Colombia: Finding Solutions for Displaced Together

Traveling back from Tame to Arauca, on the border region of Colombia and Venezuela, my colleagues and I stopped in a little town called Pueblo Nuevo to meet with displaced people there. We had been trying to reach a local religious figure who was providing assistance to families in need, but had not yet reached him. So, we chose to just drop in and try our luck. Unfortunately, on arrival, not only could we not find the priest, but we also couldn't find the church. People seemed to not know where it was.

We meandered around town for several hours looking for someone who knew the priest. Someone directed us to the church, but no luck. Another neighbor jumped in the trunk of our car to show us to the incoming mayor’s house. However, the mayor apologized and informed us he wasn’t starting his job until July, so he didn’t know much about services being delivered to displaced people. However, he hopped on his bicycle to find someone who might and reemerged, with the priest. Perfect!

We rode back to the church and proceeded to have a long discussion with the priest about the displaced and their needs. Even more fortunately, the incoming mayor sat in on the meeting and was given a crash course in his future responsibilities to those families who are victims of the increase in guerrilla fighting and who have taken residence in his town.

The situation in Arauca is increasingly dire, as more and more families and communities are being displaced in a territorial dispute between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). This is a place where violence is increasing, and the humanitarian response has slowly begun, but is not yet commensurate with the need.

We visited an area called “4 of December,” which was named for the day when displaced people took over what had been a tent town of vulnerable poor. People are living in homes made of plastic sheeting and wood taken from the forest. The presence of open flames for cooking in homes made of dried wood causes me to fear for the worst. The neighborhood, for lack of a better word, lacks electricity and running water -- a concerted decision made by the municipality in response to the “illegal presence of the displaced.”

Next, we head to Nariño to investigate the needs of displaced people there. I can only hope the situation has improved.

--Jake Kurtzer

Northern Uganda: Mixed messages in uncertain times

These are confusing times for people in northern Uganda. We have been here only one week, and have already heard so many contradictory statements. We can only imagine how difficult it must be for local people to decide which messages to believe.

When we met with people in one camp for the internally displaced, most of them told us that the main reason they could not go home yet was lack of basic services in their home village – particularly no clean water or shelter. But they still expressed fears that the lack of a peace deal could mean a return to war and going right back to the camps again. One woman told me, “If there is no signed peace agreement that means war and death.”

Not long before we arrived here things were looking unusually hopeful for northern Uganda. Many expected that a peace agreement would be signed between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The infamous LRA has conducted years of insurgency, abducting people and terrorizing the population in the north of the country. But Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, failed to turn up to sign the agreement. The formal Cessation of Hostilities Agreement expired in April 2008 and has not been renewed. Yet, despite the lack of a signed peace deal, the LRA has not conducted any attacks in northern Uganda for over two years.

With the reduction in violence, many people have started the process of returning home from the camps. Almost all of the international agencies are talking about reducing emergency relief programs, and instead working with the government on development projects. But some local organizations have pointed out to us that northern Uganda has seen false dawns before and therefore they remain cautious.

A week before we arrived here, the LRA attacked villages in south Sudan, killing 23 people. Then, soon after we arrived we saw local newspaper headlines announcing that the LRA had re-entered Uganda. The next day the Ugandan army was on the radio denying this report and assuring the population that the Ugandan army reinforced its presence at the Sudanese border and will not allow the LRA to cross. Still, rumors are rife here.

The internally displaced persons’ camps in northern Uganda are not like those in most other parts of the world. People were ordered to move into these camps by the government. Frequently, the camps are less than 10 kilometers from home villages; some are only one kilometer away. Now the government is using strong rhetoric to push the message that people should go back home. The international agencies here give us good reasons for phasing out the camps, such as the recent outbreak of the rare Hepatitis E virus in Kitgum due to poor hygiene conditions in overcrowded camps.

Still, many people hold on to their hut in the camp, moving between it and the home they are constructing in or near to their home village. Some international agencies suggest this is so they can try to claim food handouts in the camp. That may be so, but people are also genuinely fearful. It takes time for a population traumatized by over 20 years of war to feel safe again and to trust that peace really has set in for good. And there are many reasons at the moment for them to distrust these messages. As one local leader said to us, “They were forced into the camps. Now it should be the community in the north which leads the process of return out of the camps, and at their own pace.”

