LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Sadako Ogata : U.N.’s Commissioner for Refugees Faces a World Filled With Upheaval

In the months since assuming her post as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata has faced one crisis after another. Recently, the bitter ethnic fighting in the former Yugoslavia has created Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the end of World War II--displacing 2.2 million people. “The policy of establishing ethnically pure zones--’ethnic cleansing,’ as it has been referred to--lies at the heart of this conflict,” Ogata said in a July 29 address to an emergency meeting of European nations. “Displacement seems to be the goal, not just the result of the war, with the motive being clearly ethnic relocation.” Another meeting is planned for this week.

The challenge for the UNHCR is to maintain an international humanitarian presence in the troubled areas without becoming a de facto accomplice to the ethnic cleansing policy. In July, for example, the agency evacuated nearly 8,000 from one town, after it became clear their lives were endangered. But Ogata insists that the UNHCR’s role is to help refugees, not create them.

Meanwhile, political upheavals in Somalia and Ethiopia have sent refugees adrift in the Horn of Africa. Thousands of Burmese Muslims have sought refuge in Bangladesh from a repressive military regime. They are among the 17 million refugees under the care of the diminutive high commissioner.

Ogata, 64, adds a dimension to Japan’s efforts to gain respect abroad. The former college professor, who is fluent in English, has a high profile, visiting 33 countries in her first year. She raised most of her agency’s $900-million budget in 1991 from contributions. In addition, her role has put the spotlight on Japan’s 10,000-person resettlement quota, one of the smallest in the industrialized world.

Ogata’s gray hair and pearls conjure up an image of a Japanese Barbara Bush. But similarities end there. Unlike the First Lady, who never finished college, Ogata has an M.A. in international relations from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.

She is disarmingly direct, unusual for a Japanese official. “I’ve always spoken rather directly. That’s my style of talking and also of approaching problems. I’m a very pragmatic person.” That pragmatism should serve her well as the UNHCR kicks off a decade of voluntary repatriation. With the Cold War ended, opportunities for refugees to return home to Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, South Africa, Sudan and Angola are greater than ever.

Ogata works in Geneva. Back in Tokyo are her son, a producer of avant-garde videos; a banker daughter; husband Shinjuro, a former deputy director of the Bank of Japan, and her Shetland sheep dog, Christopher. Ogata is perhaps the most international woman in Japan today. She defies the old Japanese saying--that a nail that sticks up gets pounded down. Of her direct style, she says, “When you’re very young and aggressive, it might hurt a bit it. But by my age,” she laughs, “I am what I am, and people pretty much accept me.”

Question: On Aug. 13, the UNHCR dispatched a humanitarian convoy to the northern Bosnian town of Banja Luka, an area threatened by a systematic campaign of terror. Has that helped stabilize the situation?

Answer: Over time, things have worsened in very deplorable ways. This is a situation where there are four towns in the surrounding area where the Muslim populations are being forced out. I think our presence helps stabilize the situation but I cannot say we can prevent this from happening. One sad fact in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina is the “ethnic cleansing” . . . It is not easy for a handful of refugee workers to change the situation. That’s why we would like to invite as much international presence as possible.

The people in villages in the area of Banja Luka have been terrorized. Whether we can stop it, I don’t know. But our presence gives the people some encouragement because they feel the world at least is watching.

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Q: Could the UNHCR organize convoys to guarantee Muslims safe passage?

A: We are refusing to be viewed as something of a travel agency to implement ethnic cleansing. But we still have to assist the victims. Unless we get much more support from the international community and commitment to protection of the people on the ground to help us do the work, we will be fighting something of a losing battle. We have to appeal to newspapers, human-rights organizations and others. It is important that the international community focus on the situation developing there and not let this expulsion happen so readily. We do not have the staff necessary to do the expulsion watch on our own. We need support.

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Q: Meanwhile, are refugee aid efforts looking more encouraging in Somalia?

A: The Somali crisis has been going on over the last few years, and it has gone from bad to worse. Now there is an international effort to create a land bridge to rural areas where people are under siege. Our effort has been concentrated on Somali refugees--on the great numbers within Somalia, some of whom have moved into Kenya. There are now about 400,000 refugees in Kenya, mostly from Somalia, some from Ethiopia. We have added camps in northern Kenya and are using them as a base to reach across the border into Somalia.

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Q: Are we creating two classes of refugees? One European, the other non-European?

A: I think two classes is not exactly correct. The refugee crisis has become very complex. On the one hand we have refugees going home in Cambodia and Afghanistan. On the other hand, we have refugees in Africa where the crisis is war and also poverty. Also, Europe has been free of a refugee crisis for 32 years, when the last refugee camp was closed. For a long time, the issue of refugee emergencies occurred only in countries in the South, the poorer nations. What’s happening now is an important reminder that a refugee emergency can happen anywhere in the world.

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Q: Hong Kong is sending boat people back to Vietnam. Do you support forced repatriation?

