Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan
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Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan The Limitations to Humanitarian ief Operation
Tony Waters CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITYt CHlCO
/
' A Member of the Pcrseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reprc3duced or transmitted in any form or by any means, etectrc3nic or mechanical, including photocopy, recordhg, :,or any inEorxnal.ian storage and retrieval system, without permission in writkg frc1n-i the publisher,
Copyright O 2001 by Weshriew Press, A Member of the Pewus Books Group P~~bIished in 2002 in tlw United Stater;of America by Wwtview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in tl-re United Kingdom by Westview Press, 22 Hid's Copse R c ~ dCurnnor , Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ Fincl US on the World Wide Web at wwwwesk~ietvpress.ft>m
Librar~iof Congress Catal-tloging-in-PublicationData Waters, Tony. Bttreaucratizing the gocd samaritan : the limitations to humanitarian relief operation / Tony Waters, p. cm. Includes bibliograpl~icalreferences and index. lSBM 0-8133-6790-5 (pbk, : afk. paper) I, Refugeeelnternational cooperation, 2. Humanitarian assistance, 3, Bttreat~cracy. 4. Refctgees-Rwanda. 5. Refctgees-Tanzania. I. Title.
The paper used in this pubticaticrn meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials 239.48-1984,
To Dagmuu, Christopher and Kirsten Waters
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Contents List of Tables and Figures List of Acronyms Acknrrw Eedg~nm ts
ix
xi a . .
Xlll
Part One: The International Refugee Relief Regime
I
htroductio~z:The Rwanda Rehgee Relief @eration. and the Bureaucratized Goad Sarnaritm-A Personal Context
2
Refugees, Internatio~zalPolitics, and the Goad Samaritan.
3
'I'he Strength of Bureaucracy
4
Definjng Sides: The Social Structure of Rjght and Wrong in International Refugee Relief
5
Making Comparisons Between md. Within Emergencies
6
Explaining Rwmdm Ge~zocide,W r , m d Relief
7
October 199>Octclber 1994: The Relief Effort W h d s Up
B
October 194-December 1996: Normalized Crisis'I'he Operaticm W h d s Down
Part Two: Bureautllrakizing the Good Sarxta~kxr 9
'I'he Lhnitations o f Contingency Nanning
10
Bureaucmtizing the Good Samaritan-Water
I1
Bureaueratizhg the Good Smaritm-Delhzhg
Crises Genocide
...
Contelzts
O~ZZ
f2
Wtny Chly the Rwandans? Relief qerations and Politics
13
From TVVorld War 11 to Rwmda a d Kosovo
P4
A Broader Context: Overcamisrg the Limitations of the Bureaucratized Good Samaritan
Part Three: Background Essays Essay 1: The Demogfaphy of a Camp for Rwanlians
Essay 2: Gamp Management 199495 Essay 3: The Chabalisa 2 Market Developme~~i: Project Essay 4: HIV and A D S in the Ngara Refugee Camps
Essay 5: FXow Many IZefugees Are n e r e in Ngara? Essay 6: Wishing for Repatriation, Late 1995 Essay 7: A Bishop in Exile-me Ngara C m p s
A n g l i c m Church in fie
Essay 8: Some Practical Notes on a Names Taboo in Western Tmzania
Tables and Figures
Successes and Failures of Contingemy Plansling in the Rwanda and Bumndi Crises in Tanzmia, 1993-1996 Morta:lity m d Fertility Data for Chabalisa 2 Refugee Camp in 1995 Food Distribution in 1995 Monthly Mortality Data Mortality by Disease for Chabalisa 2 Refugee Camp, October 1994-December 1995 Mortality by Cause and Mmth, October 1994December 1995 De~elopmenthdicrators in Tanzania and b a n & , 1989-1 994 .h Con?parison of Refugee Comts Fluctuation of Refugee Population in Ngara Camps
1.1
Map of Rwanda, Rumndi, and western Tanzania showing the Imation of refugee canps, and other places relevant to the Great Lakes refugee crises, 199696 6
Gsowth FR rclfugee populatiosls in Tanzanids Ngasa m d Kafagwe districts, 1994-96 7.2 UN expenditures h the Great Lakes region, 1994 7.3 International prlnt media coverage oi Rwanda 7.4a-7.43 Food deliveries to Ngara and &ragwe districts, 1994
106 IQ7 114 116
Age etistrihution at Chabalisa 2 rczfugee camp
257
7.1
A1.1
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Acronyms and Abbreviations AAR AEF AICF CARE CDR CmEFAR CW DRA ECHO ELCT Frodebu GOAL ICK IFRC
IRC IRIN IDP
J B
Jv-
LWF MWD
Austrian nclngovernmental organization Africa Education Foundation Agellee hternationale Contre la Faim (French NGO) CARE International (htemational NGO) Coalition pour la D4fense de la Rkpublique (radical Rwandan E-futu,party) (name of It-alim construction company) Catholic Relief Services (Americm MGO) Disaster Relief Age~~cy ( h t c h NGO) European Community Humanitarian Organization Evmgelical Lutheran Church in Tmzania Front des Dkmocrates du Burundi (Burundian political
pxty)
(Irish NGQ) hternational Committee for the Red Cross (Swiss agelzey) hternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies hternational Rescue Committee (American NGO) hterna tional Relief hf ormation Network hternally displaced. person Jesttit Refugee 9rvice Joint Voluntary A g m q (American NGO in mailand) Lutheran World Federation Mouvelnent R4volutiomaire National pour le D4veloppement (ruling party of Rwanda before 1994) M4decFns sms FrontiPres (Doctors Wi-thsut Borders, hternational NCO) Nonvegian People" Aid ental Orgmizatian Organization of .hf"ricanUnity &erseas Development Assistance (U.K. government agency) Rwanda Patriotic Front (ruling party of Rwanda aft= 1994)
UNDS UNICEF UNHCR Uprona
Tmganyika Christian Refugee Service Tmzanian Red Cross U ~ ~ i t eNations d Assistance Mission to Rwmda (UN military eoNingent in Rwmda, 1993-96) United Nations Border Relief %eration (Cambodianailmd) United Nations Development Programme United Nations International Children" E m r g m e y Fund U ~ ~ i t eNations d High Commissioner for Refugees Parti de lfUnimet du PmgCis National (governing party in Burundi until mid-1993 and after coup in 1998) U ~ ~ i t eStates d Agency for fnternatimal Development United States Committee for Refugees World Food Frogsamme (UN) Wrld Health Organization (UN)
Acknowledgments This book is the ~ s doft my invotvemmt in the refugee business since 1982. Mmy people have c o ~ ~ t r i b ~to ~ tmy e d thoughts shce then. I would like to take this chance to reach back into my memorks to acknowledge a fevv (though by no means a311 of them, though of course they may not agree wi& my conclusions. Nevertheless, in all, I h o w , there was a heartfelt ixrtercst in finding the best way to serve the dispossessed oi the wmib. In Nan, Thailand (1982): Peter Rees, Steve Haman, Naowarait, fan Timm, Kouei Cho Saeteurn, Nai fmt-rroi,Seng Lor, In Phanat Nikhom and Bangkok, Thailand (1983): Manit Chiachuabsilp, hither Sanit, Father Boonlert, Jenny Kang, Vongduen Kerdchana, Tony Nolan, Philip ESe~moun,Tassanee L., "Uncle" Manu, Meng Chiew Sae Teusn, Manh Cho Saeteum, Thavjnh Pbmyapanh. In Kigoma region, Tanzania (1984-87): Wikid a d Karin Mahn, fan m d h t j e Siernerink, Carol~xsand W i h a Poldervaart, Wllem and Rleke t'an Gogh, Heidi Kaletsch, Kalima Mambosheh, Mzee AbdaIfah, Tobias Siweya, N. P. Mchonchele, Mrs. C. Basongo MB, Cosmas Malugu, Mafiayo Balikutsa, E@ Nissen, Mzee Charnwino, Ramadhani Asedi, Tbrahimu Luziga, Father H. Van der Paverd, Father Tvers, Father Bourdieu, Magdalena Lmz, Ilse Pamrmz, Elfriede Mueller, Jan and Catherine Rot&. A special n&e of thmks to Benedicto fos protecting the refugees in Heru Ushingo, He did it wi.thout reward. or expectations of compensation or acknowledgment, mly because it was the right thhg to do. In Ngam and Karagwe, Tanzania (1994-96): Leo Norholt, Philip Wijmans, Lazarus Mezza, John and Su.zanne Cosgrave, Adamasu Simeso, Joh m Ifalslev, Mark A~obe,B e h a r d Staub, Gary Sibson, David and Tehira Porter, Everready Nkya, Peter Sweetnam, Ted Berth-Jones, Dietriclh m d Ulrike Sehneiss, Kari Se-einacker, Maureen Connellp, Andreas Koessler, Jucly Benjamin, R/larr: Sommers, Steve Njobe, Trisln and Rob Wilsm, Sister Ag~nes,Sam and Miranda Gihbs, Antony and Chistian Lathm, Jaap htjcs, Denise Barrett, Eugene Samuel, Paul Sijssens, Chantal Garand, Colin. IJrycr, Peter Buchanan, lCirhard Luff, ikfzee Atanase, Mzee Evariste, Rilzee I:.,emidas, Bodil Torp, Edkvi.n and D o r o ~ yRamathal, Stephan and Gertraud Schaeffer, Sosthenes Bernhard, Brigadier General Sylvester Hamedi, f'ki1ip Mangula MB, Bishop and :Mrs. Edwin :Nyamuhi, Matias, Jean-Paul, and Jean-Pierre.
I also want to acknowledge the courage of Eveready Nkyr, n/Itee AIfred Jab, and nine Tanzanian drivers lfor TRCs who remahed in Southwest bands in Augu" 119% when the Ermch army pulled out. Their courage was to lightly acknowledged. Ingeborg Rernmel (my mothes-in-law) provided a comfortable and peaceful place to work in Leverkusen, C;erman?i, in the srtmmer of 1999. This is where much of the manuscript was wrinmz. Acdemic debts are more difijcult and complex to achowlledge. But a nurnber of people have had intluence on this hook. At the University of Califomia, Da\ris, John R, Hal%has been the most-persistent in sczeing that- 1 iollowed up the subject of the "burcaucratized Good Samaritan" "sn ice I first discussed it with him after a graduate semiz~arin 1990 or so. Jack Galdstosze has also contributed ideas, particularly in terms of methodology I have discussed this work at various times with Catherhe Newhur)l: Goran I-tyden, %ott McNall, Craig fenkins, Tom Johnson, Laurie Wermuth, Clark Davis, Kathy Kaiser, Frmk Hirtz, f im H a e h , Eric f ones, Nelsolz &Sfir, m d others whO were interested. and encouraged me to continue. B e f i a r d Staub, Bent Sirnonsen, Heidi Kaletsch, and k t h Witaker all deserve credit as peaple interested inbridging the gap between acadelne and field practice. Nichael Hyden also assisted with data couection h Chabalisa 2, and Frid-S-jovRuden patiently taught me something about hydmgeology. I hope Chapter 10 does what he tarnght justi,ce; the ntistakes are of course m h e , Arrne Abran-tsm read and critiyued the entire manuscript. Some importmt ad-j~~sts~ents were made at her suggestion. Bill Travers assisted with Chapter 11. Candy Priano provided the graphics, George Thampson at the ifierlibrary loan desk at Merriam Lihrary at California State University, Cbjco, helped chase elusive references qrxjckly and efficientlyJeff %eter assisted with conversion of the photographs into black-andwhite f)hoto-Shop files. Bitilic Kanter, Jolee Liptrap, and Cheryl Vermitlion patiently =ranged for l.he burearncra.t.ic thrcads to be tied togethcr when it came to charges, budgets, a d payments. Billie and Jolee also kindly looked the other way when 1 exceeded my share of the Department of Sociology's photocapy resources. The interest from Andy Day and Dave McBride at Westview Press provided encoufagement and support. I hope tbat the book does their confidence in it justice. The copyedithg of KaQherineScott was sharp and insighlful. The other source of support I have received was tbr Department of Sociology and Social Work, California State University, Chico-from the staff,facuilty and students. I have never had a more combrtablc and collegial place to work. Tony Wuters
PART ONE
Iesus mid, " A Y I I ~ ~was Z goi~zgd ~ r i 'fli ~ r p t . Jerzrsalerrt.to I@vicha,whtrrz he fell i~zto the hands of nlbbers, Tlrey stripped him of his clofhes, beat kiln and went azuay, leaviq him half dead, A prir;ist haypetzed to be p i % ~ U T L T Mthe same rund, n ~ d whefz he saw tile nzals, he pmsed by m? the other side. So too a Levik, zuf~entrcr came to the plclce and sazu Izi~n,passed hy 0t-t the &her side, Nzlt a Sirmarifan, as he fraveled, caltne tuhere the Inan zuas; and whm he saw hi^^, he took yify m Ftim, I-fe w e t f to him and b~~tdagcrd his wozrnds, ppourirzg on oil and wifze. Thm he put fhc man 0t-t his own h n k e y , took him to a n irm, and took care af him. The next day, he took otlt fzuo siluer coins and gave fhem to the innkeqer, l o o k @ter him,' I-fe saibi ' ~ ~wfierz t d f etrrm, I will reiNlbume yozifor any C X ~ ~expense LI you may have," fhree do ;YOZ~ thiak ruas n ~wigFtborfo fhe mnlz zuho fell into the i l W ~ i efhc.si-1 ~h halzds IIJ mbbers? Thc exprt itl the law replied, "7"I;teone zoho had mercy on him." Jeszrs told Izim, "Go a d do Eike~uise."* As the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan implies, the innpulse to help a stranger in need is m t new; it is a trait long admired, fn telling this parable, Jesus tells his listeners that the Sarnaritm was a better neighbor than the holy m n who neglected to assist the stranger. H e says it is good a d proper to show mercy, and to ignore suffering you encounter is wrong. The lesson is that the morally superior decision was take11 by the Samaritan, and not the holy men. This is of course a sentiment shared by many of the world's religions. 7'he requirement to assist: is also accepted as rnoraf and right in the modern secular world.
"Luke 10:30-37, New International krsion.
Part I : TJle I?ztermtional Reftlgee Relief Regi~ze
mough the impulse to help the mare u~nfortunatearrtolng us is old, our capacity to do so has expanded expmentialily with the Endustrial Revolution, tbr modern state, instant communications, and modernity in general. In the modern world, charity is organized far beyond the level of a moral choice made by an individual who by chance passes a robbery victim along the road. In fact, in the sibation where chariy is most broad, and assists the gseatest num:ber of victixns, it is oqanized into a "comptex taskw-meankg that specialized organizations are established that randertake the relief m d rehabilitation of the millions of monymous victims lying along the world's hjghways, The ability of the modem world. to organize these tasks has resulted in the rescue of miXIions oE victimized shangers in the years roughly since World War I. To do this, a complex oJ: organizati.ons and agencies such as the UNICEF (Unikd.Nations Xntemational Children" Emergemy Fund), the Red Cross, CARE: International, UNflCR (United Nations High Co sioncr for Refugees), Qxfaxn, M4decins sans Fmnti&res(MSF), and other names hmiliar to modern Western socriety have eznerged, often achjevirrg fnr themselves a high prome on nightly newscasts throughout the world. Mare lives than ever are saved because such age~zciesspecialize in treating the victhized quickly and effectively. And because of the wonder of modern transport and communications, trained people specializing in these tasks are sent, often quicklyf and far fewer victi,ms are left: mnsuccored by the side of the road, than would oherwise be the case. h response to this perceived need, budgets for relief work have also ballooned: in 1995 about $8 billion was spent 011 relief. Less predictable is the fact that these spendlng increases have not been accompanied by a concmtration on one or two ma~orcmtralized agencies; irrstead there has been a proliferation of groups In 1980 there wcre about l,fj00 nongovernmental agencies operating out of the 24 e c m o n i c q developed OECD states, &y the rrtid-1990s thert?were about 4,6W (Walkup 49973136),1 N s o more efficient, though, is the other side of a m r c y equation, meaning that credit fur being a Good Samaritan justifiably is s h a d by schootchildren Mtho respond to Red Cross appeals; Mlestern govemmmts that Ry in shipments of relief goods to Bosnia, Rwanda, and Albania; and individual Tanzanians, East Timorese, Colombians, or Albanians who quietly protect refugees beforl, the international relief agencies arrive. Eaekt agency cmnecting ""vjctims" and donors justifies its involveme~ntin the terms of humanitarianjsm or religion, And in order that it be known to donor comtih;rencies, the popular press b a d c a s t s and disseminates word of the g d deed done. Such publicizing of '"rightewsncss" may not be what Jesus had in mind in the parable of the Good Samaritan, but nevertheless it is a pmminmt feature. of how relief eft'crrts are ccmducted today and camot be ignured.
Part 1: The I~ztemntimzalRefidgee Relief Regi~ze
3
The reason t-hat succoring the needy and delivering credit is morc efficient for both the victim and the &nor, is that, as with other complex tasks, the task of providhg relief has become bureaucratized. To do this, the "mercy" function has been broken down into tasks done by specidists hired and trained to do each action efiiciently and effectively. frt this ~ s p e c tthe , work Of today's G o d Samaritan agencies is not that different .from the larger bureaucracies of modcm busincss and government withjn which the principles of bureaucratization were established. n e s e organizations defh~ea goal to achieve, identify the means to do it, and establisk programs to achieve the specilied goals* The nature of these relief agendes-w2lich 1 call. the international rt?l"ugee d i e f regime-is discussed fn the following chapters. The first chapter is about how and why I've becom interested in this subject The description starts with Chapter 2, which is a brief histosical ovemicw of how the bureaucracies of the international relief regime evolved. Chapter 3 is about their strmgths and weilknesses, give13 the i,nherently bureaucratic nature of the international refugee relief regime. Chapter 4 is about the moral underpinnings assumed by the bureaucracies as they seek to justify their programs,. Chapter 5 dljscusses the methodological difficulties inherent to discussing refugee relief agencies. Chapters 6-8 focus on describing h w the international rclfugee relief regime operated fn the Rwandan refugee crisis in Tmzmia. Notes 1.Natsicts (1996:68) notes that the United States in particular has seen a growth. in the amount of emergency aid given. He uses a s an example the o~bservatic>n that between 1989 and 1993 budgets f c x two U.S. agencies, the Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Food for Peace program, rose from $297 million to $1.2 billion. Natsios't; article also describes the specifics of how such money is chameled to a variety of NGBs (nongovemmntal organizations) in the United States and Europe.
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Introduction: The Rwanda Refugee Relief Operation and the Bureaucratized Good SamaritanA Personal Context
Between October and December 1996, troops across central Africa forced 1.4 million refugees back to their home country of Wands. This forcible was undertaken by Zaire and Tanzania with the ac~ f u g e repatriation e quiescence of the iatemational commw~ityThis occurstld despite the fact for two and a half years Tanzania, Zaire, and the international community protected the same ~hgeedronrtsuch an event. in late 1996 was prob;ably the largest in modThe forcible repatriatio~~ ern times. Certajnly it was the largest since the Allies forced refugees back to Soviet-domfnated corantries in the pt?riod 1945-47.qeerrtingly forgalZen in the intervenixlg 50 years was the fact that s o m of Chc forci,bly returned European refugees were executed withirr earshot of the Allits at the time they were repatriated. fndeed, it was out of this experimce that the principle of refugee protection emerged: that persons having a legitimate fear of persecution have a right to protection in the country of first asyium from forced ~patriation.Wt-ty, then, for the first t h e since World e a maWar H, did the international refugee relief community a c ~ i e s c to jor forcible rehgee repatriatiodwhy were Rwandans forced back, and not the Cambodian, Afghan, Bos.Hian, or others who, since World War lIr have fled l-heir countries and been protected to some degrc3e frown such action? As a studmt of re.fugee history I find the conventional reasons given for the forcible rclpatriation (reviewed hereafier) of Rwandans too easy, and therefore dissatisfying, h particular, they were made without reference to a hrctader understandhg cJf how =&gee crises have been created and rcsolved durhg the last 50 years. Instead, Che explanations d h s s
FXGUM 1.1 Map of Rwanda, Burundi, and w s t e m Tanzania showing the Ic>cat.ionof refugee camps, and other places relevant to the Great Lakes refugee crises, 199&96. (Map by Candy Priano.)
only issues and explanations raised by that one crisis, oftm offering explanations rooted in the interests of the protagonists, be they the new tjwernment in Rwanda, Tanzania, thc. refugees themselves, the United Nations, or refugee assistance agencies. Some of the common explanations given about what happened to the Rwandans included the following:
* The Rwandan refugees were common people who had nothhg to fear in their home country*(The same was said about the eastern Ewropeans forced back to their cottntries at the end of W r l d Was I2 and shot by the Soviets. The same was also said of C m bodians t l e e a after the Vietsramese invasim in the late 1970s.) The Rwmdan rcfugees were manipulated by unscrupulous leaders using them for political ends. (The same was said of Can-tbodians & e a with Pol Pot.) The home country (Rkvmda's) new governme~~t established amicable relations with its neighbors; those nei@bors were iY1. a better position to judge the new government's ir-ttentionsthan those who had fled. (This was the excuse used by the htlics after Miorld War I2 to forcibl.y return refugees to territories controlled by the Sowiets.) It was noted that the refugees themefves had worn out their welcome in poor host countries that we= ill prepared to pmvide asylum. (W a devastated Centrat Europe hosted milIions of refugees through the 1,950s, India hosted 10 million refugees from Bangladesh in 1972, Iran and Pakistan have hosted millions from Afghanistan since 1979, China has hosted hundreds of thousands of Uewarnese, and Ctmtrd Amczrican relugees were widespread throughout that isthmus between 1379 and 2993. All were poor comtries.) It was claimed that Rwanda had legitimate hterests in invading Zaire in order to close the refugee camps because otherwise perpetrators of crirnes q a i n s t hurnanity would remain free to threatell Rwmda's territory. (Cambodia and Bosnia could have both justified invasions of neighbors with simjlar clai-nns.) * It was claimed that host countries can best judge refugee status and home conditions. (The humanitarim community objected to this position in the case of Viehamese in Hmg Kong, Malaysia, etc.; Bosnians in Germany; Cuatemlans in W x i c o ; Haitians in the United States; and so forth.) * At the end, it was pointed. out that Wands had a right to shut down rt?l"ugeecamps that doubled as mftitary bases. (Afghanistan, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua could all have
Ivtfroducfion
asserted a similar right at various times. The apartheid-era South African regime actually used this excuse for attacks on African National Ccmgress exile camps throughout southern Africa in the I"380s.) In short, the justifications appear sensible, but are m t completely satisfying. There is a sense that somethhg more happened in the Rwmda crisis; that although such commonsense justifications peshaps offer shortterm explanations to policy maicers, there must be a broad= story. The broader story 1 think is that the Rwanda refugee situation became "bureaucratized" too fast, with the resdt that the administratke and paliticai compromises erected to deal with the short-term emergency were incapable of ge~~erating longer-term \?.isions. Adnnittedl~~; this is a dry exptmatim for a juicy and dramatic subject like the Rwanda gcrnocide and refugee crisis. Certainly it is more dry than rczcomting the conditions during the genocide, narrathg the drama af the military successes of the RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front, the ruling party of hands dter 1994), cheering the downfall of Mobutu, or describing bodies in the river. But I think it is one that expf,ains a great deal xnorcir than the osthe-cuff: explanations listed above. This book is about how I reached that conclusion, Excitement, Emotion, and the Rwandan Refugee Crisis Superlatives domilnated discussion of the Rwanda refugee crisis from the start. For the world, the Rwandan reftlgee crisis started on April 28-29, 1994, with "the largest and fiistest refmgee exodus in a single day.." The camp established in Ngara, Tmzania, was "the largest in the world." The American. calumist Rager Rose~~blatt: (1994:40,42), writing about Ngara in May 1994, was sensitive to the drama: "Boditzs appear in an explosion of spray at the top of a steep falls, and then spin and turnble down like logs on their way to a mill." HE-ccontinued with Ihe enthusiasti.~use oE supeslatiws: Benaco refugee camp, he wrote '"is a mariccrtplace, perbaps the largest in the world." The T ~ P Tmagazine ~L. cover was for me particularly memorable. In, bold type over the picture of a mot.her and her child was the dramatic beadline: 'There are no devils left in Hel1,~hemissionary said. 'They are all in Rwanda,' More drama came only a few weelks later when the Ngara recards were eclipsed, after 2 million Rwandans fled westward. to Zaire, and a fastkilling cholera epidemic emerged. The Zairean camps were described in cover stories as "Land of the Dead and Dying" "fze Ectlnorrrit;l), "This Is the Apocalypse" (En.re),and "Helf on Earth" (Newszueek).New records for size of refugee camps, speed of cholera epidemfcs, and size and speed of '"
"
international relief programt; toppled after Ngara had been at the top of the publicity heap for a short two m o n h , Thus, from the beghning, the international humanitarian response was darnhated by emotional superlatives, 'There was a massive oul-pouring of relief supplies. Heroic efforts to control cholera were made in T m zania and Zaire. The unusual coordination between aid agencies and wd-organized refugees in distribzlting relief goods in Tanzani,a was praised. Fur the first tilne Russians participated in an intctmational relief operation in liafrica as part cJf the fntctmational team coordi~~ated by t-he UN, Finally, a report about the Rwanda relief opemtion, vdzred at $1.4 billion between May and D ~ e m b e r1994, receked an evaluation study costjllg $3.5 million, an evaluaticm, I was assured, that was the mmt expensive m d complete u~~dertakelz of a humanitarim operation." Capping the d r m a and requiring more superlatives was the kilIing preceding and during the reflugee exodus, which uneierlay all anaiyses. The genocide was ""the largest since the Holocaust," and killing in Rwanda proceeded at a pace faster than even Auschwitz was able to achieve. The masterminds cJf t-he genocide were also judged in terms of superlatives: lhcir evil, along hvilh that of Bosnia, are t-be orlly two war crimes since world War 11 for which the UN has had the wherewithal to press prosecution. 'f'hus, in the case of the Rct'anrla relief operation, two became intertwined: pity for rcfugees and revenge emotional s~~bjects against the perpetrators of the genocide, known c o m d y by a sinister sounding French word, g&rzocida'nires. Pity and revenge m of course two ver)i different emotions. 'The question for the international refugee relief communi.9 became, in effect, how to express the world's emotions effectively for such massive sufferitlg. Can both exist side-by-side? Is a relkf operatio~~ the most approprjate response? Or are justice tribunals? Whichever was the case, one thing was clear, the only type of human organfzation capabte of dealing with the l q e task was a bureaucracy, that cz~xnbersomeand alf-pervasive form of social organization which, as Max Weber points out, we all revile, yet arc so dependent upon for modem life to be possible. 'f'hus, ironically, despite the fact that bureaucracies are inherently sterile, conscienceless, and inhuman,they are nevertheless the onXy toot, useful for expressing both mercy and revenge, the emtions t-he world demands be expressed. This book is an exercise in ssessing p&cy by Loobg both at wh& actually happened and also at what might have happened. VVas the forced ~patriationfnevitable?Would efiffe~ntpoticy decisions have ~ s u l t e din d i f f e ~ nconsequences? t In terns of methcufology, this book uses traditional historical narratke with a comparative sociologicd analysis. The book is divided into two sections. Part I focuses on the historical underpinnings of the "inter~~a-
20
Ivt froducfion
tiond rcfugee relief regime." Chpter 2 describes the institutional limitations within which the regime must operate, Chapters 3 and 4 are both about the naturt- of burt-aucracy in the context of internationai relief operations. Chapter 3 is about why bureaucracies are effective, even in emoticmal situations like refugee relief. Chapter 4 is the "yes but" "chapter with respect to hrtreaucracb and explores Mthy it is diEicult for burczaucracies to define the moral differences between right and wrong in emotionally charged situations. The difiiculties inherent in studyirrg the mgime are the subjeclt of Chapter S. Chapters 6 to 8 co~~clude the first section of the book with a description of the Rwanda crisis and how it developed. The focus in this part is a study of how the work in Ngara unfolded, how policies developed, a d the crikria on which decisions wercl. made. The second sectim of the book shokvs how the concept of the "'bureaucratized Good Samaritan" i s an effective one for understandislg the l i d tations of the international refugee relief regime. There are three case studies of how donor emations and the needs of the bureaucracies interacted in Ngara, Tmzania (Chapters 9 to 11).The subjects covered are purposely disparak, and include one centering on the role cJf planners ( c m tingency planning and preparedness for an influx fsom Burundi); one iocusing on the role of engineers and public health experts (water provision and wefl-drilling);and one of general interest to the iawyers (violent death). The point: of choaskg such broad subjects is to dmonstrate how similar bureaucratic and emotional concerns undcrlay decision-making, irmspective of the techical field involved. From this analysis, the ""breaucratized Good Samaritan'koncept is used to assess what the Ijnnitations of the international refugee relief ~ g i m are e and how these limitations will continue to limit reform. 'Thfs leads up to a discussion, in Chapter 12, of the question asked at the begiming of this chapter: Why were only the Rwandms forcibly repatriate&?The liiscussion in Chapter 12 leads to a conclusion that refugee crises arc inherentIy poltical. Neverthekss, the need for an apolitical humanitarian veneer is maintained not d y in connection with the W a n d m s but hother crises as well. ?"his is the suhject of Chapter 13, where it is pointed out Ihat the weahesses fomd in the Rwandan case are in fact built into the contraclictions of bow refugee relief is handed, and that each of the other crises discussed implicitZy had a unrealized potential Thus, as the emerge~zcyresponse sydem is curfor a forcible repatriatio~~. rently constituted there are certain '"decision points" wwbcre opportunities are taken advantage of or lost. 'f"hese points reflect the dynamics of how po:[itical and financial support for h u m n i b r i m crises is generated, and not the ohjectke needs of the refugees themselves, flow these points arc deait with typically has much to do with the effects that the international popdar press has 811 policy and decisim makers.
The fhal chapter asks how the limits of the "bureaucratized Good Samaritan" will shape current efforts at reform., The key point is that until decision-making is rooted more firmly in rationalized buwaucratic norms ratl.ler than the dictates of the emotimai.ized (and necessar2y sensalimal) mvhg eye of the prcss, reform efforts are likely to contlnue to be svmied, In essence, "press management" is the problem, not the soluthn. The solution is to s t ~ n g t h s nburctawratic rationality, and not delegate t?uthorit.y to the necessarily motimalized pogular prcss, which is pursuing other ends than the deliwery of rationalized services to the refugees. At the end of the book is a edection of eight essays 1 wrote about, refugees while inTfanzania. Six of them were writtm on behalf of my employer, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), The origtnal purpose of these six essays was very consistent with the "bureaucratized Good Samaritan": they were tools to describe our work to donors within the church. As with ail such reports, there needed to be a strong l-ruman elemetnt, kvhich conveyed to lay waders the type of work we were doing, how their money had. been used in the past, and how it would be used in the h b r e . In this fmction, my job was not that different from that of a print reporter. The seventh essay is about the dcmographics of the refugee camp with which I was most familiar. Such data, though widely disseminated, were not d e r s t o o d m d were igmred by flanners who could have uscd them to make operations more efficient. Nevertheless, 1 think of this essay as being of genertral rwthociological and anaiytical interest. Likewise, I hnve hopes that some refugee c m p adminjstrator somwhesc will see the point in develophg such data. The final essay is adapted fmm a 1989 issue of Dit;usters, in wbich I wrok about the difficz~lt-y in counting refugees in a remote Tmzanian village, Since much of the usefuhess of the ""bureaucratized Good Samaritan"" concept rests on the accuracy of good counts, 1 hclude the essay here as a kvarning. Th.ings in Afsica are not always as straightforward as olxtsiders assume,
Personal Background own hterest: in the international re.fugee relief regime goes back to I982 klrhen, after a stint in the Peace Corps at a Nafaria Zone office in Thailand, I was employed by the hternational Rescue Committee ( X K ) as a sanitarian and project manager in Thai ~ f u g e ecamps for Zndochinese. A tiot~rceof contkual frustration for me was the inefficiencies m d wastefuIness in the relief effort, Water systems stood. unused while expensive water tmcks roared by; poorly desiped camps led to fires and
22
Ivt froducfion
Roods; refugee fmilies who were gohg to be resettled abroad endured p a r s of despondmry while on the international dole, Like many yomg ental organizations in such sibations, I people working for nongwe began to blame this situatio~~ on the two large international orgmizations most rcspmaiblc fur setthg policies for those camps. In tlne case of Thailand, these agencies were the Ur7ited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UN:MCR), who ran thc c m p s , and the U.S. Departmnt of State, which had the largest resettjennent p r o g r m and also funded UNHCR. From this ercperience, I c m e m a y with a belictf that the ideals for rehgee refief could be realized if: it: w e x made rnore cost-effective and efficiesnt (see Waters 19%). From 14t.14 to 1987 I worked m another UNHCR-funded refut5ee project, one in Tmzmia for the Lutherm World Federation (LWF), this time as a special project officer responsiblu for hstallhg road culverts, managing building supplies, general rural development programs, and supervising agricm,l,turalextengm agents. Many of these projects were to be undertaken by employing villagers usixzg World Food Programme (WFP) "Food for Work" wmmodities-which, when they arrived at all, were a year or more late, 'The poht of this project was to settle "spontaneously settkd" 'refugees in Tanzanian villages and regularize their refugee status. Here, too, UNMCa policy did not meet its w n ideals. Particularly disruptive w s the failure to arrive of proxnised funcling. Neither the promised money from UNHCR nos food from WFP materiaked on time, and both we^ later cut, in the mfddle of the prqcct. This rczsulttld in a great deal of back-pedaling by those of us in the field. .A final assault on my bureaucratically rational sensibilities occurred when the Tanzanian gowe ent in 1987 expelled the refugeedfor whom we had been bujldjng in(sast:r.lzcture (Waters 1,988 a d 1989; Malkki, 1994), m d the UNHCR failed to even register a public protest in response to the expulsion, In this context, the LWF project coordinator insisted that a refrtgee project without refuges slhould be discontinued, since the refugees had. been sent back to Bumndi. The Kigama regional commissioner insisted that the constnaction projects be continued, even thmgh the rcfrtgees were no longer welcome, a psition wjth which the not-mcourapous UNfiCR concurred (see Waters 1988). Again, I looked critic d y at UNHCfCfs r& fn this affair, How was it possible for the High Commissioner for Refugees to continue a refiagee project. when all refitgees had been expelled? :Nfy next stop was graduate schod, evenbally at the University of California, Davis. In a social theory course at Davis, I read Max Weber's (1948,1958) descriptions of organizational rationaliw and, elsewhese, Arlie Russeil Hochschild's (1983) descriptions of the "emotional labor" of airline stewardesses. Suddenly, my view of what I had seen in the
UNHCR and the nongovernmental organizations I worked far made mort. sense, and m)l own youthful passion for insisting on effjciencyand predictability a tittle less. Tfie connection betweern, the two very djfere~ztapproaches to social theory is this. On the one hand the UNHCR and the agencks around it acted very much like the rational profit-seeking orgmizations Weber described as existing in both the private and public sectors..h particular, they were organized on the same principles; and as a msult &ere were the demands for accountability buwaucratic efliciency, ~ l i m c on e hierarchy,seal-ch for prtlcedent and consistency, persisternce, expansion, and the need to qumtify. But there was a difference between =&gee relief bu~aucraciesand the more contmon private- and public-sector bureaucrades. The "pmfit" (financial or political) was not generated by the sale of what they manufactured or the services delivered, but depended cm the size of the donations they received and spent, Hclt.n,ce,the elentent of the "emotional m n a g e ment" Hochschitd described. The amount of money received (md therefore spent) was generated not throu@ the impersonal pr~ducticmand sale of a product or service, or even by Chc generali.on of a service for a political constituency but by ""appeal.sUto '"donors" wwho themselves neither cmsumed the product pmdueed nor sought conwentional profits. fn other words, the "rdional prolit'' was imstead achieved by sotici,ting funds from '"donors," wwha Qpically werc the governments and citizens of Westcm demcrcritcies and Japan. 'Ehese countrim had mixed motives: they do value humanitarian values for their own sake, but they also had domestic and international irtterests. The point is that the "bottom line" fnr the humanitarian agencies was not financial profits in a price-setting market, but the ability to aMract mart? dollars through appeals to sympathy, friendship, empathy, and the emotional criteria implied by '"deservedness." The engine &rough vvhich this emotion is generated is the international press, which foczlscs sympathy through its selection of crises to respond to. My expelled R u r m d i m never made it to the New York Times, and thus ~ g a r d l e s of s the bmaucratic rationaliv I expcted of the UNHCR, were unlikely to command hummitarian hterest. Furthermom, this necessiq to generate such. emotion m a large ""burcaucratized'" scale was very similar to the way Ilochschild's fljght attendants needed to use smiles and other emotional cues to sell seats on an airplane. In both cases the results are similar, Just as Hochschild's stewardesses became cynicai about the srnile they sold, rt?fugee workers become cynical about the refugee projects they implement. In other words, my Wcberian love for maki-ng doilars work as efficiently as pow"ible was irrelevant in a refugee context, since organizational inefficiency could be papered over as lmg as the e~notionsof the
24
Ivt froducfion
do~zorswere tended to, Perceived deservedxzess determined the number of doflars available for the bureaucracy, not efficiency, In other m&, "emotion" was the implicit pmduct of the UIVHCR, whether m e a s w d in terms ol lives saved, good feelings, press cl@pings, vi,deos produced, social justice generated, or some other measure, And uniquely for the refugee relief businem, the good feelings that were relevant were not those of the rwipients (as is the case to a degrce in government social, welfare programs) but of the distant donors viewing the results of their largesse on television. A practical chance to test and refine these ideas came to me in 1994 when I was hired by the Lutheran World Federation to help establish their prqrams to rt.cc;ive Rwmdan refugees. I was assigned to Ngara, %mania, effective Map 2, 1994, and participated in the relief operation for the next two years. Much of this book is the result of what I sawf heard, and thwght during that time and is recounted in the ethnographic first person. I, also present reports about b a d e r documentation hum the operation. The ethnographic portions include discussions of Tanzania, and also a bit about 'Thailand. Descripttions of what happened in Ixwanda and Zaire draw on. written sources m d sorne personal communications. This approach is I think distinct horn that of others who have written &out. the Rwanda refugee relief operation, and as a result X viekv this book as compfemmtary to two other t y p e m h r i t i n g about the Rwanda rt?l"ugee crisis. E'irst are sorne outstanding, ~ c e n t l ypublished scholarly historicd assessments, including G4rard Prunierfs The Rwunda Crisis: H i s t o y o f n Genocide, Alism dcs Forges" Leave Noac to Tell fhe Story, m d Peter UV~I'sAidipztp Vinfe~zce.The first two books use the methods of the hislorim to describe what happencd in Rwanda, Uvin's hook impies a cmparative approach, but never moves very far beyond the situation in Rwanda. All three books, because of their emphasis on Rwanda, imply that what happencd in Rwanda was uniwe and weds to be understood in its own right, as &deed it can be. This is the nature of "historical particularity," a ssubject Which will be returned to in the discussion about methods in Chapter 5. The second genre relatiw to which I position this book is the mporting of the refief community itself. 'This ~ p o r t i n gundertakes to evaluatc-1itself and its operation for its okvn bureaucratic needs. S o m of this reportl.ing is of high quality; The binl Ezlnfuafio~c$ Emergency Asststnlrce to X m n h F E A R ) is the best known of this type of work, although C)xfam, Mbdecins sms Fmnt-i&res,the United States Cornittee for Refugees, and others also make notab)e contributions, The strength of this genre is that it was accessible to policy-makers i n t w s k d fn d ~ i s i o n &out s the Great Lakes rcgjnn of Afrka at the time decisions needed to be made. Such
analysis, though, often ends up describing the provehial trees rather than the fosest. These =ports tend to describe the administrative and politjcal difficdties fn particutar circumstances and times, rather than the ass~~mptions and weabesses inherent to the broader operation. Thus, much has been written about the breakup of the Rwandm camps in Zaire, hut little as to what the b ~ a k u gtells us about the organizational capncity of the UN and the NGO agemcks who s~~pervised Che camps.. :My a h with this book is to draw on the strengths of both gmres, to combine a historicai perspecthe with a general sociological mderstmding of the buteaucraeies. Notes I. There has been sc~meemtroversy about haw the Kwandan repatriation tzras conducted. At the time, interested parties (including the United States and Kwanda) insisted that the repatriation was by and large successful and was accomplished without sipificant loss of fife. Mare recent estimates indicate that between 200,000 and 300,000 of the refugees are unaecounted far. Estimates by UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner h r Refugees) and MSF (M4decims sans FrontlGres, or Dt~ctorsWithout Borders) jndjcate that as many as 200,000 Hutu refugees may have been kill ed by soldiers fmm Rwanda and / or by Zajrean rebets (Lernarchanel 1999:196), 2. Lnuise Holborn (1975) has tzrritten the most comprehensive history of refugee prc3gram admjnjstration in the period following V\J;;>rld War TT. John G. Stoessinger (1956) has tzrritten about the evolution af the international refugee regime in the period starting aAer World War X and extending to the early 1950s. 3, See Special issue af Disasfen, 2014) 1996, for a discussion of the study, especially the Introduction by Macrae. Fifty-two consultants were hired to produce the study which took a little ower one year to be published. John Bodon alerted me to the magnitude of the expense in a conversation in. rirgara in July 1995,
Refugees, International Politics, and the Good Samaritan
The Origin of the Good Samaritan's Bureaucracies
Pmgrams of refugee relief and resettlemnt am not new. One can imagine Moses in fie Sinai fussing with kraelite recipients over the quality and quantity of food rations, in the s m e way xfugee ahinistrators do today*Recards about the American Tories who fled t s Nova Scotia at the end of the American Revalution are clearele, Soon after their arrival. in Nova Scrotia, their British benefactors begm to moan about the danger of the refugees" developing an unfiealfiy dependcnce on the relief distributed by the militirry fhifafiinnon 1986). But, these efforts, vvhile commendable, wcre not like those today; they were not carried out by permanent organizations like the IZed Cross or UN agencies whose only job is to seek catastrophe and provicie succor m behalf of "'donors." This chapter is about hokv relief bureaucracies elnerged in order to mediate relations between donors and beneficiaries. A few of the modern relief agencies have tbrir primary origjn in wars that took place in the nineteent-h century (Shwcross f984:10&1(lf), but the really large and efficient process of mass famine relief began in. earnest efuring a d after World Miar I (Kaplan 1988329-30; Smith f 984:8&97). A complex of agencies developed togethes, often in fits and starts, as the international refugee reZief regime moved from crisis to crisis, coping with changing definitions of "refugee." As we seek exgimations for hokv it developed, the period since World War I is perhaps best divided into four eras* First was the period between 1914 and 1939, when famine relief was first undcrta,ken by the Anterican businessman Herbert Mower, first in Belgium during Warld War I, and later in Russia after the war (see SmiCh 19f14). He went beyond the efforts of the Red Cross, which had ministered to cornbatmts, and organized food delic~eriesto civilians trapped
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
37
by military blockades. Fallowkg this effort the Arctic explorer Fridqov Nansen became the League of Nations9first "High Cmmissioner for Refugees,'" and issued 1.5 million "rehgee passports" to stateless White and Greeks in the 1920s (Shawcross 1984:80). The Russians, Arme~~ians, limitations of this system, which was dependent on the goodwill of "host'knations, faltered when Nanscm's successor as High Commissioner could not duplicate this achicvernel~tin tbt. 1930s after Jews were expelled by Nazi Germmy. ediately after W r l d War 11the focus shifted to resettling European refugees. Twelve million refugees were resettled and repatriated by the A1lies following World War II. Also at this time, the United Natims Relief and Works Agency was established to help Palestinian refugees (MarrelbRond 1986:xii; Hofhom 1975). This was folltokved h 1951 by the Office of the United Nations High Commjssioner for Refugees (UNWCR), which was charged with pmviding legal pmtection against forcible repatriation and the coordination of relief activities, and was provided with a $300,000 budget (Cunliffe 1995). At the time, UNI-LCIC activity was limited to providing assistance only to those who were refugees as a result of World War II, a millicrn of whom remined in Europe at that t h e . A third period, whjCh began in the 19605, marked a move into =&gee relief in the Third world. This was first done by the International Cornmittee for the Red Cross (KRC),which became detlply irtvolved in the provision cJf retief to both sides in the Nigerian Civil War (Shawcross ue the Red 1984:102-103). The ICRC, a Swiss organization, is u ~ ~ i q among Cross societies because international treaties give it rclsponsjbility for visiting prisoners of war. In part because of this duty, ICRC has principles of "confidentiality'" and "yle~~tralify~' in its relations with the combatants, the UN, NGOs, and the press. Note, though, that the UN itself was left behind in this expansion; in the context of the massive humanitarian emergency in East P&istan/Rangladesh, even Secretary General U' Thant of the UN acknowledged that in the early 197Us, the tiN was not equipped to deal with humanitarian emergencies (Oliver 1978:20).1 Nevertheless, in the late 1970s, a complex of agencies, m "international refugee relief regime," emerged to provide refugee mlief rander UN coordinatim. This happened in response first to the Indochinese ~ f u g e e crises of 1977-83, and )ater to a seemingly i,ntractabl,erefuge problem in Africa. h the process, refugee protection came to be seen as more than a simple legal problem. Rather it was seen as intertwined with the provision of clean wat.er, shelter, and fnod, whether in refugee e~~cantpmmts ~ ~ moved into the issue or in refugee settlements. Finally, in the 1 9 9 0 focus of "htema1ly displaced pcrlrsons," or Itzl's. These were people legally deIhed as being in "reSugeeljke circumstmces" despite the fact that they
28
Reftlgees, Politics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
had not crossed a recog~~ized hternational border. It was noted that their needs were often identical to those of people who had crossed borders. The story told here is a historical account of how this international refugee relief regime developed. It is very much the story of m intemational regime, for no one agency dominates refugee relicf.2 At diffctrent t h e s and places, different agencies withh the international refugee relief r e g h e have domhated relief operations, For example, the Biafra operation (1968--79)was coordinated by the fntemational Committee for the Red Cross, the tndtxrhese programs in 'll-raitand by UNHCR, and relief prohtemational grams in Cambodia (1979-83) by UNICEF (United Natio~~s Children" Emergency Fund-now shortened to United Nations Chil5) was coordinated by WSAfD, dren's Fmd). The Ethiopia crisis (19 Catholic Relief Srvices (CES), m d the Z,utherm World Federation (Z,WF). The Rwanba refugee crisis was coordinated by the UNHCR. As of this writing, refugee relief in Alhmia for Kosovar rc;rfuget?sis being coordinated by a combkiltion of NATO (North Atlmtic Treaty Qrgmization, a military t ~ a t y and ) UNHCR, Of the ixrternational agencies, UNHCR is the only agency to specialize solely in rt?l"ugeew r k . But this involvement is far roles. from behg a monopoly; other agencies have played ee~ztrr-ll
Between the World Wars
I-fuowrS Famine Xelicrf Two recurre11.t: issues emerged after World War 12, which brought about the development of the refugee relief bureaucracies m d which continue to be at the core of refugee relief operatiom. First is the need to provide food, water, and shelter to civilim victims of co~~flict-thesuccor that the Good Samaritan provided; second is the need for internationally p a r a n teed legd protection for =&gees unalole to =turn to tbeir home country. that the right: to The formm is gromded i,n the commonsemse pmpositio~~ life is most basic, The latter recognj.zes that this life eveqwhere is in a context of a world liivided into natim-states that should-and wually guarmtee such rights to its citizens. The first modern refugee relief operations were undertaken during and after World War I. The businessman Herbert Hoover made his forbne in mbing, but he becme the cataiyzing force behind deliveries of aid to Belgium during the war and, later, to Russia during the civil war between the m i t e and Red armies (Smith 19M). Both operations involved a combhation of xnaterial and food supplies, which were to be distributed to milIions of noncornbatant civilims. Roth operations distributed srtrplus American commcrdieies, but they also relied on advertising and private donations to create distmcc betwee11 Chcmelves and the AUieci
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
39
ents, and thereby maintah the veneer of being apolitical m d of beislg neutral in their provision of hurnanitarim relief, For the first time, ~ l i e programs f were measured in fillions of tons of commodities distributed, and hundrt3ds of millions of dollars spetnt. :Neilher of Hoover" operations addressed the central cause of the ~ f u g e ecrisis, which was hta seen, correctly to be rooted in the breakdown in thc relationship between the state and its citizen. 'Thus, at the conchsion of the Russian operation in 1920, the m w League of Nations conctuded that a permanent office to represent stateless pwsons was needed to resolve the contradiction of lost citizetnship. This move was timely because the conclusion of World War I had seen the bmakup of three multinational empires: Russia, Ottoman Turkey, a d hustriaHungary The rclsulling civil war in Russia and a series of ncw co~nfiicts among the newly created Balkan states also led to a series of crises h which large popufations of civilians suffered. fn particular, agreements among the new states provided for the exchange of new populations in accordance with a new policy that each nationality should have its own state. 'l'he results were massive population exchanges h1the RaIkans, the l q e s t between Greece and Turkey, often i,n the context:of war,
High Comnzissill~serforRefugees The post-World War I order left Europe with many millions of stat@Iess persons: people who could not clairn citizenship fn any one of the new countries. To accommodate these people the t,eague of Nations in 1921 established m Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees under the leadership of the Norwegian Arc?~c explorer Fridtjw Nansen, Headquart e ~ idn Getneva, the new office was prkarily a diplomatic and legal office concerned with m k i n g pleas to respect the rights of refugees, many of which came from minority groups im new nation-states. Nansen was assigned special responsibility for Russian, .Armenian, hsyrian, hustrian, and German refugees across eastern Europe, His work as High. Commissioner was best known for his issuance of travel documents h o w n as Nmsen passports to those unable to claim citizeznship in my countsy. At the time, the rationale for the office was seen as a one-time need resuiting from the breakup of the empires. After tbat, the r a t s of minorities were to be prtlserved by the nation-states of which f l r l q were citizens. h this context, Nasrsen was able to Ifacilitate the ~settlernmtof millions of =&gees from Russia, Greece, Turkey, and other countries. To accomplish this he had to rely on the goodwill of the settlemeld countries. But this relimce on the goodwill of the nation-states was a lhitatiasr, and the effectiveness for the League of Nations r e b e e office was reached in the late 1,9Ns when Jews began to be expelled from Nazi Ger-
20
Reftlgees, PoliCics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
many. Confronted with a new exodus caused by an explicit state policy, the Office of the High Cmmissioner pleaded with western European countries and the Llnited States to accept a substantial portion of the Jews forcibly exiled frnm Germany Relying only on Ihe power of persuasi.on, the pleas of the High Commission were largely in vain; in retrospect, the failure to rc-rmwe Jewish refugees from areas where they would be abusczd, deportect, and eventually exmuted is recognized as being a major failurc in the prewar world order.