--Melanie Teff

President’s Corner: Mrs. Bush

Thanks to Laura Bush, we now know that the White House is aware of the Iraqi refugee crisis. President Bush still has not mentioned the fact that 20% of Iraqis are displaced, but the First Lady included an Iraqi in her World Refugee Day ceremony.

Last Friday, I joined several dozen other refugee advocates at the White House to commemorate World Refugee Day. We sat in folding chairs under bright sun in the First Lady’s Garden as Mrs. Bush talked of America’s commitment to protecting refugees. She noted that in the last three decades, the U.S. has resettled 2.7 million refugees and that we are spending $1.2 billion on refugee resettlement this year.

Then she introduced three refugees—one from Burma, one Iraq and one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—who had fled violence and persecution in their countries. Here is what she said:

Eh Moo Hoffman was born in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. Her parents had fled from Burmese soldiers who tortured, raped, and killed her native Karen people. After more than 20 years living in danger, she and her family were able to resettle in the United States last year.

Zeyad Abdel Okhowa fled Iraq with his family after his work with the U.S. Embassy in Al Hillah put him in danger. Today, he works with the State Department's Digital Outreach Team to help improve understanding between Arab and Muslim communities and the United States.

Rose Mapendo's husband was executed, and she and her children were imprisoned in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She gave birth to twins while she was in jail, and she struggled to keep them alive. Rose and her children fled the Congo on an emergency evacuation flight in 2000. Today, she's an American citizen and the spokesperson for "Mapendo International," a non-governmental organization that assists refugees.

The inclusion of an Iraqi was significant, because it gave some visibility to the huge displacement crisis that has taken place within Iraq. Some five million Iraqis are displaced, about half are refugees who have fled to nearby countries, while the rest are displaced within Iraq. So far President Bush has said nothing in public to acknowledge the displacement, which has humanitarian and security implications for the entire Middle East. Maybe Mrs. Bush will fill him in.

--Ken Bacon

World Refugee Day: Where are the world's hidden refugees?

Picture these iconic refugee images - an African woman, holding a child, gazing stoically into the camera against a backdrop of huts and tents in a barren landscape. A long line of people, men, women, and children - again, usually African - on the move with all their worldly possessions on their heads and their backs. An emaciated African child being examined in a clinic by a Western doctor or nurse in a vest with a red cross emblem.

These images have become iconic because for several decades they have encapsulated the plight of refugees. But this World Refugee Day is an opportunity to reflect on the ways these images don't really to justice to today's realities.

While conflicts in Africa continue to displace hundreds of thousands of people, this year the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, is highlighting the fact that refugee numbers have increased from 10 million to nearly 12 million due to the persistence of refugee crises in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the Afghan presence in Pakistan and Iran, still numbering 3 million, has been a reality for decades, Iraqi displacement increased in 2007, with 600,000 newly displaced internally and still more fleeing into neighbouring countries in the Middle East, especially Syria and Jordan. In all, nearly half of the refugees of concern to UNHCR are from Iraq and Afghanistan alone.

The reality of the lives of Iraqi refugees requires further adjustment of our refugee iconography.
Iraqi refugees are not in camps. They live, virtually invisible, in urban areas, especially in Damascus and Amman.

They are hard to reach with basic services. Some, fearing eventual deportation, avoid registering with UNHCR. They gradually draw on whatever savings they may have brought with them from Iraq. Some try to find illegal employment in low-paying jobs in the informal sector.

Their children have had their schooling disrupted, though after extensive efforts, special international funding has been granted to support the inclusion of some Iraqi children in the school systems of the host countries.

The phenomenon of urban refugees is growing. Among the more than 1 million Zimbabweans outside their country in southern Africa are tens of thousands of people who could qualify as refugees living an underground existence in urban areas of South Africa and Zambia.

In Southeast Asia, host countries largely bar Burmese from accessing refugee camps, leaving them to fend for themselves in urban centres such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

In Latin America, political violence drives the internally displaced of Colombia out of rural areas and into towns, where they live unregistered on the margins of society.

