And From the Fourth World : Refugees Fleeing Violence Find Few Signs of Welcome

There are at least 10 million refugees scattered around the world today. They are in many senses a Fourth World, far less able to speak for themselves than the Third World, from which the vast mass of them come and in which they nearly all linger.

One of their problems is that classical definitions no longer fit too well. Refugees are defined by the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as individuals fleeing well-founded fear of persecution. Today people often flee in large groups, and they flee violence as well as persecution. The question is whether or not they, too, should be accorded refugee status.

The principal international responsibility for refugees lies with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), based in Geneva. In recent years this organization has grown considerably to meet unhappy demands; it has also become a flabby, badly run bureaucracy, unable to keep pace with the change in refugee movements. But in 1986 a new high commissioner was appointed and things are now beginning to alter. Among the most pressing crises he faces is the increasing reluctance of American and European governments to continue to grant asylum to those arriving at their ports in search of it.

Many refugees, about 70,000 last year, can still get to the United States. But it is much easier for those fleeing communist countries--59,000 of the 1985 places were reserved for people from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Indochina. Others now risk punishment by the Reagan Administration if they land on Liberty’s shores.

Since May, 1980, about 1,800 Cuban boat people have been held in a U.S. federal prison. Some but by no means all have records of crime or mental instability. They have been locked up because the United States considers they have no right to asylum, and Cuba will not take them back.

Between 1971 and 1981, about 40,000 Haitians fled by boat from the Duvalier regime to the United States. Until 1981, the Immigration and Naturalization Service allowed them to be released pending hearings. But since then the Reagan Administration has either intercepted them on the high seas and taken them back to Haiti, or locked them up.

Most refugees or asylum seekers in the United States come from Central America, where more and more people have been displaced by conflict or political persecution. The Reagan Administration has not dealt kindly with them. More than 1 million people have fled El Salvador and Guatemala. But in 1984 only 93 Salvadorans--2% of those seeking asylum--were admitted to the United States. No Guatemalans were allowed. The government argues that Latino asylum seekers are in fact “economic migrants” and that poverty, political oppression and civil unrest are not legal grounds for granting asylum.

A similar crisis and similar restrictions have developed in Europe. Last year about 165,000 people came to Europe seeking asylum or refugee status--as opposed to fewer than 20,000 10 years before. The largest number, almost 74,000, came to West Germany (see related story by Paul L. Montgomery on Page 2). After that came France and Sweden.

European governments have reacted in disparate ways, trying to close borders, imposing visa requirements, applying sanctions against airlines and carriers, locking up asylum-seekers at ports of entry, willfully creating “orbit cases,” as they are known, by refusing entry and sending refugees back to intermediate points where they are then refused re-entry.

Two of the largest groups now seeking asylum in Europe are Tamils and Iranians. Since the beginning of civil strife in Sri Lanka in 1983, more than 125,000 Tamils have fled to India; more than 50,000 have made it to Europe. Most are in West Germany. The Germans are not pleased.

Iranians are the other large group of asylum seekers in Europe. About 19,000 arrived in 1985, more than half in Germany. About 1,000 came to Britain, many of them young males seeking to avoid the Iran-Iraq War. Their requests to stay in order not to be martyred by the ayatollah are usually met by Home Office letters saying that avoidance of military service is not grounds for asylum. But so far none has been sent back to Khomeini’s embrace, save a few who have broken the law here. On one occasion, Britain sent one young Iranian back to Pakistan, whence he came, under the escort of two British policemen. The Pakistanis put the Iranian on the next plane back to London and arrested the policemen.

The man at UNHCR who now has to try to sort out this mess is Jean Pierre Hocke, a Swiss who was previously the operations director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a formidably efficient organization. Hocke, who has massive operational experience, especially in Africa (his first love) and Southeast Asia, is at present turning the office upside down and attempting to redefine its relationship with both governments and refugees themselves. The crucial difference between him and his predecessor is that Hocke believes UNHCR must get involved in politics and dare to tackle the “root causes” of people’s flight.

To many humanitarian officials and politicians this is anathema. They just want humanitarian organizations to deliver aid to the victims and not question the causes. That has certainly been the UNHCR way till now. But Hocke insists that aid often merely assuages consciences and does nothing to help the people to whom it is nominally directed. Too often we think that a little charity will keep human misery 10,000 miles away. And, says Hocke, governments often reckon that “because humanitarian interventions will take care of the victims, the political situation can be allowed to degenerate.”

On the question of European asylum-seekers, Hocke aims to persuade European governments to act in unison with each other and with UNHCR, instead of all leaping to unilateral restrictions. At a meeting at the end of March in The Hague, he suggested to European governments that UNHCR would be willing to cooperate in determining which Tamils arrived here had no real reason to fear going back to Sri Lanka.

The Iranians are more difficult because the regime from which they fled is so intractable. But UNHCR has proposed to try to determine just which of them are members of particular ethnic groups, religious minorities or political parties that would certainly qualify for refugee status. Others would be “of concern” to UNHCR. Still others, who came via Pakistan or Turkey, might return there.

None of this provides simple solutions. But the Europeans have begun to listen to Hocke in a way they never listed to his predecessor. The Swiss are not now sending Tamils back and Britain has agreed to allow about 3,000 Tamils who arrived before the end of May, 1985, to stay. But Britain is pushing at those few Tamils who have managed, somehow, to get here since then. Some have become orbit cases; one lot, shuttled back and forth to Jamaica, eventually became so sick they had to be allowed to land.

What else is to be done? Well, the commissioner could seek to broaden his mandate on an ad hoc basis. In the recent past both El Salvador and Nicaragua have asked for his advice and assistance about persons displaced within their borders. The commissioner would then have to confront the detention policies of the Reagan Administration. Internal UNHCR memoranda have frequently criticized such policies as being in breach of U.S. and international law; but until now UNHCR has not intervened on a high level with its principal donor. Since Hocke was seen by some governments (wrongly, in my view) as too close to the United States, this should be invigorating.

A second urgent task is to extend his protection to the quarter-million Cambodians who for six years have been scandalously denied anyone’s protection along the Thai-Cambodian border. Hocke has good relations with both Thailand and Vietnam, so he has a chance. No one else has even tried, basically because for all the governments concerned the refugees are a politically and militarily convenient buffer.

Finally, how to decide who shall be judged a “refugee” and who an economic or even political “migrant” today? Obviously there are real distinctions and two possibilities are being discussed. The first is to accept that the 1951 convention will never be bettered, enforce it strictly and thus give extensive rights, including resettlement, to a few “real” refugees. At the same time UNHCR would have to be empowered to protect many more people in their region--for example, Tamils in India, Kurds in Iran. It would need very strong backing from all governments. But how could a government like Iran’s be induced to do something it does not want to do?

An alternative is to broaden the 1951 convention to include as refugees people fleeing conflict--the language of the Organization of African Unity does just this. But if the numbers are increased, it is likely that rights will be diminished. Visas will become more restrictive, to stop anyone getting a foot in the airport door.

Each of these ideas is open to serious objections. But it is worth remembering the enormous contribution that refugees have made to most societies, and that the idea of international protection for them grew out of Europe. After the World War I, Fridtjof Nansen, the arctic explorer, was given the task of rescuing refugees from Russia. He did superbly and coined the extraordinary slogan, “To love one’s neighbor is Realpolitik .” Now people have to decide how far the neighborhood stretches.