The Aftemath aE World War 11 At the end of W r l d War I1 in 1945, there were an estimated 12 million to 20 milion refugees in Europe. For large nu~nbersof people originauy displaced by the defeated Germany, it was a matter of returning home (Stoessinger 1956s). For a few milfion, though, this was pmhtematic; large nurnbers lived in corntries occupied durhg the war by the Soviet Union, and others we= survivors of concentration camps with n0 realistic place to =turn to. 11% 1 9 6 anli 194, large numbers of these refugees were repatriated to the Eastern Bloc countries, sometimes forcibly; where some were apparently executed by the new governments, sometims within. earshot of the border (Stoessinger 1956:58, Proudfoot 1956: 214-218). This experience, co~nbhedwith the prewar failure to take case Newish rchgces, led to the enunriatinn by the United Nations of a nm-1.eforikme1zt (literally "no forcing baeEc"9pprinc$le, in which it was asserzed that no state cotxld forclibly rehrn a rehgee who had a well-founded fear of pcrseclntim in his or her home country. Likewise, states had the responsibility to proto refugees Mlho had a ""legitimate fear of perwcution"" on the grounds of race, refjgion, ethn.ici9, pofitiral vlews, etc., shodd they be deported back to their own comtries. h 1952, this was enshrined inan internaticmal treaw and tbe OHice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNMCIZ) was estabiishcd to protect thc legal right ol rcfugces to asflurn, m d to facilitate voluntary repatriation or ktegratim into new natimal commrmities (Pitterman 1984:44). The High Co sioner was provided with $N0,000 to esCablish an oMice to focus on this legalistit- task (Cunliffe 1995). h 1952, there were still several very specific restrictions on the auf;ht.,riEy of the UNHCR in its charter. First, it was restricted to resettling refugees within Europe. Second, it was to be '"nonoperationaX,"' m a n h g that it would not undertake to directly administer mfugee assistance operations, but only facifitate thetn through the institutims and organizations in bost countries. Finally, the cbarkr of the W H C R was for only five years, and therefore subject to renewal. Ostensibly this was because it was expected that all refugee operations would be c q l e t e d , and the
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
21
need for the UPJ.MC:R terminated, fn practice, this state of &fairs c o n k ues today, m d the five-year limit also pernits the member nations of the UN to keep the UNHCR cm a short leash with respect to thrir own political needs. In more practical terms, it means that planning for periods longer than five years camot be undertaken. Consistent with this temporary status and with the office's nonoperatbnal role, the UNHCR has never been ghen a budget to mdertake major relief operdions on its own initiative. The Refugee Mandate Expands: The Decolonization of Africa In the 1 9 6 0 ~ the ~ n a m e of litg gee assistance changed. &y this time, the post-World War II refugee situatjons were resolved, asld even though there was a brief shift in attention when refugees fled :Flungar)i in 1958, by the early 1 9 6 0 ~ it ~was apparent that tbert. was little refugee work left to do in Europe. But with decolonization in Africa and Asia, millions of new refugees began to appear, Africa in particular provided a place that tbe refugee bureaucracies could expand, and in 1963 the UNHCR took its first tent-ative step outside its home continent by establishing resettlemnt programs for Rwandans in newly independent Tanganyika (its name was changed to Ta~zaniain 1964). h this operation, two thousand Rwandan ?irtsi refugees were flown from near Gorna in the Congo to Tangany-ika fnr resettlement. 'I'he new government of Tmganyika was amenable to this progrm, but only on the condition that the government itself 170t be directly rcsponsi:ble for the new settlement. The Tanganyikan gwemment also pointed out that it did not have staff or "operational capacity"" to impfcment the new work. 'The UNHCR, of course, was prohibited by its own charter from being "operational." Cmseyuently to do the actual work of ~settlttment,LINHCR approached the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) oMice in Geneva and asked it to establish an agency to undertake the assistance portion of the resettlement, LWF did this by estahlishing an d i c e in Tmganyika, and Mwese settlement for Rwandans was built on the s h o of ~ Lake Tangmyika (Hoiborn 1975). But the biggest relief efl'ort in Ahica did not involve UNFICR. The Nigerim Civil War led to the deaths of 1million to 3 million in Biafra in 1967-70, a conRjct: kvhich captured the attention of the West The British and American press reported widely on the starvation occurrhg, seemingly as the result of a Nigerim government policy that could be chdrarterized as genocide Uacobs 1987:4&53). Nevertheless, the Nigerian government asked the International Committee for Red Cross (ZCRC) to coordinak relief efforts for the survivors, This h & e d difficult negotiations on both sides of the civil war, and dclays in the dcljwry of relief
22
Reftlgees, PoliCics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
goods, which probably exacerbated death rates, ICRC was roulzdly criticized for its slow response, a charge they were ill preparcd to refute in the newspapers and magazines wbrrc. it was made, in part owing to their strong tradition of empha"i"i.ng political neutrality and confidentiality Oacobs 1987; Thompsm 1990). Meanwbite, in the 396Us, UNHCR expanded its work across Africa, partic~~larly in those conntries adjacent to the I70rtuguese colonjes of: Mozambique, Angola, m d Guinea, countries where revolts we= being suppresed. Zn each countv the UNFtCR e n t w d into agreements with NGQs (nongovernmental organizations) that were already in place or were specifically formed to deal with refugee issues. ?jipically, under these agreements, UNHCR negotiated with a Western country to pay for a speciiic project on behalf of the refugees, which was to be ""intplemented" by the nongovernmental agency, The nmgwernmental agency in t-um often had other donors that cmtributed a portion of the costs in partnership with what the UNHCR was able to raise. UNHCR in turn monitored the implementatjon of the contract and becarne "operatlional"' only when issues of individuals' legal rights cJf refugee status were raised. In response, the U N K K s bureaucracy expanded, as did the cluster of agencies with which i"tmplemented projects xwnd th world. The largest of its parhers was to be the Lutheran World Federation, whjeh opened oftices primarily in Africa during the 1970s. Other large agencies entcrring into relati~ncihipswith. UlZIHCR included. CAM, Enternational Rescue Committee (IRC), Oxfam, MSF (M6decins sans Fronti&res),and Catholic Relief Services. Rooted in often asymmetric ""prtnerships" &minated. by EJNE-ICR control of purse strings, the relationships between the UNHCiZ and its parhers were o f f a fractious, dapitr-,generally being symbiotic relationships. .Also critical in this emerging mix of the late 1970s and early 1980s were the UN agencies which wew independent of the UNHCR. :Most prominent was the World Food Programme (WFI-'), whjeh was "operational"" and provided the most importmt relief item, food, for the UPJHCR to distribute via its partner agencies. Other UN agencies imvolved in relief and refugee work included LINICEF?WHO (Mitrld Health Orgmization), and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), Out of this alphabet soup of agmcies came etemands for the grratcr administrative efficiency implied by centraljzation..This, however, was resisted b y agmcies interested in protecting their turf, a primary and consistent criticism of UN agencies in general.
The lndochinese ReIief Operation The constellation of agencies partnered with the UNHCR was given a m;pjor boost beg ing in 1979 and 1980 when it played a major role in
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
23
the Cambodia operation. in mailand, and the reception of Vietizamese "boat peaple" "throughout Sout)neastAsia. Tn a way not seen since the end of World War 11, rczfugees were consilie~das being worth of hummitarian concern. This happened because the needs of refugees, the poljtical interests of the West, the expanding capabilities of the UNFICR, and the attention of the w d d press miz~cided. In 1975, the C o m u n i s t Khmer Roug-e overtook Cambodia and violently emptied the major cities, Having closed down Cambodia" barders, they then tried to establish a utopian agriculturally based state. In hmanitarian terms, the conseque~~ces were? a djsaskr, Firm nu~nbersare still not available, but by 1978 it was clear that over 1 million Cambodians had died of execution, starvation, and other causes associated with the establishment of the new society. Rehgees bring-lng rurmors abctut the m m e r :Roup;e death toll between 1,975and 1978were frequently heard in n a i l m d . A few journalists wrote about the mmors, but not in a mamer that had caught the &tention of the United St.ates, the British, UNHCR, or others i n t e ~ s t e din refugee relief programs. 'I'hert? were flurries of interest, but overall it was treated less seriously than the Biafsan relief"progrm conducted bp the ICRC in the late 1960s. It was not mtiZ 1979 that the world took notice, tn 197S79, Indochi~~ese fled both Cambodia and Viebam. This flight, followi.ng closely on the 1975defea.t. of the U'nikd Staks' ccrlent ~ g i n t e isn those countries, helped justify, particularly for Americans, their long invotvement fn the Indochinese wars. tn effect, it prtwided an "I told you so" with respect to Communist aggression. The Vietzzamese refugees, many of whom had connections in the United States and therefore a constituency, arrived in Malaysia, n a i l m d , Hong Kong, and other corntries on rickety bmts telling horrific tales of escape and pkates. This h d l y at.tracted t:he attention of the Western press, a situation Southeast Asian ents exptoited by dramatically towing refugees back out to sea, argui,ng that doing so was necessary in order &at their countries not be saddled with an 'knfair burden." "The cynical. strategy, conducted. in front of cameras and at the expense of the refugees, actually worked, and Western countries begm accepting the boat people for resettlement (see Shawcross 1984; Mason and Brawn 1983). Cambodians arrived in mailmd later and with less dramatic Emfare. Viehrann invaded Carnbodia in January 1,978, and refugees fleejng both the retreating Khmer Rouge and the Vieharnese invaders began to appear m the 'f'hai-Cambodian bortler. nailand ~spondecl by vietly forcing the refugees back to Cambodia, &ten in a f a s b i z calculated to lead to fatalities in minefields, at th hands of f i m e r Ruuge, or by starvation, The most w e l l - h a m of these incidents occurred hJune 19'78, when the Thai military foxed between 43,000 and 45,0C)O relugees back to Cambodia on a path that went alongside a minefield. This raised a furor among
24
Reftlgees, PoliCics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
the Western embassies in Bmgkok, a situation which the Thai prime mktister said he was pleased with, as it drmatized the necessity for the VVest to take responsibility for resettling Cambodians as well as the Vietnamese (Shawcross 19&4:88-91). Un behalf of the expelled Cambodians, the small Bangkok offices oi the UNMCB m d ICRC ~gistereddiplomatic protests and made the rounds of both sutheast Asian and Western embassjes, KRC aiso attempted to establish a humanitarian assistance program via the Viekamese-sponsored tjwemmmt i17 P h o m I'enh. But, both UNHCR m d ICRC were garticulady wary of haw the Kehamese cvou,ld.interpret assjstmce e h r t s along the Thai border, m area whese m m e r Routge fasces werc strong. As a resuit, &spite knowledge of desperate s u f f e ~ gon the Thni border, the agencies believed that the most suffering could be averted quickly by means of h o m Penh-based programs. However, the Esponse to these weak diplomatic efforts was neghgible, and the Thai continued with their hard line. Thus, it was not until C)ctober 1979, when CaPnbodian refugees h c h g famine massed at the Thai border, that a humani.tarim response came. In October, a Swedish film crew broadcast. pichtres of the famfne vktims to Europe. Tirrre magazine also pnblished an eight-page cover story, "Deathwatch in Caxnbodia," The report, whose covcrage came frm the border rather than inside Cambodia, began: It is a country soaked in blood, devastated by war, and its people are stawing to death. . . . Relief agencies believe as many as 2.25 million Cambodians could die of starnation in the next few months unless a vast amount of aid is provided soon. . . . There is nothing ermobling about death by starvation. . . . Scmn after faad is cut off, the body switclthes to burning fuel reserves in the liver and fatty tissues, After fat is exhausted, the body accelerates the breakdown of protein in the muscles including the heart, which saps strength. At the same time, the body attempts to husband its resources by cutting energy requirements to the minimum. Pulse rate and btood pressure fall and bcdy temperature drops. Men become impotent; women stop menstruating and nursing mathers fail to produce milk; children stop growing. . . . Death comes in many ways. The intestinal walls become damaged; severe and constant diarrhea may develop." (quoted in Shawcross 1984:171).
The Carter admhistratian, which had a new focus on humanitarimism in foreip policy, responded by generously funding the UNHCR and NCI13)s to provide relief programs..'l'kaimd accepted this sugpmt m d requested that the UM'FJCR coordhate relief darts. As a resuit, the C m b o d i m operation became the first time when an UMCR-led internaticmal rr?fugeerelief regime achieved a s i p s c a n t autonomous role alongside national governments. This position was not
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
25
rooted in sovereignty, nor in finandal resources, but in an ideological commitment to a previously abstract '%unnanitarianim,"' This position
war; established through an appeai to moral authority rooted in the agency's ability to appeal diredly the Western public via the press? But the UNHCR still, had little practical sovereignq ri@ts outside the diplomatic passports their own offiicials carry. f-'h~ancially, the UNHCR c m t h uccf to be depender~ton appeals to donor governments, especially the United. States and Japan. The money collected by the U M C R in Esponse to this press-driven appeal for Cmbodians was far beyand what had been done before. Funds primarily from Western governments were reccjved as fast as they could be spent. Budgets ballooned to a point where the UNHCR was even able to hire a heticopter to krry stafE and reporters to the c m p s . The initial camg at Sa Kaeo was quickly established, hut then abandoned owing to flot>dhg(it had hem built in rice fields). A second camp was established at Khao 1 Dmg, and the Japanese agreccf to instdl a state-ofthe-art water system, This water system also proved unusable, so mre funds were solicited to purchase a water-trucking fleet so that a .minimum of water could be trucked in. Between October 1929 m d December 1981, the UNFXCR and.its NGO partners were able to spend $11115.7 million in donations, primarily from the blnited States and Japanese governments, At least $100 mjllioxr morc3 was coltected and spent by ICRC, WFT: and the NGO-partners of the UNHCR (Shawcross 1984:3(31-393 WBters 1984). Costs included housing and full r a t i m , as the Thai gove did not permit refuges to farm outside the crowcled camps* As the Cambodian relief program aged, though, it began to show its rough edges. Within two years programs were cut, carnps closed. By 1982, the Thai responded by implement "humme deterre~~ce'+rogram in order to encourage Miestem go ts into suppodtjng feeding m d third-country settlemmt programs." FinallyI it was argued morc convincingly that the camps had become a "pull" f'actor, encouraging people to become refugees, rather than simply a Rsponse to the 'pushf' of persecu.ticm in their h m e country, a duaiisrn implicit i,n the intemati.onally recognized definikion of: a refugee. By recognizing only persecution, the law consigned all other motives to the "pull" factor or economics. Despite the simplicity in the 'kither-or" dichotomy of the economic migrant[ ref ugee distinction, such decisions were undertaken at the urging of the United States. As a resufc it was ~ a s o n e d the , legal right to asylum ~ m a i n e dintact (McNamara 1989). These policies were i,n place thnlughout the t98Cfs. Whether the refugee fiow irom Cambodia, which eventually stopped, did so as a rcsult of the implementation clf these policies c ~ rof the graduaf pacification of the m m e r Rouge has never been evaluated.
26
Reftlgees, PoliCics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
The sttccesses in the Cambodia operation. established the pattern of pres~drivenexpansion of the humanitarian burclaucracies, followed by periods of decline in program effectiveness as attention shifted my-I worked at Phand Nikhom C m p i,n 7,983,and whet1 I arrived, expatriate workers had already made 71-slnirts advertising the various camp closurt. dates announced for the Cambodian camps. Each closure had precipitated a. "crisis'2EEia.t. was amottnced to the refugees and refugee workers and in the press. As :Irecall, t h m were seven such dates by that point, reflecting '?firm deadlines" set by the Thai government and donors in the United States and Ezlrope. But even by this time, it W= widely achowiedged that these deadlines were simply Thai efforSs at reviving donor interest hfunding re.fugee programs, rather tban actual camp closure polities. In fact, the canps were not closed unt-il the 7,990s; and then only after a major proportion of Cambodians had. been settled in the United States and France, and a lasting peace agrrement had been ne8o"ciatc.dbetween the Phnom Penh government and remnants of Che m m e r Rouge (Mayotte 1992:93-124; Shawcross 2000:7M2)+ African SetCIemenC Programs in the 1970s and 1980s While the high-profilc and high-cost programs emerged in Indochina, other approaches to refugee work were developing, particularly inAfrica. By international definitims, which emphasize flight across internatimd borders, Africa had by far the most rczfugees in the world. African governments did not, however, demonstrate the hostility to newly arriving refugees so common in Southeast Asia, and instead devclczped reception progrms grounded in what they called '"raditionai African hospitalitp" Mar~ll-Bond(19%:16) has nokd that such hospitality is extended i,n spite of the fact that there is a positive incentive to threaten refugees, namdy, to attract more support from the international commmiv.,.-) As a reswlt., some of the largest and most extelrsive refugee assistance programs in the 1980s were h Africa, not Southeast Asia, where the p ~ s s focused its attention."elief efforts for refugees from Wlmamtnique, Angola, South Mica, Bufundi, Sudan, and Ethiopia served millions-even t h o q h Africa =presented only about one third of the UNFlCR p m g r m budget-c\lhereas the programs in Southeast Asia served h u n d ~ d sof thousands. Che conscquetnce of this austerity was that "'closed" camps in which refugees were not allowed to f a m were impossible in Africa, as rations were inadequate for survival. 'I'hus, in Africa most ~ f u g e e wert. s not in camps or settlements, and even those in camps were expected to iarm and thercrby raise a portion of their own subsistence. What rations there were, were considered '"supplemntal" a d included only basic
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
27
dried goods; certahly they did not include the fresh pork and vegebbles 1saw distr-ibuted in the Thai camps in 19X2-.83,7 Massive resettlement programs in countries like Botswana, Zambia, Matawi, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and %mania also reflected the broader willingness of African governments to permit resettlement schemes that had the potential for conthufng into an indefhite fuh;lre.. Wically, rrefugees were dlotted lands in remote m a s to establish new homestcads,K This permitted rehgees to work and subsist far away from fighting in ongoing civil wars in countries like Mozambiyue and Angda. They clid this often wjth d y minimal filnancial and food subsidies from the international refugee relief regime, As a resullt, there was less pre* sure for quick ~patriationlresettlementschemes as emphasized in Southeast Asia. Anuther result in Africa was the concept of "relief through development'" and an emphasis on refugee self-sufficiency in food production dufing the 19Ns. Irrespective of criticisms concerning its implementation, this providcd a marked contrast to the Southeast Asian progrms (see, for example, Rogge 1985; Hard-Bond 1986; Lliaters 1999a).f)o(icies for resettle~xent,which were formalized h the UNI-ICZC" cmferences for donors and hosts of the 1980s, assumed food self-sufficiency in new settlements after a period of three to seven years. Other refugees were acknowledged to have settled and achieved self-wfficiency "'spunt.aneously""; some circumstances, there were more of t h s e latter refugees than of those who were formally msettled (Cuny and Stein 1989). For both groups, programs of ~naluralizationm d htegration into nebv coulntries were sometimes established. Likewise, as wars and political confrontation fn southern Africa dissipated in the 1991)s, progfams for repatriation werc initiated; large numbers of refugees made Cheir way back to Mozannbique in particular. Others adopted the citkenship of their m w country or, as likely informalry blended into local p ~ d a t i o n s(Malkki 1994; Sommers 1994).
Major African Relief Operations: Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia As the 1980s ended, better-funded efforts emerged in Africa, and the international refttgee relief regime began to experiment with new approaches. Among the initiatjves was famine relief that was undertaken in Ethiopia, a protracted food airlift to the southern Sudan, relief operations during civil wars h LiiIaeria and Sierra Leone, and military hvolvement in Somalia in 1992, Each of these experiences shaped the normative relationships existing among the UN agencies, their N G 0 partners, and
28
Reftlgees, PoliCics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
rZfrican governments. The larger relief operations w m also focused by press attention, which raised expectations for humanitarian action. Like the Cambodian operation, the Ethiopia relief operation of 1984-85 was galvanized by press attention. lespile e x p k i t famine warnings from agencies in Ethiopia in early 1984, international response was sbw. I'he United States in particutar did not want to prop up the Marxist government \zrhose policies had led to the fantine in the first place. It was not until a film by a Kenyan, Mohammed Amin, was braadcast on the BBC and in North America that the world" attention shiAed to the famiae, which w s , ineffcet, lifted out of the broader poljtical context as a consequence. Largely as a result, massive assistance appeared at the beginning of the operation, followed by pleas to sustain life-sustaining operations and a di,minution of press al.tent.ion. USAD, C E , and LWF were particularly aggressive in mounting relief programs on the back of this publicity. Operalion failekeSudan was different. Beginning in the late 1980s, when it was coordinated by WFP and the LWF's Nairobi office, Operation Lifelirre Sudm has in fact been a ""lifeline." WFP co been and continue to be provided to refugees and the internally displaced in the southern Sudan. Delkeries typically occur by truck, but expensive airlifts have taken place during periods when toclins have been unreachable because of the rains or the siege tactics of the Sudanese mititary. Much of the support for this ""Xifeline" has originated in the United States, which in addition to a h u a n i t a r i m fnterest has a polticaf interest in destabilizhg the Islamic government in martourn., Ironically, the lifeline has kept alive the rebel force and the communities that shelter them, thus prolonging the war. As a result, the context of such operati.ons inclmdes the death of nnillions from confliet-induced causes, as well as the fight of hundreds of thousands into refugee camps in tlgmda and Kenya in what is arguably the most bloody of the world's conflicts" The government forces' bbrtality in attacEnt; civilim populations, selling of slaves, and the use of starvation as a tool is regardcd as even more repupant than the excesses of the rebellious forces, But a hypothetical quest.ion about wfiether rcrbellion is sustahed by food aid,, and as a result causes more human suffering than would occur illits absence is occasionaily asked (Shawcross 2C)t)I):282). 'The question is not only unanswerable, but also probably irrelevant As critics are wick to point out, relief aid responds to publicity and political needs, not to assessments of how to allwiate human suffering* Somalia is perhaps the m s t unusual of the African operdions in Ihe humanitarian aid context. Follawing the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991, the country slipped into a civil war in which competing
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
29
warlords fought over control of the southem part of the country. The collapse of the state apparatus and the fighting over political control permitted famine cmditions to emerge in 19%. Aid agencies, especially ICRC and CARE, organized the distribution of food, bwt unprotected convoys were fOoted by competing warlords, who sold the grains on local markets to firlance their armies. The agencies in Somalia responded by hiring ever larger militias of their own; for example, :Natsios (199284)recounts that by the end of 1992 I C K had employed between 15,001) and 20,000 armed guards to protect food shipments. This only seerned to add to the anarchy as it stimdded blackmail by militia seeking employment as ""guards." As a resdt, a nulnber of h e r i c a n NGOs, CARE the most prominenrc, advocated for protection f r m the Unjted States military They did so by raising the specter of imminent mass starvation in the context of the large in-country thefts. Nezusweek magazine described the nature of starvation: During the famine in Somalia, perhaps the worst ever recorded, average food intake for adults has dwindled from a satisfactary 1,"i"O calories a day in 1988to a hopefessly inadequate 2C11f. . . . In essence the staming body consumes itself, devouring its own fat and muscle while shutting off fess important systems to keep the brain and the rest of the central nervous system operating.. . . lEJoss of fat around the eyes gives them a sunken look, and the face starts to wrinkle in what starvation experts call the old-man syndrome (N'eursaueek, December 24, 4992, p. 38).
In rclspmse to press reports, President Bush in late 1992 dispatched U.S. Marines to Somalia for the express purpose of protecting food deliveries. This action received thc approval of the tl'N, \zrhich took the unusual step of not giving a member state (Smalia) effective veto power over an operation on its own territory. After the Clinton administration task ofillce, the goal shifted to the reestil-blishment of civil authority; and c m m n d of the operation was shifted to the United Nations. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people wrw saved from starvation; the goal of "state building," hhowever, was never achieved, and in 1,495 the UN withdrew its last contingent of troops (Natsios 1995"). Overview: the International Refugee Relief Regime This brief overview of the history of refugee assistance is designed to show how and why the hternational r e g h e has developed as it has. It is of courx by no means exhaustive; many more operations have been mdertaken than have hem etescribed here..I-lowcver, it does point to how
Reftlgees, PoliCics, tile Good Sn~uan'trtn
30
s o m of"the normative stmdards fos giving assistmce .first emerged and are deveioping. Among these principles arc the following:
*
*
*
*
* *
UN agencies have a central role in the coordinat-ion of hwmanitarian assistance. Notahly, this is a coordination role, not a hierarchicat role, The I1N agencies have little direct superwiscrry authority over the staffs of the specific NGOs typically implementhg actual.feeding programs. UNHCI.: s h d d be nonopaational while still coordinating. This p"ciple is to a certain extent a contradjctian. Coordination irnplies some ability to coerce cooperation, whether through the power of the purse or other means that: inflwnce assistance policies" UN agencies are by their very nature sensitive to the interests of gwernments, whieh almost by definition have a seat at the United Nations in New Ynrk-analogous to a UN' age~~cy's board of directors. At times this results In conflict between the human rights that tlN agencies seek to prottrrt and the poli.tica1 excesses of those m e governments. mough UN agencies do have independent hmanitarian agendas, they art. particularly sensitive tc:,the priorities of the governments of the Western democracies and Japan, which provide Ihe bulk of their funding. This funding, in turn, reflects not only general humanitarian interests but also domestic p"titica1 interests, hcjudkg those of e t h i c groups, elites, and cmstitue~~cies of particular nongwernmentaf actors, Filling the void between coordination and operatim is a wide array of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, that to varying degrees and in different places have a voice independent of both the UN m d hcrst governments. To maintain this in$ependellee, the agencies must either have financial independence (for example, the ZCRC, whose funding comes directly from countries that have signed the Geneva Co~~vention, or cultivate independent rcllations with Che other inltuenlial actor, the international media, A special relationship between NGOs and the press has developed, with the result that humanitarian activism via press release and insider leaks can be effective ways to inhence policy. The Western and Japanese dmocracies art. sensitive to the press, whi.ch itself often has no more than a passing interest in a particullar place or event. Nevertheless, the nature of cornplex emergencies means that solutions do not neatly fit within
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
31
the popular press's attention span or simple "either/ort' dichotomies, Thus, l.hough the ta,t;ks of huntaniEitrian suceor are similar to those undertalten by the Good Smaritan along the Judean road, the means are diffwnt. The context has shifted from an indlvidtral act by a passing stranger to an organization to whjch acts of mercy are delegated. This is a positive development, since it means that the definition of a neighbor has expanded. Today, ill a mass catastrophe. far m m people can be effectjvely succored than c o d have been in the Goud Sarnaritan" day. Thus, in bands in 1994, when something like 3 million people (figurathely) were lying by the side of the road, hu,rt and homeless like the man robbed and beaten on the Judean road, the bureaucratized Good Smaritan vvas called to assist. Even if there had been enough Good Saxnarktans in central Africa at that time, there were not erlough bandages, oil, wine, donkeys, or inns in Rwmda to cope with a catastrophe that large. C)nly with the use of skills developed by the internatimal refugee rcllief regifne in plares like Skafra, Cannbodia, m d Somalia was this operation possibk. In ii(2scribing the strengths, weaknesses, and developmat of the internati.ona1 refugee relief regime, it is easy to forget that these normtive relationships and principles are not natural, and are of fairly recent origin. The overlappillg agencies-fie fntemational rczfiugee relief ~gime-are a combhation of modern bureauemcies seekkg to expand while protecting their own turf and at the same time doing the anomalous job of assisting strmgers on behalf of distant donors who have a mix of humanitarian and political goals. Because of this capability, the social space in which hundreds of thousands of people c m die from famirte, massacres, and disease has prcibably shrunk. The following chapters describe how the system that have ernerged to provide succor work, particularly in the case of the Rwanda refugee crisis. There are, as will be described, massive heffieiencies in how aid is delivered. This, though, is not a new critique. There is also a widespread awareness that more should have been done, but solutions to this relief situatim focus primarily on strengthening the existing assistmce regime, not on reexantining the assunnptions underlyjng it. Good examples of' this approxh to reiorm are provided by the JoinfEmlunficln(?I" Enze~qency Assistance to Rzua~~tJlk(1996) and WFPFslames lngram (1993). Both urt;e better finance, coordjnation, and ce~ztralization but without, however, examinhg how current methods of coordination and finance led to these weahesses in the first place..
Reftlgees, Politics, the Good Sn~uan'trtn
32
However, .Crhesestructures are inefficient when compared Ea other organizatianethat is, other bureaucracies (for context, see Wilson 1989)"It i s my contention that the strength of the international rc_.fuut;eerelief regirne is directly rcllated to the extart to wh,ich it has been bttreaucratized. If you start with this assumption, tke question then arkes: How can the strengthwf such a bureaucracy be strengthened in order to achitive a more effective relief regime? As will be wen, I conclude that the stxngthrj lie mre in relief organizationskcharacter as bureaucracies than in their ability to manipulate emotion and pity* Notes 1. Thomas Oliver" book The United N~tiotzsi ~ zBangladszslz is instructive on the subject of how quickly the international refugee relief regime expanded between the Bangladesh crisis (1971-72) and the Indochinese crisis (197&83). Oliver describes what are, by later standards, feeble U N bureaucracies. It took months (not days or hours) for the first relief supplies to arrive in Bangladesh. Furthermore, at that time the amounts of cash and supplies were, by todayPsstandards, minuscule. Just 4 million blankets were requisitioned for a population of 10 million returning rei'ugees, not counting internally displaced persons, in a country of 90 million people (19";7:114-445). The UNP-ICR also did not play a major role in the Bangladesh crisis of 1971-72, even though this crisis involved the Etight of over 40 million refugees from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) into India in late 1971. The Indian government was hesitant about admitting too much fc~reignassistance far reasons of both pride and political.expediency. In December 1971, India invaded East Pakistan and installed the new go>xsernmentof Bangladesh. This permitted the return of the refugees. A massive relief program an behalf of Bangladesh-~vhich had been devastated by a typhoon, massacres by the Pakistani military and the refugee flight and return-was mounted in 4972, The total death toll was estimated as high as 3 milXion fmm a combinatian of drowning, massacres, and famine. This relief operation involved direct aid from the United States via USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) and the establishment of an independent ad hoc U N relief operation, the United Nations Relief Operation in Dacca (UNROD). While extraordinarily ""late"'by 1990s standards-the relief took months to reach the Bangladeshis-this operation was considered the most successful UN relief prclgram mctrmted up to that time (see Qliver 1978; Payne 49733). 2. The literature on "international regimes" is xsoojurninous (see Haggard and Simmctns 4987). For example, Puchala and Hopkins say of interna"ticmal regimes: ""A regime exists in every substantive issue-area in international relations. . . . Wherever there is regularity in behaviclr, same kinds of principles, norms or rules must exist . . .'There is some debate about the h e points of this defkitian, but for this book, it highlights the relevant points.. The features of an international refugee relief regime are a substantive issue, the international organizations (e.g. UNHCR, VVFt", UNICEF, ICRC), and nongo>vernmentalorganizations that abide by regularized normative behavior. The very nakre of the work means that there
Refidgees, hlitics, fke Good Snf~tal.z'Ca7.2
33
is little coercive authority by which agreements (both treaty and contractual) can be enfc3rced. 3. UNHCR war; aw-arded the 1981 NobeX Peace Prize for its effc7rts in protecting Viebamese boat people. 4. Policies of the humane deterrence program emphasized the austerity of camp life and were meant to discc~urage""econamic adventuwrs," who, it tvas believed, comprised the rnl.ljority of the new refugee amivals, despite continuhg Widence of persecution in Vietnam and war in Cambodia. Howwer, such evaluations were also caught in between Cold War power calculation; indeed, as a consequence, the United States continued to back the Khmer Rouge" claim to Cambc~dia"seat at the United Nations. 5. Tn a foc>tnote,HarretX-Bcmd (1986:16 n.6) notes that Sudanae officials were well aware that Thailand attraded more funds by threatening refugees with expulsion, which was contrary to international. law, 6. The largest progam in the 4980s was in Pakistan, where large numbers of Afghans settled in camps that doubled as perilla bases. These camps were amply supported by the United States government v i a the UNE-TCR. Large numbers of Afghan refugees defined as such by the LINHCR were in Iran, which did not permit the large assistance programs that Pakistan did. Other major relief programs w e l ~ in Central America. '7. The disparity beween what is provided for refugees in Africa and elsewhere is a cmtinuing source of frustration for same. As the KC~SOVO operation unfolded, these were FIurries of e-mails among groups working in Africa who noted that African refugees are unlikely to receive special meals for diabetics, hot showers, or the amount of water being demanded (and financed) far the Kosovars. I think that this analogy couXd prc~bablybe extended to refugees in Asia. The refugees 1 saw in Thailand received higher levels of assistance than those in Africa. On the other hand, the Thai gc>vernmentwas more harsh with the refugees when it came to movement outside camps and forcible repatriation. 8. See Malkki (1994) and Stein (19%) far descriptions of refugee settlements. See Harrell-Bc~nd(1986)for descriptions of refugee camps in southern Sudan and Uganda in the 1980s. See Svmmers (1994) for a description of Burundians in Bar es Salaam.
The Strength of Bureaucracy
The qzlalify of'mercy is nof sfrained,
If dvopy~tltus the gentle ruitzfrom lreuven Upat? the place beneath; if is twice hlessc.d
If btess~tlthim fjzuf girars, atzd hint fjzuf fakes, -William Shakespeare, 7% *%erchant of Venice
lntroduction Refugee d i e f is a compla task. It involves organizing relief goods and refugees, and trhm brjnging them together in an efficient fashinn. It is often made more compkx by the fact that refugee flight tends to be to remote areas, md at least initially, is pexeived as being sudden, 'l%rus,to accommodate refugees effectively, it is necessary to bring together resources from around the world quidtly and efficiently. The only type of organization capabte of marshaiing the L\lidely dispersed resources needed to do this is Ihe modern specialized brxreaucracy. The strength of a bureaucracy lies in its breaklng tasks down into mmageable chunks, which can then be unliertaken by officiats with specific responsibilities. These officials' jobs are separate from their personalities, but their ability to do them is dependent on well-defned skills, Defined rules govern officiat actions and mlationships. 'f'he tasks and the holders of the positions are then organized into a hierarchy of authority. 'This is bureaucratic organization, Finally, the bureaucracy has a well-defined goal or product. In. the case of a private capitalist enterprise, this goal is the generation of profits for shardnolders, wlrrereas in gover undertake a specific measurable task while maintaining the authori-ty of the group in power.1 In relief work it is to extend mercy on a mass basis or, mare gelzerallly; to "sustain humanitarian principles.'"
Tht Strength ~jB~rer;l~~cracy
35
Bureaucratic organization is found in virtually all modern enterprises,
and for most people living in the modern world it is taken for granted (after Wber 1948:196;-198). In fact, bureaucracies are so taken for grmted that they are frewelntly blamed for the ilts of modem societyf despik the fact that hierarchically organized bureaucracy is m n d m society. This is because other forms of organization-sucb as blind obedience to the whints of a herfi?dit.arychief or kjng or ad hoc consensus with neigkibors about life" irritations-are msuitable for the administration of mass society Builcting highways, rczgulating markets, operating mass education system equitably, collecting and accomting, for taxation, or ensuring that the official responses to a theft in one place are sirnilar to those in another, all require a bureaucratic responsef not the whim of a chief or king. The s m e can be said of the large bwaucralically organized corporations which bave created the modem world"s wealth, They, too, need systemalic rules, regulations, m d p r o c e d u ~ in s order to generate t-tw profits their shareholders demand. Organized rational bureaucracies, no matter what l q e and. small frustrations they may cause, are fundamental to the modem world.
Bureaucratic:Goals Elemelntal to bureaucracies is the concept of formal ratimaljty. Formal rationaliw m a n s that for a given end, there arc rules, regulations, and social structures designed to optimfze the achievrment d the org"nizatiods goal. Four basic elements m e r g e from this process: efficiency, predictabitit~calculabil.ity and control by means of nonhuman technology (Kitzer 4996; Weber 1448). :Notice that lacking from these four elements are other hcentives for soeial action, such as affection, charisma, personal loyalty and a number of other emotional qualities that regulated ir^ltt.ractionin the premodern world. The rationalized bureaucracy seeks to maximize all of its four elelxents in the service of the gkcn end. Here it is perha.ps instructive to briefly review them, fctr as I will sho~\r, in the context of rcrfugee refief programs there is a discontinuity between the elements of rati~naiityand refugee work which makes this work more inefficient than other bureaucratized tasks (after fitzer 1996:ltF-19).2
The Rationalization. of Gaals
Eflclelzcy By efficimcy Wber meant that for businesses, as few inputs went into the generatim of profits as possibie, In other words, in a bureaucracy
36
T?zeStrength of Bureazkcracy
there is incentive to deliver the most bang for the buck. As a result, thruughout the business, there is an emphasis m cutting costs in order to maximize profits-or at least tcr maximize resdts in terms of what the bureaucracies are of course orgmized bureaucracy "pmduces.'"elieS similarly; it is just that efiiciency is organized to produce a vaguely deh e d "mercy" rather than financial gain.
In becornhg more efficient, bureaucracies seek to make thek inputs and outputs more ""calculable." This cuts across productive m d administrative tasks. In the modern corporation, profits are calcdated easily in terms of easily divisible units of money (prc3ferabl.y in a decimal system, as the British only recently discovered when they abolished shillings). Likewise, there is also an emphasis on calculating the hputs. Zn manufacturing, such inputs include tbc raw material, cost of labor, etc. As recent studies have shown, h service hdustries, companjes seek to quantify customer satisfaction through the use of surveys, tracking complaints, and even traclcing compliments (see Hachschild 1983:118-119). At universities, evaluation of facuky is periodically done by students, whose ratings of facdty members art? turned into numbers, which art. entered into a file. M is jn Ihe interest of calcdability In relief oper&iorns, caleulability is measured h terms of lives saved, kilocalories of hod distributed per refugee, money spent per refugee, etc. From such calculations, it is inferred hocv well the more abst..ract humnitarian task of delivering mercy is done.
Preetictdility is a third quatity Weber ascriibed to bureaucracies. Burt-aucracies seek to have Chejir submits behave ixn a predictable fashion. Predictability is entrenched in both writtm rules m d regulations, m d in the unwrittm norms of cclmpanfes and industries. 'l'he holder of a particular office or job knocvs what- to e q e d (and what not to expect) from holders of other posjtims within the bureaucracy Consumers also know what to exped when they p m h a s e a prtduct which is padaged inside a box, and citizens h o w wlat type of semice to expect h e m they approach the governant service desk at the post ofice, motor vehict registry, public school, social welfare office, etc. Bureaucracies seek to produce a predictable product. Thus, a McDo~nald's cconsumer h a w s what to expect of a Rig Mac in Moscow or San Francisco. National chains take advantage of: consumer d e s i ~ for s predictability when they develop brand loyalty. Even jails and prisons
Tht Strength ~jB~rer;l~~cracy
37
within the same system produce a level of incarceration that is the same from place to place, day in and day out (Ritzer 1996). The point of predictability is that t h g s tend to be consistent within a bureaucracy. Predictability is particularly important h a justice system founded on principles of deterrence, The point behind deterrence is that undesirable social acti\lity is controlled when potential offenders have a phusihle belief that there will be a Rsplmse. The difficulty in esthlishing predictabe precedents in the humanitarian context is discussed in Chapter 12 where violent d e a h in Kwanda. is discussed.
A final element of bureaucracies is the emphasis on seeking to control people, be they workers or consumers, through nonhuman technolog, especially rules and machines. ikfost elemental is the tendmcy to assign certain tasks (and only certajn tasks) to an office or agency, Rufes that control employee and customer behavior might focus on where to line up in a queue, when to smile, wl~atto wear, and even haw to justify arbitrary rules (""blue suits are more businesslike than red business suitsf'). Human behavior is controlled by machines when the speed of an assembly line is adjusted, when time-clocks art? pmched, phone cdls art- monitoxd, and fuel cmsumption is checkd. Bureaucratic cmtrol is increased on behalf of the hierarchy. Control means that power and authority move upward toward wbrrc. hformation is controtled. A by-product of this need to control is Chat the datawhether about efficiency, calculabiMy, or predictability-are held in confideneiality; indeed, data are often secret. The tendency to maintain secrets, not surprisingly, is yet another characteristic of the wed of the bureaucracy to assert control over the humans within it. Control as an issue is reh;lmed to in Chapter 1C)tryhere the assumptions behhd engheaing technology astl discussed, specifically in connectio~~ with questions of water engheering. Control over the faws of phpsics is element& to water engineering. However, the pumps and quipment of the water engineer also control hvhen and how water can be dellivered to refugees, The emotional urgency of refugee crises means that admjnistratiltns must make decisions without the types of control that bureaucracy normally gelzerates.
The Irrationality of Rationality Visible only from a distance, the dog, nicknamed the King of Ruffle Bar, had sustained itself for an estimated two years, was apparently in good health, and gresurnabty wouXd have suwived in this semi-wild state, barring acci-
The Strength of Bureazkcracy
38
dents, for the rest of his natural life. However, some well-meaning soul heard about the dog and reported him to the Society for the 13reventianof Cruelty to Animals, thereby setting the bureaucratic wheels in motic~n.Since the King could not be apprc3ached by people, a baited trap was set. According to the Ernes report . . every day a police bunch from Sheepshead Bay takes off for Ruffle Bar, the uninhabited swampy island of the dog. Every d a y a police helicopter hovers for a half hour or more over Ruffle Bar.'" . . . When questioned, representatives of the ASPCA said: "When we catch the dog we will find a Imppy home f o x it" "mphasis added]. The ASPCA became obsessed with capturing the clog. Once triggered, the ASPCA involved the police with a remorseless, mindless persistace that is tcm terrifyingly characteristic of bureaucracies once they are activated. . . . Emotionally [the police] sicled with the King, even while carrying out their orders. "Why don't they leave the dog alone?" said one policeman. Another abxrved, "The dog is as happy as a pig in a puddle." . . . The delusional aspects have to do with the institutionalized necessity to control "everything," and the widely accepted notion that the bureaucrat knows what is best; never f o x a moment does he doubt the validity of the bureaucratic solution (Ncw York Times, Frjbruary 120, 19170, quc)ted in Hail, 'I976:10-12). "".
h this description of bureaucratid rationality regarding the "Kng of RuMe Bar" there is also irrationality in the bureaucratic rationality*The irmtionality is in the fact that bureaucracies, developed tc:,serve humans, ultimat-ely end up tkmselves being served by humms. By-products of all this efficiency include m a y of the muroses of modern society. Max Weber, writing about nineteenth-century industrial capitalism, called these neuroses the "iron cage,""He saw a society that, in dl its efficimcy, had created mechanized petrifa.ction in which labored '"specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civiIization never before aChieved even though it is at the expense of the highest c u h r a l and spjrituaX ideals" (Weber 1958:182). This is certainly the case-and the frustration-for the police dicers flying the helicopter searchhg for the King of Ruffle Bar. The sociologist George Mzer, writing more recently, renmed the late twentieth-cmtury version of this phenomenon ""McDonaldizationf"and called it the "velvet cageefWetoo, compli~zentedthe outstandhg efGcimcy of rationalized business organization, while pointing out that this process also subordinates human spirit to burraucratic efficiency. Both terms were meant as backhanded compfintents to what the authors viewed as the organizational paradigm for modern life. Both writers make the point that out: of this wmderfully productive way for managhng colnplcx tasks, many d e r n neuroses arise. Among
Tht Strength ~jB~rer;l~~cracy
39
them are ~ u n t m working e co~~ditians, efficient Nazi death camps, e11virmmental degradation, the cheapening of culture, and. that 1991)sneurosis named after the government's largest bmaucracy, "gohg po&alff: being overcome by a wave of videtnt rage. The point is that the necessarily abstract (and unpredictable) rationalism of society, carried to its log& cal extreme, destroys the hurnanity of the people who serve w i t h the system. This, it seems, is particdarly true in the large impersonal manuhcturing corporation. But it is also true in other industries, which sell the most unexpected products. For example, airlines flight attendants are taught to smik on command, Disneytand sells ""good feelkgs," and collection agmcy employees are taught to growl. on command (Hochschild 3983; Ritzer 3996). But for the hummitarian agencies it forces a unique quandary: To become part of an eliicient: bwreaucracy, a humanitarian organizatjon must figure out how to take the hrrmanity out of humanitarianism.
Taking the Humanity out of Humanitadanism: Rationalizing Relief W r k I'he sum of Weber% theory is that the goal of a brareaucracy is to maximize production of its product. 7;r, do this, bureaucracies grow engulhg the less efficjcnt and less predictable, as they seek to control. For a business this makes a great deal of seme; as it seeks to expand profits;, it orders it own hierarchy to focus on thit; one goal. That the humanness is taken out of this process, or at least redehed accordting to the goal of seeking prdits, is of course irrelevant. Instead, the assrtmpticm is that this mode of organization is idea:[, rather than only the most produc.live. h consequence has been that bureaucratic modes of organization are a given. Or to borrow a somewhat old-fashioned word, bureaucratic organization becomes hegemonic, meaning that bureaucratic forms of organiz a t h are borrowed from, the impersonal capitalist corporation and govent and applied to tasks of a differmt nature. One of these tasks is international refugee relief. h d hvlnile a b~xreazlcratizedform of organization is still probably the most efficient method possible for delivering massive relief to large remote populatims, the very nature of the task means that the irrationalities that do emerge are different than those that characteriz the dehumanizing Fmpersonali'cy of the corporate and govThe na.turc of these jrsati.onalities is best explained by evalwting the five elements discussed above-the goal of the bureaucracy, plus trificimcy, calculability, predictability and cmtrol-in the cmtext of =&gee relief.
T?zeStrength of Bureazkcracy
The Essential Problem of International Refugee Relief: A Vague Goal What: is the overarching purpose of the international refugee rclief regime? Is it profits? No, though clearly profits are of concern, particularly for the vendors operat-lng on the periphev Is it maintenance of power, as it is Ihe purpose of a political party? No, though &is too can bc an element as internationd refugee relief pmgrams can enter into the calculations of diplomats focused on international poiitics. Is it the welfare ? should be, but thcn how do you measure this welfare? of the ~ l u g e e s lit Likewise, part of the answer to this last qtlestion is that an empiricd evaluation of refugee suffering does not predict which crises will be responded to and which will not, although t?&ai_n, this does enter into calculations. What about the notorious "CNN effect"'? Is the overarching purpose of the internationat relief rc-rgime to gain the attention of the p r e s s m i s is perhaps a better predictor of how the internatio~~al refugee relief regime reacts, but it is at best indirect. Thus, the best anscsier even to one of the most powerful people in U.S. National Secz~rityAdviser Anthony Lake, policy-making positio~~s, could give to Human Rjgfiits Watch was to advise them to ""make mort. noise" (Des Forges 1996:229, 3999:C725), even though this has nothing to do with rationalized bureaucratic policy analysis. Implicitly Lake was admittkg that he could not, wilhout cooperation from the press, generate the poiitical legitimacy to spend retief funds and take principled stands.3 Bat vvbat they are r e d y saying is that an internatio~~al relief effort requires the concern and sympathy of a wealthy donor government's constih;lmcybefore action will be taken. Mark Lliatkup (1997) framed this issue in the foltnwing fashion: For Humanitarian Organizations [HO], resource generation is dependent upon such factors as image enhancement, doonor-centric evaluation criteria, distinctirfe visibility, and competitive independence. . . . Moreover, efficiency; according to dclnclrs (the ones tzrt-rc> matter), is sametimes only a measure of how fast an H 0 can spend money and account for it, not whether the funds have any positive, sustainable impact on the affected population ('Walkup 1W7:43,189).
Denis Pingaud, development director of one of the most successful rt?l"ugeerelief NGOs, Mkdecins sans Fronti&res,was recently quoted as saying, "When the media go alS out on onc crisis they drai_n a lot of dollor money to the tele-visud events. . . . And that means there is less money fnr other places (Ford 1999)." Ironicaily, he goes on to note, ""Nowadays TV crews get to the major crisis before we do,'khich of course they do,
Tht Strength ~jB~rer;l~~cracy
41
since as Pingaud in effect indicates, publicity-savvy agmcies follow the TV cameras to the emergencies, rather than the other way around. So how do refugee assistance sencies calculate their goal-in social science terms, the ""dependent variableM-if it is not through profits? It seems that the dependent varitible is perhaps again described. in the context of the Good Samaritan: it is in terms of ""mercy" and not pmfits. Rather, what is received is a feeling that the right response was taken, a situation justified in the moral terms of a humanitarim ethic. h the calculation of such a dependent variable, m important element is also misshg: what refugees, the actual consumers of the products purchased and delivered, themselves think, wmt, or need. Instead, what is important is what others think they need or deserve and those othersf evaluation as to whether t h y r ~ e i v e dthese ite~nsor not. Thus, missing in the bureaucratized feedback loop is a response from the actual cons u e r s of the food, wiitf?l;medicd services, and relief supplies. As a rewilling sult, it does not rnatter wt-tet-her the consunters are price-se~~sithe, to legitimate power relations, or even legitimate the trmsaction. A result is that the other elements of bureaucracy, including efficiency calcutability, predictability; and co~~trol, all suffer. Walkup (199278) describes this situation in the context of refugee workers, whom be c d s "field-level bureaucrat~:~' While field-level bureaucrats have great impact on dients' lives, clients d o not have reciprocal influence. Clients are not party to Hurnanibrian Qrganization mandates, budgets,
The basic problem, then, is that the '"rod&' of h anitarian orgmizationsf activities is mushy. The product is dilficdt to describe, and can be measured only imprecisely and.indirectly, Certainly it is not measured in terms of cash dividenlis paid to shawholders. It is not even measured as precisely as it is in democratic governments, where the "consumers" of governments services such as social welfare programs, regulations, education, highways, defense, etc. give feedback to tbose irn power by contributions, or means of easily calculable election ballots, campaig~~ polfing research, Rather, the product is measured in terms of what are in effect needs and "good feelings" of a distant constituency, politic& advantages of distant countries, and so forth. This is why publicity is so irnpostant in the manner in which relief programs are adm4nistered. The point is not the good leelings of clients, the refugees, but those on the other end of the mercy calcmlatim, the feelings of the donors. To borrow
42
T?zeStrength of Bureazkcracy
from Shakespeare, has the help given via the orgmization blessed him that gives? fn the process of answering this question, the quality of the blessings of "him that takes" k c ~ m e less s ~levant.