The growth in the number of urban refugees coincides with two other developments: the overall erosion in the commitment of states to asylum for those fleeing persecution and conflict and large-scale economic migration. The twin fears of terrorist infiltration and inundation from illegal immigration have combined to create an environment in which countries of first asylum assume the worst when individuals seeking protection arrive on their door step.

Meanwhile, there are an estimated 200 million people now living outside their country of origin, and only a portion of this migration is from poor countries of the global South to the industrialised world.

With high levels of economic imbalance within developing regions and with poverty often associated with internal conflict and human rights abuses, refugee flows amidst the movement of economic migrants are a common phenomenon within the South.

China, Thailand, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt are among countries that are magnets both for individuals fleeing persecution and for those seeking employment and greater economic opportunity.

These developments combine to pose special challenges for protecting the world's 12 million refugees. While camps will still be required and appropriate in some places - in Chad, for example, to shelter refugees from Darfur - the trend will be for more and more refugees to find themselves either forcibly or voluntarily trying to survive among the underclass in urban areas.

UNHCR and the non-governmental organisations that provide services with its support will have to adjust the way they work.

First and foremost, refugees need to be found. This means being sending teams into urban areas and reaching out, like social workers, to identify vulnerable refugees and register them.

It also involves talking to government officials, who need to be convinced that within the mass of urban poor and illegal migrants there are people who qualify for international protection. Ensuring legal status also goes a long way towards preventing statelessness for current and future generations.

UNHCR will need to find creative ways of providing assistance to vulnerable people. Local religious institutions and community-based organisations should play an important role in delivering the aid, but they will need funding.

Providing cash or vouchers to individual families, who in turn will choose how to spend the funds, is more effective than setting up feeding centers or special schools and health facilities.

To its credit, UNHCR recognises the challenges inherent in the evolving nature of refugee flows and the response of host countries to their needs for asylum. But experience suggests that it will need time to shift its approach.

It can only help if donor government officials and the general public adjust their own perspectives too, and start to understand the diversity of refugee experiences today.

--Joel Charny

Joel's post is part of Reuters AlertNet's World Refugee Day feature. For more information, visit www.alertnet.org

World Refugee Day: Confronting the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Today nearly five million Iraqis--20% of the population--are displaced. About half of them have fled the country and live as refugees throughout the Middle East, while the rest are displaced within Iraq. Most fled their homes because they felt unsafe; those who worked for the U.S. as translators or drivers fled after they were attacked as collaborators. Most refugees and internally displaced lack access to employment, education and medical care; they are facing shortages of food and money.

This is a humanitarian crisis first, but it is also becoming a security problem.

Refugees International recently issued a report that found that internally displaced Iraqis were turning increasingly to militia groups, not the government, for support. "As a result of the vacuum created by the failure of both the Iraqi Government and the international community to act in a timely and adequate manner, non-state actors play a major role in providing assistance to vulnerable Iraqis," the report, Uprooted and Unstable, said. "Through a 'Hezbollah-like' scheme, the Shiite Sadrist movement has established itself as the main service provider in the country."

Militias, not the government, are winning the loyalty of aid recipients. This poses an obvious threat to what the U.S. most wants in Iraq--a stable, peaceful country run by a publicly supported government under the rule of law.

Yet the U.S. seems strangely casual about the impact of massive displacement in and from Iraq. President Bush has never mentioned the plight of displaced Iraqis, and other White House officials act as though the problem doesn't exist. The State Department's June 11 Iraq Weekly Status Report barely mentions Iraqi displacement.

The State Department is far from tone deaf to the plight of displaced Iraqis, particularly those who have worked for the United States. Secretary Rice has appointed an ambassador, James B. Foley, as Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugee Issues. At a press conference earlier this month, Foley said that "we believe that we have special obligations to Iraqis who have been employed by the United States or have been closely associated with U.S. efforts in Iraq." Yet most of the pressure to help these so-called Iraqi allies has come from Congress, not the administration.
The United States has vowed to allow 12,000 Iraqis to resettle in the U.S. this year, but eight months into the fiscal year, it has resettled only 4,742. Reaching the goal is still possible, if everything goes right.

