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Dispatches No. 235
Up | 16 April 2008
REFUGEE NEWS BRIEFINGS
UPDATES ON JRS PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
REFUGEE NEWS BRIEFINGS
KENYA: SUSPENSION OF NEGOTIATIONS COULD DELAY IDP RETURNS
On 8 April, the opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), announced the suspension of talks on the formation of a coalition cabinet in line with an accord signed last February.
According to the ODM, the negotiations have been suspended until President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) recognises the 50-50 power-sharing arrangement.
Humanitarian agencies fear the suspension will delay the return of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) back to their homes.
The ODM announcement prompted its supporters to demonstrate, lighting bonfires in the streets of a Nairobi slum.
A prompt resolution of the country's political issues would mean speedy resettlement of the IDPs.
In a statement, the EU expressed concern over the latest development. It stated that the EU remained committed to support "meaningful power-sharing and to work with the new Kenyan government, once it is formed, to put Kenya back on the path to prosperity and stability".
More than 1,500 Kenyans died and an estimated 350,000 others were displaced between January and February following violence in parts of the country sparked by the disputed presidential elections held on 27 December 2007.
Since then, thousands have returned home while others have travelled to their "ancestral" homes. According to the Kenya inter-cluster team, about 202,470 IDPs remained in 235 camps as of April.
Former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, brokered the coalition agreement that created a government of national unity. This accord has since been incorporated into the constitution, but its implementation awaits the appointment of a cabinet.
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TANZANIA: NUMBER OF CAMP-BASED BURUNDIAN REFUGEES DROPS BELOW 200,000
On 1 April, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced that the number of Burundian refugees assisted to return home exceeded 300,000, while the numbers in camps fell below 200,000 for the first time in 15 years.
The total number of Burundian refugees who have returned home since 2002, including those who have spontaneously returned unassisted, topped 389,000.
This represents a significant acceleration in the number of refugees repatriating.
It was only 14 months ago that UNHCR announced that the refugee camp population in western Tanzania had fallen below 300,000. This figure fell from a peak in the early 1990s to approximately half a million during the height of the conflict in Burundi.
Since July last year, returning Burundian refugees have received cash grants from UNHCR and increased food rations from the UN World Food Programme
(WFP) to help them reintegrate upon arrival at home.
As the camp-based population decreases, UNHCR and the Tanzanian authorities have consolidated existing camps. In 2007, the number of camps was reduced from 11 to five and the process is expected to continue. Currently, 102,000 Burundian and 96,000 Congolese refugees remain in five camps in northwestern Tanzania.
In addition to the remaining camp-based refugees, UNHCR Tanzania and members of the international community are pursuing comprehensive solutions, including repatriation and naturalisation for 218,000 Burundian refugees who fled their country in 1972 and are living in three self-sufficient settlements.
In a separate issue on 2 April, hundreds of Burundian soldiers scheduled for demobilisation under a donor-recommended programme have refused to complete the process until various financial and selection concerns are answered. A total of 916 soldiers had been put on a list of those to be demobilised; including 739 privates, 169 non-commissioned officers and
18 officers.
Some reluctant soldiers said they would end their protest as soon as they received their demobilisation allowance (the equivalent of US$600) and due salary payments, and if they were taken directly home, rather than going to the demobilisation centre.
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UGANDA: GOVERNMENT TO FOCUS ON REBUILDING THE NORTH
On 11 April, elders from northern Uganda tried to meet with the rebel leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph, to salvage long-running peace talks after he delayed signing a deal to end one of Africa's longest wars.
The draft agreement between the LRA and the government appeared to be near collapse after Kony asked mediators to clarify parts of the text on 10 April and then fell out with his chief negotiator.
After failing to find Kony at an agreed spot near Ri-Kwangba on the remote and thickly wooded Sudan-Congo border on 10 April, the religious and cultural leaders stated that they will continue looking for him to explain the content of the proposed agreement.
The Ugandan government had announced it would concentrate on the reconstruction of the war-ravaged north of the country. If an agreement is reached, 30% of the US$606 million rehabilitation package will be provided by the government in the coming financial year that starts in July.