Three More Problems: Eeciertcy; Caf culabifity, and Predictability The Fnrprecisi.~of goals in refugee crises extends to issues of efficiesncy, caiculahflity, and predictability. Mever&eless, much has been done in the ref~~gee burersucracies during the last 5t)years to improve measures (i.e., to improve the calculability) of refugee health, well-being, and welfare. This is particularly true in the meetical fields. Agencies like MSF and WFP have developed m e a s m s of refugee populatjon beatth that take advmtage of scientific teclnniyues, This is why they report on common puhlic health measures like height-br-weight caiculations and analyses of morbidity stat&tics (see Essay 1).MSF and UNHCR have even gone so far as to rationalize what diseases they will treat in an emergency (wounds, diarrhea, and malaria), and which they will not (tuberculosis, AIDS, and ssually transmitted diseases). UM'MCR has employees who specialize in the often difficult task of counting hundreds of thousands of ~ f u g e e sWater . provisicln is also c~nsidert-dan fmportant measure of refugee heal*, and finely calculated statistics are ofkm generated to suit the needs of the refugee camp ahjnistration. Both MSF and Wam have developed tods such as re.fugee heaith prot o d s , procedures for recmiting rcfugee workers, particdarly from Europe, and emergency water t ~ a t m e n kits, t enabling these agencies to deliver relief i t e m in a preciictable fashion wherever in the world they work. As a cansequence, the UNHCR, just like the American tourist visiting the Moscow McD~nald"~ when confronted with an emergency contracts out to these sencies for a fast and predictable setup of programs. Consepently, U'N'MCR knows what it is getting and the quatity of program that will. be delivered. The need for predktability means that agexy bu~aucraciesseek to fit into the market/btlsincss environment trhat dollars expect. ''"[Tlhey have learned that this appeals to donors who am rooted in regulatory and accounting modes of opmation found in gove ent or bushess realms. To gain legitimaclv; H a s try to 'fit' with the hstitution envimment of the donors,"kven when requirements for accountability are unsuitable for the relief environment (Walkup 1997:164). This often excludes chapter but less predictrzble local contractors, Predictability improves the performance of actual tasks, but this does not necessarily have an hnpact on the delivery on the morphous dependent variable "mercy.ffIn fact, what happens is that: when and h e r e
Tht Strength ~jB~rer;l~~cracy
43
refugees receive s ~ ~ programs, ch measures inevitably improve. 013 the other hand, as described in the introductory chapter, when and for whom this capahillty is used varies a great deal. Most n o t d y , in the cases of Cantbocfia and Et-hictpia, it W= tendcred to refugees who were in the public eye. It also tends to be primarily done with a focus on the short run, and as a result, for example, wounds and acute diarrhea are trr-?ated in refugee c q s , w h e ~ a slow s djseases like tubercul0si.s and sexualSy trmsmitt-eddiseases are not, The emphasis on the short term is because of the dependent variable, which is the measure of success. Successes in delivering clean water and lowerillg short-term death rates can be translated into immediate good feelings for the distant constituencies the international refugee rt~iief rclgixne serves. This is why the more prestigious and high-profile positions in agencies like UNHCRt MSF, and Oxfam are not doctors, nurses, or mgineers, but those who hande the press well..How well the medical or engineering staff actudy performs does not matter unless it can be presented in a fashion appreciated by donors. 'Tb ensure that the good feelings arc. controlled and maintained, donor ents in the United States and Europe furtd speific projects via pledg4mg conferences in which the UNHCR and other UN agencies present wish lists of projects. On these wish lists are funclamentals for rclfugee camp administration, including water and food. Governmernts then promise to fund particular p*ects on the basis of their own pnorities, releasing funds or commodities to the UN agencies as tax mceipts in the do~zorcountries become available. UN agelzcies in turn cmtrad wilkh K O partners on the basis of the wish list, with the expectation that mmey will be received as promised. In fact, much of the money is received late or not at all, rest~lthgin budget-cutthg sessions as governments fund-or fail to fund-projects m the basis of their own calcula" tions of deservedness and pditical advmtage. 'l'he result is that throughout the fiscd year, UNMCR-funded progrms are cut as, ine~itably~ fundjng for the full wish list fails to materialize. UN and NGO staff members whose sdaries are funded through such budgets are of course acutely awarc of the tenuous nature of this funding* But again, what is sought is not completion of the project itself, but donor satisfaction. As a result, effi'iejency in this context is only peripherally rclated to the measures develsped to monitor the stability of refugee health, as this does not typically make the evenhg news. Rather, a plausible case needs to be made that a "'near disastert3as been averted. This is a tricky task, as it requires enough "Heeding" to mlce the news, while convincing the viewer that unless more fhancial resources are forthcoming a hummitarian emergency will be magnified. Notably, the bleedil~gneeds to be
44
T?zeStrength of Bureazkcracy
blamed on a plausible "other,"" and not the iutefficiencies of the relief agency itself. h effect, efijciency demands continuing drama-but drama is the antit.hesis of what an efficient and predictable bureaucracy seeks. This is a tenuous position to hod, and explainf why the bureaucracies of the Good Samaritan are ever so sensitive about ( m d subject to) criticism about management prxtices. This leads to Weber 'S f b a l eleme~~t, which is cmtrol, The Good Samaritan bureaucracy seeks to contrd, just like any other bureaucracy However, the ability of a bureaucracy to control matters is dependent on the above three cortdit-ions. The disjunctrares between efficiency calculability predictabilit)i, and the vague dependent variable all make c m t d mort. difficult. As a result, there is a proliferation of agencies and no one agency is able to emerge as the overall sobrereign, or even coordbai-or,as happens with other bureaucracies. Mi'eber"sFinal Prablem: The Persisting La& of CnnCrol I'he final element of Weber's typology is cmtrol: burraucmies seek to cmtrol workers and ohtner actors with w17jCh they intemct through rationalized rules, procedures, m d technology h the internationd mfugee relief rltgirne, the indhidual bureaucracies seek this cmtrol, but none actually ever achieve it. As a result, there is little danger of the emergence of a refugee assistance cartel, or oi me agency's comjng to dominate LalZ others, despite over 50 years cJf burt-aucratization (see Ingram 1993). Zn fact, leads not necessarily to the the emergence of a new relief opportu~~ity strengthening of the bureaucracies handling the previous emergency, but to a pmliferation of new qencies, each seeking to carve out its own turf. This occurs despite the fact that emergencies, by their very naturc, demand a coordinated respmse. This variation is reflected in a number of ways. Consider a few of the emergencies briefly described in Chapter 2. First, the lead agency varies in major relief operations. Secmd, the pattern is not predictable. For example, ICRC has coordinated a number of emergency responses: Biafra f1968), Somalia (1991), and portions of the Cambodian response, and the response in Tanzania to the arrlval of Wandans (1994). In the Cmbodia crisis, UNICEF c w d h a k d i ~ ~ s i Cambodia; de a separate United Nations agency United Nations Border Relief @eration, or UN'BRC), in border camps served Khmer Rouge camps; and UNHCR coordinated in.sid.e I'hailmd. WFP coordinated assistmce from Kenya into southern Sudan, while UNHCR did it for Somalis in Kenya. There is a plelhora of political explanations as to why a particu%aragency emerges in a particular corntry; howwer, the overall phenomenon of dispersal of authority is ultimat-ely a func.lion of the nattlre of Good Smaritan bureaucracies. Indeed,
Tht Strength ~jB~rer;l~~cracy
45
when not in an emergency environment UN agencies do tend to specialize and dominate. For example, there is little doubt that world health issues like vacchation progrms are c o d h a t e d by fie ttiorld Health Organization..Likewise, the World Bank and fnternationd Monetary Frmd have formed a very tjghtly coordinated bureaucracy to control intematiltnal banking and have usurped developmat aid from the United Nations Developme~~t Programme (UNDP). It is prharily in hummitarian relief work that such consolidation of acthities is difficult to identih and it is not clear vvhich of the international agencies is in c h q e . In the meantime, NGQs attached to UN agencies also proliferate, seek to dorninate, and gaixr independence, Walkup (191)7:191-192) gave an example of how this lack of central cmtrol c m translate into practical bureaucratic irrationality in the field: A notable example of interagency bickering involved a milling machine that was delix~erectwhen Tfo camp open& in Dadaat-,in 19132. A special building was constructed (now used as the logistics office) to hause the large machine used to grind grain into flour. EIowever, it was used only briefly until the [humanitarian organizat.ic>ns]determined it was not possible to grind grain far all the refugees. Skumped by this equity problem (which could have been rescjlued simply) the [humanitarian organizations] closed it down. It remained unused for almost five years untif. CARE ""rdiscoverect"" it and wanted to allocate its use to the community-based Economic Skills Development program, The idea tvas to put it into use governed by a comperative that would gay for its fuel with fees charged to rei'ugee users. However, a debate arose over the machine" ownership. UNHCR claimed it was theirs, but WFP claimed that they had paperwork to show that they purchased it. As a result, it still remains unused-.. . .
Resistance to central control is structured into fie UN a d NCO bureaucracies. In the case of UNHCR charter, there ,?re vagzle requircjmmts that it not be operational, and sirnpv pass along funds to a range of partners and subcontractors. The central activity in many rt;fugee situations, food requisition and distribution, is in ftact only a peripheral collcern of UNHCR; instead it is in the purview of the WFP, even though the UNHiCR-contracted agency will be the final camp manager doing the high-profile work of scooping maize into refugees' bags. lCRC has &@erent restrictions; due to its interest in preserving principles of confidentiality and independence, it typically has only remote relaticms with other agmcies, and does not seek the role of coordjnator in emergencies. This persistent Zack oi control is not for lack of interest of individual organizations in ercpanding. TiNHCa expmded a great deal in the bads crisis when USAID and ECHO, the Europem Commm~ityHummitarian
46
T?zeStrength of Bureazkcracy
Organization, for a short period =fused to contract directly wiCh NGOs and asked that all NGO requests be passed through UNHCR, But this effnrt to expand in the long run broke down. An irnportant rczason vvhy this broke down when NGOs like CARE, the Red Cross, Lutherm World Federation, and others the UNHCR contracted with had their own constituencies in Europe and North America. 'l'hese, cmstil-uencies sought shifts in overd ~ f u g e epdicy in ordcr Ihat direct governmnt to NGC) aid wouXd be resurned. Much of this lobbying occurred in the backchannels that independent access to the p ~ s permitted. s It also meant that the N'GOs needed to chdlenge the competency of the UNHCR, which u n d e ~ t lthat t bureaucracy" eefforts to assert control. Mark Walkup explained the importance of the press in this process: !Humanitarian orpnizations] rely on the media to spread the news of their good tvorks, Media coverage is atso seen as an independent validation of the work of MO, despite the reality that the media are somewhat dependent upon the information prwided by the H 0 themselves. The image of a HO is boosted tremendously by interviews with HQ-identified field personnel, photc>graphsand video of H 0 logos on tents or vehicles, and references to a specific H 0 in news reports (Walkup 1997:139-140).
h a more diplomatic fashion, hgram (1993:177-178) writes: The Lobbying power of NGOs is fc-ormidableduring emergencie that attract media attention. Governments respond by channeling resources thrc>ugh them. While key NGOs may ar may not be more efficient than UN agencies, the practical effect is that in almost all disasters a large number of NGOs is involved on the ground. NGOs often have conflicting aims and agendas, and often insist on working in particular regions of affcrcted countries. The task of harmonizing the tcrtaf effclrt, which falls to the UN, is far from easy. Very often the representatives of donor embassies insist on being involved-. While their efforts can sometimes be helpful, more often than not they add tcr the coordinatim burden.
MSF was (and is) perhaps the most skilled agency at coordinating, and at teast in %=a, their staff were well h w n fnr maintafning active lobbying efforts on behalf of ~patriationand assistance policies that they favored but that the UNHCR opposed.Wany of these recammenbations focused on security arrangements for expatriates, war crimes trials, and rclpatriation policies, all well nutside the medical sector to which they were =signed by the UNHCR. Donm governments responded, to some of M S % llubbying efforts (though not all) as a result of this press=. The
Tht Strength ~ j B ~ r e r ; l ~ ~ c r a c y
47
result was that UNHCR, the nornhal coordinator of MSF, aadj~~sted policies and progrms accordingIy-Such independence woulcf not have been tolerated in a better-rationalized bureaucracy whicl-t had a well-defined way of snhsuming competing interest groups.
Morals, Emotions, and Irrationalities The difference beheen the Good Samaritan bureaucracy and Weber's rationalized bureaucracy is that thr former is much more invdved in the ernogonal. process of defining its owl1 objectives. Ultimately, this is a question of defining what is good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate. 'This is u d i k a corporation, which has the weil-ddined and nonccmtmversial goal of genmating profits on behalf of shareholders. 'The same question can be turned around to analyzc the htctmational refugee relief ~ g i m eMlhat . is the goal of responding to a particular refugee situation outside of a vaguely agreed-on ""humanita,rianimperative'? ?dike the god of a publicly helld corporation, on which there is consensus, on the godwfihumanitarian organizations there is as yet no cmsensus. Llntil this happens, the intemtianal refugee relief regime will not be able to coordinate its activities in a way to take full advantage of the strength of its burraucratic organization. This si.tmtion is likely to c o n k u e as long as the debate about Ihe nature of mercy, which is a moral issue, continues. As Weber notes (1958:183), debates on moral issues take p h c e fn the world (Jf jucigments, of values, and of faith. T h i s is not a strcngth of bureaucrary but of politics, theology and other contexts less constrained by the limits of Weber's iron cage, the rationalized bureaucracy But, necesarily, the nature. of mercy is an issue that the Good Samaritan, whether a brtreaucracy or an hdividual, must confront. Notes 1. Wilson (1989) has written an important book describing how and why gcwe m m n t agencies manage tasks and power in the &ikd States. 2. See also Weber 1948:196-248, Ritzer is a more readable popularizer of Weber "s ideast and is highly recommended far the general reader, 3. lngrarn (l993:97) n&es that the lobbying power of NGBs is "formidable during emergencies which attract media attention." The two best examples of this are probably Oxfam in the United Kingdom, which, besides releasing issue papers, also has its own press, and Mkdecins sans Frontigres in France. In the case of MSF, The Ecano~rtistguly 20, 1999, p. $6) reports that its launder, Bernard KoucEtner, fc~rmertya junior minister of health who in 1999 was appc~intedthe first coordinator of UN uperationti in Kosavo, is "regularly judged France's most popular
48
T?zeStrength of Bureazkcracy
politician." He earned his fame by, among other things, helping found MSF, in 4971, on the principle that humanitarian agencies had a responsibility to make noise when witnessing human rights vioXations. 4. Mkdecins sans FrontiGres was also one of the more aggressive agencies when it came to courting the press, The by-and-large French-speaking agency had an American in Ngara to deal with press relations at a point in May 4994 when the press was prcsminent there, They were also known fur having stickers and Bags on their vehicles, and their expatriates were all issued white safari vests ernbtazcmed with MSF logos, Some of their expatriate staff made their image more high-prof le by standing up in the back of pickup trucks as they drove tc:, the camps, a dramatic pose that went with their rough-and-tumble public image. TiValkup f199'7:140) mentions hearing about an ECHO representative" being particularly aggressive about sticking blue ECHO stickers on as many items as possible. The same policy was adopted in Ngara. ECHQ was UNHCR's main donor, and asked that all assets purchased with ECHO money be emblazmed with ECHO stickers, I received a comphint fram the UNHCR logistics officer in summer 1994 when this was not done quickly enough on LWF ~ ~ e h i c l pures chased with ECHQ money. One of the LWF water engheers mischiwously asked whether ECHO stickers should be put on his water pumps before they were placed in his 30-meter-dep wells.
Defining Sides: The Social Structure of liight and Wrong in International Refugee Relief "It was a EeelingtrhsaidMiss M a ~ t e"It . wasn2 really, you know; logical deducticm. It was based on a kind of emotional reaction or susceptibility towell, I: can only a l l i t amo?spl-rere.. . . Who could be a killer? W ~ a kind t of a killer? What kind of a killing? X could feel then risir~gup rather slowly, like a miasma does, an atmosphere. I don't think there is another word that expresses it; except evil. Not necessarily that any one of tl.le?sethree was evil, but they were certainly living in an atmosphere where evil had happened, l-rad left its shadow or was still threatening them,"
Hidden in the parabte of the Good Samaritm is a moral dile rnanitarian bureaucracies. Haw can they translate into regulations the fact that their field-level bureaucrat should, stop and assist, rather than pass by on the side as did the busy priest and Levite? If the regdation is written too loosely their field bureaucrat will need to stop and ixlquire about the health and status of all the poor along the road, and never reach the scme of the major catastrophe. If it is written too tightly, the field bureaucrat will not be able to legithately use agezzcy resources and will not extend mercy, as indetld did neither the Levite or priest in the I"ar&le of the Good Samaritan. Refugee relief implies the preencc of war, and thus inhertntly requiscls evaluating enemies and making moral judgmnts. It also irnplies defining what is acceptable and not accepthle in the conduct of war, *c, is a combatant who is a refugee, what is a "legitimate fear of persecution," when is crosshg a borcier significant, and what is a liv-ing ratinn, The fntematicmal Committee for the Red Cmss (ICRC) with its policy ent: has perhaps been most successful at dealing MIith these
50
Social Strucfure 0jRi~q1ttand Woug
questions. It does this by takhg a view that it is in the business of providing impartial assistance and makes no j u d p m t s about those they assist. This clarity is ~ f l e c t e din very tightly written regulations, which can res~tltin bureauaatic decisions such as the one Mark Walkup (1997:89) heard about: A German TCRC officer in Lokjchoklls [Sudanj lamented about a situation he recently faced when he flew an a reconnaissance mission into a war-ravaged area in sc~rathernSudan, Upon Landing on a r e m t e airstrip, he discover-ed two pclopte requiring medical evacuation. One was, in his words, ""astoppydrunk, amogant, wounded SPLA soldier who had probably killed at least five men, and who was smaking cigarettes and bragging to his friends abaut going on vacation to the hospital." The other was a young girt who would soon die without treatmrtnt of a parasitic infection of one side of her face. AIt b u g h the plane had sufficient space, the ICRC officer was fcxced to deny evacuation t c ~the girl because her condition was not war-inflicted. With anger in his voice, the officer said, ""Surely the little girl deserved and needed the flight mare than that bastard, but LCRC policy restricts transport and medical care only to those who are war-wounded." He revealed that he almost broke fundamental TCRC rules and carried her on board. Instead he faced the task af asking fc-orgivenessaf the girl's pleading family knowing that she would surely die because of his decision.
Their reputation for "strict neutrality permits ICRC to negcrtiate with distasteful regimes existing in the very red in-between m a s creat-ed by prirzc$les of national sovereignty XCRC's assumption is that their presence prevents more violence than a lack of presence implied by strong pditicat judgments about warring protagonists. Sut following this rulc meant the German XCRC offices was presented with the necessit_yto leave a girl deserving of mercy lying by t-he side of the road. The ~ s dwas t the "irrationality in the rationality" mentioned earlier, But the real irony is not h what the German ICRC officer saw. Instead, in wrestling with the a, he sought to structure t-he w s t i o n as one of right and wrong; as a result the soldier became evil because he smoked cigarettes, laugtned, joked, and could be assumed (without evidence) to have killed "at least five men.'' ?he girl and her family meanwhile (again without evidence), were assumed to be completely dependent on the one flight to save her life. In effect, the German TCRC officer is creating the atmosphere of good and evil that Miss Marple spoke of in the Agatha Cbristie novel, and the conmdrum presented is one of good and evil, right and wrong. Such judgments are perhaps i n h e ~ nto t the nature of burcaucratized relief. But it also introduces a strong element of gassicm into wkat the presumably dispassionate bureaucracy does"
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng
51
The United Nations Mi& Comrnissiorler for kfugees (UNMCR) is expticitly charged with the legal duty of determining who has a legitimate fear of perseation, and who does not. This duty very much involves the type of decisions that- the XCEiC man made in the s0ttthc.m Sudan. In settled stable circumstances, this implies a hearing process abuut asylum requests, in vvhich individual cases are examined in the cmtext of intemational law. Clften these heasings hinge on Ml)nether an individual has a legitimate fear of prosecution for crimes or persecution for beliefs or membership in an ethnic group. The former wodd lead to jail time, the latter, to asylum status. Most refugees, however, never receive this dispassionate hearing, for they arrive as part of a mass mwement in which a "legitirnate kar of persecutionf' is assumed, irrcsspectke of individual circzmstmces, Nevertheless, the legal subcultustl of the U'N'MCR is fundamentally concerned with legd judgments. As a result morc so than the ICRC, the UNHCR focuses m whether assistance is prwided to war criminats or not. fn the absence of a legitirnat-e cowt system (also a characteristic of mass ~ f u g e movements), e the UNHCIR sees itself confronted with a moral liilctmma. Some of the UNHCIC's :NGO p a t n e s also view this moral distinction as important. Mbdecins sans Frontiiitres (MSF) is particdarly aggressive in making judgments (see Destexhe 1395 and 1996; MSE; l995).1 Rut the moral issues invdved in refuge relief are far more than general judgmnts about worthiness. Fundamental to c u r m t definitions of rt?l"ugees is the question of what responsibilities and rights individuals have vis-8-vis the state or a broader huntanity These definitions have shifted over time, but decisions about them are hherently embedded in ~ f u g e erelief operations. Ucspite the desire to believe that rehgees are sin?gl,y imocents whn can =turn to their h m e s after the cessation ol hostilities, this is rarely the case, Refugees themselves hevitably assign blame and rttspmsilslility for their flight. Likewise, war is a polarizing event in a society, and all mcmbers of the society are likely to align with one political group or the other, for whatever rcasms, Often, refmgees are associated with a political c a u x that is losing p u n d in their own country; those associated with a winning cause tend to stay Tlnus, though refugees may be innocent victims in a legal sense, they am rarely disinterested bystanders.
Defining Victirnhood To illustrate this point, I will briefly recount the moral dilnensions of refugeeism by focusing m definitions of victimhood h three djfferent rt?fugee crises: Cambodians in Thailand in 19E-83, Ethiopians durir~g the 1"38 famine, and Somalians in 1992-95. These situations provide
52
Social Strucfure 0jRi~q1ttand Woug
well-docmented exmgles of how difficult decisions were made about who was a victim and who was not. In the case of the Cambodians, difficult decisims were made about how to deal with a peasantry associated with and somet.i,mescomnnitted to the brutd Khmer Rouge regi,me. In Ethiopia, the Western donors found th existiq government extmmely distasteful: the Communist Mengistu government was responsible for resettlement policies m d wars that had m d e a relief program necessary in the first place. The paradigmatic exaxnple of callousness cited in this emergency was the deeisim of the Mengish gave ent's eastern European allies to pay for a $250 millio~~ tenth-anniversary celebration even as massive starvation raged. Sornalia is h o w n for being the paradigmatic example of how media involvemat drives policy decisions. It was in response to dernmds by the press, manipulated by American NGOs, that President George Bush ordered the h r i r a n tmops into the country in Decen-tber 1942. The point is that ineach of these circumstances, the need for hummitarian action was invested with moral terms that implied distinguishing victims from victimizers (see Mhear, Scott, and Weiss 7.996). Identifying victims involves the promulgation of rules alld poiicies, which b e c m e the bureauaacy and thus take on a lir, of their own. C)n this basis financial appeals are made, fixhg patterns of ""victihood"9or the duration of tke crisis. This h a p g e n e n particular as bureaucratic or the other. The classic structures become invested in one explanatio~~ case of this phenomenon is the definition of the Rwanda crisis. Initial assessmmts that emerged in April 1994 indicated that fie fighthg was due to centuries-old ""tribal hostilities"""ese explanations received wide exposure in the Western press for a short t h e , but they also we= subject to widespread academic criticism. It was pointed out that this was an overly simplistic genedjzation, and that- the roots of the crisis were in a connbhation of gcrnocidr, ongoing war, e t h i c mobilization, external political relations, and economic exploitation (see D. :Nevvbury 1998; C. Newbury 1995). According to this viecv, the vidims in the situation were the refugees from the regime in Kigal-i. The popular press, however, took these explanations and simplified them into the single explanation "genocide," in wwfiich some refugees had played a role. This shiAd victirnhood from the refugees in Rwanda and Tmzania to the new regixn.e in Kigati (see Minear, kott, and Weiss 1996:62-6q.TCAarles Bierbauer, set CNN (1996:vii-viii), desesibed hocv nior Washington c o r ~ s p m d e n for this occurs in what is often m arbitrary fashion: News organlzatic~nsare capabte of landing srnaXl armies of reporters, producers, photographers, and technicians in remote areas. . . . Collectively they are a Cyelops, a giant that cannot be ipored. Television especially, with its st"ngXefc~cused,eye, commands attention. For brief but intense periods of
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng time the media send monocular burning images onto the screens we at1 watch. Scorched villages in Bosnia. Chopped bodies in Rwmda. A soldier dragged through Somali stl-eets. . . . But for all their ability to focus similarly on such stories, the media are not monolithic. And not entirely dependable.. Not every tribe's tragedy is recorded. . . . What attracts? Plight and might. N o matter haw desperate the indigensus situation, the story gets better when the troops arrive.
Quick and simple judgments are not new; in many ~ s p e c t sthey are even necessary, givezn the nature of the bureaucracy Bureaucratic corporations, which advertise and sell goods, are adept at identifying and targeting categories of people who are most likely to buy hmanas, Beanie Babies, or hantburgers. Such well-defined categories are necessary in order for the modem bureaucratic system to work well, They are afso well within the scope of what bureaucratic organizations do well: create predidable m d calculable categories of people. But the burclaucratic categorizations of corporations arc by their very nature defined in an m o r a l marketplace. 'They do not involve issues of basic human rights to assistance, of right and wrong, finding fault, or even of life itself, as decisiosls about refugee assistance explicitly and implicitly do. Despite the diffemnt character of humanitarian bureaucracies, howevcr, the same process of categorizalion occws. Peope are classified as refugees or codatants. They are defined as refugees who have crossed an fnternational border and art? eligibte h r intemationai assistance, or "'internalfy djsplaced people""who are eligible for some other less vaguely defined assistance. They are &fined as refugees eligi:ble for assistance a d protwtian, or "economic migrants" su27ject to deportation. C)r, as happetned once in the Rwanda refugee crisis, they were defhed as refugees from Rwanda and were given asylum h Burundi; but when they wem maiicicrusly b w e d out of their Burundian camps and Red to %mania, they were considered ineligibf e for asylum in %mania because they had abandoned a second comtr~rof asylum. In the cases of the fndochjnese refugees, Ethiopia, and Somalia, the international, community came ta terms with deciding who was ""legitimately'" refugee and worthy of assistance and who was not. This occurred in the context of a refugee popdation made up primarily of women, children, and elderly cvho were clearly m t corn bat ant.^. This need to categorize is within the naturc of the bureaucratk mode of action. But morat dctcisions are also implicitly made as well. Returning to the parable of the Good Sanaritan, the challenge in each situation is to develop moral rules, meaning that field-level bureaucrats can Iegil.imate a decision to help generously, as the Goad Samaritan did, ratl-\er than to pass by on the side, as did the priest and the Levite. The
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Social Strucfure 0jRi~q1ttand Woug
rules and regulations framing each situation reflect the search of nominally amoral bureaucracies to solve such questions,
Cambodians in Thailand In 197M3, following the invasion of Vktnam by Khmer Rouge Cambodia, over l million Indochines Vietnamese, Z,aotims, and Cambodians-fled to Thailand, h response to th picturcs of the Kehamese boat people and the ftight cJf Cambociians, major refugee relief efforts wme launched. Most of the hdochinese fleeing to Thailand wen. Carnbodians, and this section focuses on them, However, because humanitarim assistance policies were dweloped m t for the Cambodians but for the Vietn m e s e and Laotians, these groups wiil also be briefly discussed. Mrhm it canne to identifying victihood and establishing the moral basis for assistance, Cambodians p ~ s e n t e dthe most ambiguous case of the three groups: between l975 md 1978, Cambodia was controlled by the brutal and isolationist mmer Rouge government. Behind the sealed herders of Cambodia over 1 million died, the victims of mass executions, starvation, and neglect. The dead inclukd a subslantid proportion of urban people, m d substantia ers of Chhese, Vietnamese, and Cham (Muslim) mi~~arities. Rural also suffered a great deal. The control of the country was developed by a smalf clique front a secretive Cantmunist party,the " K h e r Rouge," which had existed in the forests since the 1960s. In rcsponse to the corruptim of the American-supported government and American b o d i n g of eastern Cambodia during the Vietnam War, much of the rural population aligned itself with the Khmer Rouge before their excesses became apparent. An i.nkling of the suffering in Cantbodia was heard bn? rclfugees between 1975 and 1978, but there was little response from the world. I'hough reports of the mass exodus f m Phnom Pcnh in May 1975 were acknowledged in the Western press, ideological blillders made the refugees9ales difficuilt to believe. Some from the VVrcstem left actually became apdogists for the Khrner Rouge, white those on the right focused on Cold War geopolitieai considerations in whieh massacres &ICarnbodia were of peripheral in.terest (Shawcmss 1%84:45-49), Most notably Vietnam, Cambodia" eastern neighbor, hosted the largest number of refugees bearing tales- E-fohvever, became of an aifi,ance betcveen the Communist parties of the two corntries against the United. States and its allies, Vietnam asserted that all was well with Cambodia" Commmist revolution. Cold War calculations shified in late 1978, when Vietnam, after repeated border skimishes with the ICktfner Rouge, invaded Cambodia, driving the er Rouge government into the forests atong the b0rdr.r wjth Thai-
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng
55
land. In Phnorn Pemh, a new government made up of former Khmer Rouge cadres and protected by the Vietnamese army was installed. Focused on Cold W r rivalries, the Thai and their Wstem allies responded with alarm to the Viewarnese invasion; the Thai have a traditional fear of Vietnmese expansionism., which the px.esence of a battlehardened Qtnamese m y on their border exacerbated.W:Nobly, Ziiet-nam was uninterested in humanitarianism; their prirnary reason for invading was to secure their border. As for the Western countries, their Rsponse was confused; the defeat of the :KL-imerfCouge was welcomed, but the victory of the Soviet-alfied Ket-nmese was viewed Chrough the prism of its Cold War strategic implications. Left with the paradox of srtppo"lin8 a wictorious friend of their worst enemy (Vietnam) or a persistent but emascdated m m e r Rouge, the Thai and h e r i c a n s chose tfire latter (Shawcross 19%:20-76). For the overwhelming majority of the Cambodian people, the Vietnamese invasion meant freedom. From thek view it was irrelevant that the li:berator was a traditional enemy of the Cambodians or the Thai; the point was that the despised and brutaf er fCouge lost control of their er Rouge retreated talives. Still, the war continued k t o 1929, as the ward. 1Phailmd in the West, Refugees appearcld agairz along the heavily militarized Thai border. Thailand, claiming that the burden of Vietn m e s e boat people and I:,,aotiansliving in the camps was already stressing the country, forcihIy returned several thuusand people in early 1979. UNFICR, MIhich had a presence in the country, made quiet diplomatic protests. Nter personal pleas frnrn UN %cretary General Kurt Waldhcirn to t:he Thai government and the provision of cash cmtributions to the government for refugee relief, there was a brief respite in the foreible repatriation reports in early 1979. 'Then h June, after Thai newspapers complained lou* about the "refugee burden," 445,000 were piled into buses and forced back into Cambodia in a well-mined border area. Unh o w n thousands died from mines, thirst, and neglect, while the UNFICR quietly atteznpted to negotiate a settlement with either the Thai or nearby Vietnamese arn-ty to provide relief and safe passage. ICRC complained more loudly of the repatriation action, a plea that was rejected angrily the Thai; and ICRC's head delegate was removed (Shawcruss 19&4:91-93). Despite the drama quietly t a h g place h Cambodia, hummitarim hterest was in fact focused on people fleeing by sea from Vietnam. By this time, in mid-1979, over 350,000 boat people were in camps, mostly in Malaysia, Hong Kong, S h g a p o ~Indonesia, , and Thiriland. ^The intemational press focused Western hummitarian cmcern on the boat people, and the Malaysian govmmmt p a m t w d that mernbers of the Western press wimessed rickety boats being forcibly pushed out:to sea. As a result,
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the West adopted a somewhat cmtradictsry policy; at a UN-coordinated conferenre in Geneva, it was declided that a quarter milfim new =settlement spots would be prowided for fteeing boat people in the United States, Frmce, and other Western cottntries. Vjebann, the corntry whose abuses led to flight in the first place, also agreed. to seal its borders, fiertlby preventhg the flight of more ~ h g e e sThis . policy impbed closing Vietnam's borders to rcstrjct people who had Legitim,at.e kars of prsecutim, This cmvcni.nt compromising of refugee rights was a g ~ e dto , by all the memtime, in Cambodia" Viewamese-controlled areas, peasmts who had been relocated during the Khmer Rouge years actively sought rnissing family mernbers and r e m to their home villages for the first time in three years. Fighthg cmthued in western Cambodia on the Tl-tai border. But most irrrportant, the crops planted were abandoned. This raised the specter of mass famine in addition to fie fighting. Writing in a regional magazinel the FlEr Eastern Eccw~alrzicReview i,n late spring, Nayan Chanda. claimed: Kampuchea today is described by recent visitors and refugees as a countr)r after a holocaust. In this parched land abandoned towns are littered with skeletons and the debris of war, and hundreds of tbusands of dazed people crisscross the countr)~seeking missing relatives and tr)ring to reach their native villages (quoted in Shawcrass 1984:96).
This presented the international commw~itywi& a dilemma: whom to deal with, the discredited mnner Rouge who c m t m k d the small population along the accessibte Thai border, or the pditically suspect Vietnamese, who cmtrolfed the masses in a dangerous m d inaccessible interior? Consistent with their own established policy of neutrality, ICRC insisted on simultaneously cmtltcting both. Durhg the summer, contacts with both the Vietnamese-backed gover~zmexrtand the Khmer Rouge capital Phnom Penh were established with respect to the emerging famine; simultaneously the Khmer Rouge government, which was receiving bacEng b m China and mailand, also contacted ICRC and the UN for assistance, Finally, individuals working at the American embassy in Bangkok formed the er Emergmcy Group, which began to establish cont.ingency plans and drun?med up diplmatic support for a humanitarian relief operatjon. T h a e actions together initiated the Cambodia relief operation and set fie terns for the four categories of rczfugees that emerged. h b e d d e d in the definitions were also moral judgntczt~ts about the Cannbodims and their suitability for aid. The four categories were: borcter civilians associated with Khmer Rouge camps; border civilians msodated wi& the c m g s of the "Freeffmmer; Cambodians h i n g
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng
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inside Thailand h UNHCR-spo~zsoredcamps; and the vast miljority of refugees who remained in Cambodia itself, In October 1979, the p ~ d i c t e drefugee exodus emerged from Cambodia's forests. Ulzexpectedly; the Thai goverlzment reversed policy and asked the UNHCR to take charge of 60,000 '"llrgal immigrants" an two to four daysf notice. UNf-iCR hnmediately hired bUlldozers, back hoes, and water trucks to clear space for a c m p , dig latrines, and bring potable water. The Thai government bused ixz the refugcres on schedule, a mixtun. of Khmer Rouge soldiers, their families, and civilians who had been forced to travel with the m m e r Rouge (Shawcrass l984:176-17"3. Interagency fighting emeqetl a h o s t immediately, particularly in the context of press interest made stronger by an h e r i c a n government gearing up for: an electio~zyear and w a g to fund ge~zemtlslyrelkf programs in such a high-profile crisis. UPdHCR m d ICRC we= in particular criticTized by the Americans for faiIhg to bring staff in anticipation of the =lease of the refugee" or in response to their actual release. Thjs was done FR the context of feverish attention from the internationa) press, whose single Cyclopean eye covered the high-profile visit of First Lady Rosalyn Carter at the end of C)ctobec The logjams in publ-icity, fundislg, and attention for the a m e r were broken. The focus of the Good Samaritan was now on the 'Ihai-Can-tbodian border. By the end of thc.year, there were between GO0,QQOand 750,000 people in encampments alang the border, Many were refugees associated with rebel movements, the largest being the I(hmer Rouge, Mthich cmtk~uedto ~ c e i v ae m s from the Chinese and logistical s ~ ~ p p ofrom r t the Thai, There were also small armies of Free m m e r as well, which the Americans hoped wwld provide a nonCommunist alternative. Finally, there was an assortment of bandits, warlords, and people d uncertain origin, all armed. i\rs for the hul-rgry people pushing out of Cannbodja to the border, they probably had a mix of loyalties, some political but many gerscmal. Of course, such Loyalties could shift. Nevertheless, for practical and political reasons, food supplies could be routed only through the four relief categories. As a cunsequmce, the food of the ir^ltt.mationai refugee relief regime ended up being used to subsidize various po:ljtical a d j t i o n s of uncertain origi.n and er Rouge leacters, Free m m r , and bandits rushed in to establish conditions for how food would be distributed. Thus, the stage for the moral dile~~nrta of the Cambodia relief operation was set. fnJho shctdd be assisted? The border-based refugees via the (h. the masses rttmahing in the interior, where they were a ~ r n eRouge? r emtrolled by distasteful Vietnamese in\Paders? How to deal with the potential for forced rttpatriation by the mai-virtual blachail? The sotutim reached was to demcmize further the Khmer Rouge, while kedi,ng the populations living in areas controled by &em. Of the four
58
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major players on the border, thcy had the djsadvantage of havifig by far the worst record, but dso c m t r d e d of the largest civilian populatim, an estimated 1 fillion inside Cambodla itself and border camps by 19D. The Khntm Rouge also continued to have the legitimacy of a seat in the United Nations, a political plum. Since, technically, the 1 million they controlled were fnternally displaced persons, the Unitecl Nations fomed the United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBltO), througl? which stocks of World Food Prograrnm (WFP) h o d were handed over to the commanders of rimer Rouge refugee encampments. The encampments were located right on the border; their position inside Cambodia, was literally measured in meters.Weverthc?less, the diplomatic niceties demantfed that the people Living there were not "reftlgees" mwiting protection from the U'MCR, but iutternatly displaced persons. The distinctiosl becme important to the refugees, h the b d e r encampments, they were more likety to be caught in the fighting between the Viewamese, Thai, and border leaders"But the markets at the bosder camps were ro'oust as well, prwiding incentives for the more enterprising and/or mthless. This black market was perceived by s o w reat the border, lief workers as m indication that there was too little co~~trol and as a consequence, reiugees there werc "'overfed."s In contrast, movement within the UNHCR camps was restricted. The advmtage of the UNHCR camps was that- htemiews for overseas raettlernent werc available to refugees withixr these camps only, Westerners interested in isolating :Khmr Rouge were unsuccessful. Never able to extract the rbetoric about Khmer Rouge brutafity from their practical international politics, diplomats instead tried to avoid er Rouge repremtatives at the international shaking h a d s with the cderemees they attended together,%tymied by the Thai, K h m r Rouge, betnamese, and Chinese political demands, Western humanitarians were in effect p ~ s e n t c dwith choices between assisting militarized population~or not assisting at all, Give11 this choice, symbolic gestures were the only mems by which to respond. Somehow this helped create in the mind of the dcmors a picture of ~ f u g e e as s they wmted them to be: hungry, kfpess, and apoliticat.7 h the face of aggressive Thail Cambodian, and Vietnamese assertions of policy, the one way Westerners in ?'hailand had to assed their moral views of hurnanitar.ianism was by accepting hdoclkinese for overseas resettlement, For the United States a resettlement program was established following the p ~ c e d mof t the Vietnamese boat people program, vvhereby refugees we= admitted who could, est&l.i,sh Ihat they had rclason to fear persecution because of prior connections with the United. States or had ~ l a t i v eh s the United States-"age numbers of Viewarnew and Laotians which was made possible by the quickly established such co~~nectio~~s, deep involvement of the United States militaq in Tiietnam and Laos and
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng
551
the evacuation of over 100,000 Vietnamese to the United States in 1925. The United States-volvement with Cambodia had been more indirect, and substantial popdations of C a m b o d h s did not go to the United States followi,ng the collapse of lndochina in 7,975.As a result, the Americans were slow to hitiate resettlement programs for Carmbodjans aft-er 3978, despite the fact that they were the largest refugee population in the rclgion. The irony in this was not lost on the Thai government, whjch adopted a policy of ""no second-country rcsettXernent," memjng no settlement in n a i l m d , kaving the Cambodians no option except ~patriation or third-country resettle~xentin the West or Japan. .A strong moral element was also injected by the Americans when the programs wert?estabtished. The Jofnt Voluntary Agency (JVA), an American contractor with the Department of State, was establi,shed inThailmd with m explicit goal of excluding n m e r Rouge and other undesirables @igamists,dnlg users, prostitutes, u m w d tutnerculars, etc.) from the resettlemat program T k 'Thai, governmnt, meancvhile, continued to play a role in the process by permitting only refugees in the UNHCR camps to be fnterviewed, irrespective cJf whether s r not they had a weiffourtded fear of persecution or met the h e r i c a n criteria, Refugees who were not accepted were occasionally fnrced back to the border encampments by the Thai military, whereas those s n the border Mxho might meet resettlcmemt criteria illicitly entered the camps to be intervkwed. mere was never any way to verify how successful JVA was in excluder Rouge from settlemmt fn the mitecl States. 'They did develop elaborate q.ilest-ioningprocedures, moted in the cotlectio~~ of intelligence horn refugee supplicants. The refugees had little to lose by lying and probably did so a great deal, a sih;lation contributing to the rumor and innuendo about n m e r Rouge activity wilhin tke camps. It undoubtedly made JVA decisjon-makixzg much more difficult, if not impossible. When I talked with the F A fnterviewers in 1983, I r e m e h e r being told that ultimately you codd telf whether someone was Khmer Rouge or not by looking into their eyes and by the way that they looked at you while being ve"tioned via the interpreter. In a sense, the final arhiter was the same one that Agatha Christie's Miss Marple used in s e ~ ~ s evil h g . . . the vague, irrational "atmosphere," 'T'he net sum of the Cambodian relief operation was that the moral questions took a backseat to the dcmands of international polities. The primary distinction made was between Khmer Rouge m d Free Khmer ~ f u g e e in s Cambodia, who were k d by UNRRO, Mrhich gave food allotments to lheir "leadcrs'yor distribution, or directly to refixgees who were in the UNHCR camps. Dcspite the differences h deservingness that this implied, this was by and large an admfnistrative distiwtion reflectkng refugees' Merent arrival times at the border rather than their abstract desen;ingness,
60
Social Strucfure 0jRi~q1ttand Woug
Thus, two legitimate questions were raised in the cantext of the Cambodiim refugee Aief operation: Do international politics always trump hrtmanitarian gods? Or does the presence of humanitarian operations provi,de succor to armks? In esse~~ce, who is deservi,ng and who is not?
Ethiopia, October 1984: TnJe Are the WarXd Ethiopia has a history of repeated war and famine, the rebellions in Tigray and Eritrea in the northern part cJf the country being ammg the most persistent. 'The chronic war in Eritrea in particular lasted from 1962 until that country became independent in 1991, and has flared since, Famhes in the 1970s led to fie downfall cJf Emperor Haile Selassie and the emergence of a new Marxist government in 1976. This also led to a period. of turmoil, as the Mamist gwernment, supported by the Soviet Union and its allies, began a process of villat;il,atim in which milliom of peasants wercz moved out of traditional areas and into collectivized villages. Such policies, the continuhg wars, and a drougfnt in 1982-8rf combined to create famine conditions. The humanitarim community of the West noticed the cohcidence of conditims and began issuing pleas for aid in late 1982. Pressure for aid came from Catholic Relief Services (CW), which focused on fie Americans, m d the Lutherm World Federation (LWF), focusing on the Europeans. Trickles of aid appeared. For exmple, 8,UOO tons of grain were pledged by Wshington. However, dcmors wert. reluctant to assist a government viewed as both wasteful and incompetent- It was freqwntly pointed out that the luxury facilities in the capital of Addis Ababa had received a $250 million makeover to celebrate the tenth rclvoluion, paid for primarily by Ethiopia's allies in the Soviet Union, East Gcrmany, and other Cmmunist countries. It did not take a long leap of Cold War judgment to conclude that the money would have been better spent on famine relief, In this context, the United. States government, which had the larg@stassistance famine relief capabffity, was reluctant to assist. tn part this was a product of the Reagan adn7,inistrationfsmticommunism; but it was also the result oi a number of slights to Amrican-Ethiopim relations stretching bark to 3974 and fmstration with tbe futile villagization program. Agaiin, as wi& Cambodia, there was a political question: How to assist a large starving population under the control of a government which was often cruel, incompetmt, and ideoZogical2y suspect? The K O s working in Ethiopia attempted to fill, the void. CRS was particularly aggressive with their lobbying effort in the United States, coordinathg the produc"cicm of op-ed pieces and stories in high-prdile papers like the Wnshl~zgfolzPost and New York Tin.~esin BM. The result was a
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shift in American policy; mnotmced in September 1984, which resulted in the approval of 32,559 tons of food to be delivered to C E in Ethiopia in P;lovemi?er 1984 ((Solbag 1991:29-34). 'This amount was nominal, given the scope of the problem; however, it did signal a policy shift, and eventually a total of 400,000 tans were shipped. to Ethiopia by the United States (I(ap1an 1998:21). The turnaroulzd was accelerated in C)ctober 19M, when a film b y the Kenyan Filmmaker :Mohammed Amin was broadcast m the BBC news, I'he film had been made in one of the camps for Tigrayans divlaced by the war. Ethiopia suddenly gripped the world's attention. 'The film was the actual reason for the increase in food shiyped. from the United Slates, and not the dire (and accurate) bureaucratic analyses of CRS s r other agencies..W t h h a few days, news programs around the world used excerpts from the film, and it galvanizd Vzlestem pressure. The most notable comequmce was tbr reversal of the American gave toward Ethiopia, m d hterest was fanned throtrgk 1985by rock stars who organized. rock concerts and recordjngs (Rand Aid, organized by Bob Geldof, and "We Art, the World,'" a song recorded by a bevy of music stars). As a consequence the interest in Ethiopian relief was sustained well into 2985, The situation was rife with ironies. 'The famine relief and the various customs fees the government collected from W s t e n donors were uscd to beef up the Ethiopian military efforts against rebels in Eritrea, %gray, and O r m o that were at the root of the pmblem. As with the Cambodian situation, classilica.t.ion of eligible recipients was postponed. Few attempts were made to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, and large amounts of food aid, mostly distributed in governmentcontsolled areas, unduuhtedly contributed to the survival. of the Communist-led gwernment. mough the relief effort tmdoubtedly saved many victirns from famine, it also propped up an incompetent regime at a time when it was u~zderattack m d did nothing about resolvhg the W>derlying causes of the fmine, Again, questions of good guys and. bad guys were raised in the cmtext sf the largest humanitarian relief effort carried out to that time.
Somalia: Operation Restore Hope Revolt in Somalia led to the downfall of President Siad Barre in 1990. I'here was no natimai authority to place him; instead, what authoriq was left was seized b y competing warlords who each controlled militias. vyicalfy the militias were responsible to one of the six large clans that are found in Somalia. Tl~isresdted in the immediate flight sf refugees into Kenya, where they were accomndated in UNf-XCB-sponsored
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camps*Of more presshg corlcem, .Crhough, was the cmdition of the capital in Mogadishu, Tn 1990, the city was destroyed and 20,000 to 30,000 civilians were killed during fighting between rival clan rrtilitias. 11%the end, a clan leader, General Aideed, e~zdedup controllhg the city; but not the countp.ysid.c,where there was no efftlctive central government. During the summer of 1992, h e situation prolile rose in the American press. Focus was on. the part of Magadishu, m d reports from American NGOs that famine was imminent were briefly broadcast. Relief of the countryside was made difficdt by the presence of well-armed militia, who corltrolfed transportation routes out of the ports and aisports. Food was diverted by these militias, a use which the Western aid agencies considered unacceptable. Most agencies responded by hiring armed guards far t h i s convoys ol food; ICRC at orle point had 15,000 to 1,K,000 a r m d guarcis on payroll. T h i s yuickf. came to be seen as a form of blachail to avoid becoming a target rather than genuine ""scurity p r e c m t i o n ~ ~ ~ The U'N' itselr was styntied; as an organjzation composed of governments, it placed. centrail importarncc on the need to get permission from ents to mount relief ctperatims within their borcters. tn Somalia, there was no effective government, although there were plenty of claimants. X n summer 1992, the U N s interest in distributing hod overcame &:he political interest in preserving pinciples of sovereignty, and December, the United States contributed a military continent with the express goail of ensuring food deliveries. The cover of the Uercember 14, 3992, issw of Erne magazine bragged: ""Somalia: The W.S to the Rescue." Arrival of the troops was greeted with, mxirnurn fanfare kom the press, which Newsweek described: The Marines landed in Somalia, and Operation Restore Hope got off to a smooth start, except for a media circus on the landing beaches, which the military encouraged and then complained about. The real battles lay ahead: to feed starving people, impose order and disarm a country that Is awash in gms (Nczosz~eek~ Decmber 21,1992, p. 3).