What's more, the United States will spend more than $200 million this year to help displaced Iraqis. Unfortunately, that is just a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs surrounding countries to host Iraqi refugees. Jordan says it is laying out about $1 billion a year to accommodate about 500,000 Iraqis, and Syria, which hosts about l.5 million, says the cost is several billion dollars a year.

The surge has reduced violence in Iraq, but not enough to enable safe return of displaced Iraqis. Until it does, the United States needs to pay more attention to meeting the needs of nearly five million displaced Iraqis whose loyalty will be won by those who help them.

--Ken Bacon

In honor of World Refugee Day, UN Dispatch's Delegates Lounge will be featuring Ken's post for the coming week.

World Refugee Day: Reflections from Chad

This Friday, June 20, is World Refugee Day. It is a day to recognize the struggle of some 12 million refugees worldwide who have been forced out of their homes and homelands by fear, conflict, and persecution. It is also an opportunity for many of us to try to appreciate just what it means to have a safe place to go home to, and to remember that no conflict happens in isolation. Insecurity anywhere threatens peace everywhere.

Consider this; there are almost 3 million refugees in Africa, many of whom have escaped one dangerous place, only to find themselves in the heart of another conflict.

Today, I am writing from Chad, a country rocked by its own protracted civil war, internal ethnic tensions, and widespread banditry. Still, it hosts roughly 243,000 Sudanese refugees fleeing indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, bombings, and the destruction of whole villages in neighboring Darfur. My colleague and I met a woman who had fled Darfur just 3 months ago with her four children. She told us how she crossed the border and lived under a tree with seven other families for six weeks before being moved to a refugee camp in eastern Chad. Days before I met this woman, Chadian rebels launched a new offensive in eastern Chad.

The two conflicts are interrelated, and the human fallout can be seen in both countries. Still – inexplicably -- the massive popular and political interest in Darfur stops at the Sudan/Chad border, and the international community has proven itself to be unwilling to take a regional approach to the resolution of these interlinked crises.

The world has chosen to care about Sudan, and yet the ongoing crisis in Chad has been all but ignored by international policy makers.

In contrast to this game of pick-and-choose that the international community has been content to play in they case of Chad and Sudan, the laws that protect refugees -- the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and the Geneva Conventions – are built on the premise of common humanity, and the equal value of every human life. Similarly, the UN was built on the recognition that violent instability in any country represents a threat to international peace and security.

The world is small. Violence and suffering anywhere will have consequences for us everywhere.

While we recognize the tremendous challenges faced and overcome by refugees in the world today, also take a moment to remember that the modern history of conflict and refugee movements shows us just how interlinked our lives are. Conflict all too quickly reaches out and crosses the lines we have drawn to separate ourselves from our neighbors.

--Erin Weir

Honor World Refugee Day with a gift to Refugees International. Two generous donors have promised to match every online gift this week, dollar for dollar, in support of our work for refugees in Chad and around the world. Double your impact and give today.

Burma: Need for Aid Trumps Political Goals

After the destruction wreaked in Burma by Cyclone Nargis, the United States made the wise decision to set aside its political disagreements with the government of Burma to make every effort to ensure that humanitarian assistance reached those in need. As a result of this decision, the U.S. has been remarkably generous, donating almost $38 million to the relief effort, while playing an instrumental role in transporting goods into Burma, now having flown over 150 flights with emergency goods into the country on U.S. planes.

The U.S. has also backed diplomatic efforts to engage the Burmese government on humanitarian issues, and supports the Tripartite Core Group (the cyclone response group comprised of representatives from the government of Burma, the United Nations, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). The TCG, as it is known, has provided unprecedented opportunities for international engagement with Burmese officials. It is also carrying out a comprehensive, village-by-village assessment of the cyclone damage – the first study of its kind in Burma for decades (the regime dislikes statistical surveys and studies that could highlight the impact of their mismanagement). These steps represent real progress – not just for those Burmese who need assistance – but in the ability to establish a substantive dialogue between the reclusive government of Burma and the rest of the world.

