “ancient ethnic hatreds,” as many like to say, but tensions driven by modern politics and economics.); and
• The high stakes that come with big egos, corruption, and fierce competition for control of DR Congo’s vast natural resource wealth.

In the east alone you can add to that list the unstable and occasionally hostile neighboring states of the Central African Republic, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi; the physically vast, hilly, densely forested terrain with few reliable roads; 800,000 internally displaced people; and…

Well, I could go on, but these are just the basic challenges that MONUC troops and staff are facing every day. In this context, MONUC has been asked to:

• provide stability and security,
• protect civilians,
• train and support the nascent and frequently dangerous FARDC,
• promote good governance,
• monitor human rights abuses,
• provide support to humanitarian and development activities, and
• engage in high-level political discussions at national and regional levels to address the root causes of this conflict.

MONUC is far from perfect, but under overwhelmingly difficult circumstances it is unequivocally true that the accumulation of small MONUC victories has made a clear and positive difference in the lives of the Congolese people.

Mobile UN bases and night patrols by peacekeepers are helping to maintain security and stability in dozens of locations all over the east. Aid workers and human rights monitors continue to have some access to many populations in need. The bandit ‘Rasta’ group - known for particularly brutal rapes and kidnappings – have been chased from their bases in South Kivu by a series of MONUC military sweeps. And the armed group led by dissident General Laurent Nkunda was prevented from advancing on Goma (the capital of North Kivu) due in large part due to the deterrent effect of MONUC deployments.

It is easy to get frustrated when great efforts produce imperfect and incomplete results, and there is much that is incomplete in the Congo. But events move quickly here, priorities change and fires erupt, and the critics need to give the peacekeepers the political space, and the resources to shift gears and meet unexpected challenges. The solutions may be elusive, but it is very clear that in the absence of MONUC, the tangible progress made in DRC could go the way of the Congo river, and very quickly go south.

-- Erin Weir is currently in the D.R. Congo assessing MONUC's ability to protect civilians from ongoing violence.

President's Corner: Praise and Challenges on Ending Statelessness

Today I had the pleasure of listening to Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, praise Refugees International’s work to make statelessness a major human rights issue for both the UN and the U.S. State Department.

Speaking in New York on a panel on statelessness organized by the U.S. State Department, Mr. Guterres said: “Refugees International is playing a major role in raising awareness, in advocacy and in forcing us to do what we need to do, what we are supposed to do. So, it is a welcome pressure that I hope will go on, especially in drawing my attention to the need to be more effective in this area. As a matter of fact, UNHCR in the beginning was probably a little bit reluctant to give enough importance to statelessness.”

After thanking Mr. Guterres for these comments, I began to think about what it takes to make an advocacy campaign to expand human rights succeed.

Statelessness is a major human rights abuse. There are currently between 11 and 15 million people who aren’t citizens of any country. These non-citizens often can’t vote, send their children to school, own property or work. Yet in 2004, when my colleague, Maureen Lynch, started highlighting the fact that millions of people live without citizenship in any country, few people recognized that statelessness was a problem. And fewer still thought there could be quick solutions to statelessness.

In early 2005, Refugees International issued Maureen’s report, Lives on Hold, which remains one of the most comprehensive surveys ever issued on statelessness. The report described the difficulties stateless people face and provided country-by-country detail on stateless populations. She called stateless people international orphans without rights or protections.

Today, the UN, the U.S. State Department and a number of human rights organizations are working to end statelessness, and efforts are beginning to pay off. Nepal recently granted citizenship to 2.6 million people, and both Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates have announced plans to grant citizenship to many stateless people within their borders.

Starting next year, the U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report will have a section of statelessness, and the UN system is working more aggressively to monitor and end statelessness.

Much of the credit for this progress goes to Maureen Lynch, whose persistent quest for justice has made statelessness a front-line human rights issue. Working with our colleague, Dawn Calabia, and a succession of dedicated interns, she took her 2005 findings to the UN, to the State Department, to Congress and to other human rights organizations, looking for allies wherever she could find them.

In almost every case she found an open door. People were willing to listen and, sometimes, to take action.

There are several elements to success that we didn’t appreciate when we started this campaign. First, statelessness is a human rights abuse that is easy to understand; the injustice of not being able to vote, to travel, to send children to school or to receive the protection of a state is clear. Second, it doesn’t cost a lot to address and solve the problem; convincing a country to change its laws or to register newborn babies as citizens is a lot cheaper than setting up refugee camps, for example. Third, the improvement in lives and the enhancement of rights can be dramatic when stateless people receive citizenship.

Despite dramatic progress over the last three years, much more needs to be done. There are still major stateless populations in the Ivory Coast, Kuwait, Syria, Thailand and among Palestinian communities in the Middle East that need protection. The campaign for citizenship rights is far from over.

--Ken Bacon

RI Guest Blogger: Eileen Shields-West on News from Burma

Refugees International Board Vice-Chair Eileen Shields-West just finished a mission in Thailand focusing on the situation for Burmese refugees and how the impact of the ongoing conflict inside Burma affects the stability of neighboring countries.

It is a picture of a solitary young monk behind bars. A boy of five or six years old, he is looking away, hands gripping the iron bars with an extremely sad look in his eyes. The picture ran in The Economist in late September, during the week of the major protests and fearsome crackdown in Rangoon, the capital of Burma. It was captioned: “No Way Out?"

