Mark Raper, S.J.
The Causes of Forced Displacement: The Breakdown of Sustainable Global Community

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One eloquent sign of our times is the mass displacement of peoples — a warning sign to us all. The population flows that are visible, a tenth of the iceberg, conceal vast personal and national tragedies, economic inequality of catastrophic proportions, collective violence, and Nation-States bent on denying human rights and repressing their own citizens.

 Once alerted, our faith compels us to seek justice. But first we must unearth the causes so that our work for justice and our compassion are well targeted. Our world is changing. Old explanations must be discarded and new ones discovered. Accurate analysis and informed reflection are then available as a basis for our prayer — to face the contemporary mystery of suffering. We need to scrutinise tragic situations and discover their meanings. The refugee, too, asks for an explanation and has a right to it, even more than food or shelter.

 Knowing what is happening, and why, makes it less likely that refugee helpers will be coopted into conflicts. We serve refugees best — please understand me correctly — by being critical of them. Our role is to be objective about their situation and question their ideological interpretations. If we understand the factors operating we are in a position to act more precisely, collaborate more easily and devise better strategies of presence and assistance. We will avoid treating symptoms as causes, and not blame victims for what is outside their control. We will have the chance to advocate appropriate policies, develop useful structures and challenge unrealistic procedures. We will have what it takes to prepare our field workers. We will be better prepared to intervene earlier and to act in the refugees' long term interests. We will be less afraid.

 As we learned in El Salvador, genuine reconciliation requires a process — from truth to justice to reconciliation. Nothing worthwhile can happen until the truth of what really happened, and may still be happening, is acknowledged. In each place of pain and within each crisis, the truth must be revealed. Then justice will not be sold short, nor reconciliation short-circuited.

I. INDIVIDUAL AND COMMUNAL FACTORS CAUSING DISPLACEMENT

 Refugee flight, according to the United Nations Convention on Refugees, must take place as a result of persecution. To be legally recognised under the Convention a refugee must prove well-founded fear of persecution. Some countries use the Convention definition to restrict the right to asylum. Most European countries, and the USA as well, require that persecution be individually based. The fact that someone's uncle was tortured, or that her ethnic group was under attack, is not considered an adequate reason for flight — unless she can show that she was personally targeted for persecution.

 Clearly not every experience of forced flight matches these legal requirements. Today's conflicts are rarely aimed at individuals. In Guatemala whole communities are targeted. Communal fields are razed, communal medical centres destroyed, villagers en masse are forced off their land. The Balkans war was similar. In any case most lives are communal, not individualistic. And reasons for flight are generally communal.

 It is the rich countries that ask for individual proof before granting refugee status. Meanwhile 90 per cent of the world's refugees struggle to survive in other poor countries that adjoin theirs. Few individual questions are asked of them. Meanwhile regional definitions, like that formulated by the Organisation for African Unity for Africa, and in Cartagena for Latin America, acknowledge a broader range of reasons for flight. Experience shows that any refugees' right to asylum should be linked to their Government's failure to protect them, rather than to their experiences as individuals.

Why did You Move?

 To understand refugees one must set them in a broader context. Today about 125 million people live outside their countries of birth. Most leave home seeking:

 What distinguishes a refugee from a migrant is the speed with which the decision to depart has to be made as well as the coercion and fear. There is generally little choice of destination, possibly to an alien or inhospitable territory.

 The reasons for flight vary across a scale from alarming to urgent. Consider the following reasons given for leaving home:

Individual motivation and well-founded fears

 The decision to flee, to take refuge or migrate, may be sharpened by personal motives, such as:

Each case differs

 Refugee case studies reveal that a mix of communal factors, as well as local and personal ones, underlie most refugees' decisions to leave. The case of an amputee from Mozambique highlights the way in which war, a depressed economy and the need to find work motivate flight. A case from the Sudan demonstrates how repeated attacks, and the threat of still more, give rise to mass internal displacement. The case of a young woman from Somalia is typical of the way rape galvanises families to flee. Violence on a broad front has also effects at an intensely personal level. Conversely rape and torture, while personal, are now used systematically to subdue populations. Systematic abuses create a thirst for revenge and sow the seeds of generations of destruction.

 Many valid reasons for flight fail to fit within current legal definitions. There also exist reasons for flight that elicit no one's sympathy and offer no valid reason for seeking protection. Those who commit violent crimes and then leave home for fear of reprisal, as in Rwanda's case, deserve to be called to account.