Of course, news on the humanitarian front is not all good – for each step forward, there are complications. International staff are now allowed into the worst-affected areas of the delta, but can only stay for 72 hours. New restrictive guidelines have been issued to NGOs, but there are real questions as to how strictly they will be implemented. A similar move to issue guidelines to NGOs in 2006 was never fully implemented, allowing agencies to work under acceptable conditions. More aid is reaching cyclone victims every day, but everyone agrees that the response is still a shadow of what is really needed.

In the past week, Refugees International has begun to receive indications from U.S. government officials that their patience with the slow progress on humanitarian issues in Burma is beginning to wear thin, begging the question of how much longer the U.S. will be willing to accept the isolation of humanitarian issues from their concerns about political oppression. At a Refugees International-sponsored briefing on Thursday, a House Foreign Affairs staff member asked a panel of agencies that are operational in Burma if the renewal of US sanctions against Burma in July would hamper their operations. After receiving a unanimous yes from the panelists, he expressed concern over this impact, but also indicated that the bill would have to go forward anyway.

Similarly, discussions with administration officials in the past week have revealed frustration that the humanitarian agenda is “overshadowing U.S. political goals” in Burma. When discussing the overall humanitarian response, an official said that the pendulum had swung as far towards the humanitarian agenda as it was going to go; he indicated that we would see more of a return to pre-cyclone Burma policies in the upcoming months.

What does all of this mean for the humanitarian community working on Burma? Clearly, there is a growing need for the community to be much more proactive in describing its successes so that political actors continue to see the value in the relief effort. There also needs to be a unified presentation of the setbacks and difficulties, so that the U.S., working with the Tripartite Core Group, can press the Burmese government on issues of concern to the humanitarian community.

After pushing so hard over the past month to gain concessions from the Burmese government, which has resulted in improvements in humanitarian access, now is not the time to abandon this approach. There are more agencies providing more assistance inside the country now than at any time in the past decade. As long as these programs are reaching vulnerable cyclone survivors, the U.S. should stay the humanitarian course, while working with its allies around the world to press the Burmese government on the issues of political freedoms and human rights that are a global concern.

--Joel Charny

Visit our website to learn more about our work in Burma.

Empowering Women in the Fight Against Gender-Based Violence

Violence against women is an international problem, but many countries and policymakers turn a blind eye to the prevalence of such abuse. Although there are many obstacles to preventing gender-based violence, including misperceptions of rape survivors, lack of funding and the absence of proper sexual assault services, there is hope. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently hosted a panel to discuss the real statistics of GBV and plausible models for addressing this problem during conflict as well as within societies rebuilding after conflict.

Heidi Lehmann of the International Rescue Committee shared one approach in Liberia. Since 1989, Liberia’s civil war had created a breeding ground for violence against women. A 2005 survey in 4 countries indicated that 91.7% of 1,216 women and girls interviewed had been subjected to multiple violent acts during Liberia’s conflict. Displaced widows, wives, orphans, children, husbands, and brothers could be found in cramped camps around the country.

The IRC had been training health care and social workers to respond to rape survivors. However, they discovered that the most effective way to prevent gender-based violence was to involve the women in the solution. IRC conducted one-on-one interviews with women and children in the camps, assessing where the more dangerous areas were and what could be done to make them safer. Because of cramped quarters and food shortages, there were more opportunities for physical and sexual assault. Following the interviews, social workers went out into the community empowering women to come forward, seek justice and demand change. They also built a center for a group of local women who have committed to preventing gender-based violence in their community.

Still, more needs to be done in Liberia. When Refugees International was there last fall, we went looking for the text of the Rape Amendment Act that had passed in 2006 – a landmark victory for women’s groups in the country who seek justice for victims of sexual assault. However, few people had a copy of the law and groups regularly complained about its lack of enforcement. Progress in Liberia will not continue -- for women or men -- without substantially improving the nation’s justice system and giving it the resources and expertise necessary to carry out real reforms.

In order to encourage survivors to seek help and justice, it is absolutely necessary to have programs that they can depend on to provide the protective services and justice promised to them.

--Kimberly Compton

Afghanistan: Seeking Neutral Space

Yesterday, Laura Bush was in Afghanistan, hailing the progress made since 2001 in the reconstruction process. She spent nine hours total in country, flying from Kabul to Bamyan, where she stayed within the four walls of a New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team compound. From there, the media reported, she could see the empty spaces left by the destruction of the giant Buddhas in 2001, the world’s best-known reminder of the Taliban brutality.