Many of us, as we took the plane over here and looked through our briefing papers, were moved by this provocative and compelling picture. The picture told a thousand words and symbolized the cruelty of this latest round of suppression that even swept up young monks, or novices, as they are called, along with thousands of others, into detention centers.

At every opportunity, and this was especially the concern of fellow Board member Carol Ann Haake, we would ask for any information at all about the picture, about the boy and about the fate of all the children and adults who may have been swept up in the crackdown. It became an interest of all of us.

In most cases, we got disappointing but not unsurprising answers. The people we asked just did not know enough to fill in the blanks. We needed to know: What had happened to this young novice? How many other children had been rounded up and how many were still being detained?

Finally, we met John Glenn, head of the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), and former political prisoner himself who fled Burma for fear of arrest in 1988. He is now giving cash and encouragement to political activists still in the country. We sat with him outside, interviewing him in front of a bulletin board of pictures titled “Saffron Revolution.” And there it was -- a color photo of our novice behind bars.

So we asked: What do you know of this boy? Is he still being held? How many others, young like him, were rounded up? Glenn did not know. He turned to a colleague who also was not aware of how the organization had gotten the picture.

It was frustrating, but we did learn some things that we could work with. According to the AAPP list, there are 20 novices who were detained, the youngest is about five. (Novices can range in age from five years to eighteen. After that, when you put on the russet robes, you are called a monk.) Glenn added that the ICRC or the International Committee of the Red Cross has not been allowed to go into the detention centers to confirm numbers held and the conditions of detention.

Glenn believes that during the crackdown the regime rounded up about 3,000 to 4,000 people. (The Burmese government has publicly said that about 3,000 were taken into custody.) His organization has only been able to confirm 150 releases, but says the regime is claiming to have let go 2,000. Also, according to Glenn, there are still 660 political prisoners in prison, while the regime is saying that 190 remain in jail.

Glenn told us that the September uprising was different from the one in 1988 when many activists quickly fled across the border. To his knowledge only thirteen have come into Thailand, explaining “Now they still survive in Burma and still want to continue their activities. Maybe they are still in hiding. It is difficult to know. We don’t know where they are – thousands of people.”

When we left the interview with Glenn, we felt we knew a bit more about the present situation inside Burma. But journalists and others we met registered a degree of healthy skepticism.

They say it is really hard to gauge what is happening within the country at this time. They’ve heard stories, too, about children being held and many people still behind bars, but they cannot corroborate most of them. For one thing, internet access was cut again this week when a small group of monks in Pakokku came out to protest once again, demanding lower fuel prices and the release of political prisoners. It has been down for three days now. They add that you have to question the picture itself – its origin and its reality. It could have been, for example, a novice monk looking through a gate instead of jail bars as feared.

This is Burma, they say. It is looking though a glass darkly. The secrecy, the suppression and the silence are all unbearable, but it is the condition under which people live there, making it more than difficult to tell the real story. It is a country which has shut itself off from the rest of the world (a “hermit kingdom,” a US official says) and only international pressure, especially from Burma’s fellow ASEAN countries, will make a difference.

In the meantime, though, the picture has done its job. It has helped to rivet attention on the victims -- young as well as old -- of the Burmese’ government’s latest actions and that is a good thing.

RI Guest Blogger: Michael Hawkins on Sacrifices for Democracy

Refugees International Board member Michael Hawkins is currently on mission in Thailand focusing on the situation for Burmese refugees there and how the impact of the ongoing conflict inside Burma affects the stability of neighboring countries.

After visiting what the Thailand government calls the "Temporary Shelter for Burmese" – a more than ten-year-old refugee camp of 44,000 Burmese -- and visiting with some newly displaced people from Burma it is apparent to me that these people have and are making huge sacrifices for democracy.

Imagine being persecuted, starved, imprisoned, beaten, raped, having your village destroyed and your life uprooted. After all of that, imagine having to leave your country and family members. This is what these refugees have faced, and yet most of them simply hope for the day that their country has democracy so they can return home to peace.

The recent peaceful demostrations by the monks and people in Rangoon was an effort to bring attention to the plight of the Burmese people and to encourage a move towards democracy. Certain monks and citizens who participated were targeted for arrest and have been forced to leave Myanmar. We had the honor of meeting with some of these courageous people and hearing their incredible and sobering stories. A young student and a monk told stories of peaceful marches which were brutally broken up by the Burmese police. They and their families were threatened and interrogated. In fear for their lives, they left everything, including spouses and children, to continue to be a voice for democracy and a peaceful country.

Three individuals we spoke with were in their 40’s and have been involved with the democracy struggle since 1988. One has spent 10 years and the other 15 years in prison as political prisoners in Burma. They were forced to spend more than half of their time in solitary confinement where they suffered mental and physical abuse. Another has not seen his family for eighteen years. Today, they all still work with the National League for Democracy, and are committed to working for peace and democracy in Burma in hopes of returning to their homeland. How much more must they sacrifice?

This day has said to me that we, as Americans, must value and celebrate our democracy and not take it for granted. More so, we must speak out for those still within Burma working for democracy and those forced to leave and become refugees. The very core of our freedom demands we speak up for our brothers and sisters who are sacrificing so much.

--Mike Hawkins