*EPF111 05/24/2004
America Maintains Unwavering Support for Refugees
(Interview with PRM Assistant Secretary Dewey) (1880)

By Vicki Silverman
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- More than 1 million Sudanese citizens have fled their homes in Sudan's western Darfur province, the targets and victims of Sudanese raiders. Over 100,000 have fled across the border to Chad. U.S. government agencies are coordinating with the U. N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to deliver humanitarian relief. U.S. diplomats are working in tandem with the international community to encourage the government of Sudan to take action to end the state of lawlessness in Darfur and ensure the eventual safe return of these refugees.

As intensive diplomatic efforts evolve, Assistant Secretary Arthur E. Dewey, head of the State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), carefully monitors developments -- reviewing contingencies for emergency action, calculating tonnages of food in the aid pipeline, coordinating within the U.S. government and with the international community -- and works to ensure that these Sudanese will not face the long-term dislocation endured by the world's 12 million other refugees.

Dewey's experience in refugee issues spans decades. He has been involved in refugee relief operations related to the Nigerian civil war in the 1970s, the flight of the Vietnamese boat people, genocide in Rwanda, conflict in the Balkans, and the current repatriation of Afghan refugees.

In a recent interview with the Washington File, Dewey discussed the role his bureau plays in sustaining international refugee relief efforts. He underscored U.S. collaboration with the UNHCR in facing each new challenge, as well as the unwavering financial contribution the United States makes toward helping others re-establish their lives.

PRM is a bureau of 128 professionals, serving in Washington and overseas. It is responsible for the application of more than $800 million dollars to international relief operations implemented by UNHCR, other international organizations and nongovernmental organizations. PRM's budget is one of the largest within the Department of State, reflecting the U.S. position as the largest contributor to UNHCR. The United States is also the predominate destination of refugees for whom permanent resettlement outside their homeland is the only viable alternative.

"Work within PRM offers one of greatest opportunities, not just to manage money and do the planning, programming and budgeting, but to see how that money is applied and to leverage that money with the United Nations and with other donors on behalf of the victims," he explained.

Dewey sees the U.S. commitment as absolutely essential to meeting the long-term needs of refugees whose plight may have faded from the media spotlight. "The United States gives 25 percent -- reliably, predictably -- to refugee programs worldwide. The international organizations -- particularly the UNHCR -- can count on 25 percent from the U.S. and the U.S. can count on the UNHCR raising 75 percent from the rest of the donor community," he said.

"It's a predictability that is absolutely essential for the refugees. They have to be sure their food pipelines don't break down," he said. "Such predictability is also vital to convey to other donors their responsibility for their 75 percent share of the global costs. Where refugees are in a helpless situation, where they cannot, for example, grow their own food, as in the case of Tanzania, they must have a reliable source of support until our contributions can work towards durable solutions," Dewey stressed.

According the UNHCR, there are 12 million refugees worldwide. But Dewey said the number of people forced to rely on outside assistance is much greater. "There are some 17 million people living in refugee-like situations. In addition, we provide assistance to about 3.8 million Palestinian refugees that are of concern to another U.N. organization, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)."

Dewey said PRM also is concerned with another vulnerable population, that of internally displaced persons who are forced from their homes, but have remained within their home countries. "Their numbers are approximately double the number of refugees -- about 25 million. Many of them are also trapped in situations where they need a lot of support from the international community to survive and also to find solutions to their problems so that they can get back to their homes."

Greater international burden sharing is critical to meeting vital needs, such as providing food to starving populations in Darfur right now. Burden-sharing is also needed to sustain successful repatriation solutions and to resettle refugees in a third country, Dewey noted.

BEYOND EMERGENCY NEEDS

"If you learn how to sustain the return of refugees to their homes, then you have mastered the vital first step of refugee solutions," Dewey told the Washington File. "The biggest leap for the international humanitarian community, and for American arms and diplomacy, in the last two years has been the return of approximately 3 million Afghan refugees back to their homes in Afghanistan. But you must keep up that support, so that they can stay in their homes. That takes a lot of sustained effort in terms of food until they are self-reliant, medical help until their government can provide the medical care they need and also opportunities for jobs to support themselves," he explained.