The agreement would formally end more than two decades of a war that has killed thousands of people and displaced over a million. However, the LRA have said they would not disarm until warrants issued against them by the International Criminal Court were suspended. During the lengthy on-off talks, the LRA often repeated its demand for the withdrawal of the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants before a final agreement could be signed.
In October 2005, the ICC unsealed arrest warrants against Kony and four of his top commanders for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
However, a significant shift in the war occurred in late 2006, when the LRA withdrew its forces from northern Uganda to the southern Sudanese state of Eastern Equatoria and then crossed the Nile, assembling in Garamba National Park in the DRC. The two parties have since signed another agreement setting out general principles on how to deal with accountability and reconciliation in northern Uganda.
The agreement provides that the Ugandan government will exercise jurisdiction over individuals who allegedly 'bear particular responsibility' for the most serious crimes committed during the conflict. It also provides 'alternative penalties' for serious crimes committed by the LRA.
With the withdrawal of the LRA to the DRC, security in northern Uganda has improved considerably. Some displacement-camp residents have moved to new settlement sites closer to their villages while others have returned to their homes.
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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: MILITIA SUSPENDS PARTICIPATION IN PEACE PROCESS
On 28 March, a shaky 2-month-old Congolese peace deal plagued by delays and daily ceasefire violations faced additional uncertainty when a major eastern militia suspended its participation in the process.
PARECO, a faction of the Mai Mai traditional warrior militia and one of the principal armed groups to sign the peace agreement on 23 January, announced it was withdrawing its delegates in a dispute over the composition of commissions established to monitor the peace process.
According to PARECO, special government decrees issued in late March establishing the commissions, favour renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). The group did not make demands for an eventual return to the process.
The UN and Western governments brokered the deal in the hope of establishing a lasting peace in the country's turbulent east, where rebel and militia violence has persisted long after the formal end of a
1998-2003 war in the central African state.
However, small scale clashes have continued despite the ceasefire, and few of the nearly 450,000 residents of the violence-ravaged North Kivu province displaced by fighting last year have returned home.
Last month, Nkunda suspended participation in the peace process over UN allegations that his Tutsi fighters killed at least 30 Hutu civilians while his rebel group was negotiating the ceasefire. He later returned to the talks following intense EU and US mediation.
The conflict has its roots in neighbouring Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.
The CNDP says the rebellion he has led since 2004 seeks to protect eastern Congo's ethnic Tutsi minority. According to PARECO, the militia was established to help government forces combat Nkunda's insurgents.
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AFRICA: SOUTH AFRICA REFUSES TO BAN CLUSTER MUNITIONS
On 1 April, South Africa was the only African country not to endorse a global ban on the use of all cluster munitions.
The continent's economic powerhouse and leading arms producer was the odd one out following a two-day meeting of 39 African countries, which endorsed the Livingstone Declaration calling for the eradication of all cluster munitions.
The weapons can be delivered by air or by ground based missile and artillery systems. The projectiles open in mid-air and scatter hundreds of bomblets, or submunitions, indiscriminately over areas as large as 40 football fields.
Numerous bomblets do not explode and present a major threat to civilian populations many years after deployment.
South Africa stated it would only endorse a partial ban on cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. It described cluster munitions as a valid weapon of war, provided they are targeted, according to laws of armed conflict.
Campaigners immediately criticised South Africa's position and said it was putting commercial interests above those of human life.
The Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions, hosted by the Norwegian government in February 2007, set in motion the Oslo Process calling for 'a new international instrument to ban cluster munitions that have unacceptable humanitarian consequences,' and in May 2008, diplomats will gather in Ireland's capital, Dublin, to negotiate the basis of a cluster munitions protocol.
The Livingstone Declaration forms part of the Oslo Process, and South Africa was cited by the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) - an international network of over 250 civil society organisations, including JRS, from 70 countries championing the ban of cluster munitions - as an obstacle to a united African front for the global elimination of cluster munitions.
Cluster bombs hindered development and their usage violated the human rights of the affected non-military personnel. The wide-area effect and indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions pose a danger to civilians at the time of their use and long after conflicts have ended.