The aid commu~~ity complained vehemently that food was being diverted, and under the protection of the cosnbined milit-ary contingents were portions of h e famine averted. It is believed that many lives wert. saved as a consequence of the intervention, and that this part of the intervention was a success (Natsios 1997). T11e armed contingents were transferred to UN command, but this proved not to be sustakable. This happened, 1 think, in part because a political need to maintain feelings of gratitude on the part of the Somali beneficiaries turned out to be too difficult in the emergir~gcircumstmces. Their gratitude was called into doubt in June 1993, when 24 Isakistani
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peacekeepers were killed guarding a soup kitchen, and the West responded by issuing a warrant for the arrest of General Aideed, On October 34,rdations between donors and bmeficiaries again suffered when U.S. Marhes attemptkg to deliver the warrant were attacked, and three helicopters were shot down. Eighteen Marines and 208 Sornalis were killed in the unsuccessful arrest attempt. The future of U.S. assistance to Somalia was brought to a particularly high profile wher~an U',S. Mr-trine helicopter pilot was captured and subjected to a humiliating interview, and the body of a second Marine was dragged t h u g h the streets to the jeering of a Somali crowd. This, m o n g other things, m d e the moral category of the Somalis as victims particularly difficult to sustain in the press, wen though, as Dr)isdaIe (199E130) raticrndy note.;: 'The evidence that these higlly pubjicized and ernotive tragedies bore no relation to humanitarian peacekeeping needs to be emphatically stated." Nevertheless, for humanitarian peacemaking as a whole, the conseywnces were far-reaching.. The Americans, it was said, developed the "Somalia Syndrome," and this was blarned for their reluctance to engage in peacekeeping activities in Rwanda in 1994 and their hesitancy to be more aggressive in Kosovo in 1999. .As for Ai.dced and the Somalia operation, the UN effectively withdrew the arrest warrmt in November 1993, so that there would be someone to negotiate thc releaso of hostages with. In effect, the UN mandate had shifted in March 1993 from the delivery of relicf goods to '"nation buil.ding," Mxhich continued until 1995, when the final troops were withdram. Somalia itself averted the massive famine that loomed in 199-93, but also bas yet to establish a c ~ d i b l national e government in Mogadishu. The Paradox of Victimhood in International Relief Common to all three of these cases is a need to maiz~taina credible sense of victimhood. A moral category created for the Western donors, it gets taken up and used by rationalized bureaucracies. This is despite a fundamental contradktion: raticmalized bureaucracies are incapable of having such emotional commitments..21 is not a category hherent to the situations themselves, nor does it reflect preexistkg social categories. In each case, victimhod was a product of Western needs and fnterests. Indeed, until the international reftagee relief regirne focuses on them, the indjvidual Cambodians, Ethiopians, and Somalians who became delined as victims were just as likely to view thrmselves as enemies, friends, the starving poor, hustlers, homeless, or loyalists. But l.he old eategorks are irrelevant to the abstract category victirnkood; legitimated by the Westem prcrss, it is needed to trigger relief pmgrams. Were that not so, the bureaucratic assessments p ~ c e d i n geach relief effort would have been used
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64
to commit resources much earlier to Ethiopia, Somalia, and Cambodia, and as a consequence, the dire emergencies portrayed m Western televisitrn screens may not have even emerged in the first place.. fndeed, to a g a result of the certain level, this type of prevention already is w c ~ r r i n as &mine early-warning systems established in the 19';aOsand 1 9 8 0 ~ . ~ For civil disorder, however, such early-warning systems do not yet: apply. 'The decision to commit massive resottrces b r refugee relief =mains embedded h moral disthctions about who is a v i c t h and who is not, a decision that currently is negotiated in the field of public. discourse rather than of bz~reaucraticlegalism. This imbues relief opemtions with a sense of morafity whereby judgment of the actions of others hecornes legitimated, often in simplistic categories srtiting the needs of the donors rather than f t h g the refugees themselves, The results are mornalies such as Cambodims recejvilrg assistance in one kind of camp, but not h another. Other examples are the rcsfationships established by the ICRCfs armed guards in Somatia and the need to deal with the various factions in Ethiopia, Notably, when these categories became untenable, the opesatiltn redefined the nabre of victirnlzood, a situaticrn particularly evident in Somalja, After peacekeepers were attacked and humiliated, the Somalis they had been ""helping" "were =defined as victhizers, This tendency to make moral judgments ranges from assessments of the trivial (whether proper gratitude is expressed) to interprebtions of eye contact to whether a particular FRdividual is guilty of war crjrnes or not. fn efiFect, when there is a lack of bureaucratic sgecidizaticm, it becomes possib%e to expect- all things of ali penple,l% situation that a British aid worker was surprised to find while working in the refugee camps for Rtzrmdans: problems they [the UNHCR and donors] expected us to solve were overwhelming; bigger than lif-problems of justice, national reconciliation, human rights. T'm just a community development worker. W were not trained in those things. We are just new to all this, but we had to make decisions about these issues almost every day. (Watkup 4996:"i"). "fhe
h mmy ways the sentiment exprctssed here is strange; indeed it is unlikely that the same aid worker would have the s a w complaint had she re~nainedin Britah. For example, if shc dealt daily with &%-addicted babies on her job, 1 doubt that she would assert that her job in Britain requires pwsonal judgments about drug control policy-because it wou.ld.nrt.The bureaucracies of the Nafiol~alMeal& 9rvjce and the judicial system compartmentalize these tasks, and she would be held personally accountable only for her narrowly deihed ret;ponsibilities. Her competencies in Britain arc well d e h e d , m d do not inclde Ihe duties of a
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jwy and judge. If she lost sleep over her job in Britain, I suspwt it wottld be From cmpassim for the injustice done the drug-addicted baby, not for international drug trade, i~mer-citypoverty etc., which unvestionahly are also likely part of the problem. Barbasa Harsell-Bond (1986) has written about how this moral need to sepa"te deserving victims fmm the undeserving local populations who were actually hosting thern shaped agency programs in the soutf.tem Sudan and norhem Uganda. In explaining why refugees needed to be separated f m local populatiotls assisting them, she made the following observation about. the humanjt.arian c o m w ~ i t yworking these in the early 1980s: To attract money refugees must be t~isiibte.It is difficult to count the numbers of self-settled refugees, . . even if they could be identified. . . . Given the nature of international aid, host governments have fc3und it impc~ssibtetcr cmvince donor gc>vernmentsto spend monies earmarked for refu"uge assistance expanding the economic and social infrastructu~which would cope with such dramatic demagraphic changes. Distinguishing between victims of mass distress migrations has always been for the convenience of donors, since the immediate physical needs of t b s e who Bee across intei-na"tionalboundaries are the same as for the internally displaced-.. . . Humanitarian agencies assume that refugees always require relief and that material assistance must came from outside the host country (Harrell-Band 4986:8-9).
She went on to write about how these requiremnents led humanitarian agencies to assrtme that refugees
. . . constitute "a problem," a b u r d e rather than an economic vportunity. Outsiders view African refugees as helpless; as needing outsiders to plan for them and to take care of them. This assumption is the cornerstone of nearly a11 appeals for funds. Agencies vary in the degree of dignity with which they transmit images of refugees, but all rely on a public which will respond to media portrayal of extreme human suffering and starvation (1986:12-3 3). Note that these categories arc. created in response to the needs oE those assisting, not the refugees themselves. She go- on to state that this cornpassim is a m m l virtue, which is d.ifficult to measure. The problem is that there is m unspoken assun-tption that because refugees are hrlpiess, and the~forc3worlhy of rmpassian, "'any obstacle in the path of carrying out humanitarian objectives must be inzmctrnl, And shce the objective is to do good, it is inccmceivable that ~eipientswill faif to be grateful" (Harrc.11Bnnd 19%:2rj). Esse~~tially &is is thc catch Ihat led to the pr&lems with
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Operation Restore Mope In Somalia. General Aideed came to be ~riewedas immoral, and this view c m e to dominate the rational decision-making oi the assistance bureaucracies to a point where the only feasibk response was to discanthue the program. S k a a r issues were raised with respect to the Carrrbodiacl and Ethiopian relief progrms, Theref too, the bureaucratically rafional decision (hWeb=% sense) to intervene was not taken until the highest level of an abstract ""desczmingness"(as opposed to a rationalized need for assistance) was established, fn effect, the extension of m r c y demanded the establishment of a high level of compassitm befort. rnercy could be shown..Waiting for this meant that the "most goad" wottld be preferred, But it also memt that, in effect, the most compassionate decision could not be made earlier. This demand for contpassio~~ ultimately distorts the implemem.t.ationof refugee assistance programs and the picture of refugees throughout an operation, as field-level bureaucrats wrmtle with the conflicting demands. 'This paradox is 1 think n o w h a better illustrated than b y the fob lowing example mcalled by PYlark Walkup (199783-84) in his dissertation: 1 once obsemed a UNHCR Field Officer in Badaab [Kenya] trying to get a large group of Somali refugee women tcr sit down wK-Lilethey waited in line far distribution of plastic sheeting used for shelter construction. When they did not comply with directives to sit, he seized a small tree branch and began beating the women. His beating ccjntinued thr~ughauthis time there, which h e told me was far "mmonitc>ringpurposes." Also during this time, h e approached a small group of refugees gathered between the refugee women and the distribution center and grabbed a teenage boy by the neck and roughly slung him to the grc>undwith an audible thud. His threats with the stick persuaded them to disperse, When he apprmched me after with stick in hand, he said matter of factly, '""eating refugees with sticks is nat in UNWCR policy, but- sometimes we have to do it." On the beating, his colleague attested, "Somali women need this because they don? tddcstand like the men," The Field Officer later commented that he hcjped this would not go in my. repc~rt.. . .
Conclusions The common t h ~ a ruming d t h u g h these examples is that victims and ~rictimizationare not preexisting discrete categories, but are categories created in the context of the moral d m a n d s of the international rehgee relief rltgirne. Given the nabre of international law and hu~aucraeylit is not s~trprisingthat the b~xreazlcraciesbend s3uations to m e t their defini-
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng
tions of refugees as b e i ~ ~victims. g This is why a primary job of the UNHCR continues to be hearing m d adjudicating individual asylum requests. But this has little to do with broader questions of right and wrmg in the context of the mass refugee mergencies which are the prirnary focus of the international refugee relief regime today The cases described above illustrate at least two moral dilemmas that are insoluble in the context of refugee relief. First, the category of victim as currently constructed implie" ppolLcal vacuum for the mfugee. The ~ f u g e eis assumed to have no pditics or feelirngs vis-8-vis the situation that caused Right in the first place. There is no evidence to support this assumption; in fact, there is a wealth of evidence to the contrary. Cannbodim peasants do have attihtdes tt>warcl the m m e r Rouge and the Vietnamese invaders. Certainly the Somali people had political views. But none of these attitudes necessarily fit inside a bureaucratic box developed in foreif;n capitals to fur&er the geostrategic fnterests of players of international polities, cvho also likely cont.ml the purse strings o( refugee aid. In eifect, because refugee flight is hherently politicat to assume palitics away from rczfugees is to assrtme away the politics in politics. tn tbfs process, demands elnerge for humanitarim superworkers, people able to deal with issues on a level far outside their specialized expertise. As a resdt, refugees are forced into the preexisting boxes created in the conversation taking place in thc press and bureaucracies. Notably, this is not done by people with training in the use of bureaucmtized law, but in the press, by nufses, on W,fn newspapers, and by NGOs and others abte to shout loud e ~ ~ o u gtohbe heard. Second, mass refugee mvements do not lend themselves to the caseby-case legal determination prwieied for by current brtreaucratic procedures..To do so implies preparing case files for every one of the millions of refugees f o n d in the typical mwement. The alternative is that judgments are made in political arenas or in tbcz press. Thus, the issue of moralliq, as clnrrelrtly constructed, is a by-product of bureaucratic and political posturing as much as it is a higher-level assessment of what is right and gcrod, m wrong and evil. "I'his is because the to s o l ~ ~ t iwith o ~ ~the s availrnaral issues involved do not lend the~~selves able bureaucratic tools, Bureaucracies by their very nature do not deal well with the feelhgs and inbition found, most appropriately, in ingatha Christie novels. Imagine the problems a bureaucracy would have in hdling a detective like Miss Marpie, The problem is that Miss MarpIes's feelings are. not predictable or quantifi&Ie, and Miss Marple while efficient, was notoriously difficult to control! me field-lwcl bureaucrats, with their illdependence and need fur multiple skills, are the same. The consequence is that an emphasis on the maintenance of image takes precedence over a rationalized assessme~~t of cvhetihes objectives are met.
Social Strucfure 0jRi~q1ttand Woug
68
In S L E C ~a bureaucratic context, image becomes a primary goal, and program impfementatjon becomes more haphazard. Notes I. Such aggressiveness (and lack of attentic~ntcr detail) can lead to ironies, as noted by Johan Pottier (1996:426) in the case of Rwandan rei'ugees who were quoted in the same article of the 28 July, 1995, French journal Le Soir. "According to Carol. Faubert: for UNHCR, T h e i n t i ~ d a t i o nof '"ordinary" "refugees by leaders of the old Rwandan administration ""no longer occurs," even though extremists continue to effectively spread their disinfarmation campaign."T~ottier adds, ""MSF writes: 'The Instigators of the geno>cideare taking control of the camps in an increasingly systematic way, and block the return of the refugees. . . . [The instigators] are free to come and go beween camps, and manlputate the refugees thrc~ughcontmlling the flow of political information" (Pottier's translation), 2. Pottier (19"3:405) commented regarding the frequent recourse to dichtjtomous masoning he rtbsei-ved in the Rwanda crisis. He w r i t e that there is ""a wider ignorance within the "international commmityhbout political processes. . . . Aid workers, journalists observerst cconsumers of media informatian, all prefer to reduce social complexity though recourse to simple dichotomies.*' 3. Before the h-entleth century the petty principalities in what is now Cambodia and Lam were vassals of the larger and more powerful Thai and Vietnamese monarchs. Thus, it was in Laos and Cambodia that the two regionat powers rubbed up against each other. The Thai as a result developed pc~rtionsof Laos and Cambodia as buffer states to protect Thailand proper from their greatly feared rival in 'Vietnam. After the French left Indochina in 1954, Thailand adopted this policy again, backing the pro-Western factims in both countries against the Vietnamese-atlied Communist parties. Communist Vietnam in turn supported the insurgency of the Thai Communist party. Thus, in 1978, for the first time in decades a Vietnamese army was on the Thai border; reigniting longstanding fears. The Thai responded by backing whichever Cambodian faction fought the Vietnamese, including the Khmer Rouge, into the 1990s (Shawcross 22000). This led to the cynical observation that "the Tl~aitzrere tzrilling to fight the 'VieZnarnes to the last Cambc~dian." 4. See Mayotte 1992:42-83. Between 1979 and 1992 there was shifting ~ C ~ C I the SS line from the Cambodian to the Thai side. Far the entire period there existed a no man" land tzrhich was occupied by the refugees. Whichever side of the line they were on, the refugees were unable to seek protectian from the Thai or Cambodian gcjvernments. Also, they continued to have an anomalous relationship with the international refugee refief reirne. The variom leaders, bandits, and warlords effectively maintained their sc>vereignty 5. See description in Mason and Brown 1983:36-47 and Shatzrcross 19%:225-252. Shawcrc~ss~ in the cmclusion to his book, makes a comparison between the amctmts spent on each group of refugees. For the period between Qctaber 1 9 7 h n d Dtrcember 1981 this f i e r e ranged from a high of $1,124 per head for
Social Structure oJRiglzt and Wmng
69
refugees in the UNFTGF: camps to a lcw of about $48 per head for Cambc)dians who remained at home, Such figures are mugh approximations of the "benefits"" each received and are also indicative of the "mpressed preferences" h a t Western agencies had for different types of refugee victim behavic~r, 6, Shawcross (1984:138), in a chapter titled "Washing of Hands," describes how the American delegate to the United Nations found himself shaking the hand of Teng Sary, foreip minister of the m m e r Rouge. His comment to Shawcross was jf"Ielt like washing my hand." "nior NGO staff described to me meetings with Sary and others from the =met. Rouge in Bangkok in 1982-83, They described to me the prcjcess they went through to avoid shaking hands with him, which was samething of an admission of their powerlessness in challenging humanitarian policy 7. Mason and Brown (1983:172) wrote: "Relief workers tended tcr perceive the refugee camps as the donors and they themselves would have wanted them to be: filled with hrmgry and helpless people in desperate need of aid. Relief workers rewarded helplessness with compassian, self-reliance with suspicion. When a young Khmer worker from the feeding center join4 the militar?p;relief workers considered him lost. When a public-health trainee was seen trading sandals in the market, she was reprimanded. ImpXicitly., relief organization policy. sought to keep the Khmer people powerless." From this perspective, the militaries and markets were a threat to the aid agenciesbabiljty to control their image, and thereby their ability to fund-raise by exploiting the prolific press images of hmger and helplessness. 8. The United States-rogram tvas by far the largest. P-ic~wever,France, Canada, and Australia and other countries also established programs. The criteria for inclusion in each country" programs were different. The "prior connection" criterion was of most interest to the Americans, Other countries took refugees only with minimum skill tevels and, especially; language ability The result was that poor peasants unskilled in the ways of the West but who had served in American-sugporled military unlb had the United States as their primary destination, The outstanding generosity of the American program (any eligible refugee irrespective of language or professional skill was resettled in the States) I-tascost: that country billions in public tvelfaw costs for EImong refugees and otkers. This outstanding generosity nevertheless occurred in the context of a petty admissions prcjcess. 9, "Te relief veration far Murds in Kurdistan was conducted in 1992 beyond the eye of the press. It is generally regarded as successfut from a humanitarian viewpoint. The fe@timating fact in that case tvas not the press, but American political interests in maintaining an ally who woutd oppose Saddarn Hussein at that time. Notably this operation was undertaken with minimal press coverage, few NGOs, and a well-defined objective (see Natsios 1997). 10. Oddly, this view of the kumnitarian as a ""superhuman"%as been receiving more currency in recent years, perhaps a seriom reaction to a widely disseminated 1995 adicle in which Slim suggests that a tongue-in-cheek description of the ideal aid worker is somehow relevant: ""First, they must take graduate degrees in social antl-rropc)lc>gygeography. economics, a dozen or so difficult and
,;;lt?Sem jo qeaj m ~ a j ~ 02a duodn paip3 a4 uago Xaq a q s " 1 3 ~S" pueq-jo-)q%falw~"a~ ppoa .";ay$$1 i ~ aqap~ncjm ~ 41 pue 'sssauflqufes $0uorlelrur! afqlpaf;) e an@02 u;leal ~sr'lurAayj uoxjtppe ul -'alx;;l.aaur2uage~tj~e-tci Go~o~piCy 8Xurouu~%e amajadruc,:, ajesqsuourap lsntrx Aaqq " a ~ a ~f e q $ ~aJow e~d Ai~y%r[s e je "uuo~as .uor)e;lJsruru;rpessauxsnq pue 3ursrpaLxr "sa2en2uel pa4qa;lun
Making Comparisons Between and Within Emergencies 77rp fact of beitzg rrported multiplies the apparmt exf~ntof any deplorable event by five- to tet~fold(or latzy-figurrthe rmder zt~ouldcare to suppl!~). ---Barbar%Tuchman, A Bist~zntMirror: TIze Galntzzitot~s170tlrteetztlz Cerztury
I want to =view briefly what Cl~apters2 to 4 have established. Chapter 2 was a history of relief eMorts in this century C,&e other modcm endeavors, Aief operations have expanded m d grown in the last 70 years, They have grown along bwaucratic lines in a mamer similar to those found in most modern institutions. Chapter 3 described the nahare of rnodern bureaucracies, It discussed what factors make refugee relief dihrent from other bureaucratic endeavors and, from a theoretical level, where those weaknesses might be expected to be fotxnd. It was pinted oat that in normal bureaucracies the primary goals are profits or maixltenance of poweq a d these are easily measurrd. In humanitarian relief hmaucracies, on the other hand, the primary goal, being rooted in morals rather than a rati~naiizedmedium like profits or polls or votes, is vaguelp defh~ed.As a result, the criterion for success or failure (also called fie depende~~ variable) t is rooted in the mercy of l.he donors, not the actual needs of beneficiaries of the hdp, or '"victjm.~."h CChapter 4, the need to define good guys, bad guys, and victims was discussed. It was noted that this is a process the Good S m a r i t a n bureaucracy is ill-equipped to deal with, and that there is a proliferation of responsibilities where normally fiere would be a consolidation, Chapter 4 also &scribes trhree different situations (Thailand, EChiopia and Somalia) h which attempts were m d e to sort out victims and victimizers and notes that such definition of good and bad was highly situational, and was often rooted in political wish,es as w d as more &tract
humanitarian goals. In the case of Western democracies, this process of id.entil"ieatim of vktims and victimizers was highly dependent m the focus of the press rather than m the judicial fact-finding implied by the bureaucracies of the Good Sarnaritm. By themseIves, these observatiosls are interesthg, While X hope that I have framed them in a slightly new fashion, I have doubts that any one of these is particdaly original. Certainty, points about the "CN'N' effect" and the inefficiencies of the international relugee relief regime have b m made elsewhere. But I want: to go one step Eurther. My goal in the irst part of this book was to lay the theo~ticalfoundation as the central thesis of this book: that if the Good Samaritan,bureaucracy is understood as such, the international rehgee relief regime can be understood better. This differs from the more tradjlional reforms typically proposed to achieve greater effjciencyin the delivery of humanitarian pmgrams, be they increment& fmprovemmts h administrative hierarchy and coordiz~ation(see Ingram 1993; Natsios 1996; Walkup 1997; W X 1996) or trainhg and technology (Chdindcr 1994; Waters 19841, impmvemmts in relief distribution practices (IrJatas 1988; Pottier 1996; Jaspars 7,994; S h o h m 7,996), prosecution of war criminais (MSF 7,995; Destexhe 19961, accountability (Walkup 199i"),or better management of press elations WSF 1995; Bicrbauer 1996; Minear, Scott, and Weiss 19%)My cmtention is that the underlying logic of the international refugee relief regime is focused by the bureaucratic need to satisfy the emotions of the donor, rather than the rational needs of the refugees for relief services. Because t-his happens, it is necessary to maintain refugees as pkusiblcz vicths vis-8-vis the donor, whether or not this definition is useful in an bureaucratic (administrative or legal) sense. Next I show how these understanding5 can be used to inform analysis of specific prohiems that emerged in the Rwanda refugee emergency in Tanzania. This leads to two kinds of comparisons:
* Between emergencies as diverse as Rwanda, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Within techically diverse fields such as water engineering, contingency plaming, food distribution, logistics, and evaluations of violent death.
h effect, donor demands for political legitimation, pl-irnarily in the form of positive popular press cowerage, drive the hreaucracies of the intemationai refugee relief regime rather than the efficient delivery of scrvices to rcfugces. As will be shown in the examples from the Rwmdtm operation, a by-product is that pmtocois and technologies that rest on rational bureaucratic impernelntation become less effectve. Efficiertey mffers at. afj. levels
of the operation, which by defjni.tion is bureatrcratic, The result is a lack of rationalization firouglnout the system. The level of deckion-making concerned ranges from decisions about when, h e r e , and how to respond down to what type of water pumps should be selected to identifyhg who is and isn"t eligible for ~ f u g e assistance, e
Reliability, Validity, and the Study of Emerf~encies Like any social scimce project, assessing the Rwanda litg gee relid operation requirc3s rcljable and valid measures. Emagencies by their very nature present unique methodojogicd challenges and, 1 think, for this reason are best studied in a compwative manner, which includes broad context. A. diflerellt approach would be a focused ethnographic approach, which emphasizes the brief period when a researcher happens to be present. This appmach, thou$ often appropriate to study settled circumstances, leads to biases in elnergency situations, which are fluid (Waters 1999a:15&54), But comparative techiyues raise two methdological issues: first, t-he validity of comparative snciology; and second, the reliabiliiry n( data collected during emergencies, wfirich are periods of rapid social change, Valid Methods: T6Lc Naturt of Corrrpnrafivr Soeinlqy
Although data from different emergencies are not in the strictest sense comparable, as they would pehaps be if: they resulted fsom a doubleblhd medical experiment, similar operations have been described at different times and locations. The question is hoMi to put together different types of studies conducted at- cl.iffesc3mttirnes and places in order to reach general conclusions? This suggests the use of cmparative sociological technipes relying cm data that are actualfy available, rather than what is ideally mailable as in the double-blind experixnent, By using historical comparative techniques{ one can eliminate or confirm possible altemtive explanations (see Gddstcme 1991; McGratrh 1984; \iVaters 199Eia and 1999b).l The advantage oi a comparative approach is that when we look at data from very different emergencies-for example, Tbailanli in 1973 and Tmzania in 1,994-we can start eontroHing for a broad range of social, c&tural polltical, and temporal conditiuns. In doing this, we can study the effects a common factcn has on decisicm-making. For example, a pattern of behavior m the part of the U'NHCR that was described for Tanzania could be written off as being idiosyncratic, ~ s u t t i n g from the particularities of that sikation. If tbr same pattern were found in tbe Esponse of the U'N'MCR to the Cambodian refugees in mailand, it w u l d be more
difficdt to write it off to the idiosyncrasies of the Tmznnia sitmtion; it could be better described as being a function of the unique instihxtional cuiturr of the UNHCR. Now, if the pattern wert? also found in the way that the U.S. gover ent and Cathoie Relief Services wsponded to the Ethiopian famhe, it becomes a characteristic of a broader phenomenon attributable to the broadtrr international rc-rfugee relief regime. As the cornparisms multiply, and an analytical constnlct We the bureaucratized Caod Samaritan is used to describe ever more situations, validity in effect improves ta a point where the cmstmct can be useful for analyzing similar situatio~zs* Jan Vmsina (19911, a scholar of African history, describes how the validity of such comparative methocls is evaluated to describe otkrcvise unobservable events, in his case, the spread of migrant groups across central Africa before there were written records. He notes that such an approach achfeves a higher order of logical validity because it pmwides expXanations for a large nutnber of hterconnected events. The point of such an appmach is to find as examples disparate cases, and then idmtify the underlying process common to ali (\lamina 1991:250). 'The ernphasis o~zexplaining unusual situatio~zs,hzown. in statistics as "o~tliers~" is important, because if this can be done the chmces of the model being applicable to other more normal cases that are not part of tbrt original s m p k improve..In this way, the tests for validity are different than more iarniliar methods of survey research, which assume that random@ chosen events reflect events that are not chosen. Applying these prhciples to the i s s ~ ~ discussed es here, I am making the followkg claims: There is an inter~zationalrefugee relief regime which is composed of numerous small bureaucracies whlch all have an expmssed goal (dependent variable) of providing refugee relief services aromzd the world. * This internationa) refugee relief regime, though clearly established on bu~aucraticprincir>les, is not able to reach its stated goal of providing such services wit.h efficiency, cdculabifity, predictability, and control. This inability is due to the fact that the goal itself is vaguely defined and sbifts quickly The international refugee relief wgime i s hypersensitive to the i q a c t of the press on donor politics, otherwise k n o m gmeraIly as the ""CNN effect," a factor that fntroduces bureaucratically irrational emotion into calcztltatio~zsof bureaucratic success of failblre. * 'l'hese effects mean that the emergencies actual respanlied to are, fsom the point of objective humanitarian need, fairly arbitrary
More important are the emotional recyuirements, which tend to be reflected not just in which emeqencies arc selected, but also in how actual programs artl Fr.nplemented.2
Reliability-The l~zlzere~z t Dzficulties in Ev~11trat i r y 6nergency Opemtions Barbara Tuchman (1978)sulnmed up the issue of reliability in developing data for her book about what she called Europe" 'kcalmitous fourteenth cenhtryffa pmiod of &ease, war, and disortymization that saw the continent's ppopulation declhe by about one third. I believe that, particularly in the context of modern journalism (if it bleeds, it leads), her assessment also has some relevance to the reliability of data collected for a book f-abcrutemergency operations:
The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable event by five- to tenfold (or any figttw the reader would care tcr supply).
ExpIahing the origins of her ""Law" Tuchman notes: Disaster is rarely as ger~asiveas it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is mow Zikefy to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of distuhance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a wclrld ccjnsisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trainsf school shutdc>wns,muggers, drug addicts, newNazis, and rapists, The fact is that one can come hame in the wenin lucky day-without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena (Tuchman 1978:xviii).
The point that Barbara Tuchrr-ran is making is that most things are not written down, and what gets writtell dnwn is not random, What gets writkn down is what is most interesting or relevant at the moment, most dramatic, or with the benefit of hindsight most sipificant. Nodern refugee emergencies, witfi their overt dependence on press attention Proadening " I " M c ~ ~ Law ~ ' s to thisrgs nut only written down but also communicated widely) and srtffering, probably exceed the ""five-to tenfoldf"discaunt ratios she recommends. Like Tuchmm's study of fourteentkcentury disasters (and keeping in mind. that the fourteenth century was far more disastrous h humm terms thm the twentieth), this study of disaster response by the humanitarim bureaucracies needs to
take Tuchman" Law into accotmt. Despite press-related assertions to the contrary, refugee carnps are usually the. most boring of places, in which wai2ing and milling about are probably the most cornmm activities.
Reliabilil-y: The hhrrelzf blstabitify ofRI.fidgee Crises Modern refugee crises are h e r e ~ ~ t unstable, ly leading to three separate issues that shvuld be considered when evaluathg the mliability of data (Waters 1999a:154). First, data sets are often unavailable, a d those that are typicalty are collected under difficult cmcfitions, raising issues of REability; Second, the inhrently unstable nature of emergencies makes the "cross-sectional data'"ypi,cal,iy available of less value fnr making broadelr inference. Most data, quantitative or qualitative, are collected only at one particular time and as a result are cross-sectional, representing wfiat was happening at the time wheln Ihe data were collwct.ed and not the time before or after. This meacrs that healfi or demographic surveys, budgeting assumptims, rczgistration statistics, morbidiq rates, etc., can be used to draw inferences only .for the brief windokv of time they were collected. An important parameter in the developmnt of a refugee situatim is time; camps tend to grow, shrink, and change fairly quickly. Udess such statistics are arranged in a time series, t h y can be of little use except fnr the short time around which they were collectd. Pasticularly in a refugee situation, you c ot assume &at conditions go backward or fmd in time i,n a predictably consistent fashion. Qualitative data, impressions written down, do sometimes bave mre depth, although the usual tradeoff is the prt-cision of calculabffity. Often, hawevcr, these writhgs are also "cross-sectional""; they are done hp aid workers and consultmts on short contracts, or journalists on short visits. I'hese ~pol-tsmay be more insightfut thm quantitatke data, and in some conditions, But their weahess ways are more appropriate to emerge~~cy is that they must be considered in the context of Tuchman%Law Their authors, too, write down mly that which is unusual and eye-catch& irrespective of thc fact that most social interaction even in a refugee camp is mundane. 7"0 mphrase Barbara Tuchmm" tongue-in-cheek aphorism in terms of what a rczfugee worker might experience: "One expects to face , children, thieves, a world consisting entirely of mss m u r d e ~ r s dying cholera victjms. The fact is, even in a refugee camp one can come h m e in the evening trYithoUf;having encountered more than one or t w of these phenomena!" fadapted from Tuchman 1,97e3:xvii,ii). There are of course people trained and capable of seeing past the drama into the muntSane nature of social history, as indeed Tuchman was, These people are typically in aeadernia, though, and not refugee
camps. There is a paucity of such broad-based analyses because acad m i c s are rarely on the scene quick@ enough to develop the broader context in which such stories can be developed wefl. Journalists are often capable of writhg insightf~xlassess~nentsthat take into account a broader perspecthe. However, the nature of deadlines and assignment editors means that only the most persistent are consistently present in a p a r t i c h r emergency long e ~ ~ o u g tohm& broader selnse of it.3 But again, longer assignments to a region or emergency arc the exception, not the rule, and the vast bulk of what is written about emergencies reflects fleeting impressions of a reporter sent to a site specikally to report on the dramatic elements, not to provide a detlper analysis. Methods for this Study I worked in weskm Tanzania on a m a l refugee resettlement project for Ru,rm~diansin 1984-47, and trhm in the Rwaxlda ~ f u g e relief e tlpera.t.ion from 1994 to 1996, Tn the latter job, I was extensively invdved with setting up the operation, especidy issues of food transport, t n t c b ~ gwater , development, and the management of Chabalisa 2 refugee camp in Kasagwe District, In these positions I learned the benefits of "arguing by anecdcrte."' In the absence of a skady supply of calcmlabe data, this is a technique well developed, in most emergency bureaucracies. This type of argument is different from the m e a s w d accumulation and weighing of data typically used in a history lilcc Tuchxnan's. Such anecdotes m y not reach Ihe standard for the measured accumulation of data by standard. academic writing, but it is nevertheless the basis for the quick efecision-makfng used in elnergencies in particulas, and bureaucracies in general. Quick decisions based on seemingly incomplete data were the basis for the policies &at unfc7lded during the two years I was in Ngara, as is gmerally the case in emergencies..Such a method of course opens one to criticism by academics conditioned to more caref-ul (and slower) methods of argumentation, which ultilnately result in fewer mistakes, but arc. too slow for the dynamics of emergency admi,nistr&ion. Nevertheless, such techniqueAbased in anecdote are often '"the best we can do," and in the absence of mything better need to be assessed and anatyzed. An academic shruggi.ng of shodders and saying "'we can't tell" won" do. After A, relief administrators make important decisions m the basis of such data, and there is no reason that academics can't stick their collective necks out of their shells too. Because I was involved in day-to-day administration of tbe relief protjran-t, I was not able to collect data (quafitative or vantitative) in a systematic fashion. What f was able to do was oceasiona& take notes, col-
lect memormda, and news articles. Part of my job was also to do the reporting about the crisis in general for the Lutheran world Federation. Particularly toward the enci of my time in Ngara, I was able to devote a greater aunow~tof time to this mare introspective activity; m d my choice of subjects presented here reflects this somewhat. To this bias toward the t u t h s a n World Federation" pmgrams, I can only point to Jan Vmsina's centrd point: in comparative social science, the point is to pick the ""outliers," and not just what is typical. I suspect that the mdical programs also had a great deal cJf interesting material; they certailnly had the largest number of expatriate rcljef workers and the largest budgets. Having noted the caveats, it is now time to get on with the Rwanda situation. The b a n d a situaticm was both an exhilarathg and tragic experience. Countless lives were saved, to a considerable extelzt because of the UNHCR" sskill at o ~ a n i z i n ga response once they we= on site. Much of this skill had to do with focusing internationd attention and raisint; money and evipment for the i,nitiat responscl. This was a admhistrative and logistical achievement. Thus, there is a major hun-tanitarian success story to be told here. But part of the story is that in the end, a major huntanit.arian principle, a stand against forcible repatriation, was discarded by the UNHCR, or at best i p m e d . I trust that recmdering these successes and f a i l w s in the cmtext of. the bureaucratized Good Samaritan adds to an understandir?g of how this happened and.why Notes 1. This section is adapted from my bc)ok Crime and Imnt@rn~tlVot;lfll(I999b) and draws heavily on pp. 5455, 2. Follow-ing similar reasoning, Goldstc~ne(19(31:57-58) points out that the point of such m apprc~achis to identiEy a process that has unfc~ldedin a similar but not necessarily identical fashion in a number of different contexts. Such a process is not necessarily a law, but is a causal statement asxrting that a particular sequence will emerge because imtitutionti or individuals-in this case the international refugee relief regim+respond in a similar fashion tc~similar situations. I f the proposed construct is a good one, people will retipond similarly, and as a result, likety actions can be predicted andior explained. 3, Two important examples of this are Shawcross's The Qzdalr'ty#Mercy! which is about the Cambodia relief operation, and Rcybert E. Kaplarz" S~rvendcror Stnrr~c:The Wars Bchirzd the Faruritzc, tesley Bilinda, a missic~naryin Kwanda, alsa wrote an insightful book, Tke Colour c$ Darkness, about the genocide in Rw-anda. Her book fc3cuses on the work of her missictn and that of her husband, who was killed in the genocide. She did write one chapter about Benaco, but this chapter reELected the unusual week in October 1994 when she visited, and not the more mundane weeks that followed and p ~ c e d e dit,
Explaining Rwandan Genocide, War, and Relief
Explaining Genocide The special nature of Rwanda in the modern Western hagination emerges out of one word: '"genocide.'TVirtuatly al) accounts written &out Rwanda, sjncc 19944 take the genocide as their jumping-off point, whether the subject be economics, agriculture, fand refonx, religion, h o d security, ethography, politics, government, or geography*Even Natinml Geo
Explaining Rzonndan Genocide
May 15,1994, cover of Time magazine
this book because they framed the policy options available to those who addressed the 'bunerlying causes" of the Tanzania refugee crisis. Though this is not a book about the Rwandan genocide, the understandi n g ~of events in Rwanda on the part of actors working in Tanzania is very relevant, for such understandings were the bases on which decisions were made, policies established, and events responded to. But, identifying the ullderlying causes is not just about seeing "facts." It is also about identifying how observable facts are connected to each other by observers' imputing motives, assessing unobservable "underlying causes," and developing a "theory" about how war, genocide, and relief are connected. As with all explanations of such events having such broad historical import, what is identified as causal implies practical policies to solve the problems raised by the event itself. In Tanzania, this was an ongoing process as the crisis unfolded. As will become apparent, the explanations and policies observers settled on depended not on the complexity of the "complex" emergency but on ad hoc explanations suiting a combination of ""the facts" and the iz~stitutionaliz~terestsof the observers. Initially,
these i n t e ~ ~ t a t i oare n s necessarily based on hformat-im recog11izt.d as being incomplete. Despite the tentatke orlighs, however, ideas became a part of a received wisdom in the ~ f u g e relief e bureaucracies. M e n this happened, institutional interests in perpetuating programs and policies embedded in the earlier interpretations developed. Steppng back helps us understand what happened to h a n d a n refugees h Tmzanja. Whm we do this, we see what choices, expljcit or not, we= available to better wderstand. the consequences of these choices. U:ttimatefSI,we must go back to how policy-makers understood the genocide. 7b be memingful. and useful, explanatims of the genocide must take into account understandings of ethnic edict, the nature of justice, Rwandm history modern economics, demographics, miitary dynmics, and inl.ernat.iond politics,
Explaining the Rwandan Genocide Since 1994, a scholarly consensus over what happened in Rwanda has developed. Genocide by its nature involves awempts to obscure actions and devalue the interpretations of political. opponents; thus, reassernblkg this story has been a laborious process. The histol-ical.legwork was dme first by GQard Prunier, who published T7w R'zoar-rda f risis in 19535; m importmt-afterword appeared in the 1997paperback editio~~. More recently, Human Rights Watch researchers coordinated by Alism des Forges 6199% ) d i s h e d Leaw None to Rll the S f r t y , a more. encompassirtg historical description of the modem Rwanda, Des Forges's book describes the actions oi indkiduals durislg the genocide, and ehe responses (and lack of ~ s p o n s e of ) the internatimal community as the genocide unfolded. 'This w r k was developed with the ski.lls of an investigative reporter and the attention to accuracy of a. historian m d a lawyer. f rimarily a history rather than an interpretation, it is likely to remain an important touchstone for hterpretations about the responsc to the genocide (s~xch as this book), for years to come. FillaIly, Peter Uvin (1998) published an important accorant, Aiding Viokz-rce:T7w Develrra;mzerzt Enfert)ris;ein Ri-uanda, about the events and assumptions leadislg up to the genocide. Uvh's book focuses on how foreign aid programs affected social. relations in pre-genocide Rwanda. It also includes a well-developed analytical history of these evmts. First, I will present a brief historical overview as presented in these three books. In the next section, I will discws and assess the explmations that have been used to m k e sense of the evmts during the genocide and afterward.. Prunier"! des Pol.ges%,and Uvin" account are the most accurate historical reccnd we have. The data they collected are. the facts that
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are b o w n ; m y explanations that orgmizes them to describe motivations (or impute them to others) must take account of the story they tell in a plausibte fashion.
The Rwaxrda Genocide: The Scholarly Account: Hutu and Tutsi are old social categories h Rwmda. The terms are used to describe competing groups within Rwandan society. Like all etvlic groups, each has an origin story:J The Hutu stmy is about being people of the soil, descended kom the Bantu of central Alrica, The Tutsi story is about being cattle herders, leaders, and royalty, descended from Nilotic tribes wbo arrived from the north some hundreds of years ago. 'The Hutu are traditionally described as being short and stocky; the Tutsi, tall and willowy. Such stories are widely believed, aithough anthropologjsts pclint out that the two gmups are in fact culturdy and geneticdy very sixnilar, htermarriage rates have been high in the past, and many-probably most-Rwandans can trace actual descent form both groups. Both groups speak the same language and practice the same religions. There was pc3x;ha.p~s o m tmtln to the generalization that Tatsi are tall and Hutu are short, ~ o u g this h pmbably has as much to do with marriage patterns structured by inter-clan relationships, and norms about inkr-marriage as with the gcrnetic purity of an mcient migrant group. Neverfieless, particularly during the period of Belgian colonial p o w r (191S-19G1), these terms becme ixnportant as social categories. It is widely bclieved that this happened because of the dominant Belgianskeed to understand the groups as ethnic in the European sense: namely, as groups which are mated in kins%lipand ancestry-perhaps like the Belgians. h rigidification of the two groups-dentities began when the Belgian colonial government introduced identity cards Fn 1931 (Uvin 1998:1v),rules about patrirnonial inheritance of ethnic category, and generdy favored the minority Tutsi over the majority Hutu h the awarding of government jobs, education, and positims within the church. Colonid rule was nomimally hdired, m d occurred via the Tutsi king, whom the Belgians perceived as being analogous to a European monarch, irrespective of alternative views of kingship and clientship a l ~ a d present y in Rwaneia.~ Sensing the whds of dcrnocratie change, in 1958 the Belgians ehanged tack and took notice of the Hutu natimdist party, Parmehub (Parti du MourwemeM de IZErnancipation des Bahutu),"which was particularly strong in the southwest (des Forges 2999:38). In 19662, the Belgians granted Rwanda independence, the Pamehutu party assumed power. Parmehutu" authority rested on a nationalistic appeal to Hutu identiq as being more Rwandan than the privileged Tutsi. Followhg a takeover by Parmehutu, hands became a one-party state which excluded the
Tutsi. 'This takeover led to the irst Tutsi diaspora, with most settling in Uganda, Burundi, GongolZaire, m d Tmzaniai. This occurred in the context of sporadic massacres of rural Tutsi by Ilutu between 1959 and 1064, during which perhaps 20,000 died and 300,OQO fled (des Forges 15399:40). As with. the later genocide, these massacres were excused or orchestrated by a Rwandan government intmt on consolidating its own power by creating a t-futu ethnic idetntity in oppctsition to the Tutsi. The nekv government preserved a Belgian practice of designating ethnic status on the identi-ty cards. Unlike in the past, when the cards we= useful for prt-serving Tutsi privilege, this time the aim was to exclude those of Tutsi status horn access to government power, jobs, and other privileges flowhg from the state." h the late 1960s, massacres of Tutsi decreased, and the country moved on to the business of nation buil.ding then overtdirtg the newly independent countries of Africa. hands even began to iook good in terms of ethnic relations, at least to fnreig~naid donors, after General Habyarimana, appasently more modmate, took over in a coup d'etat in 1973 with a goal of moving beyond older Hutu-Tutsi labels. h doing so, he replaced the older onc-party state of the Parmhutw with his ocvn party M W D (Mouvernent R&voXutionstai~ National pour le DGveloppement); his power base was in the Hutu northwest. All Rwi-tndans wem made members of thit; party and, as in the pas6 other parties were bamed. During the 1 9 7 0 ~and ~ early 1980s, Rwanda gained a reputation as a darling of Western dtmars. This was in part due to the ~lationshipsHahyarimana and his coterie established with aid agencies, hvhose represetntatkes saw Rwmda as a good place to jnvest. :Roads they gave mmey to finance were actualfy built, environmental programs financed by German maney were implemetnted effectively, and Rw m d a even marketed its mountain gorillas as a tourist attraction followirrg the success of the film Gmilfas in the Mist. But this period of prosperity was, as des Forges f1999:46) says with hb$si&t, "short-lived and superlicid." Left unattended was a festerirrg prciblem: the rapid population growth of both the Hutu and n t s i population in Rwanda itself, and the gn:lwing Rwandan Tutsi refugee population in the neighboring countries. Within the country, the rapidfy expanding population led to ever-smaller plots for those farmfng on the steep Rwandan hills. As in other African countrries, this led to the rapid expansion of the urban capital, in Kigali as poorly educated young men left the crowded farms for the bright city lights. Fur0ler exacerbating the problem was that si~nflarpopulation pressures in Uganda, CongolZaire, and Rurmndi werc marghalizing Rwandan Tutsi youth there, Furthermore, the Ugandan and Burundian governments conthued to assert that the Tutsi h those cowtries could not have citizenship rights, and should return to Rwanda, a position Habyarimana resisted, throughout the 1980s.