Mrs. Bush could not see, however, that Afghanistan is still struggling, and its government is unable to meet the humanitarian needs of a large portion of its population. Despite the US-led efforts to convey the image of a successful nation-building exercise, almost seven years after the NATO intervention, Afghanistan remains fragmented and unstable. Its central government barely holds power over the capital, Kabul, let alone the rest of the country. In many areas of the south, the west, and the east --- and increasingly in the center and the north of the country --- the war continues, displacing thousands and causing hundreds of civilian casualties every month.

Millions of Afghan refugees have returned to this situation. Since 2002, the repatriation process has been ongoing, with five million Afghans leaving Pakistan and Iran to return to their devastated, often dangerous villages throughout the country. With Afghanistan “no longer at war,” neighboring countries of asylum increasingly desired to see the populations they hosted return home. As a result, many Afghans were deported from Iran and others were forced to leave the Pakistani camps they were born in. One woman in a refugee camp near Peshawar told me, “We might as well return now before the Pakistani government cuts our electricity and destroys our business.”

The UN is severely limited in what it can do to help Afghan returnees and internally displaced people. The UN mission to Afghanistan is first and foremost a political mission, designed to support the central government and the international community’s agenda. But in a context where the international community and the government it supports are parties to the conflict, where does impartial humanitarian work fit in? “It is very clear that I am here to win a war,” an aid worker told us in Kabul. “There is no space for humanitarianism in Afghanistan.”

It took the UN four years and considerable pressure from the media and civil society to finally declare a humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Millions of displaced people and tens of thousands of deaths later, the US government and its Iraqi counterpart were still talking about “development” and “reconstruction.” It is hard not to draw a parallel with Afghanistan, where for-profit development contractors and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams have billions of dollars at their disposal while humanitarian agencies are struggling to feed and house the neediest. It is also difficult not to compare the two conflicts when civilian casualties and displacement caused by NATO operations are systematically under-reported either for political reasons or for lack of access. Access can only be carved and negotiated if agencies engage in dialogue with all the parties to the conflict. In Afghanistan, like in Iraq, the UN as a whole has taken sides. And civilian victims pay for it.

It would of course be too easy to blame the UN for the role it plays in Afghanistan or in Iraq. The Security Council gave it a political mandate in both countries, and under the one UN framework, all agencies --- including the humanitarian ones --- operate under the same umbrella. One has to wonder, however, how the international community will recover from the loss of humanitarian values it has promoted by effectively making the UN a party to the conflict in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The damage is enormous and has even hurt independent, non-governmental agencies that are perceived as being more of the same by the local population. As for the United Nations, its reputation is shattered, some fear, for good.

Unfortunately for the UN and for Afghan civilians, Laura Bush did not take advantage of her visit to bring attention to the humanitarian challenges millions of returnees, displaced and ordinary civilians face. But perhaps next time, she will spend the night, visit a village or two, and decide to offer the American public a more balanced account of the reality in Afghanistan.

--Kristele Younes

Kristele Younes and Patrick Duplat are currently in Afghanistan assessing the needs of returning refugees and internally displaced people throughout the country.

United Nations: Security Council's Trip to Africa Highlights Needs

Since 2000, Security Council members have taken a trip each year to Africa—to visit UN peacekeeping missions, to meet with heads of state, and to otherwise get a “real picture” of what is happening on the ground. Members will often visit camps to talk to refugees, internally displaced people and members of aid agencies who are providing services.

The United Nations is central to global efforts to solve problems that challenge humanity and promote international peace and security. However, more of China’s allies have rotated onto the Security Council this year, making the historical divisions within the Security Council more pronounced than ever before and weakening its authority. This makes it more difficult for the UN to take concrete action, and there are few expectations that this year’s mission to Sudan, Chad, Nairobi and Djibouti (for Somalia issues), the DR Congo and Ivory Coast will lead to anything concrete.

