Text: DOS's Julia Taft on Refugee Policy
(U.S. interest lies in peace and end to suffering)Humanitarian issues belong in the midst of foreign policy debates about American leadership in the world community, according to Assistant Secretary of State Julia Taft. The head of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration spoke at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on November 18.
Taft called the forced displacement of people from their homes "the most compelling issue in our world." She cited massive human rights abuses, warfare and the absence of rule of law as some of the primary reasons behind the forced migration of millions of people around the world.
The Geneva Conventions form the basis of international humanitarian law, said Taft in a speech to the American Refugee Committee. Support for the conventions is further underpinned by the 188 national governments who are party to them and the 176 Red Cross and Red Crescent societies who help to form a strong moral base for governance around the world.
Expanding on the actual involvement of humanitarian representatives in a conflict, Taft said, "The toughest job of all is protecting civilians during conflict and protecting refugees while they are in asylum in other countries." She said strong laws provide the best protection for the persecuted.
A war-torn land must undergo re-establishment of economic, political and justice systems before refugees will find stability in their societies. Taft says achieving that end requires a sustained commitment from both the international community and local organizations.
"We can say that when our interests are clear and long-term, when we recognize that solutions do no appear overnight, and when we apply human and financial resources to the issue, we are successful," Taft said.
Following is the text of the Taft speech as prepared for delivery:
(begin text)
U.S. Department of State
Julia V. Taft, Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Rice University, Houston, TXNovember 18, 1999
Humanitarian Action on the Cusp of the Millennium
Thank you very much for that introduction. I am pleased to be here to speak to a wonderfully diverse group at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and especially to honor the American Refugee Committee, which has grown, in America's heartland, over the past 20 years to become one of the pre-eminent agencies working in the humanitarian field.
I would like to talk about refugees tonight. Those that know me will not be surprised, I almost always get around to talking about refugees at some point or other.
Who are Refugees? Let us first consider who refugees are. We ought to be very familiar with them--they are everywhere through history . Why, Adam and Eve were refugees in their own right...and those of us who descend from that religious tradition still await repatriation to the Garden of Eden after many millennia!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph fled from Bethlehem to Egypt where they received refuge for several years until it was safe to return to their home. Other religious figures, including Mohammed and Confucius, were also refugees.
Our country was founded in large part by refugees from religious tyranny or social injustice. And, in this century, Albert Einstein, Elie Wiesel, Henry Kissinger, General Shalikashvili, and our own Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright were all refugees. No doubt, each of you has met a refugee--they continue to enrich America as they have throughout our history.
Tonight, I want to talk about humanitarian action, and where we are headed as we cross the threshold into the new millennium. I want to put the issues that we face in the humanitarian field squarely into the foreign policy debates about American leadership and American action that we see on television, in the print media, and in Congress.
I want to convince you that looking at foreign affairs through the humanitarian lens provides a perspective that is missing in discussions that are grounded solely in political-military terms that define "national interest" only from a military defense point of view.
At the same time, I will suggest that some of the strategies that we have employed in our political-military foreign policy since World War II would be quite useful in addressing humanitarian issues in the upcoming century.
Where we Stand now
We are perched on the cusp of the new millennium, at the end of the bloodiest century of our current era. Forced displacement of people from their homes by conflict and persecution is, to me, the most compelling issue in our world.
Although the numbers of people forced to flee their homes have decreased in number in recent years, the circumstances of their plight are at levels in this decade that justify the strongest words in our human rights vocabulary: torture, atrocities, and genocide.
Causes of Forced Migration
The immediate cause of forced migration is massive human rights abuses, or warfare that has become increasingly inhumane--well outside the commonly accepted laws of war--and includes the deliberate targeting of civilians in terror campaigns that have used mutilation and rape as weapons. Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Kosovo are all examples of those nightmares.
Looking beneath those surface horrors to see what is fueling such abominable behavior, we see national leaders at war with their own people; the socially disaffected taking out their grievances on others; and ethnic groups being encouraged to blame others for any problems they face.
We have disintegrating states without the rule of law. One of the principles that we have fought for throughout our history has been the ability of the common citizen to have confidence that his or her grievance can be heard in a court. Furthermore, that the justice in that court is blind--blind to skin color, blind to ethnic origin, blind to gender, and blind to education level. The absence of the rule of law removes the trust of common people in their societies and governments.
In some cases, the predominant fuel of intolerance is discrimination in access to resources by different religious or ethnic groups. Our own civil rights movement set us solidly on the path of equal opportunity--every family deserves to hope that by working hard, they can improve their lot in life...that their children can prosper. That is not a hope shared by all the people of the world. When discrimination becomes apartheid, hatred's flames cause people to flee their homes.