External and social causes

 The analysis presented in a new World Council of Churches' document is helpful. The WCC Central Committee Statement on uprooted people, A Moment to Choose, classifies causes of flight under three headings:

 The correlation between violations of human rights and situations that produce refugees is very strong. Significantly, 90 per cent of countries with very high levels of human rights violations belong to a group of 36 countries that give rise to most of the world's internally and externally displaced persons.

 Disarray within the world economic order is a major cause of instability. The malaise affecting the capitalist system has its cruellest effects in poorer countries. African countries, especially those tied to single commodity markets, continue to slip further behind in their share of world trade. Currently 1.2 billion people live in absolute poverty, an increase of 40 per cent in the last 20 years. Those who chronically lack life's necessities become acutely vulnerable. In turn, their plight increases the likelihood, size and complexity of new emergency situations. Examine the political causes of economic hardship and the distinction between 'merely' economic migrants and refugees becomes difficult to sustain.

 Demographic patterns show that the countries most at risk are those with young and growing populations, and stagnant or deteriorating economies. (Rwanda is the gravest recent example.) Northern countries with ageing populations that are stable or shrinking require labour to fill low-paying jobs. Paradoxically they both attract and resist immigrant labour.

 Researchers estimate that 10 million people are already "environmental refugees", and that a further 50 million could be similarly displaced by the year 2,000.

"The Breakdown of Sustainable Community"

 My subtitle, "The breakdown of sustainable global community," points to another of the major reasons for today's massive forced displacements. Community breakdown is world-wide and pluriform.

Family breakdown

 At one level community is founded on the family. Again and again today's conflicts target the family unit. Earlier wars also broke the family apart: men left their wives behind to go and fight. Today, the men may be the ones left behind, a switch of 'gender roles'. In our time any method of splitting the family is fair game. Children are abducted to become soldiers, mothers are killed and young women forced to fight. How can you teach another way of life to children who know nothing but violence? (The question is acute in Liberia, Myanmar, Kampuchea and Rwanda).

 The motivations behind this new kind of war are clear. First, the strategy is to divide people and then gain power via chaos and misery. Second, witnessing a family member killed is calculated to create hatred and terror, and to turn even children into fighters.

Ethnic strife destroys cohesiveness

 Ethnic conflict breaks down communities. Misguided leaders purposely keep alive the memory of harsh events in a people's history to shape their sense of ethnic identity. The resentment that results can be potent, as witnessed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Much of the blame must be shouldered by politicians who manipulate their people's beliefs for their own ends and then ignite the flames of war.

 Ethnic hatred in Rwanda was fanned by provocative radio broadcasts. The individuals who masterminded that conflict should not escape prosecution. They are emblematic of those who destroy our communities. No individual should enjoy impunity after perpetrating malicious actions at a leader's behest. Nonetheless, a hierarchy of responsibility does exist.

Other Factors may Enable a Decision to Flee

 Between the need to flee and the decision to go, a potential refugee must weigh up the feasibility of escape. Some geographical factors make it easier: the proximity of international borders, the absence of major physical barriers, reasonable roads and facilities for travel. Ready access to airports leads to great numbers of asylum seekers and migrants from every part of the world arriving, often 'irregularly', at any city with an international airport.

 The authorities' inability to prevent flight is another enabling factor. So too is a neighbouring country's willingness to open its borders to the enemies of its enemy. Religious groups may be welcomed by their own. And the presence of ethnic kin just across a border offers the promise of a safe haven.

II. OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS WHICH AFFECT DISPLACED PEOPLE

 Students of refugee issues know well that developments in many fields profoundly affect the welfare and even the survival prospects of displaced people. Allow me to review a variety of features of our world and its way of doing business that impact on refugees. They range from the collapse of political entities to the wider availability of travel. But first, the proliferation of weapons in poor countries.

Warfare as Industry

 Light weapons are associated with rising levels of violence and social disintegration. Trade in small arms and the use of them goes with ethnic conflict and crime and lead to increased displacement of people. Today's wars are becoming increasingly "low-tech". In Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and the Balkans we have seen hand-to-hand combat. Meanwhile trade in arms is sometimes the only economic function that a country at war can support (Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia offer prime examples). Low-tech landmines also enjoy a booming trade. And low-tech tactics are growing more sophisticated. Violence experienced at a personal level destroys normal life and breeds terror.