It is estimated that up to 76 countries, 13 of them in Africa, still stockpile cluster munitions and 34 countries are known to have produced more than 210 types of cluster munitions, with 14 states having used the weapons in at least 30 countries and territories, according to the CMC.
In Africa, the usage of cluster munitions has been reported in Morocco, Chad, Angola, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
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THAILAND: 54 MIGRANTS SUFFOCATE IN FREEZER
On 9 April, the police announced the discovery of the bodies of 54 Burmese migrants found suffocated in a freezer on the back of a truck.
Alerted by a village chief in Suksumran, in the southern Thai province of Ranong, the police discovered 67 other Burmese migrants who were alive inside the freezer.
From inside the freezer, the survivors had allegedly tried to signal the driver, who eventually pulled over, discovered the bodies and fled. Some survivors were taken to a hospital in a nearby village; others were jailed.
Survivors informed police they sneaked into Ranong province from Burma's Victoria Point by fishing boat. They were then packed into a small container truck for a trip to Phuket. Ranong province, regarded as a major trading route between the two countries, is located about 467 kilometres south of Bangkok.
Thailand has long depended on cheap labour from neighbouring countries, including Burma, Cambodia and Laos. The Thai government allows only a small number of migrants from those countries, which has led to a number of smuggling cases.
There are about a million Burmese workers registered to work in Thailand, and an estimated additional million undocumented migrants in the country. Many Burmese migrants fled their country to escape armed conflicts between ethnic minority rebels and the army, and others for lack of economic opportunity in what is one of the poorest countries in Asia.
Many of those Burmese migrants who do make it to Thailand, many undocumented, end up being abused by their employers.
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HAITI: PRICE OF RICE PROMPTS RIOTS
On 15 April, riots over the price of rice broke out for the second time in a week throughout the country. There were no reports of injuries as a result of this latest round of heated confrontations, which in some places involved minor scuffles.
Lawmakers called on the government to announce immediately when the price cuts would reach the market to prevent further violence. The Senate fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis on 12 April after days of unrest.
Only three days earlier, the government had announced a deal to reduce the price by 15 percent. Five people have been confirmed dead since the nationwide riots started on 9 April when stone-throwing crowds battled UN peacekeepers and Haitian police. A local radio station reported two further deaths.
The population had expected rice prices to drop immediately, after the government announced on 12 April that an agreement was made with importers to cut the cost of a 50kg sack of rice from $51 to $43.
Older rice stocks were still being sold at higher prices, angering hungry Haitians and keeping alive simmering tensions over skyrocketing living costs in a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day and malnutrition is rampant.
International agencies have appealed for emergency funds to help countries, such as Haiti, hit by food shortages. Record oil prices, rising demand in Asia, the use of crops for biofuels and other factors have pushed up food prices across the globe. Prices of some staples, such as rice, beans and cooking oil, have doubled in the past few months.
According to JRS Haiti staff, tension reached boiling point in the northwestern city of Wanament. On 9 April, vehicle tires were burned in the streets throughout the city, obliging schools, banks and others to close temporarily to avoid acts of violence and robbery.
It appeared that the customs officials were the target of the population's anger.
They were accused of making it difficult to import food items from the Dominican Republic and of being corrupt. One businessman spoke of having his goods stolen by customs officials.
In recent times, the northwestern region has lost its capacity to develop agriculture. They have become desperate as the Haitian state does nothing to help the agricultural sector. Haitians prefer to work in neighbouring Dominican Republic rather than farm their small plots of land. Consequently, the region, like many others, is dependent on Dominican imports.
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HAITI: MILITARY AGGRESSION INTENSIFIES ON THE DOMINICAN BORDER
Corruption, violence and human rights violations in the Dominican border area have become a daily phenomenon since the arrival of CESFRONT a year ago, according to a statement from JRS Haiti on 29 March.
CESFRONT, a military regiment situated on the Dominican side of the border, was established to secure the border area and prevent the arrival of undocumented Haitians and contraband goods. It was also established to combat corruption in the area, particularly stemming from civil servants such as migration officials and customs officers.