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The demographic pressures presented Habyarimana's gover~zmexrt with a crisis. The naturc of this crisis was forced on the Rwandm government by ecmomic and military events in t-he late 1980s a d early 1991)s. Cofke and other commodity prices fell in Rwanda at the same time the T M f : and the World Bank dcmanded economic reforms and a multipar9 dmocratic pcriticat system as conditions for continued financial support. men, in C)ctober 1990, a party of Tutsi Rcvandans from Ihe refugee diaspora, the Rwanda Patriotic Fmnt (RPF), attacked from Uganda and briefty threatened the capital, Kigaii. The attack was quickly repulsed, but the RPF did manage to hold a small eomer of the country along the Ugandm border, m d from this territory it expelled the Hutu population. At this point in 3990, tl-te belequemd Zlhyarimana government faced r t thereby important choices about how to rally the country's s ~ ~ p p oand manage the economic and military crises. Countries in similar circumstances have dealt with sisnilar crises in any number of ways, as the countries of Eastern Europe and South Mrica demonstrated b r i n g the 190s. Habyarimana" government decided to demonize the residtent Tutsi, even though there was little evidence that they had supported t-he attack, and there was even much evidence that many wished to repel the RPE This demonization of the Tutsi led to massacres of Rwandm Tutsi between 1991 and 1993 (&S Forges 1999:8%95, Win 1998:5>81). As part of the mti-Tutsi strategy, the M W D and a new radical, Hutu party, the CUR (Coalition pour la I>c".fensede la Republlique) also encouraged the development of Hutu militias composed of young men weaned on propaganda that blarned the Tutsi for the economic and military pmblems faced by the corntry*
October f 99GApriE f 994: S e e k i q an End to War WI.zZle Prepari~gJfurCelzocide At the b&est of East Mrican kaders and the international community, in 1993 Habyarimma entered into negotiations with the WF:to address the political crisis. The meethgs between the b a n d a n government and t-he H3F were hdd in&usha, Tazzania. An agreement' the Arusha Accords, to end one-party rule and declare a mulltiparw democracy was reached in Augu" 3993. As part of the agreemat, t-he LIN agreed to provide peacekeeping troops. In the coming months, there were even some minor moves to implement the agreement, including the stationing of a UN force of peacekeepers (implemented in October 1993), a guarmtee of ministerid portfoios for the W:F (not inplemented), and the garrisoning of an RPF force in Kigdi itself (September 1993). Simultaneousiy, a similar though more peaceful process was t a k i q place in neighboring Burundi, where the ruling Tutsi party of Burundi in
July 1993 ceded power peacehlly to a Hutu party after loshg an open election, But Rwandan Hutu ethnic consciousness received a shock in October 1993 when 23urundifsTutsi-led military momted an unsuccessh l coup against the Hutu government. In response, widespread lkiilllng of perhaps 100,000 Hutu and Tutsi occurred throughout Burundi, and sevaat hundred thousand H u b refugees fled to neit;hboring countries spreadhg tdes of:slaughter at the hands of a Tutsi-led m2itary.s The massacres in neighboring Burundi sent emotional shockwaves into Rwanda, along with several hundred thousand Burundian Hutu refugees. Ethnjc polarization was reinforced, despite the &usha Accords, and radical Hutu, already dissatisfied with the power-sharing aspects oi the Arusha Accords, ~ s p o n d e dby plarchasing a m s owerseas to supply their militia. By Jmuary 1994, Hutu leaders were apparently pl "final solution"' by gcrnerating Iists of their pditical opponents for assassination. Some ol the UN officials mnitoring Ihe Arusha Accords wen. aware of such preparations, and sent commniytlPs to :New York warning about the p ~ p a r a t i m sfor mass murder. A communication from the leader of the UN' peacekeeping force, General Romeo Datlaire of Canada, later became notorious. Ch January 11, 1994, he informed UN headqrrarters in New York that he wlruld seize weapons imported. by miitia gmups, despite the fact that it was not c q l e t e l l y clear that this was ailowed by his deployment orders. The office of the then head of UN Peacekeefing 9erations, Kofi h n m , blocked this move, and General Dallaire was unable to take the action he thought was necessary. h early 1994 the sihtatian in both Rwmda m d Burundi continued to be watched carefully particularly by locals, but also by the international clommunity. There were rumors of coups in both countries precedhg a summit meeting in Uar Es Sdaarn, Tanzania, in early April. On April 6, the presidents of the two Hutu-led countries flew back together m President Wabywirnana's plane. The plan was for Habyarimana to deplane in Kigali, and then for the plane to go on to Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, a half-hour's night to the south. But on the agprcrach into Kigali, the plane was shot down, and both prrzside~~ts were killed, Within the how, units of President Habyarimana" Presidential Guard had established roadblocks and were seeking out politicat opponents for assassination. 'The g m x i d e had started. Gotocide, War, and Flight
Dtlring the next six weeks, what was later called the '"astest and quickest killing machine" in modern times operated in RLvanda. 'The first killings were organized by the militias, but they were st~bsequentlyjohed by the
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regular army The I~zktrtnhaunrutlmilitia, the ""youth wlng'kf the CDR, bec a m most notorious m d was dephyed via offites of the central W a n d m government itsdf. An)i dicials reluctant to participate risked being Elled. Rwanda's civil war also began anew#as the W F forccs in the north began marching souf;hward smn after t-he plane crash, leading eventually to their capture of KigaSi inJuly; by August they had control of the whole countsy. This time, the RPF said, the civil war was to ""sop the genocide," in addition to overthrwing the M m D government. In the process of overthrowing the governmetnt the RPF soon gained a reputation for brutalit). arnmg the Rwandan Hutu population. At least 10,000 Hutu civilians were killed in eastern Wands, as the R1"F swept t-h:hrou$ that area in April and early May (des Forges 1999:702-722; Prunier 1"37;7a:35941). Though tecknically not a kiling of genocidal nature, the often aai.h-ar). nature of the killing and t-he fear it generated were more than enoul;h to stimulate 'light Hundreds of thousands Mutu fled to Tanzania, a move the retreating MRND government encouraged., beclause it wanted to deny t-he advancing RPF any type of popular legitimacy. Zn Tanzania, the Mutu joi,ned the .few Tutsi who dso had escved earlier jn the month. The international respmse to the killing was confused. Tn the context of war and massacre, information from Rwanda became difficult to get and analyze, Nevertheless, it was quickly evident- that the kifing was of an unusually brutal nature, By the md of April, the word. ""gnocide" was being used by some among the hurnan ri&hts activist community. The ever-diplomatic UN' and Wstern countries, however, karcd using the word " g e n ~ i d e "because intematimal treaty obligations q u i r e d intervention in that case; they resisted this defir~itionuntil the end of ikfay. By mid-fune, the French, a traditional ally of the Mabyarirnana regime, managed to place troops in the southwestern sector of Rwanda, despite the protestations of the advancing RPF. The French saved several of thousaslcts of potent.ial TLttsi victims, but their presence also permitted the mmp M m U forces to regroup and retreat into Zairean refugee camps. This is the story that historians have been able to rt.constmct after t-he .fact. Rut hocv did the situation look to decisim-makers and partisans at the time? What djd they think was happening, and why did they do what they did? 'e'he six explanations below point to various backgmund .factors. CX course, policy-makas did, not subscribe to my one of these explanations to the exclusim of the others, but policies often in.corporated the assumptions behind c ~ n eor the other. Xn other words, these explanations became l-he analytical frarnes used by poliey-makers in dealing with the refugee crisis. Pollcy-makers who placed empkasis on the genocide as a cause f n f rr.fugee flight; were particularly important. But rcllugees, Tanzanians, and others often proposed other explmations as
shaping evezzts m d motivations. mese in turn colored their responses to the international relief regime. History, f ustice, and Social Structure: Six Explanations of Genocide
The origin of ethnic conflict and identity is traditionally discussed in terms of history and social stmcture. "Primordialism" is a common element in the historical approach. Prirnordialism is the belief that a group has fixed cdtwral characteristics th& are the very essence of the p u p ' s culture and that do not change through time. Primordial expfanationsoften focus on the histories that give life to ethnic grievances (Cornell and Hartmann 1998339-71). In contrast, structuralism (also called instrumentalism) focuses m the immdiate social, economic, and political structures as factors t;i\ling rise to cclnflicting group interests. Both types of explanations were common up to the time of the genocide in both R w m d m and hternational circles. As the detajls of how the radicaf Ilutu elite had planned the genocide became knokvn, the plausibi%ityof primordial arguments was challenpd. No longer codd the genocide be justified as a primordial tribal killing rooted in ""ancient hatre&.'" X n respme, a new type of histolical reasmk g emerged, emphasizing the particular importmce of mass killhg in Rwandan history and asserting that the best way to repair relations was to separate the guilty fnr pmishment, which would permit the innocent to resuzne pre-pncxide relations. The sig~zificanceof such t.tistt?ricalexptanations is that justice is asserted as a natural right, without reference to bmader issues of pditical economy, rt.inforcen-tent of elite power structures, world markets, or other structural cmsiderations, In contrast to more historical expianations, structural expfanations fucu?;on the nahre of competing wonornic and political interests, whe&er or not the people concerned talk about them or not. Ch a certain level, primordialism represents what people believe "ouglnt" to be right, moral# and good about themselves and their own and otherskctions, whereas structurdism focuses on social, jnequality and how people actually behave, Each side in any conflict has primordjal explanations explaining why they did vvhat they etid, even the most extreme evil. No matter how implausible these explanations may appear to outsiders, they are helieved withirr the group itself. Neither prirnordialism nor strucbralism is the whole story in any particular circumstance; the typemof explanations do in fact interact. But Qpically this irrteraction is ordered; thus, m l y plnzrsible cultural assumptions about et-hnic identify are used by political elites to justify and further their mo~zopolyover power or policy Far example, in Rwanda, the
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Explaining Rzon~danGenocide
prhordial narrative about the two separate "races" was reemphasized by the MRND government when a scapegoat was needed, as prices in coffee declined, IMF austeriq measurczs wert. adopted, and the ability of the elite to mintain its lifestyle dimiajshed. Thus, a primordial elentetnt was overlaid on structural circumstances, The power that elites have, what tools are waitable, and how ~lationshipsare structured by social inequality are Chc structural constraints. Elites m y choose how to manipulate e t h i c identiv, but they must choose a plausible story that resmates culturally*W e n they choose skiltfullyf or forbitously, the resulting consequences in ham become part of their history In this kvay fiistory proceeds in fib and. turns withixz the ideologkal limits of the primordial narrative. From a policy-making perspective, emphases on primordial versus structural conditions present different options to insider and outsider alike. Bureaucraries latch on to an expimation that makes tht? most sense given the context of the task chey must perform, and their own organizational goals; they then develop institutions embeddcd in the assumptions of those s m e explanatims. Relief agencies =arched for a plausible interpretalion of cvha.t. happened in Rwanda in the context of their selfdmcribed humanitarianism. Their conchsim was that all refugees we= innocat wictirns. This became a problem in the Rwanda relief operation as it became clear that refugee assistmce was prhably being exte~ndcdto people guilty of genocide, as well as the jnnwernt victillns assumed by humanitarim bureaucracies,
E,t-ylnnati~n2: Fixed Primcldial Ethnic Clutqorimtiw-2 The simplest prhordial explanations focus on the origin. of Hutu and Tutsi as social categories, It is noted that Hutu and Tutsi are old social categories, refliectimg occupational specialization im pre-colmial Rwanda. The Hutu were farmers, and the Tutsi were cattle herders and rulers. There was frequent irttermarriage betvveen the grouys. As there is no direct evidence that massacre or genocide were part of this world, it is assumed that ncik.her occwred. Often, in Ihe primordi,al view, relationshjps between Hutu and Tutsi are described as being reg~llatctdby n o r m about obedience to authoriw which helped the two p u p s peacefully coexist. The arrival of colonial rulers (first the Germms in 1892, then the Belgians in 1916) meant that the older categories Hutu and Tatsi were subverted to benefit the newcorners. To fit Belgian preconcepticms of race, the country was di\iided into two groups who were socidy sepgated. Tn the Belgian scheme, it was assumed the Tutsi wese the ""natural" ruling race, and it was throufi;h the n t s i king and his court that the Belgians ruled. To solidify this policy as well as facilitate control by the Belgians,
obligatory identity cards were issued, beghning in 1931, h which ethnic identiw was specified. Consistent with Belgian concepts of inheritance, this identity was automatically passed from father to children. In the process, these two identities gained a social signiicance that they had not had before. 'IFme magazine on May 18,1994, p ~ s e n t e dsuch a primordial explmation of the fighting that- had erupted in Rwanda the month before:
. . . Historians could point to Kwanda as a case study in what happens to a former colony when suppressed tribal rivalries are released into a pow-er vacuum. It is a familiar lesson: an estimated 1 million Hindus and Muslims died in commrmal fighting after the British pulled out of India; the degarture of the Belgians Ercm the Congo set off savage ethnic-regional warfare; the collapse of the Soviet Union ignited a murderous rivalry between AbUaziam and Cecjrgians for control of Georgia. Rwanda" ppre-independence history- held special ircjnies: while colonial rule war; far less strict In Rwanda than in South Africa or Ixhodesia, the legacy of Belgian rule all but guaranteed the violence that has erupted. Europeans who stumbled into Rw-anda a century ago Erjund a country ruled by tall, willmy k t s i cattle lords under a magical k t s i king, while darker-skinned, stockier Hutu farmers tended the land, grew the food, kept the Tutsl clc>thed and fed. They lived in symbiotic harmony. "They- were a reasonably contented rural society," says Basil Bavidson, a leading British historian of Africa. "There was no hatred between the two groups. That came onXy with the colonial system."
In 1958, accordhg to thr primordial story the H u b elite asserted itself. In the process, the Tutsi Eng of Rwmda died under suspicious circzmstances, and.Tutsi were for the first time subject to persecution by Hutu (see Newbury 19KK:ltiO-2116; I"runic.r 19")5:37-34, 61-67; des Forges f 9 9 9 3 W t ) ) . This policy was developed by Belgians newly se~~silive to the democratic w h d s then sweerpin.g Africa. After all, Hutu made up about K5 percent of Rwm3.a" ppopulation, and continued Tutsi rule was difficdt to justily (Prunier 199E6244, tlvin f 998:1%21). Tatsi remahing in Rwanba after independence, in 1961, were pushed out of positions of political authority, and few avmues for political participation WE left: for them..Mutu el,ites from the southwest replaced the W s i in government, and through. the power of their majority they elected a Hutu natimalist party, the f)armahuh;l,in 1961. Violence against Tutsi continued sporadicaily, with the resttit that by 1964, there was a significant Rwandan diaspora living mnstly in Burundi and Ugmda, but also 'fhnzmia, Zaire, Europe, and North erica.Wemwhife, Tutsi remaining in Rwanda herded cattle or moved h t o the commercial sectorf
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Explaining Rzon~danGenocide
where they formed a merchant minority of sorts. Nevertheless, despite these violent events, Rwanda was considered to be at an advantage cornpared to its neighbor to the south, Burundi, where a minority Tutsidominated government maintained control, and major mixssacres and refugee flight had been common occurrences between 1961 and 1988 (Lemarchmd 1994; Malkki 1995). Despite peace in Rwanda during the 7,970s and 1%80s, the Hutu-led governant refused to let the Tutsi diaspora return to Rwanda, irrttspective of revests from the UNE-LCR, the refugees, and tl-te Ugandan government, This refusal, along with opportunities for military training in the army of the Uganda" President Museveni in the 1 9 8 0 ~ and ~ fhancial contributions from Tintsf prokssionals living in Europe and North America, led to the establishment of the Rwmda Patriotic Front (RPF) in the late 1980s. The ideology of this group was gmul-tded in the belief that the Rwandan government was hopeless@corrupt, and for this reason, it was the duty of the diavora to retake the country ( b e d 7,995). In October 1990, the RPF attacked from Uganda. Rzldical Hutu militias ~ s p o n d e dby attacking civilian Tutsi populations in Rwanda in the first mnor massam of peaants since the 7,960s. According to primordial views, this led to the furthtr alienation of the Tutsi population f r m the Hutu government, with a rczsulkg radicalization of ethnic idedogies on the part of resident Hutu and Tutsi. The radicalization of the Hutu by governant elites led to the ernergace of radio stations devoted to hatestimulati~~g broadcasts, the htemhur)twe militia, and other elements necessary to the genodde. Particularly in the context of Rwandan cdture, where obedience to authority had always been highly valued, such primcrrtlial attachments made the manipulaticm of the Hutu for genocidal purposes possible. Radicalization of the Tutsi led to support for the RPF and the invasion from Uganda. Embedded in such a primordial description are assumptions that also imply solutions to the Rwandan crisis. Far example, there is an assumption that confrontation will be a problem as long as the two primordial e t h i c categories persist. As a rczsult, policies focus on either segregathg the groups, under the assumption that they camot be reconciled, or eliminating the power one group has over the other. The humanitarian cornmlanity focused on the latter solution, and on the fact that the war did in het bmak the power of the Hutu elite who wed the primordjal story so destmctkely The fnllow-up conclusion for the humanitarian community war; that the rc-rfugees, who were primarily apolitical peasant masses, were part of "the problem'' only insofar as they were manipztiated by elite groups. The elimi;natim of the genocidal Hutu elite from power h Rwanda w a n t that the imocmt peasants could reurn without fear and begh farmhg again as they had h the prheval past,
Explarzatiorz 2: Cycles of Impzlnify md Justice As the scope and natrtre of the genocide became clear and widely acknowledged, it also became apparent that the ki:lling was not Ihe natural outbrcak of the pure prirnordialist, but had been implemented as a conse qumce of a specific policy of extermination, without precedmt in ancimt hakeds. As a result, the prkordial flormulatim was no longer adequate to explain the genocideor as a basis for other poliries. tn response to this insight, the intemationai co unity came up with a watered-ciown primordial hterprctation; it began to see what happened in Rwanda as being the result oi a "cycle of impunit.qrmThe rcasonil~gwent that when mass killing and extermination campaips began, the lack of legal or poli~cal response mean.t. that: perpetrators c m e to view thcis activities as Icgitjmate, particularlp irtsofar as they facilitated the achievement of pditical goals. In. this interpretation. of Rwandan history, there was no effective response by the international comunj.Q to massacrc3s of Tutsi in Wanda in the 3960s or agah in the 1990%afer the attack by the RPF. En both cases, war crimes were committed by the Hutu military on Tutsi civilians h clear violation of international law. The impunity with which these massacres were undertaken meant that war crimes escalated until the genocide of f 494 was a logicat ,and foreseeable consequence. Given this new assumption, the obvious solutions were first, the threat of militirry action when war crimes are committed,bnd a p~eiictable process of trial and puni5hmem.t.of those gujlty of kvar crimes and gemocide. Zf it is assumed that genocide is the result of impunity, the forceful oppositim tc:,war crimes is a necessary and reasonable prerequisite for "breaEng the cycle of impu~~ity which gave rise to the genocide in the first placef"(WSAID 1998). According to this argument, given the nature of gmxide, e h i c hatred is normal and expected. As with the ''purerf1 primordial versions, lacking hcre is an acknowledgment of thc structural arguments that economic hequality and desperation on the part oi a politicat elite seeking to pmserve power are also elements. The cyde-ohimpunity arguntemt is currently used to justify the continuing monopolization of political power by the W E Actjng President Kagame of Rwanda was implicitly usb~gthis type of argurnent when he was quoted as saying (fRZN 2000): It is stupid for same people to say that the gencxide tvas as a result of the downing of Habyarirnanafsaircraft. Such pclopte do not know the hlstov of Rwanda. Genocide started in 2959. It was continued in the following year-1963, 1967, 1973. Of course tve had killings in the 1990s when our struggle war; going on. Tf you remember, in 1993 we had to halt the negotia-
92
Explaining Rzon~danGenocide tion process in Arusha because there were killings in the north and demand that the government should stop them. Towards the canclusion of the Arrrsha peace prclcess, one colonel close to Habyarirnana openly told people that he was going to Rwanda to plan an apocalypse. What is happening today is an attempt by some people fu revise history by distorting facts,
The principle that genocide continues as a result of "cycles of impunity," "developed. in response to the Rwanda crisis, was applied. by NATO in Kasovo in 199% The NATO bombing of Kosovo was in large part justified because it was assunted that if a similar internaliond response had been undertaken in Wan&, the genocride would have been prevented. In essence the reason that the Rwandan government went ahead with a policy of genocide was that they did not fear retribution from the international community in the form,of pxleventke military action of war crimes prosecutions. As a throry for analyzing how states respond to ethnic conflict, wm aimes trials, and international interver~tion, the jury is still out on whether this explanation actually explains anything. It will be some years before retrospective analyses of the Rwandan and former Yugosia\iia crises can help determine whether prevel~tive measures taken in the light of the cycle-of-impunity theory are effective in preventing war crimes. In the case of the Rwanda crisis, there is a cms e ~ ~ s emerging us that in the few cases Wt7ere outsiders protested or ever3 intervened 1 i 1the genocide, at least some lives we= saved, and.the projection of force was m effczctive deterrent (des Forges 1999:24-27). Given that the War Crimes Tribw~als,as well as the courts in Rwanda have not as of this writing (April 2000) yet convicted large numbers of defendants, no real assessment of the effectiveness of war crimes prosecutions in ' % r e a b g the cycle ol impunity'kclan yet be maclie.
Ev1anntk;r;z3: Rwandafs P~osilFioaWithin the Internal-ilznal Economic Order Left out of the historical approaches is the role of the international eccmomy in ordering Rwandan society Many have pohted out that Rwanda seemed by the mjd-1980s to have made steps toward ethnic reconciliation.""~ cite Prunier (1997a1349-350), the consensus about Rwanda i n the f 980s was that. d i k e its ncighbors, it was an ideal place for development projects underwritten by virtuous Europeans. ""General Habyarimana was neat, he ran a tight ship,he kitled very selectively and with almost total, discretion, corruptio~~ was minimal. . . . Rwanda was the darlhg of ioreigners. . . . Wanda was still virtuous, Christian, rcspectable and boring." This was true particdarly when :Rwanda was compwd to neighboring Burundi, Ml)nere minority Tutsi stayed in power with all the obvi-
ous manifestations of an authoritarian military state; to the corruptim of Mobutds Zaire; to the maschy of Aminfs/ObntefsUganda; and to the poverty of socialist h a a n i a . Incieed, it was Epurundi, not Rwanda, that had had si.gnificmt massacrc3s between 1972 and 1,990, mostly Hutu massacred by the Tatsi military DurQ that time, Rwanda bad, a stable government that by the stanrfards of neighboring countries was ~ l a t i v e l y progressive (Pruzier 1"355:78-7% ddes Forges 1999:45). 'The only political disruption was in 1972, when an internal coup withirt the military led to the accession of a less ideological leader, P ~ s i d e nHabyarirnana, t and the elimination of mare militant Hutu nationalists from the southwest. In sum, an analyst looking at only the regional history in, say, 1985 would have f i g m d that Rwartda was the least likely country in the rr.gion to have an ethnically based gelzocide withh Eel2 years, Burundi, Zaire, and Uganda-all had more pronounced ethnic divisions and. more deepb embedded ""cycles of impunity"' than b a n d a in 1985. In the 1980s, Rwanda mnnaged aid fmrn Gemany and China relatively well. The result was that by 1988, a substmtial portion of t h road system was paved, there we^ substantial expod earnings f m tea and coffee plantations, IEteracy was innproving, and healfih progrms were being extended into the corntryside. Indeed, Rwanda, of all the countries in the ~ g i o nby , 1984 had the most reason to hope for the quick emergence of the type of capita:[ist clemocracy envisiomd by Western development aid donors. For this reason, structural analysts point out, the actual descent into genocicie is explained by what happmed in the late 1980s and early 1990s rather than by tales of historical antagcmisms. Or, as Prunier (1.992350) wrote: 'The whole system went wrong for reasons which at first were w o m i c and then turned pcritico-cultufal. Rwanda's slide from relative heaven to absolukz helf is a perfect textbook illustration of the theory of dependenceef' Rwanda's seemingly real ecmomic and social gains began to crumble in the mid-1980s; whcn a number of factors crippled the country's growth. First, in 1984-86 tin prices dropped, the Wandan mjnes were closed, and the export sector became morrt dependent on coffee. In late 1%89 coffee prices in turn dropped 50 percent, and this, along with drought, triggered. the first famine in over 40 years, this one among market-dependent farmers. CaGherint. Newbury (1995) sap that these co~zditions,coupled With declinhzg land-to-farmer ratios causccf by a 3.7 pescmt population growth rate, meant that many young men we= mable to achieve the pmperty and family n e c e s s q to achieve ""social adiulthaod.""-The nct resull was an expansion of the social margims, in both the mral areas and the cities, as the number oi young men who bad no land, little education, no jobs, and littk hope for the h b r e went up (C. Newbury 1995:1415; D, Newb~~ry 1998; des Forges 1999:4546).Stmctural an-
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Explaining Rzon~danGenocide
alysts foctts on the origk of class relations and economic incqudity. They point out that impoverished populations are particularly susceptible to the demagoguery oE plirnodial ethnic chauvinists. fn the late 1980s and early 1"39Qs, the r u h g M (Hutu)elite agreed to IMF/ World Bank structural adjustment programs needed for continued ent to cope with the finmcial issues raised by the ecoloans to the gove nomic crisis. fn exchange for loans needed to p ~ s e r v the e privileges of thc ruling clique, the government agreed to new economic policies. At the heart of such programs was '"cost-sharing" with the population-meaning, in practice, higher taxes, cuts in gover~~ment employment, m d c~~rrency devaluation. As in the rest of Africa, this also required cutbacks in government patronage, lieu-offs of government assets, and elimination of exchange co~~trds-poIJciesthat tlne alrr;lae wealthy we= in the best positicm to take advantage of. Again, in the context of the class-based conditions on which stmchral malysts fmus, the net result was that costs we= borne by the more m q i n a l slxial groups (U\lin 1,998:40-m), accentuating issues of inequality. In the face of rising unemployment and the impoverishment of peasant coffee and tea growers, the government sought scapegoats, and the "appositional role" of the Tutsi was revived. It exploited ethnic chauvinism and the Octlzber 1990 invasion of Rwanda from Uganda by the Tutsidominated RPl" to justify the massacres of civilian Tutsi Chat occurred i,n October 1990. Further polarization and fear within the Hutu. and Tatsi population were the resdt. AS h the government, it took advantage of the invasion to shift concern away kom its okvn faitings as a government and &us m issues of nationaI securib-. Those who make structural arglamcmts point out that further radicalization oE the Hutu popuiation came in 1993, hvhen the Hrst mutiparty elections werc held at the insistence of the international communit_k.,A Hutu radical party the CDR, emerged to challenge the more mderate governkg M W D party of President Habyasimana. The "Hrttu pokver" ideology of the 6T)R found. new resonance with the dispossessed youth; now thr MRND sought to retain these supportc;rs Zly co-opt* and intensif y ing its own Hutu chauvinism. President Maby arimnna himself ended uy in a political no-man%-lmd, and as a result, Hutu radkaXs attacked his airplane on April 6, 3994, in an attempt to derail the peace al agreements that he had reached with the W E The attack was a s i g ~ ~for the genocide to begin," This struckral view differs from the more historically focused views because it looks at exogenous (external) political and economic conditions as causes, rather than tribal antagoni.sms, in-bred Inatred, or "cycles of irnpmitymthat emerge naturally out of history. 'Thus, while analysts focuskg on structural conditio~~s may agree that War Crimes Trials are
i~nportant,they point out that unless underlying conditions are addressed, trials by themseIves will not be enough to prevent further violence. Adherents of the stmcbral view do not blame the genocide on the pecdiarities of Rwandm culture or trace the conflicts of the 1990s into a vague primordial past, or even back to the 1960s. X n the stmcturatist formdation, the et-hnic histories told Zly the competing parties to outsiders are incidentaf to the broader economic situation. Thus, the proximate cause for war and genocide is not only primordiat. ethnicity, but the economic and political conditions leadhg to the revival of ethnic categories. This view in effect, says that under certain poiiticai and social conditions, ethnic antagonisms anywhere will be revived, with gcrnocide a possible consepence. This is, of course, a scarier view:every ethnic group, by defhition, has a prhordial story, and SO any majority group is at risk to cmrnit genocide given the ""rigbt" cilrumstances, ordiaiist view, the strucrnalist explanaticms imply policy prescriptians. In particular, the way to avoid future ger~ocideis through ecmonic devcloyment benefiting the poor. The point is to avoid a situa" tiltn where a large pool of poorly educated, dispossessed youf;h accurnulate at the xnarghs of society, be they Wutu, liatsi, or anything dse. This view has not been dominant in h a n d a n policy-making since 3994. However, it is comrnon witl-rin NGO and international development bureaucracies and with academic sources..
Behind the typical Rwadan version of events is an awareness that fighting in Rwanda started in 3990 when Tutsi exiles invaded f m Uganda. t both the Rl"F government (currently in Ironically, for d i f f e ~ n reasons, power in Rwanda) and Hutu militia, make shilar arguments, pointing to the invasion from Uganda as significmt in explaining the origin (and, by externsion, solution) of Rwanda's troubIes, RPF representatives claim that the invasiun from the north was necessary to stop the genocidal MRNDdominated gave ent. The Hutu c b f m &at the invasion was part of a Tutsi plot to reestablish hegernony in Rwanda, Consistent with the Tutsi version of this view is the observation that in the 1980s President Habyarimana ~ p e a t e d l yrehsed repatriaticm of the Rwandan relugees in Burundi,, Uganda, Zaire, asld Tmzania. Habyarirnana" rrefuctance even extended to insisting that Rwandans fleeing C)botefsUganda in 1982 v v e ~ " U g a n d d rczfugees, and they were to reHabyariturn to Ugmda. hdeed, during the 197(13sm d 1980s, Preside~~t mana sought to resettle liwandan (7irtsi or Hutu.) Sarmers from Rwanda to countries as distmt as Gahcrn (NeLvbury 39%:14-15). Rut the Tutsi of the RPF regaded thermelves as Rwandans, a self-defjnitian supported
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Explaining Rzon~danGenocide
by Uganda and the UNP-XICR. Thus, they regard the culmination of their "invasion" as a homecomjng for liberators ready to topple a corrupt and p0tcntiall.y genocidd regime. The Rwandan Mutu population viewcd the RPF invasion frnm Uganda with terror. The invasion's tixning could not have come at a worse time fnr the already faltering economy. This sihratbn was compounded by the subsequent explllsion of Hutu peasantry m m arcas caphared by the RPF h the nortkeast in 1990-92. Bqi 1.992 some 300,000 Hutu. peasants had been disphced by the fighting and were housed in large D P (intenalry displared person) camps immediately outside the RPF zoms i,n Byumba prefecture. This crclated a large dissiatisfied population inkrested in efforts t~ claim their homes. In response to the Hutu population's fears of the RPF, the government began to train rural peopfcs in affected areas i,n militia tactics and massacre, as a matter of ""self-defense" "mnier 1995: 134-1 38). Thus, the Mutu take on this invasion explmatio~~ is that the genocide was a response to an illegal invasion, and. therefore was part of a war. (This position does not achowledge the qualitative difference between war and genodde.) Meanwhile, the Ttxtsi/Rl"F take is that the invasiorl was necesSary to rescue the countsy from, the genocidal intentions of the I-lutu leaders, vvbich in their ex post facto analysis were self-evident.10 Bath takes co~~tain persuasive elements that are particularly attractive to aggrieved pupulations.. One of the policy implications of the invasion explanation is the WE' view that the Tutsi have a "right to =turn," and t-herefore the invasion was just, There is a wider Rwandan diaspora, which was unjustly expetled in the 1960s by ethnic extremists and those who were expelled have a natural right to return to their hornelmd. Such rights of return are cornmon; Israel, Germany and a nurnber of other countries include in their Cmstitutilms a right for citizens they defhe as "stranded by history"' outside the country to return on the basis of a cornmm ethnic so& darity. 7he policy implications of the H u b take on this invaicm erc~)lanation is that the Tutsi fmm Uganda are " f o ~ i g ninvaders" who do not have Rturn dghts, and IZnJanda is occupied by a foreign army and its government is illegititnate. This is used to justify revolt against the RI"F govemment.
E~yb~talicm S:Infirrnalioml I~zfriyur. and Politics The role of international intrigue in triggering genocide is occasionally mentioned. Pre-genocide Rwanda had close mlationships with France, Belgium, m d Germany 'The RPF had its origjns in Ugmda, and during
its invasion (1990-94) used that country as a safe haven; it is also commonly acknowledged that Uganda was also directly ol. indirectly a s o m e of supplies for the WF. The Tutsi-dtlminated governmat in Burundi was also appare~ntlysympalhetic, and permitted Cund-raising for the RPF in the late 1980s. Ermce had a military relationship with General Habyarixnanafs Rwanda m d supplied his go~rernmentwith arms,.mere were also close personal relationships between members of the French governing etites and those in Wands, includfng between the families of Franc& l'resident Mittkrrand and Preside~ntHabyarimana-"1As a cmsequence, France came to be considered as an ally of the h r m r government. The establishment of the Frmch mititary's humanitarian "Zone Turyuoise"7in southwest Rwanda in fume-August: 1,994 contributed to this belief: m e remnants of the old Rwadan government retreated, into this zone, and geno"icia attacks on rfutsi continued them in places MIhere French soldiers were not presetnt. There is continued specdation about whethrrr France continued to ent after portions of it fled to Zaire.. suppo" the b a n d m exile g w e Certainly the Mobutla regime in Zaire provided a rouk;. for arms to reach the exiled soldiers, At the t h e , France's sole and xtions were unclear, but since then Prunier (1995:285-311) a r ~ d Alism des Forges (4999:149-23, f 84,648-91) have been able to fill ift some of the Hanks regmding French hvolvement, Belgium is also an hnportant political actor in Rwanda, Belgium is the forxncr coiionial power in Burul-rdi,,and retahs active poljtical and social ties. Belgim troops were central to the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, and it was Belgian members of LINAMIR (the United Nations Assistmce Mission to Rwanda, a UN military contkgent h Rwanda in 199S96) who were lcilled protecting the politically desperate P r h e Minister Agathe tlwilingiyimana, a Hukl, at the beginning of the genocicie. There have also been persistelnt rumors that Belgian mercenaries hired by Hutu radicals were jnvolved in the shooting down of President Habyarimanafs plane on April 6, 1994. These rumors were widely believed by ~ ~ in 1539.4, and there is some factual basis to beRwandan H L Erefugees lieve that they may be true Prunier 1995:21>229), m i k e the case of the Frmch, there are no persistmt m a r s that the Relgia" gove tematically provided aid to one side or the other in Rwanda's cmflicts, Germany bad an unusually close relationship with pmwar Rwanda through its overseas developmat programs. However, this role has not been interp~tedas k i n g fav0rabl.e to one side or the other. Perhaps the most persjstcnt and plausible claim for international respmibi2ity for :Rwanlia%genocide is the West's fnahitity to fnterpret signals that: a genocide w s going to occur. Warning cables that General Dal-
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laire sent in January 1994 were misinterpreted or ignored at UN headquarters in New kbrk and the U.S. State Department in Washington, both of clihich wanted to avoid invoZvrmmt. Had. the cables been interprcrkd accurately (and courageously), the United States or the UN could have acted to prevent the genocide (see Gourevitch 1999; des Forges 1999:59=33). Presidmt Clinton of the United States and Secretary Genan of the UN hold this view, and both apologized for this inaction on their trips to Rwanda in early 1498, Implied in this view is the assump tinn (or hcrpe) that miiitary action by ouf;sidersat the right moment could have been an effective deterrent to the actio~zsof the ge12ocidal Rwanda government, the militias, and the military; the belief that achwkdgixrg a sihaation and trying to do something to prevcnt it from degenerating has s o m moral value, eve13 thot~gi.success i s not nccessari:ly guaranteed. Of course, the idea that iiznctklz by the United States m d other Western countries, no matter hlrw eg~gious,is a cause of crtherskommitting genocide that the genocide ocis a logical stretch. Nevertheless, thc ass~~xnption mrrt.d because of inaction by outsiders is explicit Rwandan gave poficy today and is impticit in the apologies of Bill Chton, Kofi Annan, and others for failing to act: to prtlvent the genocide. The Rwmdm government cmtinues to have strong suspicions regarding Western aid agencies' contacts with the former Hutu government. The inability of the West to stop the genocide is typically cited as the basis for this continuillg suspicion (Gowing 1998).
Before 1990, bands and Buntnlii had the greatest population etensity in Mica, and their rate of natufal populatio~zgrllwth was among the highest. Such a situation in countrks highly dependent on agriculture like Rwanda and Bunandi inevitably rczsulttld in population prtJssure on the distribution of lmd. A c m m o n occurrelzce in such situations is that large numbers of young men leave the farms and emigrate to the cities or abroad. As a result, the capitals of both Bumndi and Rwanda experienced rapid population gmwth during the 198f)s,but without a corresponding b~creasein urban employment. This created a volatile population of disenfranchised young men susceptible to the appeale; of radical parties pedding idedogies based in race or class. Demography is not destiny, but it heightens both risk and opportunit)l in developing cowtriers like Rwaneia and B w n d i (P Nevtrbrlry 299594; USCR 1998:41,; Waters 1996; D. Newbuq 199% Wi,n 1998:18&202).f2 Prunier described this issue in the following manner: There is of c o u r x one further added cause [of the geno>cide]:overpoputatim. This [subject] is still a taboo, became human beings are not supposed
to be rats in a laboratory cage, and Christians, Marxists, Islamic fundamentalists, and MlorXd Bank a p e r t s will all tell you that overpopulation is relative and that Cod (c~rmodern techology or the Sltarikn) will provide. But let whoever has not at least once felt murderous in a crowded subway at rushhour t h r w the first stone, This author knows of only two cases where overpopulation has been mentioned in straight unabashed fashion as a direct cause of the Rwandese genodde. One came from a geclgrapher, Jean-Pierre Maison, and the other fram Mary Gore, wife of the US Vice-13resident, who said at the Cairo World Population Conference in September 1994: Rwanda i s a tragedy and a warning. '"t i s a warning about the way in which extremists can manipulate the fears of a population threatened by its own numbers and by its massive pc~verty."" Whatever else they know; geographers know about land and women know about wombs. Both are to do with nature which they know cannot be pushed beyond a certain point without kicking back."
Peter Uvjin (1998:182-83) refines this argument by pointing out that it is not a hard-line Malthusian argument, in which balhoning popdations outgrow the food supply. The importance of demographics fies rather i,n the fact that land scarcity rcsults from decrclased agricultural potential, ~ g i o n aeconomic l decline, population movements, disntption cJf social exchange institutior-ts, and decreased accottntability of the state- All such issues contribute to cmdltims that may lead. to genocide. He goes m to point out &at "nearly atl scholars dealing with Rwanda, including the sncial scientists w h o have witten the nnnst serious studjel; of the genocide, align themselves with this position." Like other structural arguments, dewgraphic argttments imply the need for development aid, if: by development aid is understood improving womeds education and.opportunj.ties, which is closely associated with lowering birth rates, In a context where birth control policies fail, a ~ is occasio~~aly focus on demographics means that h r e i g ~resettlement suggested as the only hvious way to lower population densities (see for example discussion in Rutinwa 4996:295-99). It is still too early to know whether attempts to cro~~trol population growth i,n Rwancta wilX fail; it: is an important policy area that should be continually assessed.
Conclusion Each of the six exphations contributes to an undemtanding of what happened in Rwanda when it did. A number of them are also interrelated. Nevertheless, programs to prescribe solutions have typicaily emphasized one or the other explanation. Specifically, the international refugee assistmce o ~ w a t i o n in s Tanzania and Zairri assumed that the problem was one of historically grounded disIikcls by e t h i c elites; their
Explaining Rzon~danGenocide
200
programs were designed to quickly repatriate refugees in the hope that when Ihe ellites werc forced to share powel; the people would learn to get along. This is why programs desiped to mitigate problems focus in on measurcs to encourage Rwandans to reconcdc emotianally with each other, be it through the admjnistratjon of justice, the provision of housing, psycho-social services, or calls for e t h i c integration (see, e.g., USCR 1998:4243). Left out of such lformulations are measures to ensure that class diwisitrns are not reestatillished in ways that re-create pre-genocide inequaiities. In part, this negkct occurs because it is much more politkalfy difficult and expensive to establish such programs than merely to repatriate ~ftrgees.Policies focusing on ensuring that the next generation of Rwandim youth are not margir\alized in 15 or 20 years do not have much of a constibency in bureaucracies focused on I-, 2-, or 5-year budgets. But the lack of attention to longer-term issues is not due only to difficult financial or political problens. h clevelopment circles, it is beginning to be noted that major investment in Rwanda's development was wasted becaux of such inattmtion to long-term scrlutims.'Verhaps they have a point. After all, l.he overall response to the Rwanda situation was not cheap: the esti.mate for May-December 1994 was that $1.4 bitlion was spent, m m than Rwanda's 1993 total gross domestic product of $1.359 billlion (World Bank 1995:166). Notes I. This approach is rc~otedin Max Weber's description of e t h i c cammunities (1948:18%, among other traditions. 2, For scholarly accounts of the origins of Rwandan ethnicity, see Newbury 1988; Uvin 1998:13--18; and des Forges 1999:31-37- These accounts all stress the ""socially constructed" nature of ethnicity in Kwanda, Uvin's recent account stresses that in Rwanda these are four persistent e t h i c groups: majority Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, and Bazungu, or Europeans. The Europeans were individually itinerant but as a group persistent, Initially (1900-62) they were colonialists, missionaries, and businesspeople; after independence (since 1962) they have been aid experts, missionaries, and businesspeapfe. In both peric~ds,the Bazungu group has had the most economic controi, regardless of whether they cmtrolfed the power of the state. 3, As the name implies, the party focused on the interests of the Hutus vis-8-vis the Belgians an8 the Tutsi monarchy. The preponderance of Hutus in the papulation meant that as long as democratic principles about majority rule were FolIc>wed,Parmehut-uwas likely to defeat any rcjyalist party. 4. Burundi, which received independence on the same day in Z%2 as Rwanda, continued to be rufe8 by a Tutsi king until 11366. For most cof the period since it I-tas been ruled by the Tutsi-dominated militaq. In Burundi, despite cmtinuing
ethnic polarization, ethnic designations were remc>vedfrom identity cards. Certainly ethnic designations on identity cards facilitated genocidal intent in Rwanda, but by itself it is inadequate to explain the persistence (or not) of these particular ethnic categories. Even without the cardq Burundians have na tmuble assigning themselves to Hutu and Tutsi categories, sometimes with extremely violent ccjnsequences. 5, Far an excellent summary time line of the period from 1990 to 1994, see Uvin 1998:70-81. 6. Gourevitch (1995,1996, Z998), writing in Tfze New YoI.ker,presented the most simplistic accounts of jfHutu I""c>wernidxdeolctgy o f e n using sources within the WE: government. As historians, ddes Forges (1999) and Prunier (1995) present much more scholarly and nuanced accounts, in which they acknowledge o>ther factors besides ideology. Cuensd (1967) tzrrote an early description of the first Rwandan crisis. Smith (1995) and Reed ("195) wrote a post-invasion account of refugee activity in Uganda. 7, This is the ""virtuouspower'" doctrine adopted by the Clinton administration in Kosc>vo,described by kayne and Schwartz (2000). According to the virtuous power doctrine, military farce shall be used in response to violatiom of internationally recognized human rights. 8, See also Uvin 4998:4&50. 9. Speculation about who actually attacked the plane continues, Prunier believed in 4995 that the evidence painted to alienated members of President Habyarimana" own entourage, Des Forges f1999), writing later, professes not to be sure who undertmk the attack, and indicates that there is a plausible reawn for the RPF or radical members of Habyarimana" own group to have been involved, She speculates alsc:, that the French may have had a mte, but she is unsure what this might have been (des Forges 1999:181-185). 10.ZJabetingtheorists in criminofogy call this ""rtrospective interpretation"" and note it is commonly used to explain deviant ads, tzrhether ar not there is a causal relati~n~hip. Rather it is a trick of memory and interpretation. 14. Prunier (1995 and 199'7) devotes majclr pc~rtionsof his boc~ktcr a dixussiort of the relationship between France and the Habyarimana-MEND regime. 12. Since 1994 there has been a demogaphie sesaw in Rwanda resulting from genocide, the return of Tutsi refugees from abroad in 199&95, and the return of Hutu refugees from Tanzania and Zaire in 1996-97. The net result is that despite the substantial mortality in the genocide and war, the population of Rwmda in 1998 was greater than in 1993, the dead having been replaced by refugees from the Tutsi diasgclra, Hutu refugees, and babies. Compclunding the population prc3blem is the fact that a birth contrc3l mojvement intrc3duced in the 1988s has been replaced since 4974 with pro-natalist views on the part af the peasantry that the dead must be replaced by children, irrespective of government paficy. The result is a total fertility rate of an expected 8.3 children during the fifetime of the average Rwandan woman QUSR 2998:41). This is almost the highest national rate in the world today and approaches the acknowiedged absolute limit of human fecundity, 10 children per woman. (Tl-reHutterites of North America, a group that had a strcmg pro-natalist iciec~logyand good nutrition, had a total fertiXity rate of
10 children per woman in the early Wentieth century; see Narn 1994:179-80). As a emsequence, Rwranda" ppapulation can be expected to double within 20 to 25 years, as a volatile new group of adotescents come of child-bearing age, Such information obviously relates to the demagraphie argument that the generation of large numbers of poorly educated, landless youth is a recipe for future sociayofitical vctlaftif ity. 13.1 heard this view expressed by officials from the Department of State at a meeting convened in February 1999 a t the Congressional Hunger Center in Washington, D,C,
October 1993-October 1994: The Relief Effort Winds Up
Refugees in Tanzania There is a tradition of movement-flight and refuge, if you will-in the Great W e s r e g m czS Africa dathg back several hundred years. As a result, the populations of the countries hordcring on Rwanda and Burmdi at1 speak sixnilar lanpages, and have sinnilar traditions sf cdkrat contact and move~nent(see Le~narchand1970; Waters 199%)*However, k ~ termtioflitl humaktarian efforts to alleviate the suflering caused by such migratjvns is of more r e c m vintage. The first international efforts at refugee resettlement begm at the b e when many African counbies &tahed their independence in the early 1960s. Since tlne 1 9 6 0 ~ refugces ~ from the new modern sta& of Rwanda. and di resettled in Ugmda, Zaire, Tmzania, and B m d i , with different degsees of invotvernent by the UNHCR. Settlement schemes, lincluding internationafly financed virgin-land settlemnts in Tanzania and Uganda, we= estabtishctd from the 1960s .to the 1980s.Typically such settlements invotvd resettling refugees on rexnate forest arcas and then providing partid WFP rations while t h y established self-sufficiency Spontaneous urban settlement in Buntndi and spontaneous rural settlement in.Zaire, Tmzania, and Uganda also took place, all wiEfnouf:international support, There wert; also effork at naturaliziztg b a n d a m and Kumndiam in Tmzania and Uganda LhrougFhout the 1980s and early 1990s. 'These efforb had some successes in h z a n i a , despite bureaucrat-icinertia. Rut the Ugandan governmmt resisted, format naturalization for Rwandans in Ifgilnda, and the several hundred thousand Rwmdan refugees in Uganda remained wifiout citizemhip rights despite residence there shse the early 1960s." Despite a hiswy of fi&t m d popula~on~novement,the capaciq of univ to receive refugees from Rwmda and Buthe irrternational co
I Q4
The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
Chabalisa 2 refugee camp for Rwandans was atablished in October 1994. The layout in a grid pattern made food distribution and camp mmagement par2icuZarty easy. (13hc?toby Michael Hyden.)
mndi was at a low point in 1993, At that time, there had been no major international rehgee crisis &I the region sinre August 1988, when small nurnhers of Bwundian Hutu fled to Rwarnda. F r m the perspective of Che international communiq, this crisis "solved itself" when most of the Hutu refugees spontaneously returned to Bu di after the cessation of confrontations (Lemarchand 2994:IPta-130; MSF 2995:21). Prior to that, the fast rnajor fight had been in 1972-74, when several hllpldred thousand Buntndians fled to Tammia. hdwd, in 1993 there semed to be an ouQouring of peace and gocrdwill.2 T"be first dernucralric elections in Kumndi resulted in a peaceful bansi.tion sf power from the Tutsi tfprona party (Parti de lfUnion et du ProgrPs National) to the moderate Hutu Frodebu (Front des D6macrates) party, a transition observed by North erica" preemincnt expert on the region, Ren.4 Lemrchand, Wrihg in mid-1993, he concluded with a p a l e d o p h i s m : Che aspect of the erncfrgng realily in Bmundi is the vision of a multi-pwv democracy drawing its streng.th from a civil sociev free of e t h i c codiet; another is that of a singularly fragile polity undermined by the instinctive fears and violent reacticms of a Tutsi rninoriv that sees itself at the mercy czf a f--Luhilma~ariv.Exactly what kind of system rnay u l ~ m t e l yemerge from these contrasting visiic3ns is hard to formee (Lemarchand 1%4:18v.
The Relief Eflorf Witzds Up
I Q5
As for Rwanda, the wal; which had b q u n in 1990, while unfortunate, seemed to he winding down; an agreement was reached, in August 1993 and elections were sshecluled. Further afield, Mozalnbique, which had sent: hundreds of thousands of refugees to Rnzafia, Malawi, and Zambia over a 25-year period, also was engagrd in peace talks. As a result, both the UNHCR and the other reh;tgee assistmce agencia in Tanzania wcre scaling back staff and closing down programs*This meant that vehicles and other assets were behg relocated, sold, or handed over to local gavem~nentauhrities. A s late as September 1993, no obwrver expected a new rdugee influx into Tanzania in t:he foreseeable future. Indeed, the opposite was occurring. In Sptember4ctQber 1993, Burundim refugees left T a m a ~ aInany , spontaneously and ohms as part of an official UNHCR-sponsored program, to rejoin the civil society in Kumndi b a r c h a n d (7994) described. Plans were also mder way to repatriate Mozalnbicans. Thus, when the Tutsi-dornimated military in Burundi umuccessfully attempted to topple thtt new democra~cgovernmmt on October 23,1993, there were still hopes that Tm would not need tcl ag"in gear up its refugee receptjon mpacity. This conclusion was easy to reach. Mter all, the coup plottersfailed, even t h u g h in the process about 100,000 Hutu and T~~tsi died. Thus, the ht-emational refugee relief re e was caught fiatfooted when h u n d ~ d sof thousands of Hutu peasants fled along old flight paths to Tanzania. The intema~onalcommuniv was slow to gear up in response, with the result that large numbers of the e s b a t e d 2$5,0O refugem begm to sicken and die in the remote formb to .whjch they Aed (sete JEEAX 1996:29; MSF 1995:l9-31). Primary responses c a m from development-focwed agencies already in Tmzania, especially the mission hospiLals that we= in the area. Surveys were also taken by UNHCR and WFP staff, but neither the cash nor food resources these agencies con7.1),3 trofled were forthco j;f-or the Brxmndians f see Fig-~tre BegimiXEg in December 1993, in respame to both the high death rates of Burundims in Tanzania and an apparent relaxing of politrical relations in Burundi, the refugees spontaneously decided to r e t w to Burundi, even as UNE-ICR and WFP offices were finally opened in western Tanzania, Later evaluatjons noted, "A refugtle population, wEtj.ch had arrived [in Tmzmia] in reasonable health, e x p a i m e d a fa e." This occurred in large part because WFP had no conlingency stocks ;and little ready cash with which to make needed local purchases of grain (IEEAR 1996:29-30). WHCR, MihicR did not estatvIisb a permanent office until early 7994, atso was unahlc to at-h-actdonors to assist isolated refugees in remute forest clearings (see Figure 7.2). Never&eless, the first Bu di emergency, despite the mistilkes, was a basis for the UNMCR and WFB offices for the Kurundiam being estab-
IQ6
The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
FIGURE 7.3 Graph showing grc)wt.h and decline in refugee populatic3ns in Tanzha's Ngara and b r a w e districts, 199496. Note Ehe 'Qeclines" in the sta.Lis-t-;ics fc32lr->uringregistration exercises in July 1994. (Sources: Data for Qlctober 1993-May 1995 are from ZINHCR reports to JEEAR 1995; later data are from various UNHCR and WFP sources,)
lisbed in Kibonciu, Kasulu, and Ngara disbicts in western Tmzania by early 7994. The UNHCR field office inNgam was to become the center of: the Rwanda relief opera~on,and also for the 'Panzanian Red C m s , with the assistance of the htemational Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC). The ZFRC also cared for the rema g 8,000 Burundians in a "*sedpernnanmt'" camp. The assumptian was that the refugcles would remain until they chose to voluntarify return to Ru Wifi little to do with the few Burndims rema g, the UNHCR staff began drawing up continlrgency ptans to accommsdate any potential refugee flight from Buntndi. Wifiout a budget, tbey did vvhat they could: identsied a site witb water and firewood some distmce f'rsrn the Burndim border, and applied for permission from the Tmzanian and viflage ents for the use of the site, Mrkjch was Iater to be called Benaco. This occupied their time, along with facilitathg the passage of relief supplies intended for Burundians in 'Panzania to Burundi, where the bufk of the relugees were then Iocatcsd (see Jasparr; 19946). Ngara was not to rema.n a rcsfugee backwater, dnorrgh. Ngara districl boders both Rwanda and Burundi, and the only ma& suplying both counkries via the port of Dar es Salaam pass &ough the district. When in early April the w d d was surprised by the deaths of the presidents of"
The Relief Eflorf Witzds Up
IQ7
FIGURE 7.2 The United N a ~ o n DeparMent s of k-lurnanitarimAffairs (DE-IA) tracked official expendibres by UN agencies (primarily UNPXCR m d WFP) in 1994, Respc3nw to appeals was low until the N g m inRux in May when there was a s-tronger appeal, The mcjst expenditures were made in July, which reflects both emergency spending in Zaire and heavy equipment purchases in Tanzania in responstl to the May-Jme inRux there. (So~irce: JEEAlr 1995,)
Marnda and Kurmdi in Kigali, Rlgara was the logical site for hu ian contingency prepara~onsfor both cotuttries. Africa Watch announced that Burundi was teetering on the edge, and that "it could explode in the canring weeks or xnontk'"bnard 19%). Feming a repeat of the B u m dim disaster of the previous year, UN staff were put on imediate alert dim influx. NGO staff (including me) were r ~ r u i t e dto expmd operations all along the lanzanim border with Burundi. Most sign;ificant, the KRC positiond h o d suppffes, and the UNHCR assigned two emergency staff,Maureen Comefly and facyues Frmquh, to Ngma in mid-April.5 By the end of April it was clear that Rwandms might be hvolved as well as Burundian refugees. :In the first week or two after the April 6 plane attack in #iga,li, small numbers of Tutsi refugees (numbering in the tens and hundreds) began to amear in Karagwe and Ngara districts. I-iutu also arrived farther to the north, in Karagwe District, escaping from the WF-contrulled arcas followhg the beg ng of their April 10 offensive. These gruuys were given tents at sites slightly removed h r n the border. Refugee workers werc. appalled by the machett;.wounds they saw on the lutsi refugees and described the refugees' look as dazed, or
IQ8
The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
"shell-shocked.'"t seemed as if they wtrzre incapafore uC organizing themselves,b A larger crisis loomed, as three things happened in eastern Rwanda during the 20 days folhwing the initial RPF attack. Inleunhamzoe d i t i a , apparently commnded from Kigali, attacked out of bases in Kibungo town, near the Tanzmim border. Second, the RPF began its advance on April 1.0 from its small sector in the north. In their advance they pushed before them hundreds of thousands of the Hutu IDP (internalty displaced person) population out of their camps in Byumba prefecture. Byumba town was captured on April 21, and Rusumo in the southeast on April 29-30 (des Forges 1999:295). These Hutu were the displaced who had previously lived in the RPF-controlled areas and had been evacuated in 1991-92. Third, the arrny of Rwmda, still nnsuro who wa,s in command and for the first fcw days not yet taking a majar role in the genocide, retreated before the advancing RPF (see Prunier N95: 213-2422, Ammg civilian populations, there was coltfusion h m the beginning. One wibess from GaErini, in northwestern Rwanda, recounted to me what happened, The Hutu Infcvnhanrwc, carryjng lists of flames of people who were to be executed with a machete chop, attacked, the hospital, They executed the people on the list and went away But they rehtmed a short time litter to attack all TuEsi, any Hutu who objected to E h E h g , and any otl-ters whom they may have had a perssnal gud.ge against. A few days later, a message came from a stranger who claimed to be the vanguard of the advancing RPF. The message was to leave; al% who stayed would be killed, by the second w a ~ fof e RPF occupiers, who included executicm: squads. f i e surviving populace left, either toward the s w m p s of Akagcm National Park in order to undertake the dangerous crossing to Tanzania on foot *mu& the swanps, or by rushing soutltward toward the only bridge crossing out of Rwanda, over the Kagera Ever at:the hszrmo bridtge, which wa,s cc2ntrollt.d by the Rwandan atmy. As they R9d they h a r d that tlne RPF execution units did arrive and killed stragglers. For most, though, it was unclear whom they were fleeing from: WF or furterahamwt. What was clear was that many people were dying, and tlnat in late April 1994, Tmzania was a safer place for a Rwand m to he (see des Forges 1999:72&31). April 25 was still just 19 days after the presidents"kne was shot down, and Rwanda was still newsworthy There was a dramatic evacuation of foreigners by the United States Marincs in Kigali; they brought with them horrific tales of massacres in the city (see, e,g., Gutekunst 1995:22-27). Rut with the wacuation, live news reports and film from Kigali became less available, and. press attention skjfted to the rnore
The Relief Eflorf Witzds Up
'"visible'btory taking place lairther south at the Rasumo crossing from Rwanda to Tanzania, The only road cmssing a l q the enGrc length of the border is a single-lam bridge above I-he roaring Rasumo Falls, and the Tanzanians granted easy access to the media to film the gathering nnasses. The shots shifted, back and forth. from bodies bmbIhg over the falls to aerial views showhg a dra~nataking place on the Rwanda side of the border at the same time. Tens of thousads, and then hundreds of thousands, pushed up against the Rwandm border post, unable to cross as long as the Rwandan arm): con&olled the bddge. They waited. Pictures broadcast during the last week in hpril showed a mass uf humaniq pressing against this single narrow crossing. The MWD-contmlled ent, which still controlled the bridge, refused 16io let the masshg Rwandans pass; the only ones d o w e d to crass were a s d l number of expatriates. O n April 28, the block at the bridge broke when Rwandan border guards abandoned the post, leaving the border open. The bridge remined open,for some 20 hours on Aprif 2%29. Ch.erwhelmed Tanzanian border ~ ~ a r dhavhg s, heard of trhe Inasscres in Rwanda, required the largely p e a ~ npopulation t to leave their machetes, hoes, and other agriculhral irnplemmts in a large, growing pile. Estimtes vary widely but the JEEAR concluded later that 170,000 ftrtfugees passed the one-lam Rasumu Bride on that day7 Most travelcd on foot, a few on bjcycles, and even fewer in automobiles, many of which were the property of the Rwmdan gavem~nent.The thee UNHCR officers, who a few days before had been unsurc~of what emergency they had arrived for, directed the refirgees 18 kitometers (11miles) down the Rasuma b a d to the site that had been idenaied for the Burundims. There the refugees settled dawn on the mourrtaintop in Ngara that was to become Benaco Refugee Camp, "'the b e s t in the world," as UNHCR field sffictzss were soon to brag. There were two major groups in the arriving population. Half were "experienced" refugees trekkhg fsom the IDf caHlps in Byumba prefecture. The other half included a major portion of the surviving p o p u l a ~ m of Rusurno dist-rict, in Kibungo prekchre in soutlswest Rwanda. Both grotlps hcluded the M W D leadership who had governed the areas before the plane crash, and tio~neof Mihom had clearly parficipated in the genocjde. hdeed, at the reqtrest ud the mrik~ingpopul;ation, at least one of the stganizers of the genocide in Mwambi, Ryurnba, was arrested by the Tanzaniam at lhrt request of the fleekg refugees. The bulk of the popdaticm, tbugh, were Hulu peasamb. At l a s t 75 percat were women and children. Reflecting this relatively normal bitckgmund, 'Time magazine reported on May 18,1994:
The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
110
Yet so far, dapair has not triumph4 compXeteIy. Relief workers are astonished by the cohesion and smse of cornmuniq they see around them. In some caws whde villages moved together and reassembled themselves in the camps; the elders ratic3n food supplies; some priests are presiding over conpegations 1,000 strc~ng.For those who have been witness to mayhem throughout the past four years of civil war, there were even words of relief. Compared with the life he had left behind, one refugee toXd a reporter frc)m ADC, "here we are tasting the good life." At least here, he explained, nu (me was being killed.