 In recent years the number of countries experiencing armed conflicts has escalated. Between 1989 and 1992 the United Nations counted 82 armed conflicts around the world, only three of them between nations. In 1994, the number of conflicts world-wide rose to 34, and their deadliness to civilians also increased. Most are conflicts within States and involve irregular fighters (militia), and even child soldiers, as well as regular armed forces. The UNICEF claims that during the last ten years two million children died in civil strife — more child deaths than soldiers'. "Civilian losses accounted for half of all war-related deaths in the 1950's, but by the 1980's they added up to three-quarters, and in 1990 some 90 per cent of war deaths were civilian". This trend is alarming.

 In current conflicts, light weapons are more significant than major weapons systems. Yet most attempts at arms control focus on weapons of mass destruction, and few serious attempts have so far been made to control the growing trade and use of small arms. I rejoice to see that the WCC has joined the campaign to ban antipersonnel mines. The arms trade and its consequences are pivotal to understanding the new multipolar post-Cold War world. Cold War manipulations helped to create the culture of war. Arms trading now feeds the same beast.

The Weakening of the Nation-State

 The Nation-State, founded upon the then sacrosanct principle of sovereignty, has been weakened and even paralysed by recent global challenges. This has caused insecurity for many. Chronically fragmented States include Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia and, already long forgotten, Chad. Burundi is in great peril. Other Nation-States, too, are fragile: they have not yet had long enough time to form an identity.

 Debt is another cause of weakness in a State. Privatisation of services is a likely result. When a nation falls under pressure from excessive debt or from structural adjustment programmes, and so is unable to provide basic social services such as education and health care, a greater weight falls on private agencies, especially the churches. When democratic institutions become weak, the State becomes more sensitive to criticism and is likely to react in repressive ways: witness Nigeria, Malawi and Kenya. Moreover, the globalisation of world economies and governance mean that decisions affecting citizens are made at the international level, overriding the individual State's authority. And if the State proves unable or unwilling to offer justice and security to its own minorities, it commands less and less of their allegiance. In response to such developments, new forms of federation are emerging. And indeed they are needed.

 Since the end of the Cold War, the international scene has become, by most accounts, less divided and polarised, bringing us closer to 'one world'. Yet almost imperceptibly it is fragmenting. So States, as they become more insecure, eject those they do not want in increasing numbers and turn away people seeking relief from violence elsewhere.

Interrelationships

 None of the causes of flight noted above exist on their own. Yet the complex of interrelationships is difficult to unravel. By now, many commentators can single out the main factors operating in Germany before the Second World War:

 Significantly, these same factors are found in many of today's conflicts. People's sense of community, pride and identity have been hurt by their inability to care for their families. Desperation is manipulated by political figures for their own agenda. Morality declines, and masses are swept along toward a mentality that blames and attacks scapegoats. The growing conflict then destroys families, creates more fighters, fills the coffers of the weapon traders — and develops into a "spiral of violence". Some internal economies benefit from war. But the international economy benefits grotesquely from a dispensation in which the many are poor and the few rich, and where armed conflict is the result.

Refugees and security

 Meanwhile refugees are increasingly regarded as a threat to security. European laws affecting asylum seekers are being formulated more with an eye to security than as immigration measures. Understandably, when a quarter of a country's population is camped outside its borders (as are two million Rwandan refugees), or one third have fled (as have 800,000 Liberian refugees), these phenomena are readily viewed as destabilising their regions.

 Nevertheless, our prime consideration should be the personal security of those displaced. Moreover, we are now aware that refugees returned home unwillingly or without adequate protection are ripe to become a destabilising force and eventually contribute to a renewal of the conflict. This is one reason to be hesitant about the increasing pressure for early repatriation.

Communication media

 Mention must be made of mass media and their potent effects on mass humanitarian crises. Instant images of population flows are quickly transmitted across the world, affecting public opinion and official responses. But media coverage is selective. Its power drove relief to Goma with hurricane force. But nothing could provoke international action to prevent the genocide. Sensationalising human suffering (by CNN, and fund-raising releases by some NGOs) shows scant respect for the dignity of the refugees, distorts the reality of their situation and weakens the public's belief that solutions are possible.

The Image of the United Nations

 The United Nations Organisation, established 50 years ago to help the world become a genuine "international community", is presently being defeated by what its Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, calls the "culture of death". By this he means the fragmentation and collapse of States, the rise of ethnic militia, and the cult of violence seemingly without a rationale. Boutros Boutros Ghali admits to the UN's inability to stop the civil war in Afghanistan, the collapse of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Indonesian repression of the East Timorese, and the Russians' bloody attempt to crush the Chechens.

