Spotlight on Issues

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1. Colombian refugees in Panama remain trapped at the border

By Lucy Haley

 

Fifty years ago, borders were more fluid. People moved between the Darién province of Panama and the Chocó department of Colombia freely – especially during the Patron Saint’s celebrations in these communities. Mainly populated by people of African and indigenous descent, the two regions share strong cultural ties. Families span both sides of the border. However, all that changed when the armed conflict in Colombia began to ravage Chocó in the late 1990s. The December 1999 guerrilla takeover of Juradó, an isolated, jungle–enclosed community just minutes from the Panama–Colombia border, resulted in an influx of hundreds of people from Juradó to the coastal town of Jaqué, Panama. Similar events in other parts of Chocó swelled the refugee population in Darién.

Ten years later, the former residents of Chocó remain in legal limbo. A majority were denied refugee status by the Panamanian government; instead, they were given “Temporary Humanitarian Protection.” However, this provisional status has proven to be anything but temporary. Executive Decree No. 28 of 1998, reformed Panama’s refugee laws, creating the National Office for Attention to Refugees (“ONPAR”) and the category of “Temporary Humanitarian Pro-tection” (PTH). The law specifies that beneficiaries of PTH status will not enjoy the legal and social benefits afforded to refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention. It also states that Panamanian authorities will “arrange reception sites, due to the necessity of the security and well being of those who are protected under the Status…” and will also “indicate the limits of mobility for people who enter the country en masse” (Article 84).

According to the Executive Decree, PTH status was intended to last two months, while arrangements were made for the beneficiaries to be repatriated or resettled in a third country, although the law provides that the status may be extended depending on the magnitude of the situation. As of 2009, there are 829 people living under Temporary Humanitarian Protection (PTH) in the Darién region, 166 in Jaqué alone. The majority have been in Panama for almost ten years, confined to the tiny seaside towns they arrived in and forbidden from relocating or even travelling to other parts of the country in most cases. They are also ineligible to apply for a work permit, meaning that they are excluded from all formal employment.

This population continues to receive financial support from the United Nations, through the Darién vicariate. However, according to those who work for the vicariate, the UN is gradually reducing funding on the basis that after ten years in Panama, the refugees should be self-sufficient. Unfortunately, the restrictive policies of the Panamanian government towards those Colombians afforded Temporary Humanitarian Protection has made economic self-sufficiency virtually impossible for this population.

“A person doesn’t have a right to travel – it’s as though you are in prison” - Undocumented refugee, Puerto Piña.

The mobility of the Colombian refugee population in Jaqué is monitored by the National Migration Service and ONPAR, both of which have offices in the town, as well as the national police, who have their regional headquarters in that town. In general, individuals with temporary protected status may only leave the community for medical visits or to attend school. Permits have been granted for individuals to visit family members in other parts of the country for short periods of time, but these are rare and granted at the discretion of ONPAR. People with temporary humanitarian protection may not even visit other towns in the Darién region without permission, which, again, is discretionary. Naturally, people are frustrated with this situation. As one woman stated “We’ve been here ten years – they ought to give us a document so that we can travel. People shouldn’t have to beg the authorities every time they want to leave.”

Of course, over the years some people have managed to “escape” the receiving community for other parts of the country, generally Panama City. Many individuals have family members or know people who have left the community without permission to work, but these individuals live a risky existence. They can only work informally. Moreover, police in Panamá city are constantly on the lookout for foreigners of all types, but especially Colombians, stopping them on the street to request their identification. As one woman notes “When people go to Panama City without getting permission, the police tell them that their identification card is worth nothing; they put them in jail and then the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] comes to reclaim them and send them back to Jaqué.”

Mobility within the community is also limited. In the first few years after the influx, the refugees were essentially confined to their houses. They were not allowed to go into the forest to plant crops, or to the rivers or the ocean to fish, a situation that essentially excluded them from working at all. According to Avid Alvarado, a Jaqué resident and former employee of the Darién vicariate who is currently working with Jesuit Refugee Service as an outreach coordinator, leaving the community to work was forbidden because the police believed that the displaced population went to the forest to meet with guerrillas who were camped there.