The normally staid Eennomist was even more imprctssed with the lack
c-tf e h i c confrontation in the new camp: A few were Tutsi. Fearing trouble, the UN's refugee agency bied to move them tc3 a separate camp, but gave up when it became clear that Hutu and Tutsi refugem were content to live bgethcher. The Red Cross distributed food, though most people had enough for a few days. . . . Most of the refugees were in reasonable heal& and only a few had been wounded. . . . But good news could swiftly turn to bad. The main camp relies on one small lake, already polluted, for water (7"hc Ecotzamist, May IS, "f94).
The International Refugee Relief Regime Responds 7Ke t3urund.i refugee crisis had prepwed the itlternaGona1 refugee relief regime far this moment well. The elements we= h place: representalrjvm of the two LP4 agencies charged with refugee relief, UNHCR and, WFP, w r e present. Ngara was also accessible .to the press, and there were opportunities for dramtic film footage both as the refu&ees crossed the bridge and as bodies bmbled under it, Indeed, &dies at the h o t of the waterfall did photographctrs the favor of w k h g around IC1 or 15bodks (depending on the day) in a mamner that made the river appem Literally clogged with bodies when viewed thmugh the zoom lens of a. Erne strllinger. In Ike background, tke key financial actC)rswere ready to ~nake decisicrns, ECHO and USAID were ~ a d to y pay gmeroudy for a Eghprofile refu~;t.erelief operatrim, Food For the since departed Burundians was &o awailable for diversion by WFP to the new refugees. Finally, a nurnher of NGO '"ixnplmenlers'" aarrived in Rlgara looking for ways to assist, or, more specifically, contract with donors tike UNHCR, USAXD, and ECHO to prolride services to the refugees (see Borton 1996; von Bernu& 1996:288). These were the e t e m & that W H C R in Geneva had been w a i ~ for g to try out a new plan whereby it would be the phmary au~oPityin managing efugee operalions: For the first time, the bureaucratic powtrzr of
The Relief Eflorf Witzds Up
111
Geneva was among the first on the scene, wkch ga~leit an opportuI1Ci@to test a new emergency response system that had been designed foflming the corrcllnsion of the Gulf WBr in 1992. Two elements were key to this. First, early on there was arn ag~ementthat funds from ECHO a d USAID would be given to UNHCR for distribution to its "'implementing partners,'?.e. CARE, IRC, LWF, Concern, Red Cross, and the other nongovernmental orgmizations UNHCR selected. Xllei*er USAID or ECHO would provide donations dkectly to the NGOs, as t h y "nad often done etsewhere in the world; in effect, UNHCR m w had power of the purse (Borton 1996:312-313). Second, it provided a chance to ddttgate to predetermhed Europem agencies for specific emrtrgency coordinaGon responsibilities. Axnong these were the D a ~ s hRefugee Courmcit, Rri~sf-1 Overseas Development Agency, United. Nations Volunteers, and Emercom/Russia. Each organization was to provide a package of services, incIud- secondment of expaC-riatetechnical staff, to he used i17 the emergency under the coordination of the UNHCR. As a resdt, over 20 expabiate staff were in Ngara by ally under the WHCR banner (see Jaspars 1994:15). Finally, at a very early point the Tanzanian government assigned to UNHCR the responsibility far coordinating all expatriate assistance in the refugee camps, ef-fectivcllyofferhg the m H C R a sort of tiovereipty in dealing with refugee matters. Now is a good time to review the disferent groups involved in the Tanzanian veration and fheir reIaGonship to one a n o ~ e r . The t i ~ i t Nutions d High Crtmnzissirtneufor Refi1,yees
"I%eUnited Xllah'ons High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCXI)was COordinator of all refugee relief operations, According to its charter, the UNHCR is not an ""implemenkg" agency w e p t in limikd sectors, especially '"legal protection issues." This meant in praclice that UNHCR awarded contsacb to provide services to refugees on behalf sf the funding agencies, which were in fact the governments of the ldnited States and nations of the European Commmity. These contracts were let to ental oargmizations such as the Red Cross, CARE, the International Rescue C o m ~ t t e eConcern , Worldwide, Christian Outreach, Mkdech sans Fronti&res,and so on. UNHCR's internal. divisiam, or sectors, reftected, the functions that needed to be carrjed out by the NGOs: Site Preparatim and Planning, Logistics, Water and Sanilation, C m p Management1Food Distrihrrtion, Social Servica, and Medeal., UPSHCR implemented program of kgal protecGon and relations with the Tanzanian governlnent itself. These liaison pmitions were filled te~nporarilyby staff secrmded freassiwd)from Europe from May until July 3994- After
112
The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
that, UNHCR hired expatriates on short-term contracts ushg UNHCR money directly Bchind the scenes, ECHO and USAID mintained CRfsau&oriq by refusing to make conkibutions direct@to the nongovemmmtal orgakations, as they had in the p a t UEEAIZ 1%6:33; .won k m u t h 2996). As a result, UNHC1;: coordinated the disbibution of over $200 ~ d l i o doUas n hcash and in-kind donatiom in Tmzania in 19134. StafZ: seconcled to UNHCli caxne from the British &erseas Development &ency (ODA) (air and local fogistics), the Norwegian Refugee Council (site preparation), Entercorn/X.lussia (trucking), the Swedish Refugee C o m d (social services and URTHCR office construction), the Danish Rehgee Council (si& preparation and field offjcer),h t c h Aid (nubition),and the UN Vollmteers (field and protecGon officers).
Wrlrld Food Pntgmmmc "I%eWrld Food Programme (WFP), a UN agency under the coor&nation of the Food and
[email protected] Organization (FAO) in Rome, provided the food for the =&gees. As a WN agmcy, WE'P sohcitd food cmbibutiom directly from ECHO (European Community Humanitarian Organization) and USAID (United States Agency For International Developmt), though it was nominally under the control of the UMHCR in Ngara. WFP" rde was so central that it and UNMCR wcre mutudy dependent on each other: the UNHCR counted on the WFP to deliver about 2,500 tons of food ta the camps per week." WFP turn depeded on agencies working under UNHGR camp-mamgement contracts to disbibute food to the refupes. There was mutual monitoring for quality control, and in ddition each agency reported independently to USAIU and ECHO. WFP monitored the efficiency of distribution throuf;h market and nutritional surveys, UNHCR insisted on the timely delivery of bulk Food h r n WFP donors in Europe and :DJor.th America (Jaspars 1994; f E E A R 1996:87-94; Borton 11996), Bo& were complex tasks requiriirrg extensive bumwcratic olrganization to coordhate. Nongoverrt?nentaE Organizations a t of the 20 or 30 nongovem~nentalorgmizations (W&) that sent repmentati,ves to Rlgara, UNHCR selected 12 wKch it would etially fund to work in the camps. TTbe others were sent away and told that their assistmce was not neded; wftn if they brought donations of cash, staff, or relief items, the assistance wa,s turned h w n and they were sent away. ong those sent away were large international MGOs like Miorld Vision and Christim &&each, as well as local NG@ and Tanzanian churcha,'@ "I%e12 selected included those that had worked briefly in the Burundian camps durinj previous xnsnths, plus CARE, which had a large UNHCR-
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funded program in Kenya, how11 to Maureen Comelly, the UNHCR officer in charge, from her work there (Borton f996; Jaspars 1994). This meant -that the agencies establishing proFams were mostly the large and expensive international emergency agencies, rather than development agencies s r agencies with mats in Tamania. Later in 1994, a number of other agmcies began to he admitted by UNHCR as medical agendes like MSF .wi&drew and scrvices were cxgmded into school cmst-zuct-ion,operation sf primary schssls, and provision for social semices. The cutoff of direct access to USAID and ECHO funds that resulted from UNHCR" new regime created different cundjtions m o n g the NGOs. Some had a policy of not accepting too much money from the UNHCR, in order that they could mintain their hdependente of what they believed was an UNHCR &sensitivity to refugee needs.11 Others, like CARE, had a policy s f implmenting projects only with UNHCR money and were in dfect subcontractors to the UNHCR rather than "paraers.'' USAID and ECHO The largcst share of the spmding at Ngara came from monies granted by ents of European Comm ty nations and the United Statc-ls to the UNHCK and WFP. The agencies illcharf~eof making these grants were the United States Agency for lnternatiml Deve1opmen.t and the European C o m u n i t y Huntanitarian Organization. -Their grants had money earmarked for the provision of food co adi~es,cc3nstruction of road systems for tlne camps, water diskibuGon,system, medical services, expatriate salahes and housing, and the salaries of the 21) 6r, 30 UNHCI-: expatriate staff and 4 to 5 WFP expatriate staff. AIthough the physical presence of both funding agencies was low-profiite, particularly at first, the power of the purse gave them a pervasive influmce in broad poli'tical decision-making. For example, it was in effect a joint decision by USAID and ECHO that fed to the d o s i n down s f the camps for Rwandans in er of 1994, an ECHO monitor had l996 (see Chqter 8). During the su been assigned to the UNMCR as a field officer, but he was not in~iolvedin supenrising the NGOs and focused on protocol issues. h W 6 the ECHO monitor took more aclCPlority over budgebry &cisiorrs. The Internatz'mal Press
Anolhcrr, less ins~tutionalized,elment of the picture was the international press. The influence of the press presence was substantial, and UNHCR m n t to peat l e n g h to eflsurt. that press access to il.rfr>rma~on m d to the camps was controlled. From their perspective, the press was a double-edged sword. To mintain control over press activities at the
I 24
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FIGURE 7.3 Press coverage of Rwmda was heaviest in late April, as it became evident that a genocide was taking place; in early June, when the press began to focus on the refugee c m p s in Tanzania; m d especially following the July flight of Rwandans into Zaire. Press coverage lasted fur a period of about four months, and then tapered off. franicdly, despite the ""CNN effect" nno tracking of TV was undertaken that I know of. ( S O E I JEEAR.) ~:
camps, UNHCR bmught in media special,ists as liaison officers, particularly at the beginning of the speration; m e such was Pano Moumkis, a public relations specialist who has worked in emerency relief around er agencie, incXudhg MSE C m E , and the Red Cross, also invested in staff to liaise with the international press. What the press wrote about and showed on television generated the political pressure leadkg to loose purse slrlngs at ECHO and USAID, w ~ c is h why the press response to the crisis was tracked so closely by atf c m e m e d (See Figure 7.3). Broad sympa~eticpress coverage led to larger refugee bureaucracies who cwufd povide more services, Alternatively, a critical press threatened the standing of any agency, and even the careers of those krvolved. 'This love/hate relatbnship with the press was a central concern as the UNEiCR and oljler agencies sou$ht to both amact and m t d press coverap (see%wing 1998). Setting Up Administrative Systems: Spend Whatever It Takes In early May 1994, the effects that these relafiontihips would have on the refugee assishce programs were not: yet apparent inRltgara. Instead, the
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focus was on the need to do somethg-any&hg-to prevent a recurrence of the Burundi refugee cataskophe of 1993, Unl&e the situation with the Bun~nciians,it soon became apparent that this was a disaster made frrr il-rternationalintervention. The intermtional press was p~sernt to record refugees as they starved, were murdered, or died of di.sease. This .made USAID and ECHO open heir checkbooks, and this was like sugar to a bee. The first to take advantage of' this sihatiun was the large Iblian coflstruchn company Cogefar, h i c k had backfnoes, graders, and other heavy equip~nentaliready on site for a European Union-funded road construction project. These they now offered to rent to UWNCR for camp constrwction,A private cornpan).; Cogehr took ahantage of its ef&five monopoly of this needed e v i p ~ ~ eand n t charged multi-milliondollar rents to divert the equipment far UNHCR use durhg the su of 2994, Most critical was a four-mile smitary trench that needed to be dug around the Zkm by 2km camp, to provide drainage which would prowt: llhe caxnp" water sowce from contarninalion, Tn the camp there were no toilets, and fecal matter had to be excluded from the water supply at alf costs. Other projecb inelucted cutting roads for vrhicle access mci clearing a large site at Benaco far food warehouses. The NGOs that UNHCR retained set about undertaking tasks on their o m initiative, with &er advice of the m H C R , Thus, at Benaco, I was &Ivolved with erecling the warehouses; MSF-Rame installed a pump and water-treatment facilities at a nearby lake which was to becme the t and so camp" water source; the Red Cross established o u p a ~ e nclinics; forth. Forty kilometers away, at the UNHCIZ office h Ngam, daily cordination meetings began. Whoever was present, mostly expatriates, but dso some Tamanians, gathered to exckane nrlks about what hppened, what the press wanted, and .what could he expected. By mid-May, UNHCR took control m d divided up tasks along sectoral tines, as described above, and made verbal promism (which generally were kept) to rcJimhurse NGOs for their activi~es.Gradually as compul.ers and typewriters arrived, written conbacts started to become more common, and responsihiliSies became clearer in tlne cmtext of what the NGOs brought to &c field and UNHC_:Rfspreexisting agremmts. Faad detiveries began when ICRC lent to the WFP stocks neclessary to f e d the refugees. The ICKC food stocks were particdarly important in Ngam during the first part of the emagency (see Figures 7.43 and 7.4b).'" This fwd, mainly dry maize and beans, was distribukd by the Tmzanian Red Cross, win, lists provided by refugee lcaders. There wati an awareness that these fists were exaggerated, but for the lime being all w a e retievcd that the refuges were being fed and mhubition was nst a problem. The relugees were cooperative; here was no further fighting dong ethnic lines, and crime was seemhgly nonexistent. At the time, Z Lived h
116
El World Food Programme
Metric Tonnes
Ntstrie Tonnes
@ World Faod Programme
Other Agencies BTabt
Other Agencies @ Total
p " -m ----------p-"
--m
32 * m
4Prn
Apr
My
Jatn
Jul
Aug
5ep
Oct
NOV
Dec
FIGURES 7.4a and 7.4b The largest murce czf aid tcz refugees in Tmzania was in the form of food aid. Early disbursements from the ICRC were irnpor-tant in establishkg that pc)puX;atimin May 1994. Later in the year there were fluchations in the food pipeline, such as the one in Qlctober, which resulted in declines in ragom, M&ric tomage to Karagwe disbict was less than that to nigara, particularly in the early mc3nths. It is clear that this af-fected the n u & i ~ o m stabs l of refugees in Karagwe, but tc3 what extent is not clear. (Source: JEEAR 1995.)
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Bemco among plastic jerry cms, shovels, plastic sheekg, etc., whiich remined undisturbed, despite the lack of any securi.ty mtasures. Likctziise, a Tutsi nun from Rwanda, Miho had been living in Tanzania and now lived two or three tmts down, wandered u dered through the camp Estimates sf food distribution indicated a daily distribution bemcen 1,286 and 3,183 kilocalories per day mspars 1994:6-7; SI-roharn 1996); a survey by MSF-Hulland inclicatcd that the average ralion wa,s 2,700 kiloca1ori.s per refugee per day, but this figure was inflated in part because refugee leaders purposefully inflatcsd populaGon figwe &I order .to get more food, with the result that more food was disbursed than was rew from the water sector after installing the p ~ ehadt on hand, deferring to the British NCO, Oxfam, which had water enweers on staff and emergemy water-tseament equipment in stock in the W. Oxfam airlifted complete emergency water systems to the airport in Ibfwanza, Tclnzania, which was trucked to the site. The s y e tems were designed to pump water horn Renaco" l& and then sani.li.ze the wakr and pipe it into the camp. The @far= engheers, some of whom bad been worXcin,g 51the Bzrrundian catnps k t h e r sout%r,instalted the systems and they wese operational by the end of Nay This plant was capable of pumping and cleaning sorne 1,200 cubic meters of water per day, It was obvious, though, that if the hare m un?, of five liters (two gdlons) per person per day was to be provided, tlnis yield was inad.equate for the refugee poputa~on.. Also 5I Mayfla well-drillh rig was brought by UNICEF-Uganda to drill 25 boreholes in the ~gion..Thjs was a key addition in the water sector, as it permitted the decongestion of the high populaei.0~density site at Benaco, where there was water in a lake, to areas that otherwise were without water, and therefare unsuitable for refugtles. This acti:vity began by the end of May and by mid-Junrt, UMlCEF and Oxfam had water statiam available at a second site 5 kilometers from Benaco, called Lumasi* This camp opened in mjd-June, relieving crowding pressures in Bertaco and significantLy reciuck~gthe chanre of a cholera epidedc. The emergency response in the water sector was orrtsmding 5I terms of water provision, m a i n six weeks, the combination of MSF-France, WHCR, WICEF, m d %fam had estabEshed two francGo camps with ‘"temporary" water syskms to accommodate upwards of 250,000 people, This was done in a remote corner of the world that until then had not had a func.t;ionintywater system for the malt town center of 10,000 to 115,OUQ people at Ngara. But the opmatian was very costly. The contracts were negotiated without respect to cost effiricncy; materials were flown in from Englad, at; were expatriate Oxfarn engineers
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brought in for t.t4io-to-four-Wcek cmsdtancies. The UNHCR approved such expenditures and passed the hilts along to ECHO and USAID. MSF-Frmce, WIG"EFf and then %Earn wifidrew from the water sector &er the hi&-doll,ar, high-profie constructicm contracts were completed. An, men more expensive operation was the transporta.tion program, Truck prczcurrzment is notoriously slow in countries like Tmzania; typically it takes six months to order and deliver a standard six-to-kn-ton truck. Since most emergencies require transport of some sort-to haul people, food, equipment, water, anci any mmber of other items .to where the ~ f u g e ;are---lhe s UNHCR :h:ad made cmtjngmcy plans. Xn anticripation of the need, CrNHCR in the early 1990s had made a num:ber of sbndby arrangements, two of which were activated for Ngara, First, ten Nissam flatbed h c k s used in the Cambodim relief operalion had been gut on standhy in Dubai. These trucks were airlifited to Mwanza in the second week of May, and arrived in Ngara the next day. The othcjr standby ;arrangement was an unusual contract with the Russian government's civil defense ministry, Emercorn. Emercorn had placed 36 s m l l all-terrain Kamaz brand trucks on stmdby in Bosnia and Russia; they wodd be operated by a paramilitary unit from the Russian fninistry These trucks began to arrive at the be@mingof June. The unit that operated them was self-contained, and at its peak included 56 Russim drivers, mechanics, cc2ob, adminisbators, co ur.ricaticzns expertsr and Russian-En@sh h.mslators (see Ktrhhender 1994). Many had had experitznce with trucking and :Ka~naz dur* the Russian war in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in the Rosnia relief program; on the basis of Chis experience they qu.ickly orgmized themselves as a self-contained "military" ficld unit. The h c k s caxne with a complettl field kit-including hod, showers, perimeter fence, tents, vehirte spares, and diesel fuel-which the Russians b s a n setting up at the end of May in Renaco, a i c k t y the Russians were up and under the direct-ion of the WHCR, As with the water system, this was a high-cost operation in wlnjch little attention was paid to long-tcrrm operating costs. Again, UNHCR passed the bifls for air freight and trips hack and forth to Russia on to wi&g paymasters at USAID m d ECHO. %L with the water systemr the &uckkg operation was considered short-term; the contract with Emercorn was for three monlPls, at whjch point the exnergency would be over or the trucks wero to be hmded over to &ained Tmzadan drivers. Other sectors had similar success in effecting fast but expensive sehps, I;lented backhoes began dig@g 1atrint.s for refugee, who had few digghg tools. Facili~esfor purchasing services, relief supplies, c o d o r b and comeniences for expah-iates, etc. in-country were rclrnote and on the other side of the count-ry,so purchasing wars swted to Nairobi, in neighboring Kenya. Land transport to Nairohj was diBicult so UNI-ECE rented
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its OWLI smlf airplme to estabEsh an air link with Nairobi (see faspars 1994:1%19), 'The Ruvubu Ever separates the .main camp at Ngara from the others, but there was mo permanent bridge across it, only a hand-cmnked ferry. A pamanent bridge was planned, but it woddn? be comp2eted for a year and a M . To facilitate tr port bemeen the camps, British ODA ai~freighkdin a xnilitary-sqle '"MabeyJ%ridge,which was installed under ancltlter contract with Cclgefar,lJ Aid officials took daily flights to monitor rehgee arrivals, and the International Federation of the Red Cross set 1.1117 a referral hospital in tents, whiich rcceived more complimted facjrities. It was tlne best in that part of cases f m the in-camp sutpa~ent the world. The three :MSagenci's (the Netl-rerlands, France, and Spain) bad 50 mpatriates ready to deliver outpattient xnedical programs, especially in public health, and by the end of May a masles vacchation propm was completed for all under-fives in the camp. New camps were cleared as w c k i y as iblc by Cogefar, One camp, Kayonza, was accidenblly located on a ral concessisn and had to be unceremoniously abandoned when the stake was idmtified. May m d June1994, the refugee populalion inNgara was the d a r h g of the interna~onalmtdia and relief community The intermtianaf c m m w i q responded with m ou$ourhg of generosiv and good wrks. At one poht the U.S. Air Force apparently ask& to become jnvolved, but t.he only thing that the WHCR could thisLk of to ask for was air-drops of firewood. The refugees themselves raponded by being well organized, cooperative, artirulate (par~cdarly inFrench), and appropriately grateful. The First Crack Appears: Eatete and the Realignment of Refugee Retations There was a paIpable relief among the UNHCR, NGOs, m d other agencies working in Ngara in June of 1994. The refugees and agencies worked together well, there was little of the interna.1 syuabbling and,blaming activity re~nemberedby those who haci worked in the Bu maXi crhes. htl worked togetha well to susbin the refugees. Fears of a chof era epidemic subsided and, the carny-management agcncy s f Benaco, ian Red Cross, began to organize thrt refugee house plots into rows. Latrines were dug, and the Oxfam emergency water system was operational, 1x1June, the NCO Concern Mlorldwide from Ireland began to move substmtial portions of the Byrxmba caseload out of Ilenaco to the new camp at Lrrmasi in aa orderly fashion (Pot~er1996a:32527). Relations betvveen the refugees m d LTNHCR remajned good, despite a little bit of under-the-breath p ~ ~ b l i that n g "' ey art. redly all just a bunch of murderers- . . ."
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The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
The first potential for a crack in the good feelings smted on June 9, when Benaco registered its first murder. :Near the TTBnzanian marketplace across h e sbeet from the camp, a m& surrounded a woman accused of being a witch. She was brzaten to dea& at the edge of the camp, and her body left half covered in the sun. It was explained to a reporter that tlne wolnan had been accused of bewitching a person who died (see ReHaender 1994:4243,48). Uiscussion occurred at the UMHCR a e e h g , but the parlcicipants agreed that while regrettable, such an occurrence was a concern of the Tmzanian government, and noted that some violence was exf over 300,000 people. The internaGmal ity m d e a different watuation, after a confrontation the fall be-tween a W H C R oft-icialand a refugee leader, how11 by his last name, Gatefre. It became h o w n as the Gatete incident. UNNiCR media specialists saw that the incident received wide publiciv at h e time, and it was the first exaxnplc. of the important role emofciomlized incidents would come to play in crisis management. I will describe it in detail here, When h e rc.fugees crossed h e Rasumo bridge on Qril28-29, a handful w a e takm into Tclnzanian czxstody and bmught to Ngara town. One was Remy Gatete, the government leader of Muramhi commune in Byumba disbict and, of course, a H u b (Pmnier 1c3Ca5:241). Gatete was arrested on April 22 at the border by the Tamaxl;ian border officials at the request of Rwandans who accused him. of being a ringleader in the genocide. He and kis family were housed in a knt b e h d the Ngara t o m jail. The Tanzanians were presented with a * d a y : What to do &out such distasteful figures who had not committed crimes on Tanzanian soil314 Furthrtr, Gatetcz was i d e n ~ i e din h e inkrnatictnat press as being a leader of' the Irzfcmizanswi.and as such, the press believed, would make a good candidate for a m r trims trial.. As long as he stayed behind tlne Mgara jail, the issue somehow remained outside the purview of the international refugee relief regim. However, m about June 14, Tclnzanian authorities released Gatete from custody and told him that he could join his people, as Long as hct did not go to Benaco. Neverheless, of his w n volition he went to Benaco to join hjis poli~calsupporters. The UNHCR field dices in Bmaco, facques Franquin, heard about this and called Gatete into his office to inform him that he was ineli@bLefor refugee s h h s under international law because he did not have a W&founded fear of persecution and was therefore ineligible to live in Benaco. Wnder inkrnatcional lawf individuats must demonstrak h a t thfty have a fear of persmution because of their political or tribal affiliationnot fear of prosecution for crimes they tted, h y ~ r a yGatete ; told Franyuin h a t he would pack his rn. He did so a few ~ n u t e r jlater, . followed by about 5,QQQ of his supporters (3 pment of the
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total camp population), who carried sticks, stones, and machetes, Gatete told Frmquin that he c o d not leave because "my people Mrilt not let me.'" Tanzdan police who were praent defused the sih~ationby giwing the megaphorn to Gatete so that he could urge his supporters to disperse. Two shots were fired in the air, and at this the Tanzanians srdered UNHCR to release Gatete. Gatete and the crowd left, and the W H C R officials left for Ngara, The codrontation itself was broadcast live to the NGOs via a VHF radio network established, the p i o u s week, which added to the dra~na.The most dramatic point ca~newhen someone from the USilHCR was head to say: '"If there are my dealins here, f am not answcrable! Do you hear, Npra, X am.not ms~erable!'~I~ The next day, an emergency meeting of all NGOs was called by tlne UNFJICIZ;:in Xllgara, f attended as the representative of LWE It soon became obvious that the puqose of the meting was to c o d i m a policy already established as part of discussions between MSF and IINHCR: that services by alt NGOr; would cease until Gatete left and refugee leaders expressed remorse for the incident, Franquin and Maureen ComefIy, dso of WHGR, described the incident and claimed that 30,000 Hutu refugees wcsc; ready to dn Gatetek bbiddilsg.l"Staf from the French and Dutch MSF agmcies tuld us what they fnad heard in the camp.17 Already, g appwnt that control of the ca~npwas in the they said, it was beco hands of criminals like Gatete, who had an absolute control over the Hutu population (MSF 1995:44). Maureen Coltnelfy felt the agencies should reach a consemus as to what they would do and poll4 the agencieshrepresentatives, s t a r ~ n g with the MSFs, for their posi~om.The represmtatives indicated that they wanted to discontinue all programs as a protest to the rcfugees against the invol~remcmtof war c r i ~ n d in s the camp.'Wnce this consensus was reached, Connelly indicated that all NGO activitJ,should be suspended pmding her m e h g with the Hutu. refugee leadership the followhg day If, after a meeting with thft leadership, she was sa~sfiedthat the ladem wodd cooperate \4iith the agmciesr Mivery semi-, it was agreed activiti.escould resume. MST; representiltives, ever indepedent resr-trvedj u d g ~ e non t the sihnatictn and Idt far the ScrengeCi, where they held a conference to disczxss the mord issues involved in workhg with the Rwandan Hutu pspulation in Benaco. They rehrned w o r k about one week later. At the meeting with the refugee leadership (not hcludjllg Gatete), Connelly and the leaders inevitably concluded that Food m d water distribution and medical activities must resume; Connelily said that the leadersfip was appropr?iatelyapologetic, m d the agencies Pesides MSF) resumed, their activities. More important for the overall funding of the pmpam was -that more ink was spilled about Benaco &I the world press, our work suddedy c m e to be viewed as dangerous, and fundkg for se-
122
The Relief Eflt~rtWinds up
curiv measures became e;t;peciallyeasy to get from USAID and ECHO (via WHCR). 'This incident, -though not the most siwficant to the refugee pogulation or Tamaxl;ims,'%as the basis for redefi g relations between the intesnatjonal refugee relid regim coodinated by the UNHCR and the refugees themselves. The headquarters of the NC;& operating in the camps were transhred to a remote hilltop, wkch was defensible against military a c ~ o n by the refugees, Thus, the Gatete incident set the stage for the adversarial relatiorrskp with the refugees that replaced the cooperative one initiated durhg previous weeks. Givm the iderent hequalities in the donor-refugee relationship, such a polariza~onwas probably inevitiJMe. The Gatete incident aceenhated fur&er Ike ""at any cost" approach to the eslablishment of relief operaljons, but this time the focus was on securiw for expatriates rather than cm feediYlg the refugees. :Most sipificant was that b e d i a t e decisions were made about resiting food stores out of the camp ;and to a more secure site on a hill, called K-9, some 15 kilomters from the camp and about midway between the ca~npsand the town of Ngara. This declisim was made by the UNWCR, Cogefar, which accepted the earth-moving cmbact, and CARE, whi.& operated the food warehouses on behalf of UNHCR and WX;I".zO Significarttly, it was done without an assessmcmt of needs, or for that matter of the site, wl.lich was "surveyed" ham the roadside. In addition, UNMCR suggested that all NC;O expatriates should establish housing for themselves there. (Several agencies had expatriate staff living among Ehe refugees in the c a q s , and m e w a e living in Rltgara town and on the hglican mission compound.) On the toy of this remote hilf there was to be a lrt@stiescater, food stores, vehicle s b q e and repair fadlities, and living quarters for several hundred expatriates and Tanzaniams, 'This was done without consideration of the building costs for a small town on a remote hill in the African bush; it was sirnply amorxnced h a t funding was no problem as the move was for securi? reasons, WHCR explained to us that '"the UNHCR would pay for everything involved with Lhe move, IVloney is not a problem.'Thhe UNF1CEI.was apparentIy able to m k e such statements because fears in the West of m hternatioml hcident hvolving an attack by Rwandans on, expah-iate refugee workers gave the ag"ncy great h ~ t u d e . The move had a long-term k p a c t on the refirgee oyemtion. h particular it m a n t that the costs of mainbI.nin.g a t o w on a hiHside without water, electric& system, mal-ket, or sallitaeon system would be borne inciependent of the Tamanian infrastructure in Ngara, and was also emerging around the camp, where a vigorous market quiclkly came into being. it also mwnt that there were wrenching shifts in propam. For example, my own agency had to suspend construc~onof vehicle mahtenamce fa-
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cilities, wlnjch had already been mderbken near Benaco, because it was explahed tlnat a new faciliv m s to be built. We also had to relvcate over 100 Tmmnian employees from the ca~npsto thft new town on the hilltop. Momnham was lost as employees actively involved in program of construction went to wait-and-see mode while another site was first surveyed, m d in Aupst, ft"nal.1~ leveled. As Eor Catete, he rehrned to his famjly in Benaco, He was not to remin long, thou*. krangements were made by the Tanzanian Mini.stry c-tf Home Mfairs, and Gatete was yuietly deported by h e 7'itnzaniam to Zaire in early f uly 11994.
The Second Crack Appears: Food Pipeline md Census T k second crack in the picture came from the food, pipeline. The prup m ' s initial success covered up lhrt logistical issues in\iolved with distributhg about 7,500 tons of food per week in the most remote corner ofl one of the must imyoverished countries inthe world." 0v e r ~ g h tMesa , went from being a small, remote disbict with a sUt)sjSiemewono~nypmducing enough food to feed the people there to being the site of a major city that did not produce any food. WFP responded by borrowing 10,000 meh.ic tons of grain from Tanzania's strategic gain reserw drive away; 51S h y m g a - a d purchshg a mo-month supply of bems locally. Even these relatively simple local arrangements, though, taxed Tanzania's trucking capacity (Jaspars 1994:5). Nevertheless, adequate food supplies we* avajtable Lhmugh June 151%. But, once nearby sourccs were exhausted, longer transport lines to the In&m &em port of Dar es Salaam, 1,040 kilometers (663 miles) away as the crow flies, were rewired. There is no palled road across central T m z b a , and the one rail line, built by the e r m a n coloniafists at tlne turn of the century, was subject to frequent breakdown. 'There was also inadequate rolling stock to meet the WFP" need to feed not only Xllgara, but also, later, Burmdi itself, and still later areas of Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire. But in June 1994, the broader issue of coastal transportation router; still lay in the future. The nearby food stocks were exhmsted and WFP was still not able to catch up with the rising rehgee numbers; what had started as ZS0,OCK) refugees had reached 50(f,Ct(lOby the end of Junc, including 100,000 in Karagwe dislp-ictf/EEAR 1996:33; "Jaspars1994; Borton 1996). Now, finger-pointing at the large W bureaucraciczs started. WFP pohted out that a substatid portion of h e probkm was due to the lack of a cemus of the refugee popzllation; the refuge leaders provided the numbers of people needing to be fed, and these obviously wese higher than the camp pcly>ulaGon,which inflaltld tonnse WFP was required to deliver. The WFP, well aware of the prohlern, blamed UNNCR for detays
124
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in t a h g a census. A census w a findly ~ held at the end of June, and the totat count of refugees in h z a n i a decreased by about 25 percent (see fEEAR, 1996:33, Figure l).?'" There was some short-term relief, hut the influx continued, and wi.thin a monlh, anotber 100,000 refugees had crossed tbe border into k z a n i a . The WFP was right hack where it fnad started. Ag"in it needed to supply 3,500 tom of food per week, ati the supplies in-coulltry were agah exhawkd. Short rations we= issued in July,August, and October, a situation Maurem Connefly in June 1995 described as "a continuous emergency m t a sudden inlux follwed by sbbiliq" " E A R 1996:108 n.3).
By July 1994, a number of factors wese exacerbating the situa~onin the refugee camps. First was a staffing shortage. Afer a vigorous start in May, NGO and URIHCR draslicalty cut staiffhg in July 1994. Emergemy staff contracts from tlne UNNiCR and other agencjes exgked, and about 20 people who had established systems m an elRergency basis left, includhg the fnur top UWHCK stdf.23 Second, ~ f u g e e conkued s to arrive, As RPF wits camohdated contrrol along Rwanda's souehem border with Tmmnia and Rurundi, tens of s to appeal- 40 kitoxneters (25 miles) thousands of Hutu ~ f u g e e began south, of Benaco, h a v h g acbally crossed a corner of Burundi in order to escape. Unlike the first: arrivals, these refwees were likely to be exhausted and suffering horn exposure to the elements, having wdked a su:bst;m.tialcillstancle and crossed swampy re@-. This also occurred at a time before the new agency facitities at K-9 were ready, anct remaining staff were LcA in a state of suspense over when, where, or how they would move, Third, W P in August challenged the m H C R % decision to site tlne food stol-cjs at K-3, which was at Lfne top of a hilt .where the loaded ( a d often decrepit) rented Tanzanian trucks were not always caphle of climbing wi.Chout atisistance from the Russian Kamaz arm): t?.uclts. WFP decided to establish food stores east of Lurnasi on the m a b road. The confrontation added to the sour abosphcse persisting beh.veen the two UN agencies. This sourness reached a head when CR-Ngara made m end run around WFP, and asked USAID to bypass WFP procurement and distribution nelkvorks UEEAR IS)95:92;Shoham 1W6; Jaspars 1994). The final insult, as it were, was the loss of Ngara" stahs as home to the biggest compla uC refugee c a w s in the world. In July and August 2 mil%ionRwmdans fled to Zaire wittn the defcated Hutu government* Press attention skfted 60 Zaire, where refugees were dying of cholera arl$ where there was an even larger relief program, A number of agencieri
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even pdled staff out of Ngara and sent %em to Zaire, w h e once ~ again the UNHCR was doling out large contracts for the startup of refugee assistmce programs using USAID anci ECHO ~noney Thus, by July the high-pawred relief system in Ngara district had been hit by a number of circumstances that weakened it hsGtzlGonally. Staff, agencies, anci goodwill were sucked out of the operation even as refugee numbers increased, equipment brake down, and food suppEes shed, The one bright spot was that there was still several months' worth of cash reserves in the accounts of agenciemunable to spend money fast enough. The period of "*spendas laist as you cm" "had not yet ended, even, though it was beconning obvious that it would, Atcordkg to the Joint Evultrution of E~zevencyAssistance to Rzmndn W A R ) : The extent to whxch h d h g was reactive to events was strikkg. There was ai m k & contrast in resource availabiEty between the "tap-on" "period horn mid-July to Sptember, when funding appeard limitless, and other periods when it was less readily available. The factors conbibuting to this reactive characteristic are many and their relatiomhip complex. Media coverage and the concern of almost all organizations (donor organizations, the military, as well as NGOs m d UN agencies) involved in the response for ""gcjfile" m a n 8 "visibiliEyn were clearly sipilicmt. What was clear frarn the study is that the way the qstern was raourced was sub-optimal, lirni~ngthe efktiveness of the response m d substantially increasing evenkral costs. . . (1996:15)
Out of this enviro ent two questiom emerged: how to react in the short run, and, what the long-term prospects were, 1x1the short tern., the queseion was '"S this still an e~nert;ency?'Tlearlythe continued arrival of refugees isrclicated that the sihation remalyled zrnsettied. The alsilit-y of the UNHCR was improved when it rnoved its offices out of tents and into a complex c-tf prefabricated offices erected by Sv;edisb tttcmcianti, contributhg to a new amasphere characterized by fnierarchy and attention to procedure. Even the reaction to new refugee eme~encieswas clearly much m m regular and efficient than it had been &I May. CertaNy, it was a long way beyond the sitraatlan a few m t k earlier when Bumatdims had stamed in the forests due to lack of food and resources, In July 1994, shortly before finisking her emergency assi reen C1onnef;lyanllcipathg a Burundi refugee crisis i,n the wa,ke of padiamntary electi.ons planned for that month, assembled representa~vcsof the :DJG& and. asked them whether their organizations wcre "read;V.'%ll agl-eed that they were ready for an innux of the salne size or larger %an what had colne from Rwanda. TThe agencies were probably exaggerating could even be posed was an their readinesrj,but the fact that the ques~on indication of the progress %at had been made in refugee mqtioat capac-
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ity durhg the previous two month. Over 280,000 people were being fed and provided with water and medical care. Mso, the assembge was a. poup of people now expwienced in the estabtishnent of large refugee camps, wbere prcrviously there bad been little such expert-ise. The camp had been successfully set up m d run wiZhout a majior disease epidemic, and a s s u ~ ~ i nIke g money was available, those assemhled were in fact prepared to do it: again if call,& upon. But the &iscussion was not limited to the question of readiness. Staff members also achowledged that when the world's attention had been focused on Ngara, they had enjoyed the press attention in a vicarious way. More innportant, perhaps, was that as long as press attention continued, political pressure was rnaintaiEled in Europe and h e Unikd States to '"do somethingf'-in otber words, povide the open checkbook to which the speration had become a.cc"ustomed.But the staff members also expressed a wmriness fro111 the rushing about at the expense of p1 or thought. Field workers began to wonder about long-tern wso:lions. What should be the foltovv-up for a successfuf emergency relief operatim? Field workers recowzed h a t h e statrus quo of a densely packd emergmy camp made of grass and plastic could not be maimtand. Dkease epidemics would always tl-tl-eaten,and politicd concerns would fester in an idle populatim so close to the border. This longe~termt hi g was also apparent: in discussions emerging about the two possible long-tern soluti.ons to the Rwanda refugee problem: permanent resettle~nentin eastern Africa, and quick repatrialFion to Marnda. ?'h only tnng-term solution the field workers did not consider viable was for the refugees to rernaiar in the camps in Ngara. There, it see~nedlik*, fiwwood, water, and security concern (i.e., prox the Rwmdan border) would doom Benaco to remain. an overcrowded Rwandan ""urban" area, Repatriation and Resettlement In fact lhrt overdl solu~on to Ike Kwandan crisis lay far beyond Ngara, or even Tmzania. Decisions were made at UN beadquartas in New York and Geneva that the only sdution was repabiation to Rwanda, despite the still tenuous cmtTOI m power en~oyedby the new RPF government in August and September (Reynqms 2995). In Ngara, this outcome looked extremely unlikely as tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees coneinued to arrive &ough November and into early 1995. In addition, corpses; many of whom were ayparently executim victims of the new WF rulers, conhued appearing floating in the :Kagera Ever at the Rasuzno bridge ''body catchnmt" on an almost daily basis. Policy-1nakr;rrs
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in camp start-ups in far away cities such as Washingtoil, DC, and Brussels, where the checks are written, quaked at the potential costs involved.. Into this mix stepped Preside& Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania in Oct&er 1994. At Benaco he amaunced to the press m d the hternaliund com.muniQ that Tanzania was prepared, to provide land for the resettlemerrt of all Rwmdan refugees along the soufiem boder with Mozambique, on the condition that the hternalional commudty picked up the resettlement costs. Underlying his offer was the belief, held also by other Tanzaniam, that the underlying cause of the Rwandm conflict was demographic pressures and structural jirrequali~es&at made my reconcaiation & h e m H u h refugees and the new Tutsi government untikely. In Ngara, W N K R and the NG& did some irdormal pla sew h w to move IO0,OUO to 500,OUW refugees across Tmzania" souChern hjnterland.. They worked on the assumption that atl transport would be paid for by the international co unity. Calculations *owed that an airlift of udeard-of p q o r t i m ~ o m b i n c l dwitb a one-and-a-half-year r a t a t of Tanzania's railways would be necessary, But irrespective of costs, the international community in the capitals failed to respond 60 President Mwinyifs offer, arld the proposaf soon sank, for two reasam. First, the members of Tmzania"s parliament that represented, the southern region oy>posed it. %c&, there was a smdden shift in Tanzanian public opinion &er the r n d a of-a Tanzaltian evmgelist in the Benaco market, The Murder of the Evangelist David
The Tanzanian public has hdiSional1y had a w d c o ~ attitude ~ ~ g toward refugees; it cmsiders it: a duty as a goad n&ghhor to see that they are received humanely (Rutinwa 1996; Gasarasi 1984).n t. poljcy of containkg the refugee ir~fluxin remote corners of Tmzania in 1994 helped Tmzanim s to maintain this belief. "I%eT;mzimi;zn puhlic assumes that refugees themselves will behave as good neighbors, as indeed the Rwandans see~nedto do. Alfso beneficialt was the fact that a substanGal new economy devclwped around the rc;.fugcc.s.The net result was that far most Tanzanians the refuges were out of sight; they knew only what the more enkepreneurial fric-tnds told them, or what h e y read in the newspapas. And up until October, the newspqers were reportimg that the efugees were accepkg TTanzanian hospitafity with gatibde. In October 195Nf here was a sudden shift in this perceptic-m as a result of m incident in the Benaco c m p . David was a well-bown and popular Tanzanian, a 195-cen~meter(six-foot-fie) evangelist in a t>ar es Salaam church who origir~allycaxne from hmska. David and a Swiss colleawe
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named Werner arrived in Benaco in C)ct&er 1994 to deliver Pentacostal Bible tracts to the refugees. They went into the camp after notifying the Tanzanian authorities, but without consulting with the UNHCR. The tracts were inSwhili, not Kinyarwanda, and had on the cover a drawhg of serpents aromd a man.. David disappeared white distributing the Bible &acts in the camp; he disappeared in Glrre middte of the cmwded marketplace after a mysterious-sounding whistle was blown. Apparently, David" height and, the tracts wese dsintespreted as being ' W F . r " I1: took three days of negotialFiom by the Tanzanian authC)Tities to recover bis body. The day after David had disappeared' refugee leaders produced the body of a murder victim, claiming that it was David. The Swiss missionary who was the only m in the area able to idenlify David refused to identify the body as David's. On the third day David's body was produced; his head had been crushed, apparentjy shortly after his disappearance (see Wakrs 1995b, 19993). Tmzanian artthorities provided an escort. lor the body to the airstrip, where an aircraft: chrkred by his church took him back to Dar es Salaam. fn Dar es Salaam there was a large fweral, which was wll-covered in the Tmzanian press. A swond incjdent in catty November led to furher Tanzharn remvations about the presence sf the Rwandm refugees. As part of the normalization of diplomaec relations with Rwanda, the gov agl-eed to sec that refugees rehmed a number of vekctes that they had bmught with them when they came to Benaco, The refuug"es did this, but in the c m of a vehicle brought by the for~nergove w r of Kjbmgo prefechrre, they switched licenscl plates and sent back an older car, This deception was qu.ickly discovered, and the governor was called into the pdice stalFion. Zn rapowe, a large crowd mshed the police shtion, and the police fixed shots into the air. Refugees in turn blocked access to the camp by p d i n g culverts across the road, as a demotlstration of their power. livo Rwandans were beaten to death in the melee .when they j w e d out: of a car o w d by Concern Worl$Wide and tried to run away from the crowd. The governor was soon deased by the Tanzanians, and agency activities resumed nor~nally The T a n z a ~ a n seized s on both ksues to drive publjc o p i ~ o n in the direction of I-ejecting permanent resettlement in the southern re@on, fronically international =action was muted. In part this was because a number of UNNCII officials had been cycled out of tbe camp, and those r e m a i ~ n gwere not wiEng or able to use the potential emo~onafismof the confrctnbGons to &&act more press attention. %is stance probably also reflected the distmce the UNHCR, took from the Tmzanians, who had effecGveity delegated all daily management decisions fctr the &andan refugees to the UNHCR. In late 1994, when there were 500,000
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refugces in Ngara, only three Tanzanian adxnjnistrators and a small con&%gentof police were assigned fuH tirne to r e b e e issues.