Expectations are particularly low in the case of Sudan, as the Security Council has been impotent when it comes to Sudan for quite some time now. The Sudanese government continues to put bureaucratic impediments to the deployment of UNAMID, the joint UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur and refuses to fulfill its previous agreements. Some Council members had indicated that the mission would be an opportunity to reinvigorate the Security Council’s response to Sudan and reverse the Sudanese government’s blatant disregard for their authority. But after many discussions before their mission, it appears that the Security Council is headed to Sudan without a clear plan or strategy.

With the Security Council unable to act, it becomes all the more essential that individual governments increase their financial support for UNAMID and for NGOs and UN agencies providing assistance on the ground. It is also necessary to continue pressuring Sudan to fulfill its agreements, and to urge Sudan’s allies to increase pressure on Sudan.

Some Security Council members were determined to travel to Mogadishu, but because of insecurity, particularly in light of the recent attempt on President Yusef’s life, they will go to Nairobi and Djibouti to discuss Somalia. As Refugees International wrote in a letter to Council members, there are no easy answers for Somalia, but the status quo is unacceptable. The humanitarian crisis in Somalia is catastrophic. Somalis are routinely subject to massive human rights violations by all parties. Because of insecurity, very few agencies are providing assistance, so Somalis are left to fend for themselves. The insecurity in Somalia is a threat to international peace and security, but the Security Council has yet to come up with a response that is commensurate with the severity of the crisis. Still, Refugees International urges the Council to approach the use of an external military or peacekeeping force with extreme caution and to deliver humanitarian assistance in an impartial manner.

DRC is another area of concern for Refugees International. While there has been some progress since elections, largely due to the good work of MONUC, there is still a risk that all of this progress will be quickly reversed. There are still 1.1 million people displaced by violence throughout the east, and there are still armed groups attacking civilians. The Congolese national army is still one of the largest perpetrators of human rights violations. Rwanda is still deeply involved in the conflict in the east. Despite these threats, MONUC, one of the largest and most expensive peacekeeping operations in the world, will be under pressure to downsize. RI is hopeful that the Security Council will see the necessity to renew MONUC at its current size and with its current mandate in order to preserve the gains that have been made.

--Michelle Brown

President's Corner: Praying for Ted Kennedy

I first met Ted Kennedy on Oct. 26, 1963. His brother, President Kennedy, was at Amherst College, to receive an honorary degree and to break ground for the construction of the Robert Frost Library. Ted Kennedy arrived just as the convocation began. My job was to usher him to his seat.

Ted Kennedy had been elected to the Senate the year before when he was 30 years old. He looked as young as some of the students in the audience, but, of course, he was better dressed and escorted by a state policeman.

This flashback is on my mind as Sen. Kennedy undergoes surgery today to remove a malignant brain tumor.

In his speech at Amherst College that day President Kennedy said: “Privilege is here, and with privilege goes responsibility.” Ted Kennedy lives by that maxim. During his 46 years in the Senate, he has used his position of privilege and power to fight for the poor, the uninsured, the educationally disadvantaged, targets of racial or ethnic discrimination, immigrants, and refugees.

He was instrumental in passing the Refugee Act of 1980, which moved the country from an ad-hoc resettlement program to the current infrastructure—strong partnerships between the government and private resettlement agencies and clear annual goals.

In the last two years, he was worked tirelessly to expand resettlement opportunities for Iraqi refugees, particularly those who worked for the United States and had to flee the country to escape threats against their lives.

Last month, Albert R. Hunt wrote in his Bloomberg News commentary that “Edward M. Kennedy is the most gifted legislator, and one of the best politicians and most exuberant public servants I have know in my almost four decades of covering Washington and politics.”

I saw these qualities first hand last year as Sen. Kennedy worked to win passage of the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act. He approached the issue of protecting Iraqis with knowledge and passion. He assembled a strong bipartisan coalition, working with Republican colleagues and the White House to get an acceptable bill. He instructed his smart, legislatively savvy staff to put together a coalition of civil society agencies and other support groups. He met repeatedly with people who could push the bill forward, and he thanked everybody when the bill was passed.

On this day, when Senator Kennedy is undergoing brain surgery, I give thanks for all he has done for the country and pray for his full recovery. We need his energy, and we need his commitment to justice.

--Ken Bacon