 The UN is not equal to these tasks. It was not built for them. It is struggling to re-shape itself for a world never foreseen by its founders. The UN is now called on to police conflicts within States rather than between States. Originally designed to be an organisation of sovereign Nation-States, it must now, at times, seek to protect people against their States.

 Boutros Boutros Ghali takes the salute from an impressive army, yet he cannot order that force into action. Symbols and impartiality will not "enforce" peace for much longer. In Bosnia the UN was able to hand this task to NATO; but whom can it enlist for Angola or Burundi?

 And if the UN cannot intervene, who in the future will negotiate ceasefires, rebuild political structures, ease societies towards democracy? There is no prospect of any realistic alternative to the UN. NGOs cannot perform these tasks. Nation-States see no votes in making peace abroad when they are called to be impartial. Who will reverse the trend that sees Governments morally disengaging from international responsibilities? Many forces — the Churches among them — must now complement the roles played by the UN. This will demand support for conflict resolution, for preparations for democratic government, for formation of human rights monitors. The lead role of the UN, through its Department of Humanitarian Affairs in "complex emergencies", should be strongly supported.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

 Opening the annual meeting of UNHCR's 50 member ExCom in October, the current High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, warned that asylum is now under threat world-wide. Her favourite remark is: "In order to find durable solutions to the problems of forced displacement, we must address the root causes". Almost in the same breath, the High Commissioner often adds: "Political solutions must be sought by Governments". To do this, Governments need encouragement. To encourage is a role for us, among others. And we will not succeed by repeating clichés.

 UNHCR, with a budget of over US$ 1.3 billion, is the strongest of the UN agencies. But powerful as it is, UNHCR is overstretched. Faced with an immense task, its officers appear to make compromises to please member States. As a result, conditions of asylum and protection appear diminished in many places. UNHCR needs support from the NGOs and Churches more than it appears to realise. PARinAC, the partnership process instituted two years ago as a result of agreement between UNHCR and the NGOs, is in my view being undermined from within UNHCR itself. The refugees and we who serve them need this partnership process to remain vigorous. We must call local officers to task, present them with opportunities to work effectively with us and encourage them by proposing methods that meet their needs. And before asking for consistency on the part of UNHCR, we ourselves must act consistently.

CONCLUSION: The Cause of Displacement — Dare to Ask Why?

 To become a refugee today is to fall into a bad space. To be in a refugee camp is to be in an evil place. Many refugees ask: Why does God allow this? And they have the right to an answer from us based on deep reflection. Certainly this evil situation was not made by God, but by human action. But we may still ask: How can we, before God, allow this suffering? And more positively: How can we collaborate with God's action so that God's grace overcomes this evil? "The entire creation has been groaning in one great act of giving birth".

 When we arrive as a refugee agency on the heels of a disaster in Karagwe or Bukavu or in the Bihac pocket, and see countless people displaced and suffering, our first temptation is to mount large scale assistance. The speed of the arrival and the congestion, the humiliation, anguish, guilt, sadness — all of these forces create tremendous physical, moral and spiritual crises. Help is indeed needed. But a vital additional task for the Church is to face the mystery of this particular suffering and evil, to help people find a meaning within their own situation. Our task will include supplying food, water and shelter, but goes beyond this to human solidarity before our common Father.

 We must know well what message of hope we dare to bring to people who have been denied hope. "Know the plans I have in mind for you" — it is Yahweh who speaks — "plans for peace not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you" (Jer 29:11). Can we believe such promises? Can we carry that message? All of 2,500 years ago, Ezekiel was charged to bring a message to a people who had suffered a long cruel exile:

 Ezekiel issued a call to change and be converted because something had gone terribly wrong. Even the victims needed to look at themselves, so as not to succumb to the evil and allow it to evolve into hate. If they were not to become like their oppressors, conversion was necessary. It still is.

 The fourth song of the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah (52:13-53:12) has a message for us when we ask Why? The suffering people are themselves a silent protest against corrupt human ways, including those that descend to the politics of ethnicity. The refugees are best placed to tell us clearly and correctly what is wrong. It is the innocent on all sides of a conflict who can start the miracle of reconciliation. We have seen it time and again when widows from opposing ethnic factions come together, or when landmine victims and other war-wounded meet. The suffering people themselves have a vital interest in change. Those who are in power work to maintain the status quo. The solution will come from the victims. Indeed it does already. God has chosen them.