Ngara, Navernber 15394
By November 1994, Ngara had settled into the routines, relationship, and procedures that were to do ate the rest of the operat-icm..As Rifauember after a four-month absence) seen Connelly (whcz returned asserted, the crisis continued. Rut the m b r e uC the crises had changed; they were m.magt.d and routinized afmg the principles estafolished by the staff in the first six weeks, very few of M.lhom remained. The problem was that these routines were dependent: on norms est&lished in the setup staige of the operation, when informa~onwas plent-iful, CNN"s presence was taken for granted, and tion was un(q~eS~oned. Durhg the next two years, the newly estabgshed bureaucmcyls abiliw to cope with refugce influx impmved. The WFP's food pipeline functioned better, and rehgee health stabilized, bcsco in mmy respects better than it h d bccn in Rwanda or was in neighboring Tanzanian villages (S= Essay I). As for food distrjhutian, the refugee leaders' control was challenged, and the camp management agencies grac-lually took respcrmihiEties for food distribulion away from the more corrupt refugee leaders. Despite the fact that the operation was functioning successSully, the camp's days were numbered. Particularly in the UN's New York headquarters, and in Geneva, Washhgtort, and Brussels there was bcreasing dissatisfaction with the pclliticrat conditions in the Great Lakes region, and funding by ECHO and, USAID soon w i t h e ~ dXn . the end, 2 fnillion refugees were remved h m the UNHCRrs rols in the largest forcible repatriation since WrId Ww II. Notes I. A number of papers have been written about different aspects of refugee rectjiption in Tanzania, See Malkki 1995; Gorrnan 1993; So rs 1993; Daley 1994; Smith 1995; Waters lW5b, 19139, and 19813 for a few ~ 3 fthe more recent papers. middu-Makubuya 1994; Mitaker 1999; Prunier 1995; m d S d t h 1995 discuss the history of Rwandan refugees in Uganda. Stein (5996) and Gasarasi (55184) have written general kstories of refugee relief operations in Tmzmia. Cuenod (55167) wrote the earliest scholarly account of Rwandan refugee reception in Uganda and T a n z d a that I know of. I?, The agency X worked for, Lutherm World Federa~on,had been involved in resett-ling these refugees in large wttlements between I972 and 1990. However,
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by 19533, headquarters in Geneva had begun to ask whether there was need for a '"refugee service" in Tanzmia, since at that time &ere were no new refugees in the region. 3. Several nongc3vernmc;ntal agencies did arrive in time tc3 set up operations (notably LWF in Ngara m d Kibondtz, Caritas in Ngara, MSF-France in Kasulu, and Ehe Tanzanian Red Crc3ss in Ngara). In addigon, the hglican church" h c ~ p i tals in the area such as M u r a p m z a (Ngara prefecwe), Kabanga (Kasulu prefecture), and Shunga (Masulu prefecture) were overwhelmed by the refugee influx. They received little support from the intematitjnal rehgee relief regme durjing the early days of &e influx, 4, Up until 1993, Tmzania had a pdicy of hc3using refugees in permanent settlements. Refugees placed in permanent settlemen@Mreregiven access to enough g until they were able to rebrn to land to support themselves through far their home c o m w . Xn t s e settlements UNHCR conshcted permanent infrastructure, including brick schools and dispensaries, roads, and administrative buildings. Burmdians received in the 1970s and Mozambictms in the 1980s and early l WOs were mainhined in such settlements. The category '%semipermanentuwas introduced in 1993 for refugees fleeing from Burundi. These refugees were prc3vided with house plots and a small area to farm. The area for farming was not enough for subsistence, however, and it was expwted that they would receive WFP ra~clnsuntil &ey were rqah-iated to Budi. When the Rwmdans arrived in April and May 1994, they were placed in "temporary" camps, because of their large numbers. No permanent buildings were ccmsEructed, and refugees received only enough land to build a g a s s and plastic hut; tl~eywere not perdtted to farm, m d it was assumed that WFP rations would be their primav fcmd source. 5, This brou@t the total n m b e r of UMHCR expabiate staff in Ngara to tl~ree at the end c36 April. Both Maureen Conndly and Jacqua Franquin remained involved in Ehe reception of 'the Rwmdan refugee influx, & coc>rdinatc3rtComelly was to play the key role in establishing how assistance was delivered. The third UNk-TCR expatriate on site was Andres Jlmenez, k-Le fhished his assigment in Ngara in late May, and as far as X know, did not become involved in the long-term tion from Bemhard Stauh and Adamasu Sirneso, Aphl d L,azarus Mezza also told me about visiting these rehgees in April 1994. 7. Pubfished accounts usually refer to a figure of 250,000 refugees. This was a fipre. On the basis of census data, the total nurnfirst p e s s and/or a p ber who crc3sxd into a is believed to be about 170,000 (see JEEAR 3:2-5 and Jaspars 1994:&5). 'This f i p r e may also be high, but is crtrtainly closer tc3 the h t h than the more widely cited 250,000 figure. 8. As described in Chapter 2, UNI3CR is not allwed tc:,impiement lief propams itself, Rather its brief is tcz use money donated by gove shape relief programs by contracting with other agencierj for yecific services to rehgees, UNHCR then "monitors" "sbursements. in most comtries, this means that the tJN-I--fCRmakes payments to and monitors gc>vernmentalagencia within the host country who provide sewices within rehgee camps. The excepGon is
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when there is no capaciv within the host count^ government to prc3vide skilled staff to provide such services. This is the case in Tammia, and other poor cauntries. In these casm, the UNHCR contracts with international NGQs like the IFRC flntemtional Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies), CARE, Rilbdecins sms Fron~eres,etc., to provide the services. Consequtmtly, t h e e agencies oAen have an odd relationship with the UNHCR; they are not commercial contractors per se, but partners, or implemmters. Independent of this fkancial tie, UNHCR is also often the d a i p a t e d coclrdinator for the agencia who rush in to assist in a refugee emergency. 9. Food ratic3ns were measured in a variety of ways, depending on which point in Ehe pipeline was analyzed. In 1995, WFP needed tc3 make 5,500 tcms available weekly in the Ngara complex of camps, which included the four camps near Bemco and Kiblj. Hills, This involved bucking the c odities received at the distant port of Bar es Salaam across Tanzania tcz warehouses, typically cm 40-ton tmcks. The trucking NGO, Lutheran World Federagon, was responsible for taking what was needed from the warehouses and delivering it tcz the disbibution point in each camp, where the camp management NGO scooped it into the reIugees9bas. This process involved receiving and dispatching 37.5 $0-ton truckloads per week and was coordinated by UNHCR. Distribution cycles in the camps were either w ~ k l yor eveq other week. At these distributions, the camp management NGQs would scc>c>pinto the bag of each family a ration for one or two weeks, for each member of the family, The formula used was based on a daily per capita raGon of 420 g m s of maize pain or 350 grams of maize meal, 120 pams of pulses, 25 grams of vegetable oil, and 5 grams of salt. Theoretically this provided a per capih r a ~ o nof 2,045 caIc?ries(see Shr?han1996:342). Frequent breaks in the pipeline meant that this ideal was rarely met. The equiv of the food distribution system was checked in at least two ways. First, a third NGO periodically ccmducted fmd-bag suweys, randomly checklng how much of each type of food was in a refugee's bag as he or she left the distribution center. This is how we knew that the actual amount of food received per rehgee was typically beween 1,660 m d 1,900 kilc3calories per day. Mainukition rates were also regularly calculated using height-to-weight surveys ccmducted by the NG0s c~erat-ing outpatient clinics, 10. Church= in western Tanzania are amc3ng the strc->ng@tit elemmts of civil society. Nevertheless, they were effectively excluded from the set-up of the operation by the UNHCR, even though for the first months of the operatic>n,the UNHCR had offices in the hglican mission compound in Ngara, and ccmtinues to have offices in the Anglican compound in Kasulu. Qne Tanzanian related to me how a t hglican bishop bringing a skipment of used dot&ng provided by Tanzanians was c h a ~ away d f-rc?mBenaco by the UNHCK field officer, The ehmches of his diocese had &ready been deeply involved in the response to the Burundian rehgees t.hrou& the provisiczn of medical care, "ohre the UNHCR arrived. "We are professionals," it was explained to the bishop, and do not need minor agencies. Iro~cally,in 1999 the UNHCR approached this bishop to take over social ~ r v i c e fso x a number of camps for Congolae and Burundians.
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UNf-tCR's aloof rejagonship with Tanzanian agencies reflects its current ""rllef only" policy, The Tanzanian agencies often are relatively weak and are therefore in need of "capacity- building," but those at UNHCI;",do not view tl~ernselvesas responsible for develqing local capaciq to deal with fuhre refugee influx. This at ~ m eleads s to acrimonious relations beween the UIVIHCR and what "Ianzanim instit-utions are present. 11.World Vision was the agency that learned mr>stquickly how heay-hmded UNHCR cc>c>rdina.lion was to be in Ngara. In the first days after the influx, Mlorld Vision took blankets to the border tcz distribute to rehgees, despite UMHCR orders not to do W on the grounds that this would provide an incen~veto atabl-ish settlements on the border, away from Benaco. Despite World Vision's long experience in Tanzania, they were not awarded a sector by trNHCR when the contracts were organized. Consequmtly, World Vision never did become involved in the Rwmda relief operation in Tmzania, My own agency LWF, had a policy gc3ing in of a "i"0/30 split between UNHCR fmds and church-generated mc~ney7'2th was relaxed a bit when it became apparent that tradiitional sources of funds from Eurc>peanCommuniiey gc3vernmmts would not be available. MSF had a policy of establishingclinics and systems with their own funds, but very quickly switched over to 100 percent UNHCR funding. The Red Cross socieGes had independat s m c e s of funds around the world and were never overly dependent cm UIVHCR. CARE, World Concern, Christian Qutreach, and other agencies were virtually 100 percent dependent on UNMCR fmding. 12. See Jaspars (1994) far a complete account. 13, The bridge was first installed in July "fM4, during the dry season. Highwater marks were miscalculated, and Cogefar received a second contract in 1995 to raise the bridge. 14. Another was a man who was made gc3vernor of Kibungo prefecture shortly after the genocide began, apparently assisted in Ehe irnplementatian of the genocide, and then fled to Tanzania. 15. Quote from Rehlaender (1994:5).Trmlation from G e r m by the authc:,r, 16. UNHCR representatives asserted to reporters the same day that it had det e r ~ n e dthat he had musual power wifiin the camp, and that "at least thirty thczusmd refugees dmce tcz his tune" (see ReHaender 1994). This as~rGiicznwas made without consultation with the Tanzanians or any broader understanding of the volaGle nahre of charismaGc power (in the sense of Max Weber" descriptions of charisma), such as Gakte did indeed have at that moment. Tronicallgr, the Tanzhan pdice officer who gave Cat&e the megaphone seemed tc3 have a finer sense of this. It also did not reconcile the fact that this same population had turned Gatete in at the border, N o indictment for war crimes or genocide had been listed for Gatete on the Web site for the Lntemat-ionalCrirninal T~bunalfur Rwanda (ICTR) as of July 1999, As of autumn 2000 the indictments were nc:, longer (m the Web site, 17. MSF-Hcjlland had operated clinics inside Rwanda during the early days of the genocide, Many of their lr3cal employees were Tutsis, and a large number were killed during the genocide, sometimes in front of their expatriate colleagues. As a result MSF as an agency closed its clinics in Rwanda and the expa-
The Relief Eflorf Witzds Up
triates and the surviving It->calstaff fled to Tanzania. These staff, who by and large were Tutsis, became &e s3urce of their information about plots within Ehe Hutu camps. This information, which in July and August 1994 included accusations and mmors of poisonings wi&h MSF facilities, was-to bomow Barbara Tuchman" term-amplified in the mee~ngscoordinated by the UMHCR. 18. As a repre~ntaGtivefor LWF, 1 indicated that we saw no reason tc:, diwmtinue programs, but would defer to the consensus of the gmup. 19. Interviews with refugees and Tanzanians at the time indicated that there was little undastanding of why the international cc~mmuniQwas peeved with the refugee leademhip. This was because discussion arnc>ngthe expatriatm took place in English, in Ngara, 40 kilometers away. The Tmzanim gov time was changing district commissioners, and this meeting was the first h r the new head of district government, a military mm, Brigadier General Sylvester Hamedi. Refugee leaders, who dealt with the expathates in French, did not pass the gist of the discussion on to Ehe Khyarwmda-speaking refugee masses in any orgmized fashion. Indeed, they had little irrterest in doing so, 20. Both CARE and tfNHCEt staff making this decision had had immediate expehence with Somali refugee programs, where such comporlnds were considered standard. In large part, this was due to security cc>ncerns,which had been fc~remost during these crises. As described in previous chapters and in Walkup (1997), there often was an adversarial relationship befiGlieen relief agencies and the refugees during this emergency, In many respects this mentality surprised me. My own experience with refugee work had been in mailand m d Tanzania, where expatriates lived in towns or camps mc3ng the populaGons they were assisting. 21. The per-refugee, per-day ration for a food supplement in the Great Lakes region was 420 g a m s of whole cereal, 120 grams of beans, 25 g a m s of oil, and 5 grams of salt. If the fot->dpipeline worked well, this is what the refugem would receive, Fifty grams of "cam-soya blend"" was alsc:, included at the time Ngara was atablished gaspars 1994:45). Note that these are synthetic figures, and in pracGce Ehe refugees received a food distribution every one or two weeks. This supplemmt was a rather bland mix of food, but adequate to sustah life, assuming that it was equitably distributed across the populafrion. Dqending on the type of food distributed, this was usually resulted in an average food basket of 1800 calories per person per day. Pis mentioned in the text, distributions were hxgher earlier in the crisis, Later in 199S96, in some camps, figures dropped below 1,800 kilocalories per day in =me weeks (see a a g t e r 8 and Essay 1). 22. As Crisp (19%) recently pointed out, refugee census5 are critcicinl for management and accountability; However, there have been few systematic studies of their accuracy; As he also points out (and as is discuswd in Chapters 3 and 4), such censuses are iherentlly difficult to a d m ~ s t e involvhg r as they do d e f i ~ tions of who is a reiugee and &erefore countable and who is not, 23. Maureen Comelly, Jaccpes Fraquin, Karl Stehacker, m d Cryrrime Faletto all left in July. Cc>nnelly,Franquin, and Steinacker were all assigned permanent1y to Ngara some months later. In the interim, the senior posts were either vacant or held by temporary appointees. Gonnelly Franquin, and Steinacker all rehxmed with permmen t assignments to Fiigara in October and November.
October 1994December 1996: Normalized CrisisThe Operation Winds Down
By November 1994,a, shstt-term, successful but expensive relief program was in ptace. "Thepolicy cmsemus was already clear, at least at h e New York a d Geneva levels: there would be a repatriation. The UN secretaygeneral's spedal envoy for Rwanda, Ambassador Shahrayar Khan, arrived in Bertato from Kig& k~early Novelder to reiterate this poht in a meetkg h r the NGOs. The assumptions behind the repatriatjon p o k y were that the presumably apolitical HTutu refilgees would welcome the oppodunity to return, and they would be welconted by Ike new WFdominated gov en.t.1 Furfier relief qerations and programs were to be undertaken with these assu-tions in misrd, Repatriation was a policy h a t the blituticlnal players-fie Tanzanian and Rwandan governed Nations agencies and their NGO parmers, and the as dilferent, and questions we= raised about whether it was realistic to expect a substantial volmtary repatrriation at a time when refugees were still fleeing h a n d a fur TTanzmia; the number of bodies recove~ddaily from the Kagera &er was a c b l l y increasing. Maureen Comelly fitiated a pl ng exercise on November 14 whose purpsc was to solicit cornmen& frsm the staff on repatriation and on resettlement M J i ~ n Tanzania. Repah.iagcm:in h e November 1994 memo was considered udikely, primarily for two rc?wons:
* Spontaneous repakiation cannot be supported immrtdiateiy *
both for the internal situation in Rwnda and the political pressure put on people inside the k z a n i a n camps. [Repatriationl requires close, coordinated planning within fiwanda to ensure that repatrciatjon dues mt:lead to a deteriora-
Keza camp was atablitihed in February 1 9 6 for Rwandans and Bur~~ndians fleeing Burundi, (Photosby D a ~ aWaters.) r
The Opcmtiotz Winds Glow@
ticm of the conditiom fcquired to sustajn repatriation and develspment witEn Rwanda, thus leading to firrtEler violmce and a breakdown of the tiocieq. b c a l officers of the UNHCR and NGOs were also interested in resettlement hTmzania and presented a pl g document described as a '"ncmpaper," that sketckd out a scenafio where ,U30,00t) refugees would return to Rwanda and 300,000 would be resettled, in various regions of Tamania. Despi-le such iniliatives, however, inlate 1934 assumptiom of quick volm h r y t-e3&n and reconcilia~onwi ted Egher-kvd policy development, even &.roughwen& in T m z ~ aRwanda, , and Zaire in&catcd that such a sotutim was rrnlibcely. Oddty, the UNHCXt in Tmzani.a was cauglnt in the xniddl., Its k l d offjctzrsreported the conhlxing arrival of Beeing Rwandms, massacPc?reports, m d other Micators fhat volrrntary repatriation was not possible in the short term, But UNPICKS dons= In VVashington, New Vork, and Europe accused thiern sf discouraging and delaying voluntary refugee repabiation. In part, this reflwted Ehe g of the Western gove ts to the new gov wkch had been recognized by all and had assumet RwandarsUN seat. 'The donors' leverage c m e from the power of their purse, and .tow& the efld of 1W4, NCO requsts for lurther UNFZCR funding became more difficdt to fill. The first NC;Cl)sto feel the phch were the specialized me& ical agencitzs like MSF, which had used the bulk of its lnoney to develop expatriate-imteme oupatient c l i ~ c sIn , particular, UNHCR staff inNgara aiiricizeet the France-based food agency, Agcnce Internationale Conbe la Faim (AICF) (Shohm 1996). AKFs focus was on qeciatized ftecting of malnourished chldren; this was labor-intensive, and as a result had a hi@ cost-per-beneficiary ratio at a time when overall refugee nutriSion was improvir~g.Donalions to the Wrld Food Progam~nealso suffered when policy-makers in Europe and Nor& Arnerica apparently acted on their hspes for repatriation by resisting requests to expand food deliveries .to central Africa, despite the new arrivals m d Iheir additional food requiresnents. The consequence was that breaks began to appear in the h o d piptine, This pipeline began in warehouses in the West, where maize m d bean surpluses WE stored, extended in a slow ant( ponderous fashion to Western ports, into ship holds, to docks in the ports of Molnbassa and Dar es Salaam, by &U& and rail transport across Afrira, and fin* to a gmwing pop-talatim of refugees in Tanzania, Burundi, and Zaire in central Africa (see JEEAR 11996:87-110). It took several m t h s for tlne food to travel the piyeline's length, and keeping it filled with the proper amounts of food required anticipating how many refugees wodd be p ~ s e ni1t7 the fut-u~"~, and how m c h they wodd eat
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The donors in the West optjmistically predicted that many of the refugees woufd be repatriated m d put less food in the pipeline, No one anticipated what actudly hppened: that refugee populations throughout the Great Lakes region would continuc to grow into 1,996. Thus, even as tl-recapability to recehtz and house refugee actually improved, field workers precilicted an ever-hepeasing disaister, though the type uC disaster prcrdicted varied. The MSF agencies focused on the role that muderers played in the c a v s in Zaire and TTanzania, and used this as a rationale to wizhdraw from an operation &at was also seeing the end of the wett-funded esnergency cmt-ractts.T Other agencies were angered by breaks in the food pipeline. The local UNHCR dices in Ngara and Karagwe remained silent while this happened; they had orders from Geneva to avoid codronbtion with WFP. UNHCR did, though, encourage NGOs to c o ~ t a i foudly, n which they did, in a strongl.y worded and widely disseminated memo in which they predicted food riots and armed ksurrecliun in Tanzania in the event that WFP did not increase fmd,deliveries."ut despite these womies-and several.weeks of half ratiom-no such exnergency ever exnerged in Ngara, as Shoham (1996:342) has pointed out. The =ason was that, indepadent of the N o s , refugees had dweloped sources of food, and cash within the local economy to suppiemat the WFP rations. The dramtic at;pects of the sihattion agak hecarne important in this context. i"tssumpt;ionsabout the nature s f refugee srgmization and politics nahrally gravitated tow& the sensational; m d the role of genocide irnagimtion, even in creathg the refug= crisis was central to the W ~ t e r n as the event itself became more remote in time, Since the sensational genocicfe had successfutly gctnaated sympathy and finmcial support in 1994, the UNHCI.2 agalm emphasized this aspect, along with threats of conbgious disease, threats to security of exphiat=, and tlne threats to the operatian's inkpity posed by a further refugee influx. The chfonic irony of the condition was that the United Nations adopted an aggres"ive voluntary repatriation policy rooted in the assuxnp~onthat concfitiom hKwanda werc. appropriak for a return, even s arriving in 199546, Mding to the irony was the as new ~ f u g e e were fact that the hternat;ional refugee relief co unity inNgara was becoming more efft.cciveat h n d l h g the crisis through the quick receplion of refugees and the establishment of new refugee camps. At the same time, new pred.ictions sf disaster conhualfy emerged-whether the cause was seen to be disease, political instability insufficient water provision, refugee urnat, Interahami~ueacliviv, etc. The JEEAIC. observed: "The situation has never quite stabilized and agencies have been conhually needing to increase the scale c25 their programmes. h o t h e r factor cmtribuling to the post-emrgeatcy situation in N p r a was that from mid-July 17.9941
The Opcmtiotz Winds Glow@
onwards the focus of irrternational attention moved to Goma [the headquarters sf the Zairean operation], resultin: in the transfer of resources and persomet away from Tmzania" f12).
November 1994-4 Remote Camp, Water Crises, and Emergency Agencies Depaz1: Hopes had been, raised fsr a quick sesolut-ionof the refugee crisis &rough voluntary repatriation by the visit of A~nbassadorKhan in early November 1994, Arriving by helicopter in Benaco and accompanied by a very cibviously a r m d bodyguard, he mrtt with NCXl mpresenti3tives in a tent, I-ie emphasized that in his face-to-face meetings with President Bizimungu of Rwamda, the safcsty of rewning refugees had been assured. When 1 queried Khan about the continuing arrkal of bodies in the Kagera Kiver, ke expressed su~ritie,since the p~sicfenthad assured him that the sou&east of the country was under contmt,We also expressed &e view that if a repatriation did not occur in the comhg weeks, he bclieved it would not occur at all (see Waters 1999a). But irr. the mean&rne,p o t i ~ c dm d msitary cc2nditiom in Burundi were again deteriora&ng,and in &-November 1994, a new influx sf refugees appared to the south of Ngara at tke sarne time h a t tke number of bodies floating down the Kagera River increased. It is not h o w n exactly where the bodies were comjng from, but these refugees were Rwandans who had b e n housed in refugee camps in Buruncti in the mmths since Marnda's ggenocide. A few Burmdians also arrived, fitialty, the new influx was housed in the Benam colnytex of camp, crea.ting further demands for food anci water and aggrawatint;cmwdhg at a time when sporadic cases of cholera were being treated (see FEAR 1996:69). Even &ou& this epidemic was dealt with capably by the established water, sanitation, and public health agencies, the cholera warning Bag,MJhick had dready been raised in Gsma, was now raised at Benaco.5 A positive d k c t of these circunstavlces was that a new camp at Mitali Hills, some 50 kilonteters (about 30 miles) w a y , was yuickly approved. "I%esite had been surveyed in Sptember 1994 as a possible decongestion site for sefugees already in tlne Rmaco complex, Mrhich, UNHCR pointed out, would be unsust&able in Ihe lmg-run because c,f shorbges of fifewood and watel: The only s w e y that Plad been done there, though, was a "wind-screen" survey of water and firewuod resources done by UNHCR and :NGO consdtmts horn inside vekicles. This survey haci indicated that the site was umujtablc for a camp owing to a lack of susface water and a pmba:fole lack of groundwater. But despite &ese shortcornings, the con~nuingarrival of rehgees demanded its use. By March 3, 195, there were only 23,K35 refugees h i n g there. This caseload was
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managed easily from food wat.ehouses in the Btjnaco area, and by means of two new water trucks that began transporting m t e r 60 kjlometers (37 ~ l i e sfrom ) Benaco. Back at the m a h camp centers, progress was consolidatd. In Karape, a second decmgestion camp was establish4 at the end of 1994 odate 4f),OC)0 refugees who had settled in a floodplain durIn.g the initial innwx. The ww camp, Chabalisa 2, was the first to have a semblance of plami;ng, whicl-r was possible only because there was no further d u x in the north after about August 1994 (see Essays 1-3). As a result, transfers were made to the camp some four hiornetas ( a b u t thee mites) away ina systema~cfashion.,Carchlly sumeyed house plots were assiped, and h e refugees systematically resettled over a t w o - m n ~ pe riod that ended in & c e d e r 1.994. In Ihe Wenaco camp complex, the economy, especjajly, the markets, blossomed, and Benaco camp became hewn for its urban alnenities, including bars, guest houses, retail outlets, and, as t-radrrg in WFP refugee rat-ions took place, its grain market (Wters 1999a). In the midst of this, the expatriaks were focused m two k c h c a l issues and two pditical ones. The two tec7nical issua we= a percclived emerging water crisis with a tkreat of a cholera epidemjc, and the establishment of a dependable food pipelinc of WFP commodities. The tvvo poli,t.icalissues were, first, the d e m n d of Western donors that voluntary repabiation be encouraged and, second, the need to generate sympaw for the refugees who wcre still arriving in Tanzania. Thus, the picture presmted needed to be one of technical competence at the same time that technical systems were falling apart. C)m. the pslitical level tlnese was a need to explain why refugees should volurzteer to return to Rwanda at the same time others were beIrt.g expe21d from their homes there. h the context of these contradic~ons,the expaMates adopted fundhg, pubficity and political policies h a t had inherent inconsistencies. This was especially apparent in the water sector, where the field workers repeateay strcssed the cholera danger in memos and at meetings of the medical, water, and sanita~onagerzcies. The Cholera Card
Cholera perhaps kspires more terror in Westerners than any other disease (MlcRleitl 1977:230--31).Not wi"Zhoutreason: its p o w r had. most recently been observed in Zaire, where m estimated ZI),0I)C)to 30,000 refugees died of the disease in July 7994 (IEEAIS(, (iS75). Death from cholera i s quick and horrifying, following an excruciahg loss of fluids from violent dysentery, Cholera is caused by a bacterium h a t is usually water-borne; it break out in conditions of crowdhg and poor smitation.
The Opcmtiotz Winds Glow@
h the West, its effects were most devastat_ingin e t e n t h - c e r ciEie such as London, whercz it xnoved amund in, the piyed water supply. fn Africa cholera is still seasonat, appearing in many East African towns tow a d the end of the J r y season, when wa,kr supplies are not flushed by periodic rains, clemhess standards decline because of scarre water, and crowded condieam facstate feed-oral t r m s ~ s s i o nof disease. Sanitarians can easily control. cholera, like other fecal-borne diarrlneaienteric dixases, by adding chfori.ne to the water and by providhg enough water to promote ctediness. Thus, provision c-tf money for water supply is central to an operatic>nw b s e puvase is the basic survi\ial of refugees. In a context where money and h m e i a l efficiency were m t central to successful engineering, and population concentration was viewed as a political given, medical and engineering solutions guarmteeing refugee protection from cholera and other watef-bome diseases w r e yuicuy acl-tieved. For the water sector, this mcant that millions of do:llars wtrzre made available for quickly comeived projects. Special isrrlation units were also established in late 1994, in the event that cholera cases did occur. Urbaat Societies;?The Refugees' Mlottd WEle the expatriate Good Samaritans were focused on the logistics in providing adequate supplies of food and water to a group of people they were beginning to view as of politically dubious moral worth, the refugees themselves were establishing a large funclio ni..ty. Concerns about 8wanda continued, to be domhant, m d mouncemerrts on RPT; radio we= deconstruckd assiduously by refugees. More d e v m t to daily life were the establishment of the new relalionsfips and routines in their nclw "homes" in the Tanzanian refugee camps. g of 1996 the four calnps of the Benaco camp co~nplex had 400,00(3 to 500,000 refugees a d took on the chamcterislics of an urban congfomeration.. There was a specialization of actjviq &ere too. For example, the food and water that the expatriates were so concerned about quickly became ntatketable crr dities; the rented truck defivering the World k o d Programme commodities were known ta arrive and then retrum with supplies of gain, oil, and beans purchased by Tmzitnian &aders. Refugees also dealt with the wakr shortage from the five litcrs per day provided by the water system by developing sources of their own. D~lringthe rainy tieason (eight mmtl.rs of the year), this included sources horn roofs;, and the swampy areas along the lower reaches of the camps. Othcr uiban activi~esquickly developed too, Church= and mosques were establishctd, bars opened, Eu-miture mmufacbred, and handiccaft induskies clevelop&,
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HIV infection probably expanded rapidly as new relationships were establkhed, and jud.ging from the number of births in the camp in late 1995, new family relationships established (see Essay 4). The militia training that had been so prominent before. the death of David apparlow profile emu* entf y deched to a point where once agai.n they to be at least ""sc~t,"mea g it was no longer an issue in UNHCR coordination meetings. Primary schoolif.lg was reestablished ushg a Kinyarwmda curriculum developed by UNESCO in schoolrooms built with UNHCR plastic. Cultrxral koupes were also reestablished. Food distributiun came under closer control of NGOs, which est&lished a variety of mmitorlng system, Un2ike in Zajre, there was ns evidence that the preexisthg leadership from Rwanda controlled substantial food distribu~on,NGOs like Concern International in Lumsi were in fact jus.tidiablq; pmud of havfng changed leadership wi&h the camps &I late 1994 and 1995 when ciali paymen& to refugee leaders were withdrawn (Pattier 1996a).As Shoham (1996) noted, most dkt-ributionin the carnps was done by NGOs di.rect_tyto family groups, and not through the refugee leadership. Finally, by early 1995, sptenatic "food basket monitcrring'"rogramwere irrtpemented to check refugee nutritionaf, status both at the distribution pohts and via establish& mother-child heat& provams which o r g a ~ z e dhome visits (see Essay 1). In many respects, the c a q s had the el-iaracterislicsidm uri3m scxriety. Time perm_itted the resiliency of refugee self-initiative and market forces to fill the gaps in Mihat the UN and affihated agencies were able to provide in terms of material- sustenance, and a broad number of services emerged among what had become an urbm popula~on,The existence of the ca~npsremained dependent on WFP Iargesse, which fm the Ngara camps in 1996 lincluded approxim,ately 1,501) metric tomes of maize, beans, and oil per week. 'The success from the refugee perspective is pePhaps best viewed %mugEt %e tens of the demographjcs, After the horror of a fight from Rwanda, genocide, and war the populati.on settted into a very consemative wait-and-see atti2ude. Somehow safisfied with the otherwise grim circumtances of the boringI unwentful fcfugee :lJ.fesQlefound in refugee camps everyhere, refugees developed routines to fill their time. Days revolved arwnd couecki; raeions, w a W ~ gto and from small and distant fields, ;angling for the few jnhs available with agencies, &urc.h activity, and penerat hustling in a forcehl and sometimes seff-protecting manner. Most important, like other Third W r l d refugee poplxlaticrnt;, the Rwandans began to reestahlish Lrlmilies aad have chitdren. WrtaSity rates dropped from the high rates that occwred shwtly after arrival, and birth rates began to climb in mid-1995. Statistics available h m Chahaba 2 camp indicate that by tbe end of 1995 there were approximately 30
142
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bi,t-hs per week, i17 a population of 37,000, which is a crudc bir& rate of 4.2 percat (see Essay I).
April 1995: Food Crisis, the Border Glases, and Massacres in Rwanda The expa&iatesrcancerns were different, locused on m;aintaiming a degendeflt popula~onthat was stiU groTNiRg because of continued arrivals from Ilurundi. The influx from Ilu~undistretched the capacity of the Ngara-headqumtered operizf-Ion,which was given respomibifitry for providing water and food. Local sources of water were considered unasailable? so trzlcking operations were begun from 60 kilomrtters (,'27miles) away. Tmcks also were detaild to br?ingfood from the WPP extended delivery point (EDQ in the Benam complex. Camp mmagement, smiti-ltion, and ~nedicalsewices were delivered by the small=, more resilient agmcies Eke GOAL (an Irish NGQ), Xllorwegim People's Aid (NFA), m d the Tnternational Rescue Commi.ttet.(IRC), which had made good use of Tmzanian and =fug= labor but wP1ich in the past had been considered too weak to compete with expatriate-do~nateCi.agencies like CARE, AICF, and MSE Addillg to the seme of chsis were v a p e complaints about food delivery and uncertainties in debery schedtltes, I-he passions of which were i17fluenced by con.tjnuirng verhal attack i17 meegngs on WFP, Fimlly, aerial reporb from the border in March 1995 indicated that the influx from Burundi could continue indefinitely. With the UNHCRcoordinated operaljon near its emotional and financial ljmits, resignaticm begm to set in. Agencies became aware that they could n s Xongcr indefinitely expand programs, and the luster of working in Tanzania w r e The Tmzmian gover ent, which under the direction of Kagera Regional Com~ssionerPhilip Mmgula had mahtained a policy of open receprcion, also was being stririncd, and elements of their d i t a r y became more cmerned about border securiv. In Esponse, on April 8, 195, for the first time since the influx began, Tanzania foscefufly closed the bor-der to furtPler refugeedrom Burundi and Rwanda. The Tanzami sized that this policy was consistent with international wishes that all refugces rehm to Rwanda voluntari the earliest possible date, and that there be no resettlement*To a ce depee, the border closktg had the desired response, as under presurtr from the growing anarchy in Btlmndi, Rwandans began to rekm to their own c o n e y without seeking asylum in Tanzania. Finally taEks conce g the possibility of volrantary return began, UNS-ECR in Ngam switched sides and joined the repakiation drumbeat mast enthusiastically as it becme apparent that their own analyse?;c-tf the situaticm: in ICwanda, based on reporb from the con~nued arrival of refugees, w a e not being wcll received in Geneva.
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Mopes of this rehrrn were deraiied, though, by massacrc~sin Rwanda itself. Between April 16 and 20, at least 4,C)UO refugees in Kibeho Uisplaced Person Cent= in wstem Rwanda died after being fired on by the Rwandan ~ l i t a r jn y a ~ l i t a r movement y that lasted several days. h the short term the result m s that the trickle of voluntary repatriation.$ from CR to accusaeiom Tanzania virtually dried up, which opened the U from domrs of discowaging repatrciatjon, despite the supposed reemerg e e of peacehl con.diGons in Rwanda itself. NOW,though Mii&out any pal-ticulmly clear cwidmce, W U N R became more convinred that there was h fact intimidation of potential ft~tumees witfnin the camp complex itself*To countc?rthis, the UNHCR helped fund a refugee camp newspper and radio station h o u * tke Jesuit &&gee %rvice.We stated purpose of this effort was to provide unbiased infor:mation about condi~onsin Rwanda, in the belief information coming from the UNT?(I:Rwould be acceptcsd as morc l e g w a t e than what the refugees bead from each other or how they interpreted Radio Rwandafs gm-aPF broadcasts. Summer 1995: Rationalizing Genocide and b l u n t a y RepatTiatian "I%eGbeho massacres wtrzre the end of the hczneymocm period beween the governmat of Kwanda and all but its most enthusiastic supporters.7 The massacrcjs presented a c o n u n d m ~b ~r the UNWCR in T a m a ~ atoo. , Refugee arguments about the political ckcumtances J"rr Rwmda made more sense in the context of what had hagpeneel in Kib&s, so in spite of the enlreaties of young expatriate UN1-Irepatriation officers, programs dowed. And in h-away capitals, donors continued to be frustrated m d pleas by the UNHCR for rnoney to fund existing gmgrams went unheeded. But a problem emered. Zn the heady days of generous fhmchg, Both Ngara and Karagwe htad dweloped budgeting assumptions that savings could be generated d y by a decline in refugee caseload generated by repatriaeion. But the fleet of eight buses brought from I(igal,i to transport the expected repatriated refugees often roamed the camps with few if any rehrnees on board, The UNHCR btlreaucracy sought to develop a plausi:ble story as to why the voluntary repatriation policies were effective. As with all such explanations, they soutght justification thmugh an arrangement of the most compellhg social facts. A descriptjon of this view follow. At the same time, I talked to two African leaders about the sihaation, and they had ma& different analyses of the same sihxatian. Their views bear repeating here, Philip Manpla was the re@onal c Kagera and had been heimately hvolved with the development of Tm-
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zaPlia's open-door refugee policy since 1994. The Bishop Mciurubanda was from Gahini, Rwanda, and had been introduced to me through Robert m d Pabicia Wilson, British ~ssionarieswho had worked with biln in Rwanda for s w a t e m yeal-s.
The UNHCR was found& cm the pr.inciple that all persons with a legitimate? fear of xbieary political persecurj_onhawe the right to asylum.T'his
implies a legal proceeding %at generaXly does not: have the potential to be implemted, and tl-tis was the case for the Rwanditns. As a. result, assereon of this right is typically made on h e basis of a partticular sifuation, the idea being that refugees will volunhrily return home owe political changes have occurred.. Implied in this are a whole series of evaluaGons undertaken by refugees, hosts, and the hante coun&y At its root, the assumption is that the rehgee is Ihe one best able to evatuate a situafion, Mrhich. is why tlne UNHCR will for the sake of princjple resist the forced repatriatbn czS refugees. The focus on voluntary rqatridion resdts inthe W H C I Z ' s classifyinf; the refirgees accordi.ng to perceived repatriation a:fojlity,which is important for their own purposes, rather than in ways h a t are based on ~neaningfuI social dislinctiom in &e Rwandan population itself. In July 1995, Maureen Comelly first related the social divisions to me in a h r m that becme d o g ~ throughout a the CR and other agencies. Zn large part this ~flectedthe classic need of her bureaucracy to defr'ne and classify in order to rationaitize decisions and policy. She explained that there were three social groups within thc? camps: (f) the vast mass of peasants, Miho bad no&ing to fear from returniq, (2) the illCelfectual elite, who would rekm to Rwanda but would lose their prokssional and social stahs under the new regme, and (3) a small grortp of leaders who were ~ ~ i lc-tft y genmide, and therefore rrnable to *turn at d. "I"t-relogic foHowed &at the only r e a m that the first two groups remained in Tanzania was a, fear c-tf the latter group, who were the ""intinliclators," and who were usin; the others as a humm sKeld.8 Evidence from the camps in Zaire indicated that there was probably some merit to this argument, altho-ugh even when the H u b militia were ~ there was back-and-forth at the kight of their power in t h o mmps, nnovemcrnt to Rwanda, &spite evidence to the contrary, the focus on the power of a mysterious g o u p of intimidators was assumed to be similar in the Tanzanian camps.-is happened even though there was much more evidence of back-md-forth movement beween Rwanda and the Tanzanian calnps (see Essays 5 and 6). More cmftniently, it provided a
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bogeyman to explain the failure of the voluntary repatriatim program behg emouraged by the UNHCR,
sioner of Kagera Region In mid-July 1995,I met with Regional Co Philip Mangula to discuss his cc2ncern with the refuges. Mmgula had been, active in receiving refilgees from the first day of the crisis, Often traveling to remote sites where r e h g e e ~ r o s s e dinto Tanzania. Withir~ the Tmrzafim gov ent, where there was a diversiv of opfion about how to handle the refugee crisis, his was an infzuential voice for maderation and refugee recep~cm.In this position he was sometimes at odds with dlitary au&ori~es,who advocated stricter controls at the borders and fctrcibte repatriation. At times, he was also at loggerheads with UNHCR over overall policy, pal-ticularly with respect to security, enforcement of Tmzanian labor law, and advocating on behalf of Tmzani-. arts m k i n g with the expatriate-dominated organizations. As a consequence, hr! was in a politically tenuous pmition both within Tanzania arl$ with respect to the UNMCR.This led to the loss of his seat in Parlia1995 elec~ons,tl-tough he did remain regional cornmn,t in the missic-lnc-rof the Kagera regjion. Our talk in July 1995 focused on a trip to Rwanda he had just corngleted. :flc had attended a memorial service at a church in Kihungo, where 8,000 covses had been lyir~gin the church and its yard since April 1999- He was shocked, particularly when told by the Rwmdan aut.hodties that two of the refugees he knew (the ex-governst of Kbmgo and the administrativehead of Rusumo disb-ict)were guilq of organizing the massacrcJ. Ho was shocked at the descriytrion and the guilt of f i e men he knew and tafjked at lttngtlz about how the killings had taken place with the use of chlorohrm and had been organized by the one with "red eyes'' My slxvrise was at his suvrise. In exgatsiatcl circles it- had been long accepted h a t these two were war cri als. m a t sbuck.me as odd was that Mangu1a"s undmstmding uC this circzxmstmce was based on what he heard and saw from the Rwartdam, and not what could be read in the N m York Times. Manguta also tal,ked about the wider refugee p b l e m . He was concern& about the 400,000 to 600,000 '%Id case" Tutsi refuges, who fnad occupied the homes of the refugees in the Tmzanian caxnps. But hct was also concerned about the human rights sihation in Rwanda; Rwmdafs leader, Paul Kagame, agparentty had sffcered to come and speak to the refugees at Benaco, a move that Manpla thought too risky to attempt.
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He joked that the only place the refuf;ee;r;would be movhg back to was h a g e r a National Park in Itwanda, and acknowledged that not all would ever be able to return.
I also met with the Bishop Augusth Mvurubande of G h h i , Rwanda, in 'July 1995 (see Essay 8). Bishop Augustin was fiving in the Anghcan church co~npoundin Nf;;itrafand was trying to facilitate cross-border communication to further peace and reconciliation, a position notably different than that of the Rwandm g~vernment,which was cdling for "justice.'"But Bishop Mvuntbande beliwed very seongly that the church had a special role to pIay in retonci,lia.lion, and had =qu,cst-czd the chance to rebm to G a h i to put his conviction into practice. This process was svnlied by his fear that mce he reentered Rwanda he would no longer have refuge stabs, and would be unable to return to lammia. His proposal, made a great deal of sense to me. fn Tmzmia and :Rwmdarbishops and churches are among the strongest ele~nentsof the phenommon political scientjsts describe as civil society. Unfortumtely, the UNHCtl, which is mturiously secular in its outlook, preferred, to m f r c &rough government charnels, and avoided church relaltions as a result. G h h i , where the bishop" church was, had been subjected to athck by both fnterahamwe and later the RPF (see also BiXinda 1996, and des Forges 1949:7M). As a resultf Ihe bishop had a distnrst of both elemenb. His wife, whC) is Tutsi, had had a major portion of her fad1y killed by Interahamxue, Ten pastors from his church had perished during the codict, roughly half at the hands of Interaltanzwc and half at: the hart& of RPF invading forces. Parts of his own f a ~ l had y been licjlled by RPF as well. December 3995: FinanciaX Crisis
During a visit to Ngara in &taber 1995, USaxD Adnhistrator Rrian Atwood m d EU Com~ssionerEmna Bonk~asbessed to the local UNHCR office and NGOs that: they w a e closing the financial tap in an attempt to force quick repatriaGon.f"?espi& the fact that this was contrary to international law and UNHCR manciates, UNHCR-Ngara no longer had the heart to object- The UNHCR made h & e r attempts to induce rc-patriation through bmadcasts, and they o ~ a n i z e da series sf "go and see" visits. The slow-dawn in the USAID and ECHO cash flaw resulted in UNHCR"s not paySng its :NGO yarhers3bills. f was acutely aware of this because in December of 1995, the financial crisis included outsbnding unpajd bills of $4.1 million from the agency I worked for, the htheraan
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Micrrld Federation. LWF felt it necessary to threaten suspension of diesel disbursemen&to UNHCR vehides to induce payment from UNHCR. Apparently UNHCXZ was being forced to jug& payments to c~ditors, ofl whom we were one, i17 an attempt to prcserve the program. Field staff from NGOs and UNHCR blamed each other for the financial mess, even though h e people in the field were faP beyond thft p r s b l e ~Chonicalb ~. over-cornxnincrcl, the relafiomhip bemeen UNHCR and its p a r t n e ~was further skained at all levels.
RepatriaLion policies were more and more hustrated durin of 1995, to the consternaGm s f UNHCR donors, A crisis in ~ c u m e din Sptember 1995, when Tmzania expelled three patxialies, includhg facques Franquin, on 24 hoursf notice. The expulsions were in response to UNHCRrs provjsim s f food to refugees who had illegally snuck into Kitali C m p after the border haci been closed. The expulsions caused a further decline in expalriate-Tanzanian rdations, a situatjon exacerbated when 100 expatriates wmt to the airstrip to bid the expelled WHCR expan-iates farewell, and F m q u i n made a dram a farewelt, ~ ~ speech, Despite the cofltinuiPrg influx and escalathg confrontations betcveen the cash-st-rapped operation anct its parh~ers,hopes for repatpiation cmtinzred to hcrease. Runrors were rife. It was rzrmored, b r example, that entire ~ f u g e communes e would rehm. There was even a modest acceleration of repabiation when h e WF-selected prefects of Byumba and Kibungo p~fecturesin fiwanda, visited and made spewha to refugees asking them to sehrn. As m u 4 the xefwes dissected, and analyzed events and Inessages from Rwanda for their real meaning. A quote from the new prefect of Byumba, who visited the Ngara c a p s in Ctctoher 1995, was wjdely cited: "Today you are guests in Tanzania, tomorrow you will be cows, and the next day you will be dqs.'T?"kisstatement was every bit as mbiguous to Rwmdm ears as it is to mine. Its passible me widely dkcussed by refugees, O f particufar concern was the comparison to dogs, which is a strong ins& in both Tanzania and Rwanda. Rid it mean that the Tclnzanians would treat &em lice dogs after the hternational community stopped looking, or if they did not return? The refugees' analyses of this statement wodd have done any posmodern semiotician proud, Nevertheless, the visit did iul a modest way have fie desired result, ancl there was a brief uptick in voluntary xepabiation b n n Bemco. hbout t3lfO refugees per week began to return voluntilril?l,thrt ma-
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jority of whom seemed to be peasant women and children. According the repabiation drivers, none of them could read or write.
Mbuba and Keza: The Maturation of Rekgee Reception Gapabilities In January 11996, the Burundi military moved into Muyinga camp for Rwandans in nsr&western Burundi. Refugees were srdered to rekm to Rwanda, tke caxnped was burned, and over 20,000 refugees fled into Tmzania. "I%eTmzmian maitary relaxed dlitary controls, and they were received at the border by Tanzanian villagas. BrieBy 'lBnzania resumed its generous refugee asylum policy. 'The response to this influx by the internalianal cornxnuniq in Ngara was qtlick, refleeting the matura~onof the refugee reception capabiliv in Tanzania. The Tanzanian Red Gross and Concern International quickly organized tratnsjl. camps to distribute hi@-proteim biscuits. Oxfam estaihlished a m t e r puri.ficahon pfant, while LWF mobilized UNHCR-owned bulldozers, gmders, and othrtr heavy equip~~ent and activated the Russian truck EIcet (which had been idled as szrrplus) to remove the refugees from the bol-der areas. 7'kvelve thsusand refugees removed behit.een January 20 and 25 in tbis fashion; by February 3,&,000more had arrived. hlso contsi,bubg to the success of the aperillion was the experience of the refugees. The lnajority were Rw who had lived as refugees in cl-i far up to one and a half yeas. ania,they quickly organized er &at could be dealt with easdy by Ef-reWe. This inctuded a genclraf cooperation with the bureaucraGc norms of the intematimal rcll'ugee relief re@mefor the distribulim of food, provision of ~nedwith lcaders, registration, water, a17d sani.tary conditions, and other conditiom ftlcifi.tatingthe d i s ~ b u t i m of international aid. Also c o n ~ b u to ~ gheir resettlement: was the fact that they bmraght with them the blue and white W-supplied plastic h r n the Rumdian camp" which they used to quickly build mdimentav shelters. The net result of the effort was a humanitmian and logistical success. The capakility of the Ngara operation had e x p a d d grclatly since the first h f l u x from. R u m d i only a, year and a half previously. Rut, as the forcibIe repatriation was to demmskate ten lnonths Iater, this was politically irrelevant. In retrospect this caufd have been seen from tbe responses of the UNHCR and their donms to influx. As described above, UNHCR was alrady hard-pressed to mcc?their obtiga~onsto thft LWF and others. In January 1996, internal squabhljng withi,n WSIJMClZ dso meant that the most senior positions at the UNHCR Mgara office w a e again vacant as a result of transfers and extended leaves. Confronted with the refugee Mux, on-site WHCR staff did respond by drawing m
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as yet unused stocks uC food and financial accounts m hand, and perdtting the use of UNHCRlowned equipment. However, this was done without promises from their donors at USAXD or ECHO fm replenishment, ~ f t e c t h g htwood and Koninors continuing '"quick repatriation only" policy. Ullimately the IFRC stepped into the financial void with exnergctncy fun&. 7-he L u ~ e r a nWrld Federation also responded by soliciting churc"ndoc?rs in Europe and North Anterica for independent m e y to sperate heavy equipmat to set up caHlps and drill for water. Xt was also apparent at this time that dkisions were exnerght; within the T a m a ~ mgovernment. h response to the breach of the Tanzanian border by the refugees and continued fligh~ngnear Tanzania's border with Burundi, arellery began to appear along roads. The elnce of Krigadia General Msuya, a hawk w i t h the Tmzanim government, became more prominent, and it was whispered (not so quietly) that an invasion of Burundi was i m ~ ~ eduring n t the dry season of 7,996. Oddly mough, this occurred at a time when analyses by George Chponda, a U N W C R specialist in repatriation programs, were indicating that any votunmy repatriation to Ewanda was unlikly. Chponda, who ultimately took over coordimtion of the Ngara office in early 1995, exnphasized in his report Ehaf the banstan refugee situation was among the most complex he Ztad ever seen, and that claims (or rather wisher;) to the contrary should be discounted. Summer 1996: Aging Infrastructure, Perpetual Refugees, and Forcible Repat;t.iiation "I'he refugee c;rperaljon was mhlre by the summer of 1996, Over 500,000 refugees were living. in. Tmzani.a, and a local cornernus was reached that the sifruation in the existir~gcamps w u l d conkue indefinitely*&I the broader international front, new infarmatjon was emerging through which outside obsemers began to view the operation. The hint Evaluation c$ E~rzerfjencyAssistance ibo Rwand~,puhlisbed by tlte Danish htematimd Developmat A g m y Uatlida, pmised the overall effecliveness ud c'he operation in Tanzania. But it also blamed the international refugee relief regime, particdarXy as it operated in Zaire, for the failed prosecu~onof the perpetrators of genc?cj.de. The lintcmatioml rrzfugee relief regj,,, oddly enough, tacitly accepted this blame, even though no agency had po&cingor judiciaf a u ~ o r i t y More imyortamt, the Mohutu regime i,nZ a k hegm to fragment, owhg in part to the destab.ilization in the east associated with the Rwandan c group-uppmted refugee calnps. Rebels from the Banyamulmge e by the RPF govemtnent in Rwanda and led evenhlally by Larrrent Ka-
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c3nquaed subsmt-jal portions of Zaire*Hutu mifitia gained the upper hmd in the Zairean camps and began to assert sovereign@,often violently, over tlne ca~npsand the corner of Zaire h e r e they were located. The Rwamdan gover ent in Kigali responded by supportirrg the B a ~ ~ y a m ~ I e nrebels, ge who were spposing the rump Rwandan government. The response of the international community was to prepare a Camadiarn-l& force that would rmstablish security amlrnd tbe camps on behalf s f the international humnitarian community, The Canadian trroops never arrived, thou&, because in tRe meantime, ehc Danyanzulenge d itheir allies directly supported by the Rwmdan Patrio~cArmy wcupied the Zairem camps and dispersed the refugees, about 650,000 of the 1 d l i o n refugees mowed silerrtly and apprehemively back to Rwanda, where they were ordered back to their home districts. 'The other 350,000 fled into Zaire, where they became the focus for mjlikry activity in coming mmths. Oddly the United Statc-lsled a p o u p of gove time denying there wero ~ f u g e e left s in Zajre. C)f thcse 350,000 many died of vicltmce, hmger, disease, and other causes, A portion were repatrriakd by air later in 1997 (Human Rghts WBtch 1997:13, k ~ n m h a n d 199) Eventually s o w we= airlgted by UNHCR back to Rwanda from central Zaire. But hundreds sf thousands of Rwandans disappeared into Zaire by fleeing, dying or simply disappearhg into surrounding countries well beyond the lenses of CNN. This human mgedy has been call,& a "quiet genocide" by &servers like Ren&Lcmarcfiand (2999). 'The activiq in Zaire/Congo did not necessarily have anyfiing dkectly to do w i h the refugee sihration in Tanzania,ll Nevertheless, the Tmzani-. am, with the acquiescence s f the UNHCR and its donors, organized a forcible repatria~onhorn Tanzania back to Rwanda. Most refugees resisted by disobeyin;, marching as a sexniorgdzed colu Tanzania either along main roads or into an unpopulated, game reserve near the camp. This Riijht cmtin~edh r t-tL.0 days until relaGvely peaceful ermfrontat-jonswith the Tanzaniam military occurred. Under orders by the mifitary, the refugees halted, the direc.tion of flight was reversed, and a ~nassretzlm to Rwanda began. Simultaneously, f i t h e Tanmniiin military organized a massive refuge cotu 51Karagwe, which walked 130 kilonneters (80 miles) over a period, of about one week, The UNHCR facilitated this by providing high-protein biscuits and water at specified sites, while complyjng wit-h Tmzanian orders that afl relief operizf-lms in the camps were to be discontinued.. During a t-tL.0-week period in late December 1996,400,OC10 .to 500,000 refugees crosxd back into Rwanda by fnwt (Lemarchand 199""1:1(36). Objections to the moire from the hiternational c nity were muted, even though there were not the lnilitary rntperatives found in Zaire. 'The gen-
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eral assumption was that what occurred was best; that d e s s the issue were forced, the refugees would nst return, and would continue tu be a drain on the k~temaGonalCO unity, and a &eat .to regonal po&tical stabiiiQ.2 2 the interest of expedience, the rhetoric of p r o t e c ~ g international humanitarian principles agaimt forced repatriation was dropped. Only small numbers of refugees, n u ~ ~ b e r i ning the hundreds, remahed of-ficidyin Tanzania. The Karagwe camps were closed and. the camysites rehrned to bush. Benatlo and Msubura c m p in Ngara district were also closed. Lumasi has been kept T e n , and as of mid-2000 conthues to be used as a spillover camp for Burmdiam who have continued to arrive in Tanzania, Other camps, including Kita1.i Hilts and Keza, have been kept open for Bunlndi @erations to expel Wandans from Tanzmia conainued in 1997, dthough Tanzania did reopen the transit camp at Mbuha For RwandaPl refugees in 1998. By late 1998, there we= some 4,090 Rwandans housed there under the proteclion of the WHCR; this was less thm 1, percat ofl the number of Rwandans who ha.d sought asylum in TTanzania since 1994. This mmbw was again increasing in 1949, with reports on thrt '"did itax;imAffairs indicaCing Web'Web site of-the UV Departmat of Mu that 20,000 to 40,000 Rwmdms were beistg housed in Tanzania. It is also cwdibfy pok~kdout h a t many of the putatively Bumndian rclfugees in Tamania arc in fact: from Rwamda. In Tanzania, &ough, they pass as Bumndians in order to receive a s y h .