People who left to go to the rivers or the forest to work during this time faced consequences at the hands of the police. As one woman noted “We plant rice, corn – at first it was hard, my husband and I had to go secretly to forest to plant corn. We went secretly, without permission. They took my brother to the police station for that, and after that he had to present himself at the police station three times a day. We Colombians like to work a lot – I can’t understand how they can arrest a person for working, for going to harvest plantains so we don’t have to buy them…” Another woman noted that “When [my husband] went into the forest to fish, the police caught him and took him to the police station. He had to pay a fine, about $20 or $30 to the corregidor [local government authority] and if you don’t pay it, they put you in jail.” Aside from fines and increased vigilance, displaced persons who ignored the prohibitions to plant crops or to fish outside of the community faced deportation. According to Avid Alvarado, many of those who were “voluntarily” returned to Colombia had been accused of leaving the community to meet with subversives.

The unwillingness on the part of the Panamanian government to allow these refugees to work to support themselves forced many people to return out of sheer economic necessity. As one young woman notes “Many people got tired of being here and they left, because if you don’t have permission to work or to go anywhere you don’t have any way to support yourself economically.” Unfortunately, some of those who chose to return were subsequently killed as a result of the instability that still exists in Juradó.

For the first few years, the refugee population was not allowed to leave their houses after 8p.m. at night. As one woman notes “They would arrest you for walking in the street. When they caught you out at night, they would fine you or put you to work in the cemetery. You would spend the night in jail – and if it was Friday night you’d have to stay there until Monday.” She added that police harassment, particularly of young men and women, was another factor in many peoples’ decision to return. “The majority of the young people at that time left because they couldn’t stand the pressure. They couldn’t leave, they couldn’t be out in the streets at night…”

Many human rights organizations perceived the numerous restrictions on the displaced community as a strategy conceived by the Panamanian government to pressure the refugees to leave “voluntarily.” Around 2004-2005, as a result of intervention on the part of these organizations, local authorities began to lift restrictions on the displaced population’s mobility, allowing them to go to the forest or the rivers to work. However, due to misinformation regarding their rights, many people believe that they are still not allowed to work in the forest, or that they must ask permission beforehand. In addition, although refugees are now allowed to leave their houses at night, if they do not carry their documents with them they are subject to spending the night in jail. According to the police, everyone in Jaqué, whether citizen or foreigner, is required to report to the police before they leave to go fishing in the ocean and when they return. If they fail to do so, their ability to go fishing on future occasions will be restricted. If they pass one of the police bases in the forest, they will also have to present their documents there.¹ As one woman states: “Adapting to the situation here was difficult, and I cried a lot – it’s very different here to my town…[in Juradó] you can go out at whatever time you want, there you are walk around freely, here the police make a note of when you leave, it isn’t like that there…”

Individuals in the process of applying for refugee status live an even more confined existence. Despite the fact that authorities insist that all of the Colombians in Darién now have documents and some form of status, Jesuit Refugee Service has encountered a number of people who lack any form of documentation. In addition, new refugees continue to arrive, albeit not in massive groups as before. In 2008, at least five people filed petitions through ONPAR in Jaqué alone.² In the nearby town of Puerto Piña, about a 10-minute boat ride from Jaqué, Jesuit Refugee Service is currently working with 19 families who are petitioning for refugee status, the majority of them members of the Emberá indigenous group. Most of them have been living in Panamá for four to seven years without any form of legal documentation.

Applying for refugee status in Panama can take up to two years. The families in Puerto Piña filed their petitions in August of 2008, and have still not received a decision. Worryingly, ONPAR does not provide applicants with any type of provisional documentation that would allow them to identify themselves to authorities as applicants for refugee status with a right to be present in the country. For this reason, undocumented refugees in Piña are afraid to travel to the larger and more populated town of Jaqué, as it contains a police base, as well as offices of the National Migration Service.

“There’s no work here” – PTH, Jaqué

Prior to the influx of refugees, Jaqué and Puerto Piña were declining seaside towns unprepared to meet the demands of the tremendous growth in population. By 1999, many residents of Jaqué had left their houses in search of work in Panama City. This situation was somewhat fortuitous for the new refugees, as there were many houses available to rent, although many were also in disrepair. According to one man “We were renting a house, and we had to repair the roof ourselves because when it rained we got wet, but we still had to pay the rent.”

Prior to the arrival of the UNHCR mission in Jaqué some months after the refugees began to arrive, people survived on any little money they had brought with them from Colombia, moved in with family or friends in the community, or relied on the kindness of strangers. Many also initially received assistance from the Hermanas Misioneras de Santa Teresita who work in the community of Jaqué. From 2000 to 2006, the UNHCR provided food and other basic necessities to the refugee population in Jaqué through the Darién vicariate, and assisted many people with rent payments until they had the resources to construct their own homes in the community.