In too many societies, women are unable to realize their full potential. Girls are not educated. Husbands and wives do not know enough about their own reproductive health to know how to control the number and spacing of their children. Women cannot function as equals to men in the economy, or the legal system, or in the political arena. Countries that want to develop their economies need to empower women to for the future, not only of their families, but of society.
International Humanitarian Architecture
At the entrance to the International Red Cross Museum in Geneva hang larger-than-life quotations from the world's major religions, which are the source of the moral underpinning for the Geneva Conventions. Those conventions comprise the bulk of the body of international humanitarian law. Retired General Shalikashvili and I led the U.S. delegation to the 23rd quadrennial International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement earlier this month. The strength of that movement, with 188 governments who are party to the convention, and 176 national Red Cross or Red Crescent societies, is enormously powerful because of its well-grounded, global, moral base that straddles governments and civil society. In fact, most of the principles of humanitarianism are very much like the old Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
There is a humanitarian architecture built on that base that includes not only the Red Cross movement, but several agencies of the United Nations, for example, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Program, and UNICEF. The members states of the UN each have roles to play as well--whether as refugee-hosting states or donor nations to help others host refugees. Non-governmental organizations, such as the American Refugee Committee, are the part of the civil society that keeps humanitarian assistance, protection, and solutions going.
You are all familiar with the touching photographs of our American armed forces doing humanitarian work. Many of those photos were first taken because of the individual courage of then Secretary of State Jim Baker. In April 1991, when he personally witnessed the tragedy of Iraqi Kurds stranded on mountainsides, Secretary Baker phoned the President (Bush) and within days, humanitarian assistance began to be delivered by U.S. troops.
But we must remember that most humanitarian emergencies do not involve any military forces. The humanitarian architecture I have described is international and civilian. If a military force gets involved, it needs to work in support of that international system, which, in turn, must cooperate. No one wants to turn humanitarian action over to militaries--but we all recognize that there will continue to be times when military involvement will be appropriate, and we need to plan better for those contingencies.
Successes of Humanitarians
Since I first became involved in our responses to forced migrations 25 years ago, we have made some major gains. There are many areas in which the U.S. government has been out in front, with offices throughout the world shaping the care and protection refugees receive.
First, we have learned the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. If that sounds obvious, consider the complexity of the humanitarian architecture involved in such an endeavor. Preparedness requires training of staff, prepositioning of necessary supplies, and establishing response protocols. We are renewing our efforts to incorporate the military in that preparation.
Second, we have learned how to stem the death rate during the initial stages of a mass influx of people. One of the underreported facts of the recent outflow from Kosovo, despite its having caught all of us humanitarians more than somewhat off guard, was that the mortality rate in the camps in The Former Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.M.) and Albania never was out of control, contrary to what has often happened in other situations. We are also paying attention to those elements of a population's health that may not affect the death rate, but which are crucial to long-term recovery from brutality and their preparation for long-term peace. I refer to broad-based mental health efforts, especially for children, and to attention to victims of violence, especially survivors of sexual violence.
Third, we have seen, in this final decade of the millennium, a permanent solution to end to millions of refugees' time in asylum. That is precisely what every refugee longs for--to be able to return to their homes, or the offer of a new home in the United States or another country. Millions of Mozambicans, Afghans, Cambodians, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Bosnians, Malians, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Rwandans, and Liberians have headed home in this decade. Over 500,000 others have been resettled in the United States and other countries.
The American Refugee Committee has played a large role in these successes over its 20-year history. Although Neal Ball founded ARC as a result of his sponsorship of a refugee from Laos resettling in the United States, ARC started out as a primary health care provider to Cambodian refugees in Thailand. Over two decades, ARC has sent over 1,000 volunteers to provide basic health care in programs that have grown to cover Africa and the Balkans, and which have broadened in span of activity from health care to community development and education.
What is the Job we Face? Protection
The toughest job of all is protecting civilians during conflict, and protecting refugees while they are in asylum in other countries. To improve our record in protection, we need to redouble our efforts to move towards universal respect for the laws of armed conflict, to reducing the causes of wars, and to helping those most in need of our help.
Protection is improved through systems of accountability. Perpetrators of war crimes must be brought to justice. Refugees need to have the confidence that they, too, will obtain justice if they have protection problems that require a legal remedy. In most cases, the refugee hosting country needs to provide civilian policing of refugee camps, ensure the refugee camps are sited away from borders, and separate refugees from those who do not qualify for protection. In some, the international community needs to commit resources to support a variety of options such as multinational civilian police, training programs for host country police and for refugees themselves, or the employment of UN-authorized multinational forces or peacekeepers.
Protection for refugees and asylum-seekers in particular, is best supported with good laws in place to provide the space necessary for people fleeing persecution to seek and enjoy asylum. We have to stand up for our nation's heritage as stalwart advocates of protectors of the persecuted.