"One of the most exciting new initiatives of this bureau is to help provide jobs for the returning Afghan refugees, and we are doing it through the Afghan Conservation Corps. We took a leaf from American President Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, which helped our country in a time of need and economic deprivation similar to that in which Afghanistan finds itself today. We are providing tree-planting activities, watershed management and other conservation projects. For now, tens of thousands and ultimately hundreds of thousands of returning men and women are very active in this program," Dewey noted.

This kind of income-generating program also has promise for assisting many of the 2 million Colombians who have been displaced by civil war, as well as for returning Liberian refugees and displaced persons. Eventually, Dewey said, such a self-reliance effort can pay off in other societies.

"We have to work on solutions, returning people to their homeland, and then sustain those solutions. We are doing it in Afghanistan. We will need to do it in Iraq. We will do it by building up Iraqis' capacity to reintegrate their people. We will need to make sure the solution sticks in Liberia. For the internally displaced persons in Darfur, Sudan, and with the possibility of some half a million Sudanese coming back to their homes, we must make sure the financial resources are there, and that the international organizations along with host governments are able to protect that return," Dewey said.

Finally, he emphasized, the United States and the world community must do whatever is needed -- politically, economically and diplomatically -- to make sure these solutions stick.

REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT

Not all refugees are able to go back to their homes or be fully integrated in their country of refuge. The solution for some will be resettlement in the United States or other countries. Even after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the security measures required during refugee processing increased considerably, the United States takes in more refugees each year than all of the other nine traditional resettlement countries combined. For many years, UNHCR has worked principally with 10 countries to provide resettlement opportunities: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Although "that number is not as many as the nongovernmental organizations would like us to bring in, or as we would like to bring in, the fact remains that we are working through these problems and helping to streamline the emergency procedures for admission," Dewey said. "PRM and the Department of State are not the gatekeepers -- the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps the gate, permitting the entry of those they can adjudicate as passing the refugee test."

"This year, we have a resettlement ceiling of 70,000 persons, 50,000 of whom are allocated by region. We are well on our way to reaching that 50,000. That has taken a lot of effort by an exceptionally dedicated team in Washington and around the world," Dewey told the Washington File.

It is not just heightened wariness related to terrorism that has put hurdles in the path of bringing refugees into the United States. During the Cold War period, Dewey said, hundreds of thousands of refugees were congregated in two major places: the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. "Now, as we look to the populations that we can access, they are not in just two places in the world, they are in about 60 places. To get to them, in insecure locations and politically unstable areas, often requires moving entire refugee camps and/or building secure structures so that DHS people can come to interview," he said.

"It is a much more labor-intensive exercise to reach much smaller populations in far more locations than then we ever had to cope with in the past," Dewey noted. Despite the increased time and costs, he predicts the United States will continue to welcome refugees.

"It's remarkable," he said. "Even in tough economic times, Americans still welcome refugees. I recently visited a refugee-processing center in Utica, New York, a community that was beginning to go into decline some years ago. Utica welcomed refugees -- from the Balkans, from Southeast Asia, from a score of locations around the world. These were typical refugees. They learned the language, got jobs and started businesses. If you go to Utica today, you will see neighborhoods that I saw 10 years ago in really run-down, dilapidated condition. Refugees live in those houses today -- they have fixed them up. In Utica, those communities aren't just respectable, they're attractive residential areas. This is because of refugees and what they bring to their new homes in America."

Dewey said successful refugee settlement also resonates with a deeper American value -- the desire to help the less fortunate. "If you look at cases around the world where we may have initially been slow to respond, one sees what was a discretionary, marginal interest on the part of the United States government and people turn into a vital interest. Humanity may not always define geo-politics; it does define good politics," Dewey said.

"Yes, in some cases it took some terrible things, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Rwanda, as examples," the assistant secretary acknowledged, "but these events struck at the heart of what we are about and once that was sensed, intervention became a vital interest -- as vital as national security, as vital as U.S. economic interests." This commitment, he said, lies at the core of American's support for refugees and refugee solutions around the world.

More information about the work of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration is available at http://www.state.gov/g/prm/

For more information on UNHCR, the organization leading international refugee relief efforts, see http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

To learn more about how U.S. non-governmental organizations facilitate relief and resettlement efforts, see http://www.interaction.org and http://www.rcusa.org/

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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