A. We do not in principle force people back. There are two ways of going out of Vietnam. One is the orderly departure program, which is an immigration program. The other route out is being recognized as a refugee escaping political persecution, repression and so on. Those recognized as refugees are sent to be resettled in the United States and other places. But a large number of people have been screened out. They are not refugees. The reason for their exodus is judged to be economic. And these screening procedures--I’m not saying the procedure is perfect or anything like that--but at least this was internationally developed. We are part of the appeals procedure . . . .

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Q: Back in February, you expressed some unhappiness with the U.S. repatriation of Haitian refugees. Do you think the repatriation of Haitian refugees violates America’s international commitments?

A: Yes. It greatly undermines U.S. leadership and commitments.

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Q: What about in Europe, with Eastern European refugees? Is the number rising just as Western countries are rethinking some of their humanitarian gestures?

A: It was easier when all the refugees came from the communist countries during the Cold War. You received them, the humanitarian principle and the reality of world politics coincided. That is no longer there. So it’s a real test of humanitarianism now. The xenophobic tendency does worry me a great deal. . . .

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Q: So that complicates your task?

A: What complicates my task is this mixture of people: Those who are refugees and those who come for various other reasons, and how do you distinguish between them? The European countries are still committed to refugee protection so they try to, they are, determining the status. But the pressure on the status-determining procedures is very heavy because many countries have enormous backlogs.

So, on the one hand we tried to devise means of expediting these examining procedures. But I think the real answer would depend on how much the economic needs of these migrant-producing countries are going to be met. This is one reason why we’re having a kind of a meeting with the ILO (International Labor Organization), because it’s really a question of labor, job opportunities . . . . What kind of economic measures can be exerted by the international community to ease this pressure?

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Q: Now the issue of refugees is getting mixed up with the immigration issue. How do you distinguish between the two?

A. In the United States you have immigration windows and refugee windows. Then you have the Western European countries--there are no immigration windows; everything comes under the refugee window. Hence, I hear some European politicians saying there’s a need for immigration, though to put that through politically is probably difficult.

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Q: What has been your biggest frustration?

A. We have constant frustration--not being able to be on top of things all the time. This is a reality of the world. I mean the Horn of Africa is frustrating when you think it’s improved in one place, and a few weeks later conditions degenerate--and every time you know that it’s the fate of human beings that is at stake.

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Q: Do you have a sense that we are a global TV village and that has created compassion fatigue?

A: No. I think it makes compassion very spotty. Whether it’s on the top of the news, there is compassion on X spot. The moment that has dropped, the compassion leaves and need goes to Y. If neither X nor Y is covered, compassion disappears. So it’s a bit of an artificially created compassion that we have to cope with. And yet I would like to have X and Y still.

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Q: Do you think Japan can do more on the refugee front?

A: I’ve had this question a lot. Japan is doing pretty well. I think Japan was not involved in refugees until 1979, because it was a country that was slowly trying to recover, reconstruct. It was trying to rebuild itself after the war. And then what kind of large refugee crisis took place? The one in China in ‘49, when we were really a devastated country, not in a position to help. And until the ’79 Indochina crisis, there was really no major crisis in Asia that required Japan do something about it. And it was ’79 when there was a lot of pressure. This was the first time we really became involved. And at that time it was the first time we had a quota where we settled at 500.

I remember this because I was asked by the government to head a team of various official NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to go and survey the Indochina refugees . . . . There was no Japanese NGO dedicated to refugees. And now I find in Cambodia several Japanese NGOs.

. . . As far as financing is concerned, Japan is second to America. It’s not a bad record . . . . And now the top quota is 10,000. This is about pragmatism. Whenever the resettlement figure reaches close to the quota, the quota goes up.

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Q: You have said that you find that Japan is looking outward now at a time where most Western countries are looking inward. What does that mean?

A: I think the public debate in Japan is how much can we contribute to international causes. There is even an attempt to have an additional tax for international assistance . . . . Japan added a tax increase to finance the Gulf operation. And this was accepted. Isn’t that quite different from what you find in your country? I think it’s real interesting Japan tried.

Japan’s economic potential has grown. Distribution of wealth is quite widely spread. And so now is the time to do all this. . . . The United States had global power at the end of the war. Because the others were so poor, you took up an enormous international responsibility. Now you’re trying to meet the internal needs of strengthening your position.

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Q: You’re trying to anticipate conflicts?

A: . . . A refugee was supposed to be someone who crossed the border. . . . We would protect the refugee because he no longer had a country. The international community no longer accepts just having a therapeutic approach to refugee out-flows because the numbers are so great. So the question is how much can you help them inside their own country?

The Yugoslavia case is a very important experiment because we are protecting Yugoslavs . . . who cross the border into Hungary. . . . That would have been the tradition. But on top of that we are trying to help them within their country.

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Q: Your biggest challenges are yet to come?

A: I think so. The world is in transition, which means instability. Whenever there is instability, the displacement of people comes.