For those who settled in Piña, life was even more difficult, as they had to travel every few months to Jaqué to receive food from the UNHCR. Colombians who settled in smaller towns outside of Jaqué, while enjoying greater freedom of movement, generally received much less support from the UNHCR and local NGOs.

Ten years after their arrival, however, the economic situation of the refugees in Jaqué and Piña is still dire, due to the poverty in those towns, and the inability of those with temporary protected status and undocumented refugees to travel outside of the community. Most people agree that the greatest difficulty they face is finding work. As one woman in Jaqué notes “Life here is hard, there’s very little money and it all goes right away on food – food here is very expensive. In Juradó things were different because they paid more, here they pay like eight dollars a day – that’s nothing.” Another stated “Work is hard to find here. The town is small and everyone is poor, you barely make enough to buy food.”

Lack of access to markets is a major problem in Jaqué and Piña, as the towns are only reachable to the rest of the country by air or water. Consequently, food and basic necessities are expensive. Without the ability to travel, it is difficult for refugees to find a market for their fish, crops, or crafts. Many men in the community make their living fishing, but they are dependent on the arrival of boats from Panama City to sell their catch. If the boats do not arrive no one will buy the fish, as demand within the community is limited. As the wife of one fisherman noted “We’re going through a hard time right now, because the boats from Panama haven’t come to buy fish in about a month.”

Setting up a small store or a café is out of the question, due to the inability to travel to purchase food or goods. For instance, one woman with temporary protected status worked in a kiosk but was forced to quit the job due to her inability to travel to Panama to buy goods. As she explains “Right now the question of not having papers is the most inconvenient thing because if you want to bring something to resell it here, you have to ask permission, and they don’t give it to you.” Even finding a plot of land for subsistence farming can be difficult; as one woman notes “All of this land is titled, it has owners – people say this is mine, that is his…”

The situation is more difficult for women than men. Many men with temporary protected status work as day laborers in construction or on small farms owned by others. This work is physically taxing and not traditionally considered women’s work. Many women commented that in Juradó they worked in restaurants or as domestics in the homes of wealthier families, but that there is little demand for this type of work in Juradó, where the majority of the population is poor. As one young mother and wife expressed “Here there is no work for women. (In Juradó) a woman isn’t dependent on a man, she can work washing peoples clothes, ironing, or work in a restaurant, women help each other out, but not here. Here a woman is dependent on a man.” This dependency is problematic, particularly in a town where one of the most commonly reported crimes is domestic violence. In 2007, the vicariate of Darién initiated a Committee Against Violence, which conducts workshops with children in the community in an effort to combat the problem. Jesuit Refugee Service is also considering a proposed project to address gender-based violence in Jaqué and Piña.

Single mothers in Jaqué are also in a difficult situation, many women turn to selling lottery tickets informally to earn money, a precarious occupation due to its illegality. For these reasons, women especially expressed a desire to leave the community for Panama City, where they can more easily find informal employment as nannies, maids, or street vendors.

The economic situation for displaced Colombians is no better in Piña. The naturally beautiful town boasts a five-star luxury resort, the Tropic Star Lodge, which employs a large number of community members (as well as some residents of Jaqué). Many of the undocumented refugees previously made their living selling traditional indigenous artwork – mainly wood sculptures of birds and animals – to tourists at the resort. However, according to individuals in the community, as of about two years ago the resort initiated a new policy preventing undocumented workers from working there or even selling their crafts on resort property. Without the means to travel, undocumented residents of Piña have found themselves without a market for their artwork. According to one single father of four, “Before I used to make crafts, but now they don’t accept foreigners in the Tropic. It’s sad – every human being has needs, everyone needs to eat but they are treating us refugees like animals, as though we don’t have rights.”

As in Jaqué, another problem faced by the community in Piña is the difficulty of obtaining land to cultivate. As one undocumented refugee noted “There is no plot here where you can grow crops because all of the land is the property of the owner of the hotel.”

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¹Interview with the head of the police force, Jaqué, July 2, 2009.
²Interview with ONPAR functionary in Jaqué, June 30, 2009.

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Lucy Haley recently completed her first year at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and has a B.S. in International Affairs from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. She volunteered with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Santo Domingo in 2005, and has worked with detained immigrants and individuals seeking asylum as an intern with the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition in Washington, D.C. Lucy hopes to practice public interest immigration or refugee law as a career.