According to JRS, nothing has changed. Haitians continued to be extorted.
CESFRONT officials frequently demand and accept bribes to allow migrants to cross the border. The human rights violations committed by CESFRONT vary from psychological violence (insults, humiliations, etc.) to physical violence including sexual abuse and murder.
Since the arrival of CESFRONT, the number of arbitrary arrests on the border has multiplied. The rights of Haitians are not respected. One Haitian testified that he was hit in the head by a member of the force.
A significant number of traders have had their goods destroyed or stolen by members of CESFRONT. On 24 March, a conflict between a CESFRONT member and a Haitian resulted in one death and another person injured.
JRS Haiti feels that human life is not being valued, and has accused the military of not respecting the human rights of Haitians. There is no comparison between the illegal activities such as smuggling goods to survive and the disproportionate response by CESFRONT, using live ammunition likely to kill smugglers.
One of the causes of this disproportionate response comes from the use of the military, whose rule is to defend the country, not to monitor the border -instead of using trained migration and customs officials. It is certainly necessary to control the border but never to shoot at unarmed citizens, regardless of their nationality.
JRS called on members of civil society on both sides of the Haitian-Dominican border to demonstrate against disproportionate use of force and against corruption of civil servants.
The Jesuit human rights organisation also urged the state to investigate the actions of the state, in particular the death of a pregnant Haitian women at the hands of a CESFRONT member last month.
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PANAMA: UN URGES THE STATE TO END HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
On 3 April, the Human Rights Committee highlighted issues in Panama of corruption, abuse of detainees, discrimination against women, violation of refugee rights as well as numerous difficulties faced by the indigenous community. On 24 and 25 March, the Committee, a body of independent experts, examined the third report produced by the Panamanian authorities since it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The Committee recognised and appreciated that, since the last review in 2004, the Panamanian government have implemented legislation which gives refugees who have resided for at least 10 years in the country the right to seek permanent residency. However, it urged the state to adopt legislation guaranteeing that refugees and others in need of protection could be deported to places where they could face serious human rights abuses.
The Committee called for measures to guarantee equality for women, particularly to combat discrimination in the labour market. Measures should, according to the Committee, guarantee respect for other rights, such as equality of opportunity in access to employment and equal salaries for the same work. The Committee also called for the implementation of the legislation against domestic violence and the protection of women.
The Committee was particularly worried about racism and the numerous difficulties faced by indigenous people in Panama. It demanded the Panamanian state guarantee access to the right to education and to adequate healthcare services. Moreover, it called on the authorities to consult indigenous communities before granting licences for the economic development of land on which these communities live.
All States parties are obliged to submit regular reports to the Committee on how the rights are being implemented. States must report initially one year after acceding to the Covenant and then whenever the Committee requests (usually every four years). The Committee examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to the State party in the form of 'concluding observations'.
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UPDATES ON JRS PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
ITALY: INCREASED SERVICE PROVISION TO REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
On 8 April, JRS Italy published its 2007 annual report providing an overview of the situation in which its beneficiaries - around 10,000 asylum seekers and refugees - lived last year. The JRS Italy annual report presented statistics and comments on each service provided. The most significant fact is that, in comparison with previous years, many more asylum seekers and refugees sought service from the organisation.
The JRS soup kitchen provided an average of 400 meals a day as opposed to 250 the previous year. The health centre treated a greater number of victims of torture than it had ever received. More than 200 asylum seekers and refugees sought medical and psychological assistance from JRS. Asylum seekers were also provided with medical-legal reports as part of their refugee applications.
The report provides a breakdown of the main nationalities of asylum applications in Italy last year, how many were recognised as refugees or provided with humanitarian protection and how many risked their lives travelling over land and sea to get to Europe.
According to the JRS Italy report, most applications in 2007 came from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. Significant numbers of applicants from the Horn of Africa were women and from Afghanistan were unaccompanied minors.
"The lack of asylum legislation, a codified reception system and structured integration pathways seriously hindered the work of JRS and other related agencies. It is just too difficult to be left to the goodwill of the voluntary sector", JRS Italy Information, Donatella Parisi, told Dispatches.
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