One of our toughest new challenges is that we must protect humanitarian workers, such as the employees of the American Refugee Committee working overseas. Attacks on humanitarians have become almost commonplace, and can only be fully eliminated when there is a combination of greater respect for their neutrality, and greater accountability for the criminals who attack them.
What is the Job we face? Establishing Sustainable Peace.
Refugee situations normally end when refugees believe they can return home safely and pick up their lives. The path from peace accord to sustainable peace is long and arduous. It requires re-establishment of economic, political, and justice systems to cement the peace. This is not a weekend task!
Building sustainable peace means developing a strategy that draws on the strengths of everyone toward a common goal. It is a job that requires our involvement and support over the long haul. It requires support that builds on the strength of local groups rather than on the efficiency of international agencies.
Building peace means ensuring that every action taken supports eventual reconciliation--but we cannot leap prematurely to reconciliation. First, newborn babies in Kosovo have to be born into an atmosphere of respect for all persons as human beings with basic rights, rather than one of revenge and hatred. When groups can tolerate each other, then they can take the next step of reconciliation.
One of the best means of establishing sustainable peace is to concentrate on supporting women in post-conflict. Many women emerge from war heading households for the first time, and many have suffered atrocities and personal violence, such as rape. Legal assistance to establish inheritance to property may be needed by some; further education so that the family can be supported may also be required. In 1996, President Clinton announced the first Women's Initiative sponsored by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which was support to Bosnian women in the wake of the Dayton peace accords, an effort that has been evaluated independently as successful and valuable. We have supported Women's Initiatives in Rwanda, and most recently, in Kosovo, to help women recover from war and get on the path to peace.
What are the Obstacles?
In all these efforts, there are obstacles standing in our way. Some we do not control, such as, the desire of people to live in peace. Others, however, we do control, and we need to pay close attention and have the staying power to maintain our support for. Primary among them is the resources available to apply to sustainable peace support.
Humanitarian assistance in general has very strong bipartisan support in the USA. However, in order to complete the job we face in post-conflict, we need other resources, too, for security at home, for justice systems, and for economic recovery. For example, in Sierra Leone, a lack of resources to help provide security through a regional force has kept the humanitarian community, and the relief it could bring, out of the region -- it is simply not safe. In Rwanda, the absence of resources to re-establish a justice system that was virtually wiped out during the 1994 genocide has delayed trials and kept thousands of people in jail even now, five years later.
Lessons Learned
We need to attack these intertwined foreign policy issues as the complex problems they are. We have improved our response to humanitarian crises, but we have not figured out how to take action to reduce the number or scope of the crises themselves. When we analyze our foreign policy successes of the post-World War II era, however, we see that where we applied ourselves, we avoided prolonged conflict. What lessons can we draw for humanitarian action by looking at our foreign policy successes?
Looking at the foreign policy side, we can say that when our interests are clear and long-term, when we recognize that solutions do not appear overnight, and when we apply human and financial resources to the issue, we are successful. The success of NATO in establishing peace in Europe for 50 years, the absence of war in Korea for over 45 years, the steady, if sometimes slow progress in the Middle East, and our refusal to give up on the abolition of apartheid in South Africa -- all are examples of a diplomatic strategy that worked because we had a long-term goal in sight and were not afraid to apply resources to achieve it.
We need to apply that same steady guiding hand to today's conflicts that spawn humanitarian disasters. We need to take the time to do things right when conflicts are ended. We need to ensure that we do not leave unattended glowing embers that can flame up into warfare. We must resolve conflicts and establish sustainable peace. It's not just "get with the program", but even more important, "stick with the program".
We must use the strength that we developed to establish sustainable peace after the second World War to establish a staying power that keeps us engaged, alert, and active to prevent, resolve, and help nations recover from conflicts today. Our national military power and might could preclude any of these wars from threatening the physical borders of our country. But even absent a physical threat to the United States, we have a significant national interest in seeing the rest of the world at peace, and stopping the suffering of millions of people who live in perpetual war zones. These conflicts and their roots are complex and deep, and require staying power to overcome.
We must develop long-term strategies for helping societies climb out of the abyss of conflict and hatred and plant themselves on a path to peace, tolerance, and prosperity. We have to have the staying power to stick with the program for the time necessary. Essential to that is the long-term availability of resources--both human and for programs. As our world grows ever smaller, the conflicts that were out of our sight and mind 20 years ago are now graphically laid before us. They drive us to take diplomatic action to try to prevent such conflicts, to be prepared on the humanitarian part to respond quickly, effectively, and appropriately, and to stay the course to provide a full recovery from war and permit societies to attain their full development potential. The reward is worth the effort, for as President Clinton said to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August, "Even the costliest peace is cheaper than the cheapest war."
Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss humanitarian issues in the context of broader foreign policy successes of the last half-century. I congratulate the American Refugee Committee on 20 years of accomplishment, and hope to be here to congratulate you on many more anniversaries.
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(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)
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