Postmortem: How Sustainable Wre the Tanzanian Camps? The threats to the Tmzanian c m p s were, during their existence, perceived as k i n g mated in materid needs. Th%ater,firwood, food supplies, security, ddisease outbreaks, and ovcxrowdhg were perceked, as potential causes for heir damfall. UttimateIy, &ough, none of these conditions were the cause of the b ~ a k u pof the camps. &&er, the breahp was because the hterna~onalc nity mderestimated the refuges' rdience, even in conditims of privation. Far from being on the v c s r ~of ecological, cdlapse because of water and fisewood; short-ages, as p e dicted, the c a m p were at the time of their d e e r s a l in late 1996 differentiating into communiities facing more and more towad Tanzania and away from Rwanda. Even the internd camp polif-ics were improving. Dstribu~onsf relief item in the Rwandan camps in Tmzania was nut tigbtfy controlled by Interahamwe, nor was there evidtence -that the camps had a milihty capabiiity Cor invading Rwmda. Xdeed, the camps were not that different h m , camps in oher parts of the world that lasted many more years and cmtinuct .to cxist.
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The Rwnda.n repa&iati.~n was settled not: on the basis of the technical masons typjcatly poirtted to, but because Western donors were unable to sustain mord imperatives for the assistmce propam to con&~ue.The sitrrat-ion of the Wandan efugees in the camps was m longer frmed as one whose driving imperative was kurnmitariart need, but rather as one ddined by perceptions of how gmocide had occurred. As a resutt, the largest fal-cible repabialion since Worfd Mrar I1 hecam possjhle.
Notes 1.There had in fact been flip-flops on the issue in UNHGR. In July 1994, confronted with the mass ft-ight tc:, Zaire, LINHCR quickly nego~tiatedm agreement with the approximately week-old governmmt in Kigali, wlhich was still fighkg a war. In September, UNEICR pronomced the situation in Rwanda as being too unsettled for a quick return and reversed themselves again by Nrzvember (Pottier 196:324). 2. MSF-France at the same time also wificlrew from UNHCR mdical conkacts in Kibondo for X'fur~lndianrefugees whc:, had no imaginable associaGun with the genocide. They withdrew from Kibmdo on the golands Ehat they were an emergency organization, and that these camps were in '"are-and-maintmanceff phase, and no Icjnger required their services. The Intematic3nal Rescue Co took over the contracts far medical services in Kibondo, 3, The memo, which was developed in March 1995, appears below, Notably, this is part of the context in which the Tanaanian border was closed to refugee for the first time in April 1995.
FORUM OF:N.G.Q"s in the Ngara District, Tanzania [March 19951 Regarding: the Prestmt Food Crisis in Kagera Bsbict (Tanzania) and Surrounding Regions . . . The sihxaGon is such that food ra~oningat the present level will only last for two weeks. The present ratic3n is 1908 KcaX which is the internationally recopised m i ~ m u m level, Implications for health m d nutrigon in decreasing relations below 3900 Kcal is disastrous-.. . . If no food is fort-hcorningirnmediately within the next two weeks, if:is mlikely that N,G.B"s in this area will be able to operate either efficiently or safely. The effect of 640,000 starving refugees from the Kagera regon is very wriotls bath in twms of securiv and the local pc)pulation%envirtznment, There has been no food donated to the Rwmdm-Burundi Rrtfuges since October 1994. . . . The forced mass rehxm of Rwandan Refugem is completely unacceptable in the present poligtical. climate, and so would be the widespread destruction caused by desperate refugees in Kagera regir?n.Tb avoid a pc3ssible out;break of mass violence and uncmtrollable instabiliv urgent food supplies are needed now. . . .
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The situagon is such that the quc?rj-t-;ion of N.C.O. evacuagon has now become paramount. The safety of refugees, Tanzanians and aid workers within this region is likely to deteriorate. . . . [siped] AEF Dapm], AICF [Frmcef, CARE, CONCERN [Ireland], Christian Outreach/Tear Fund Alliance [UK], DRA [Holland], GTZ [Germany], IRC [USA], MSF Holland, MSF Spain, NPA [Noway], a f a m fUKf The memo is more interesting for how it frames problems than for its analysis. Rations drc3pping below 1,900 Kcal does not always cause food riots and result n organizing raids on expain refugees' marauding neighborhg T a n z ~ a fields, triate living compounds, or kidnapping expatriate workers. Yet such occurrences were predicted both in the memc:, and orally in meetings (see also Shoharn 1996). The central point is that this memo reyresenk a return to the management of "crisis" rather than qstematic inference and analysis of the existing refugee situaticm. Agencies from Ngara that did not sign the mernr? included LWF, the Tanzanian Red Cross, the Tntmagond Federation of the Red Cross, the Islamic Relief Organization, TCRC, and Garitas. I dc3 not know whether agencies working in Karagweflike Memisa or Save the Children! were approached or not. The point is that the major international NGOs in Ngara acquiesced to the UNHGKs verbal encouragement tc:, s i p the petiGon. The two MSIF agencies and AICF both left Ngara shortly after the mernr) was circulated. 4. Des Forges (1999:728-731) describs the context for this assertion. An internal report by Bob Gersony was prepared in Spternber 1994, which detailed RPP executions in eastern Rwanda. Qne of the pieces of data cited was that during the last week in August and the first week in Sptember, an average of five bodies were pulled from &e Akagera River (see Chapter I?). 5. A great deal of resources were successfulfy put into cholera prevmtion in Tanzania, Partly as a result, the major smitaticm problem throughout the crisis was not cholera, but bloody diarrhea. Indeed, since late 11993, when Burundian rehgees first anived, Moody diarrhea was tcz be the primary cause of death iul the refugee populations. The main outbreak in Benaco was from May to September 1994 UEEAR 1996). This distincGon was probably maintained in part because whenever choXera did appear, there was an efketive raponse. Bloody diarrhea, like chc3lera, is highly correlated with sanitation condi-tiions, water quality, and water prc>vi;slic>n, 6. Ccmtent of this radio stagon's brcjadcasts became an issue between UNkICR m d JfPS, %me at WHCR considered it to be "repatriation radio." JRS did not consider Ehe promotion of UNkICR repakiation policies to be appropriate, and resisted UNHCR effurts to focus the radio progams on this issue (personal cornmunica~(3n,Mark Raper, S.J.,JuIy 5%9). 7. Philip Gourevilch (1998:198-208) has written an account of the massacres and their aftermath frcim the perspec-t-;iveinside Rwanda. Matever the mo.liva were or whoever may be blamed for the massacres, it was clear that they had a chilling ef-fect on rqatriation efforts in Tanzania. See also Prunicsr 19;7:362-363.
The Opcmtiotz Winds Glow@
8. Another Lypology that gained some popularity was developed by the United States Committee for Refugees (15398) which said that there were five salient social groups in Rwanda: Tutsis who survived the gmocide; Hutus remahing inside Rwmda after the genmide; Tutsi refugees who rehimtd in 19% after having fled to Uganda in 1959-64; Hutu refugees who returned from the Zairean, Tmzanian, and Burmdi camps in 1996; Tutsis who returned from Zaire and Burundi. 'This may well represent a snapshot or realiv in 1997 and 1998. Htzwever, it also reflects the need of bureaucracies to cliassii%, even in a context where such realiy is fast-changng. lkis becomes a problem when one particular classification scheme become rigdified by bureaucratic fiat and has Ic?ng-lashng consequences for fuhrre social action. Johm Pottier has discuswd this prc3blern in his article "Relief and Repakiation: Views from Rwandan Refugees; L,essons for k-lumanit-arimWorkers.'" 9, The refugees inTamania were by and large H u h frczm eastern Rwarrda whrz arrived in May-Novemba 1994. In late 1994 and throughout 1995,400,000 tc:, 600,000 Tutsi who had lived in Burmdi, Zaire, Uganda, anct 'I-kmania resettled in Rwanda. Many occupid the houses abandr3ned by the Hutu refugees. 10. Observing before this visit P o ~ e (1996:423) r reports that refugees were predicting that camps would be closed for exactly this reason: the cost of the camps would become primary, and an infc~rmedpdi.tical reading secondary. 13. In 19;7 the name of Zaire was changed &e Democratic Republic of the Congo, 12. There are persistmt rumors that the United States was involved with the shift in policy. The expulsicln, it is speculated, was taken at the behest of the Clinton addnistra.tiun, which has established a close relatiomhips with t k new RPF government in KigaXi. The Clinton administraGon also had aggressive policies regarding the development of meclhanisms for the prosecuticzn czf war criminals, part-icularfythose who differ with official United Sates policy.
PART TWO
h Part I the elements of refugee crises were discussed: the polilical, financial, moral, and tcrcMcal a s p ~ t sThis . has been developed in a fashion to help undwstand and cxplain what happened to thft Rwandans in Tamania. The point of doing this is to iilust.rate the potent-lalrelevance ofl the concept of the "Rureaucrat-ized Good Samaritan" in understmding the streng&s and weaknesses of the intematicmal refugee relief re is, I hope, a fairly straightforwad stor?, told as wrative about how the internatjonal refugee reiicf regime developed., the mmd assumptions underlying it, and finally how it operated in one crisis, Rwanda. Irr Part Two, I show how the Bufeaucratized Good Samaritm shped decision-making in three d*erent s e w of the emergency effost in 'Tanzania: con&~gency pl ,water provi?;ion, and r e p o m e h,violent death m d genocide. M h e e sectors were qproached in a bwealxcral.ic fashion using rationally derived oqani.zat-imalprinciples. Indeed, each setor i s approached in this fashon in other sihtations. Irrdeed, in h e cases of water pmvision m d judgmenk about violat dea&f whole schooh m d collegs of e n g i n e e ~ g and law exht to train a body of specialists in a predicltal7fe fashion. However, in the context of the Bt~reaucralizdGood Sannaribn ,the prkcitrional press-driven dec4isionh field, wEch are by d e f i ~ t i m rationalized, are point out that I-hey hcome d.rstorted in a patts inequally pauerned The advantage of leaking at these sectors at such a "micro" level is that the patterns icfentified can be used to establish principfes for inferring what the broader weahesses seen in the Rwmda operation were. This permits us to go to the next step, which is ttll make inferernes about why the Rwandan operation ended up having such an unfo~seenresult: the forciloilc return of over one million Rwandans, despite the explicit goal of
a~ioidingthis result. As in the thee technical sectors, the conthuing need to generate emotion means that the sbeztgths of bu~aucrat-icsrgmization cannot be fully utilized, In this process of generating emotim, the analysis of the overall cclmplexiQ ideremit to '"cornpiex"' emergerncy was simplified. The cnd result was that the comple?tjv ikelf was never hctored into the way overall policies developed. hskad, in situatiom with multiple causes, simpte sofut.ons were offered, rejected, and then replaced with yet anotfner simple soluti.on or explanation. The rc-rlianceczxl simple solutions was made mcessary by the political need of funding agencies to 1egiitimt-edecisions to fund refugee relief i,n chunks digestible in the motion-driven, popular press, As a result, the burwucra~cimalysis, which was no re fhely t m d to the complexity in a complex emergency, was ignored, despite the fact that plenw of analyses of the Rwanda refugee sifruation, that emphasized the complexit). of the issue were mailable. Privileged in broader public discourse, however, w e '"one answcr'"jzlstifieations for action, iTncluding at different times primeval etMc habeds, chdera, and genocide. The ixnplicat-ionsof this simplification for the Rwmda emergency art. dtiscussed in Chapter 12. But what happend in Rwmda is not wique to the managers of that exnergctncy Rather, it is the comequence of bureaucratic norms and procedures eshhlished during the Last 51) yeas by succeeding efcments of the intclmational refugee relief regime. h y attempt at refor to take account of the fact that the ""irrationalitiesffdescribed in the Rwanda case are embedded in the broader bureaucratic sbuctures and relationships, These struchres and relationships reflect the history of refugee relief in places as diverse as Biafra, Tbailanci, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, where they developed. As 1 write (September 1999), a similar process is playhg itself out in Kosclvo and bef;innhg in East Timol: At the efld of the Allied war in Yugo"lavia, a nuxnber of countries pledged troops! police, and money with wKcb to police Kasovo. Two m n & s a& ter the pledges were made, only a small pmporhon of the enthusiastically pledged resources had arrived, reflecthg, agah, X think press conferemcederived wishes for operalional.capacity. As in Rwmda, when it actuallg; comes time to correlate needs on the ground with the capacity to mobilize, train, and equip actual persome1, the capacity is quite different, The Masouo situal,icm, like others before it, is estabkhing expectations for humanitarian capafojlities that are too high, The skength and w a h e s s e s of these rdationships are discussed in Chapter 13, Finally! Chapter 14 asks the broadest questim: How can the in,l-tereatf: iifitatiom of the Bureartcratized Good Samaritan be overcome"!ureaucratic decision-making ~nusthe separated from the requirements of the popular press for sbries, so that: the streng-ths of both can he realized.
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The press with its prabhg eye is importmt in mairrtai~ngthe ktegriq and honesty of bureaucrats in the internatimal refugee relief re@mt., who, like bureaucrats everywhere, have an uhealCSly need to be secreulation of humaktariarr, paticy to cater to perceived press needs is also unhealthy. It distorts the primary strength sf the refugee assistance agencies, which is the ability to coordinate the large complicated bureaucra.tic task uf humanitarian relief.
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The Limitations of Contingency Planning
In retrospect, it is well known, that refugees have been Geing from di to Tmzania since 1993. It is also easy, in reeospect, to see specific fl,igl-rtsas resrrlting from precipitating political actions, such as the assasshation of President Melchior Ndadaye (Bumndi 29931, the d a t h of President Habyarimana ( b a n d a 1994), genocide (19%), advmce by the RPF fI994), fear of accountabilit-y.far gcncrcide (1994)' consolida.tion of authority by the invading WE: (md-I994 to early 19f15), attacks on refuee caxnps in mthem B u m & f1996), and the capof m Zaire by hnyamukfzge militja f199S). the Goma ~ g i of But these are all ex post-facto expfmations, made after men&have occurred and are then framed in a m er ~nakingsense in the context of the next poticy choice. When the events were occurrkg, they were not necessarily frarned in the same way. Most notori.ous as incvrrect h a m h p were the descriptbns of figh~ngin Rwanda in April anci May 1994 as '"civii w a r ' h d not a g genocide.'"^ critjcs are quick lo point out, framing the events as a genocide would have been a kg& and moral cmclusion with implications for M;kich policy choices were available. In the same vein, framing the attack on the president of Burundi in October 1993as a coup meant that the internationaf connmuni.v did not believe in the potential for mass refugee fli&t; in contrast, coup m o r s from Burun& in June 1994 and July 1996 led to the apeclation of mass refugee flight. Tn effect, the emergency itself changed the basis for how conditions were evaluated. As will be seen below, this analyticat shift depended irr part on which bureaucracies were present and what their interm1 interests were. Anlicipating fueUre evclnts and policy options r e q u i ~ mox s -than m after-&@-:actassessment of .what:happened before. Making usefut pre-
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dictions it requires analpis in orcler to infer possibiliks in the luture. This is contingency planning, and it is done all the time in the refugee bushess, either explicitly in contingency plamir~gsessions, or implicit@ in dccisjom a b u t where to posi~onstaff, offices, materials, and, equipment, Such predictions are rooted in assumptions about how potential refugees will rclspondt to future events. How effective these predictions are (and by externion the uncleeing assuntpitions) can be evaluated logical@ There are four f.ogica%results:
l. Positive prediction: Analysis and inference accurately predict the nature of a refugee movement. 2. :Negativeprediction: No acticzrt is t-akm, and there is no a refugee movement. h exeeme example is the implicit policy along the border of Canada and the United States: there are no stocks or odate relugees on either sicie of the border. 3. False posi~vepredjction: A rt.fugee m0vernen.t.is predjcted, resources are xnobifized, and refugees do not appear. The little boy who cried ' * ~ o l fhad " a prhlem with too many fatse posiCive predictions. 4, False negative prediclrions: No refugee movement is predicted, and refugees do appear. 'The inkmational co urnwares by a refugee movernmt It will be demomkatttd hat when h e intematic-mal refugee re in place, there is a tendency to aniticipale refugee movements. This results in more Mse positives, and fewer f a t s negatives, than would occur if the
international refugee regime were not in place. haclion (i,e,,negatives), mems that there wiil be more false mgalivect. False negatives generaay sccur when the more conservative diplomatic and devetoy~~ent communities are present. Typically, false negatkes happen when prediclions are made by hystmders (for example, diplc.1m&) rather than speciakts from. the internaGonal refugee relief regime. Such anticipators do not necessahly have a vested bureaucratic interest in action. Bath Mse negaitives and fahe positives arc?,basicatly, mistakes, and are viewed as such by after-the-fact evaluators of a refugee relief operation. Mistakes of both types in turn affect haw Ike predictors are evaluated by each other. False Negatives and False Positives in the Great Lakes, 199696
h the context of refugee relid, the false negatives-when a disaster occurred despite predictions it would not-are the biggest problem. The reason that the flight of Kurudians into T m a n i a was unexpected iS that
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it wa,s a false negalivt3; a sihratjon .where? there was an implicit assumption that refugee flight would rzot occur fclllowing elections and an assassination. htlically, much c-tf the success of the Ngara veration is attributable to the preparedness induced by the false negative presented by the earlier I993 Rumndi catastrofie. False positiws--cases when a refugee lnovement is predicted and nothing happens-also do occul: There was a rapid serjes of these false p ~ s i ~ vdWrjllg es the Ruianda crisis in Tanzania, I.eading to the '"boy who called wow phenomenon: successive warnings that did not result in the predjcted cr'isis we= taken less and less seriously. The orighs of t.he fahe positives is embedded in the need fsr press colrerage to s b u l a t e funding. nrlze magazine s h o w up for action, nrlt inaction. Thir; creates a structurat conundrum in the business of predicting refugce movements. 'The in.ternationat refugee relied regime, with iB emphasis on saving lives m d humanitarian aid, is acutely aware of the potential embal-rassment of being found flabfooted (false negatiw) when a refrrgce movement occurs. They point out, rightly that a vigihnt, proactive relief comnuniq can save lives. Not coincidentally, this also implies continued funding for contingency programs, stantlby capabii.ity, and m m o d i w stockpiles. All of this feeds the blxreaucratic need to expand. '"Anticipation'kn the part of NGOs became an important part of the opmatian in Tmzmia behiveen 1994 and 1996. Early in the crisis, anticipatjm of fur&er di.saster loosened the purse strhgs of Western donors.. UNHCR and NGO staff in Ngara were acutdy awme of this and mticipated furl-lser crises in which more ~ f u g c ewould s need to be accommo-. dated, and relief bureaucracies expanded, Hovv well we= refugee movements anticipatcsd in Tmzania betlilreen the first influx in late 1993 and the final fnrcible repatriatim in hte 1996? How were refu.gces"riews perceived, and their motivations for movemerrt-whether in Bi&t to Tamania or for potential rehxm to Rwandaassessed? Movemats both out of counbies of origin, and back to countries of srigin can be matyzed, in terms of the four success/failure positions described above; both types of movements are cxamples of bow the refugeesr decision-making is perceived by the adminislrators in the UNHCR and related agencies, (See W l e 9.1 for a synopsis sl this analysis.) In this analysis of NGOs' contingency planning, the views of the refugees are secondary What is irnpsrtant is how the refugees are per, 4 3 1 the basis of these perceptiom, preceived, not what they say or lin-?linaryconcf.usiomare reached about the mture of wbat successful pasit-ivepredictions, successful.negative pre&cGons, fadse positives, and false negatives tell us about Lhe conditions wder Mihich refugees move, and the condi~onsurrdcr which they do mt. This c m be fot,)owedan Table 9.1.
TABLE 9.1 Successes and Failures of Cczntingency PI Burundi Cristlr; in Tanzania, 1993-1W6
Xtrre
ing in Ehe R w m d a and
Policy Assumpfions
Actual Result
V o l m t q repatrialion of Burundians peaceful reh ~ t e g r a ~in o tBurmdi. ~
War, Oct. 1993, and fli@t back to Tauania.
Na major refugee Right foltowiI1g coup,
Tnlerp~la tbn
False negative
Establishment of "Tamanim camps for B u r w ~ d i a ~ .
R e h m to Burmdi, few stay in Tmania.
False positive
Jhath of president, clectioag result: in Bi&t to Tamania.
No flight.
False positive
Jhath of president rwultts in small number ct,f Rwanda~s, but big problem Bumndians
13artialpmifcive; size of flight undereslirnated
Arusfia Actcords call far systematic reil~tegra2ionof Tutsis.
l;af W posit.ix~e
Parliamenbry etec~onsin Burundi lead to flight pr\t.dic-gctns.
EXcct-itmshetd without major incident..
False positive
RPF victory and peace. Volw~taryrepatria~oi~ promoted.
More Rwandans flee.
False negative and false g m i ~ ~ ~ e
S m m e r 1994Early 1995
No policy; Old caseload resettled in in~;u,miiil,
20,t)OO %tsi repatriak.
False ~rzegative
Dec. 1994April 1995
Renewed viole~~ce in Burw~di leads to plans for the r w e p iritm of severat hundred thousand Burundians.
About 45,000 Burmdians and 25,000 Rwandans from n. Burundi arrive. Barder dosed.
Early 19%Early 1996
UNHCR aggc%sivelypromotes volmta~ repatriation programs.
About 400t) refugas accept offer, half of bvf~oxnare Bwundims.
hcreased fighling in n. Burmdi leads to cc)nEingency pjaming for 150,00QBurundians and Rwmdalw.
Abrrrlt 30,W11 arrive,
P a r ~ apositi~re; l size of flight o v e r e s ~ ~ted na
Blcjw-up.
Few rehgees to "Tama~ia
Forcible wpakiatian.
False piirive (?)
July 1994
April 1996
fnclrmsd f i g h ~ n gin Burundi.
July 1996
Coup in Burundi.
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Burundi, 1993-94: Voluntary. Repatriation F~lZoweBby Violent Expulsion The internalional cclmmurmitry focused on refugee movemen8 inTanzania between 1993 and 1996, Ironically the story starts with a large voluntary repatriation program. The first major population movement involving the Great 'Lakes region in 1993was the =turn of Burundian refugees who had been living in Tmzastia since 1972-74. Returns occurred surreptjtic-rusjydurIn.g the early 399C)s,reestablishing social ties behyeen Bu dians living inside and outside Burundi. Ironicailfy; Burmdians most hterested in repatriation were Found not along the border settlements, where s~xneassingarcion had ocmrred, but in the remote setitlemenb in the irmterior of Tanzania .where ethnic consciousness was most pronomsed (see Malkki 1^994)." Sllbstantial portims of thc Rurundian refugees, perhaps as many as fiO,t)UO, made their way back to K u n r n d i following the si tite agreement between Burundi, Tanzania, and the UNHCR in 1991 (Le~narchand1994:172-176). A formal provaln for lhrt expected repatriation of 60,000 more wa,s scheduled far 1,993, a process that: was apparently speeded up when tens d thousands qu.ietly left for Burundi spsntaneously following Preside& Ndadaye's election in July even before .ehe official repatrciatjon,buses made their first trip. The first UNHCR-sponsored trips were made in early OctOber 1993, and appxenlly about 4,000 refugees were mmferred to a &antiitcamp at that time. Fo2lowing the assassination uC President Ndadaye on October 21, the repatriation center beclame a target of the rebel2ious elements in the army m d all refugees were apparently kilted. C e r t ~ l y that was the assumption in Katunrba refugee s e t t h a t in western Tmzania when 1 asked about their fate in July 1994; nsne of their relatives had any word durlng the preceding year I-hat they were alive, alfiough small nu~nbers ofl survivors from earlier yeas had fnanaged to sneak back to Kahrntba, Following tlne Rurundi repatriation, there were two quick pof3ula&on movements to and from Tmzania. First, about 250,000 refugees left Burundi in late November and December 1993 far k a n i a , and perhaps anot.her 450,000 left for Rwanda and Zaire. This flight (described in Chapter 5 ) was not anticipated by I-he international community, MihicR subsequently blaxned itself for behg unprepared (it acknowledged the false-negative situatian).As a result, a popula~onthat arrived in Tanzania healthy sufl'ered from high rates of malnutrition and, ultimately, pulaEiolil would remah in Tanzadeath. O11 t_he asr;umptiun that nia, substmGal resources were ted to the region by tl-te WFP and UNHCR in late 1994. Howcwer, by I-he time these resources arrived, the
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unanticipated happened again. By early March, 90 percent of these refugces had rcbmed to Rurundi, despite the fears of the international unity that that counby, which was pl g elecGons, was unskble, Irtdeed, they even rehrned as new slayings were reported in Bujumbura (Los Angel= Enres 1994). 'The intemational relief regime'?; reading of Burundian political and refugee sihration in 199S94 was pwr, Policy did not reflect welt what was happefing in Rurundi, and/or the refuge population, .Anticipators were ""zero for three" with a false negative (refugees could repatriate safely, and no preparalion was neded), follo-cved by anofier false negative (tht assassination would not result in refugtle flight, and no preparatim was needed), and findly a false positive (refugee relief in Tanzania was required-but then the refugees returned to Burundi spontaneously).
Rwanda and Burundi, 2984 C l n i"lpril0, 1994, the presidents of both Rwanda and Bwuncii died in a
pfane crash in Kigali,. This followed furthr negotiations on a peace agreement between the Rwandans of Habyarinrands ruling MEND (Mouve~nentK4volutionnaire NaGonal pour le DBveloppe~nent)and the WF in which the repatriafion of rhe Tutsi diaspora refugees from 1960s had been agreed to. Et also closely fotlowed assassinations in Kigalj in late Fe-bruary 19994 (Pmnier 1996:20&207) and massacres in Burundi in early Masch 1994 (Los Angeles Tinzes 7.994). During the early days following the crash, anticipators predicted a. refugee fight of Hutu from Burundi to Tanzania. The reasoning went that the coup and the dea& of a president in October 1,933 created conditions for flight, as they had, the previous year. The intermtionaf refugee e p i d less attention to Kwanda, where events becamrt morcl horrific, but Which had little history of flight to Tanzania. Unlike Burundi, Rwand.a did not have a recent tradi..tion s f refugee flight across borders, Nevertheless, with the recent events in Burundi in mind, UNMCI< staff were assigned to Rlgara in mid-April, in part to supervise the few remaining Burundi refugee assistance programs, but also to make surveys in -the interest of preparehess.2 These were tlne staff who were on hmd when the Rwatndams crossed the bridge on April 2&20 and were di.rected,to the campsite that was to become Benaco, Benaco was the first partial success in tenns of prepmdncss. In large part the success was due to what b,ad happened in K u r u n d i ; staff and eyuipment were on the ground when the refugees arrived. fn terms s f anticipation and p~paredness,this situaGon c m be viewed as a partiaf success. The size of the influx and its origins we= different than .what
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was anticipated, but the degree of preparedness that was present contributed to the success in the operation &roughout mid-1994." 'The success of tlne Benaco operation put in Tanzania a large numb- of expatriates embedded in bureaucracies providing the services refugees would reyuire to stay or return. Tt atso highlighted the issue of what would happen next; more specifically what event would satisfy donors in the West who funded the operation. Very quick1.y it became apparent that a xnassive rebm to Rwanda was what was desired at the h i g h bureaucratic levels in Geneva, New York, and Dar es Salaam. As a consewence, field staff searched for signs ofl this during 1999-3.and 1995, even as new refugt.es colttlnued to arrive. The combhation of the two conflickg pressures, from the field anct from distant capitals, meant h a t field persome1 needed to reconcile policy pressures &at were not just hcomistent but mutually contradictory. Either refugee were coming from casetoads and demands, or they were goir~gback Rwanda and increasir~g m d thereby decreashg demands. Logically you could not have both; in Ngara, &ough, they did.
7Ke net result fctr thrtse conh;adickiorrs for pla ng assumptions was two false negaliva and t-wc:, false positives. Howf why, and when did this occur? :Meekgs of UN and NGO sBff were held in Ngara in May and June to discuss the potential for fur&a arrivals. "I%epariliamenhry etectians and national day celebrations in Burundi cm July 5 were of particufar concern. Uavid b1nb4 of -the Los Angeles nnles reflected hese concerns when he wrote on f une 4,11994: All but forgc3tten by the world, this na.t-ion[Bu di] hangs in nerve-racking suspension, bailanced beween forces that dare pray for conciliation and those who would turn this troubled land into another Rwanda. The slightest misstep could tip the balance. h d after a year in wKch Burundi witnessed its first free eIectic>ns,the murder of W Oof its presidents and a massacre that clairned as many as 100,000 lives, the specter of mcontrollable slaughter in a neigfibo~ngland is a very real, very chilhg. "Rwanda is terrifying and terrible,"' said henerand Bakeymusa ya, E3urundi" sinister of Xabor. "One would think it would have taught us to avoid that kind of madness, but there is a very real danger that what happened there could happm here. The calm you see here FZS)VV is not a reassuring calm. . . ." The deep rnisbust beween the Tutsi and Hutu in Burundi, combined with fears that chaos in Rwanda could infSarne extremists on both sides
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here, has filled this ramshackle capital, with anxiety and a well-founded xenuphrzbia. The countdown is under way, but no one knows if it is toward war or peace. . . . The neiIr;hborhoods where Tutsi m d Hutu once lived side by side and often intermarried have become largely segregated-valuntari1y-after violent clashes in Bujumbura over the winter and into the spring [of 1994f.Vietims hacked to death were almr)st &ways Tutsi; those killed by bullets were Hub. . . .
Refugee workers across the border h m . Burundi in Tanzania were w l l awme of what famb was w r i k g about. Ari Lamb did, they framed the potent-id for viofctlce against what had. happened in Rwanda durir.tg previous months, and as a result, expected iltlfluxes were described in the hundrctds of thousands. " M a t will happen in Buruncii will make what happemd last month in Rwmda look like a tea party,""thurt$ered one agency head at a UNHCR meeting in late 'June, IJNHCR hastened to point out h a t July 5 was Rurundi" nationd day, and the date for parliamentary elections, arl$ therefore was a parEicdarly propitious date for a coup and the outbreak of violence resulting in refugee flight. Border monitoring was increased, supply reqmisitims prepared, staff put on smdby, l a v a camcetd, ageatcies sol ly committed to preparedness. Despite the dire predi.ctzions, few Rurundi.a~rsmaterialized, and for the first time since May, there was acbally a lull in refugee flight into 'l'anzania inf uly 1994. tn term of contingency pl W , this was a false poitive. The refugt.e influx which did rnatcrialize came in August, and were in fact Rwandans fleeing the final RPF push in the tiouthwest, not Burundims. This w a n t that despite the misread s i t u a ~ o nagencies cod$ justif!. their preparations for the Burundian situation by pointing to the Rwandan influx. In fact the Rwmdans were not anticipated; in fact, they were not not-iccd until upward of 10,t10(1had ga&ered in remote border vjlfages near the point where the bmders of k z a n i a , Rwanda, and Burundi meet. The tens of &ousands of Rwandarts arriving in August 199.1, were p"nnarify residents of ssuthwest Rwanda, who cmssCd aver a small. corner of Buntndi before fleeing to T a m a ~ aThis . ~nomenthad not been anticipated, atthough fortunately the srastrucbre was estabfiShed to accommod.ate them, The infiux-ccurring at a time Mrhen Rwanda itself was h m h g to peace and the genocidal Inturnhamwe we= finafly being cmtrolled-was the opposite of what was eripected. Meed, the widespread speclxla~onamong the expatriates in Ngara was that with the decline in hostilities in :Kibungo prefecbre and the arrival of the plantir~gsctast:m, the vast propurlion of refugees in Blrcnaco would sponhneously =turn to
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Marnda. In effect, there was a false positive and a false negative. Repat.riation, which, was expected, did not occur, and flight, which w s zot expectcsd, did occur. The rqatria(ci,onsitualion was even m r e muddlod loy the end of 1994. What did materialize in term of repatriation, though, was unexpected. &&gee Tutsi from earlier diasporas began to appear at Ike border seeking repatriat-ion to Rwanda. These ilittsi wcre supporters of the RPF who had lived in 1Panzarj.a durhg tke previous 20 to 30 years, From TTanzmia, prolrably 10,1100 to 20,000 Tutsi returned to Rwanda between su 1994 and early 1995. An eslimated 700,000 more l& Kurundi, Uganda, and Zaire; many of the Tutsi from. Rurundj took over the homesteads vacated by the Hutu refugees in Ngma. This r e k m was orchestrated by the new Rwandm gover ent, which at its core was an orga~zalionof the "Rwandans abroad." The influx of the several hundred thousand rebmees Mri&aut coardinaGon ar assistmce fmrn m intematia nity caugM the UNNCR off guard; the UN and international c were mart; interested in restori.ng the pte-crisis status quo than facilitating the payment of RPF debts to supporkrs. More important for the sihation in Benaco, though, was the perception by the Hutu that Tutsi from Bumndi had occupied their abandoned farms. This unanticipated lnove clearly complicated p ng, it was a false negative. return*Xn terms of conthgency pl
Rwanda and Voluntary Repatfiation 2W5-96: L% Series of False Positives The raolutian of the Rwanda refugee crisjs was the comistmt god of the UNHCR throughout 1995 and 1996, Special sfficers were hired to encourc age voluntarqi repabiation, buses were brclul;kt to Tmzania, m d sbategzing sessions were =tabfished in order to orgmize a '"rmd march" back to Rwmda. 1was working in K a r a p e at the end of 1995, and the field officers there were parficularly aptintistic about the potential for a grand march, They wme parEicular)l encouraged when the leader of one of the camys in the very nmth offered to go back and, consistent with he&& that the r h g e e s were peasants wable to make heir w n dwisions about safety assumcd that the e n ~ camp e uC over 10,000 refugee would 1-1~hirm. with him., He wentually rehtmed, but with only his own family. In I995 and 1996, I was part of this hope, and passed on the mEnors and hopes in a series of mennormdums fny head office in Dar es Salam requested: LINHCR Ngara cclntinues to believe Ehat refuges do have a l e g b a t e fear of persecution should they rehxm to Rwanda. They also believe that there i s
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intimidation in the camp for those wishing to rehxm. . . . They [also] say that UNHCR Kgali, the Rwandan Goverment, and others c o n ~ u to e believe nda at any time safely*. . . itions within Rwanda vary LINIL-ICR ccmtinues to hold information meetings describing the conditions under which voluntary repakiation can occur thrcjugh official channels. UNHCR says that mass meetings are going well. According to UNHCR attendance at the mass meetings tc3 explain repat"iation is very encoura@ng and peaceful. . . . There is a standing order for five trucks on Wednesday and Friday momhgs. X talked to a few of our drivers today, and they indicate that they gather at the Benaco Pcdice Station each morning. Before the refugees had ta arrive at the police static3n on their C W ~ Pi new . policy is that the trucks are then sent to the houses of the refugees who have agreed to repabiate with a police escort. This is done in order that the profile of the repatriation can be raised among the refugee community*It also means that the volmteers have fewer chances to back out at the last miinute. . . . The drivers indicate that most of the repatriates are women and children, and that all are uneducated (accordingto one driver, there are S mm for every 40 women [and that1 ""none of the rehgees repatriated are able to read.". . . Tke drivers indicate that there is a great deal of fear, but [the refugees] are given no chance lo change their minds. . . . (August 31,1995) The Prefects of Kbungo and Byumba [Rwmda] visited the camps last Saturday in order to encwage the rekxm of refugees. These were the first visits of Rwanda g~3vernmentofficials to the camp. There is an indication that their visit is encouraging repabiation requests, Yesterday" repatriation was full for the first time (abaut 4 0 ) . . . . One entire commune of 4,0O p e c ~ ple has apparently applied to go back (October 12, lW5) [Note: The commune of 4,000 never materialized], . . . Repatriation in Ngara is picking up, . . . The repatriation is being encouraged by the UNX-ICR which has facilitated the flow of information back and forth from Rwmda. They have had two cross-border visits of refugees organized, and are using tapes and radio to send messages back and forth. . . . The gmeral imprasion is that intimidation is down. People returning to Rwmda seem happier leaving tX~anbefore, m d they are waved off by family and friends, . . . All concern& say that primarily women and children are going. . . . A number of NCQs are critical of the UNHCX;:for presenting a "donor-driven" kt-.oo-c)ptimisticpicture of political conditions in Rwanda. MSF Holland is most vocal, . . . Ml mail is read by Rwandan ~3ldiersat the border and the Rwandan Army at the border is not very pleasant. . . . The return of old-caseload Tutsi is con~nuing(Octcyber 31,1995).
None of the bureaucratized pushhg, cgalhg, bribhg, or coachg by UNHCR worked on, a large scale. Information shxing and, the "go and
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see" F o g r a m were an especially p a t p a t of the voluntary repatria~onprogram. This involved taking refugees to Rwanda., who would go "nd see what conditions wercrt Like at their homes, and then would he returned to the T m z a ~ camp. a Each of the s was pre-elearcd for the visits by the Tanzanian and Rmndm go ts and the UNHCR, Despite these precautions, there were confr bemeen rebmees and pew.1" in the home communes, A number of the visitors returned with tales about how they had heard whi about the wisdom of not retrume. UNHCR could respond with more oriwal than assertions that despite the care with wfich the individuals were selected, those who bmu&t back negative accounts were simply lying (see Essay 8). In fack actual repatriation never did keep up with the birthrate, much less the continuing influ from dosing c a p s in BurnnJi*The rqatriation goals were pursued as a result of UNFTCRfs belief that the RPF would honor agreements to retwn land and homes. Ewen reports by UNHCIC repat1.ia~onspecialists that the Rwmclans were far from ready to repatriate votuntarify did not cause shifts in policy. The policy thoughout 1995 and 1996 continued to he that all refugees could and should rehrn to Rwmda, and resources were invested in makhg this expecta~oncome h e . g decisions for rqatriation were in effect a series of false positives. The assessment of the sltltzltion by the UNHCR and dons= was that the refugees in Enzania were ready to repatriate voluntarily, if only material incenit;iveswero offered to facilitate it. m a t later evidence indicaks is that these assumptions were wrong, and the r e h g e s wert, nst ready to repatriate. The mistake was si.milar to that made along the Runtndi border in 1994, when predictions wcre .made that Burundi was set to "*explodeuand send refugee movements into Tanzania. 'This time though, it reflected bureaucratic wishes from central headqtlarters.
di conkued to be w a k e d by violence in late 19% a d into early 1995. The poten~alfor flight: from Burundi was a chonic issue. On the basis of visits to Burundi in f995, a special fact-hdcr ('"apporteur"') , from &c United Nations, Paufo Serge P ~ e i r c zwrote: The Z;pedal Rapporteur cannot but reiterate the thrust of the final cjbservations in his initial report [submitted in 19951. The dangem facing Burmdi remain considerable and the situation in the country may at any time explode, entailing mbearable consequences for Burundik population, mcontrollable mass movements within the country and at its borders! and finally [leading] to a loss of conk01 or ta a destabilization 06 the Great L,akes Region. . . . Tb p e r d t such a situation to de\aelr?pwould be to show =ant regard for the re-
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sponsibiliv borne by .Chose diredly concerned: Burundians, Africans-with the rulers of Burundi's neighbours in the front ZineEuroyetzns, and the other actors in the international communiE_y(PiAeiro 1996:11),
The idea that Burundi would "explode," as Phheko put it in his report, or was somehow balanced ""on the edge of a knife" (BaLzar 1994:A1), was a chrofic theme beween 1994 and 1996, The impl-lca~on was that when Burundi did explode, the result would be more catastrophic lhan what had been seen in the past in ter~nsof either violent death or refuge exodua Tn Tanzania, this resulted in a geari.ng up and relaxation of the contingenry apparabs on at Lcast four separate occasions. In each, the specter of the Rwanda crisis with its rmasshe and quick fiighl ofl refugem Loomed large, Less promhent in the planning assumptions was the more mundane experience with Burundi sinre 3999, in which refuees had "borderstraddled," mead% that there was a hack-and-fnrth movement across the border as local conditiom ebbed and flowed." :Many of the refugee movements were concentrated in northern Burun& along the borders with Rwanja and Tanzbit. h early W95, for the first time shce 2993, substanGa3 numbers of Burundians fled into Tanzania, a1thoul;h there was also a goodly proportion of RLvandans in thc refugee fIow- Predic-timsof massive flows of a xnawtslcle of hundreds of thausmds c m h u e d to be bandied about mtil the Tanzanians forcjibly closed the border to the refugee inftux for the first time inApril 1995. By the time the border had closed, there we= about 45,OUQ mare Burundims and 25,000 more Rwandans in Tmzmia.6 Thus, this was a partial success in terms of prqaration and p~dicticm;although the size of the d u x had been overestimted, the conkued influx was not a great surprise. As a result, the refuges were accomodated ina relatively efficient fashion. This was a partially positive prediceon. Renewed fighting in Kunrndi in Decexnber 1995 and January 1 9 6 1L.d to more concerns about a refugee influx, and contingency plans were established for the arrival of 150,OClf)in the event the Gnzanian government reopened the border. This did happen, and eventually agproximatety 30,000, most of whom, were Kwandans from refugee camps in di that had been closed, entered T m z a ~ aThis . was done relatively efficiently, inpart due to the overprepamtion for 1,40,OUO. Agaj-n, this was a partial positive prediction..
The Coup in Bumndi: 1996 The low-gmde fighkg in Buruncii had left kns of thousands of dead and was characterized by some as a "slow genocide," h m d i was widely
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viewed as a country in chaos. Observers claimed not to be surprised when the former president Pierre Ruyoya took the country over forcibly in a coup czxl July 26,1996. A Time.com bullek amo-unced, ""8urundi Findly Blows" on 'Jufy 31. The coup resulted in a strmg reaction from neighboring countries, wkich i diately clarnped on a trade embargo. of the country, the aftemath of the Ironically, @venIke recent ki coup was nut any more violent than evenb in recenf: months when there was no coup, Flight to Tanzania was not acctherakd by the coup, but by events in November 1996 in Zaire. The victory of the Rwmdan army and Banya~pzule~gc in Zaire resulted in not only the emptying of Ruiandan camps and their ~ a b i t a n t s 9 e t u m to h m d a , but also she e~nptying01Bu dim refugee camps in Zaire. This ~ s u l t e din a move of approxbately 100,OQOacross Burundi and into Tmzmia; at the same time, to the nor&, Rwandans were being evicted by the Tanzanian military, Bo& movemats were the opposite ofl what was eripected: a false poitive fapectation of flight fstlowing the coup), and a. Idse negative (the receprcion of refugees folbwing a forced repabiation),
The Forced Repatriation The final expulsion of I"dnzaniarsRwandan refugees occurred in December 19% The bulk had left Tmzania by Chrishnas, but roudups in Tanzanian villages were to conehut. mtil mid-1997. The expdsion was carried out by the Tanzanian milit-ary, while the internatjonal community, apparently havlng dropped its previous objections to 1orcibIe expulsion, looked the other m y and in some hdirect ways actually facilitated the nnovement. G&rardPrunier (1997a) wrote about the expulsion in February 199'7: Seizing the c)pportunity where forceful act-ion would go almost mnuticed in the general cmmotion, Tammia declared that all Rwmdm rekgees, about 530,000, on i t s soil must leave by the end of the year, and the Tanzanian army quickly moved towards the camps. s i z e d by panic at the idea of return, and probably also coerced in part by their still-ract-iveleadership, several t.housand refugem fled in various directions in &e hope of reaching the borders of either Kenya or Malawi. The Tanzanian army quickly caught up with them, forced them back towards the camps and from there pushed them cm acrc3ss the border into Rwanda. There was no UNX-ICR protest and the few &d workers operaGng in the camps who complain& were expelled by the Tanzanian authorities. By Christmas, the camps were emptied (Prunier l %?a).
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Thus, in one final unmticipated popdation movement, the official presence of Rwandan refugees in Tmzania carne to an end. The Rwanda crisis &I T m z a ~ was a over,
The Limitations of Contingency Planning Wh,at factors urtderlay the failures and successes incontinency pta in Tmzania? Can patterns in the imprecision, of refugee movement pdictions be found? Che common thead seems to be pl erskovrrelimce on proximate causes that they assume mderlie refugee movements. They focus on ""triggering wcmts" like assassination or elections, and don't analyze broader fi-\ceorsthat influence why refugees move when they do. m a t they miss is that a "trigtgering" event is a final, culmhating event and, as this analysis shows, d y sometimes causes a refugee njght. Such evmts are onky the u1eirnat.e proximate causa, Xx~lerprePhgkiggering events as the pmxilnate cause does not furnish enough iltformation for the anticipation of refugee movement. Not: surprisingly; bureaucracies atso use predictions to pursue their o m sdf-interest, wkch they &n do via the press, where both successful predictions and bureaucpatic competitors' incorrect predictions, or fail- to an~cipate,are highfighted. Of course a firndamental aspect of prediction is that there will always be same "f;lilureseM Having said that, I do believe h a t this assessment of the Rwanda and Bunlndr data point to some cmclwsions as to why refugees move and under what conditiom.
Why Refugees Mave There s e m to be six primary reasons why refugees move, Each o n has policy rntplicatiorrs. 1. Rising Political E;u~?r"cta fitlns
Mass refigl.c.(lightis most l i k l y la occur d u r i m a lime clf:risi~g politkal exprcfatio~s.It is less l&/!/ fo occur in tinzcs ofpoliftenf tension. Since 1993, there have been two major mass reflugee fligt-rts: in 1993 from Bumdi, and in 1994 from Rwan&* Both of these fights happened at a b e of rising political exyectatiuns: In the case of Burundi it followed the democratic election d a Huhx presidmt and the repatriah-m of b t u refqees after 20 years in Tanzania. In the case of Rwanda, the flight foamed a peace agreement and politicat. ageement beween warring parties. h both cases, there was a consensus in the national m d international cornmudties that the political situation was getting better.
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For this rewon-the refugees themelves and the internatiod co ni.v-were unprepared fctr the s u b s e ~ e nrefuge t exodus. For the international comnunity it meant that relief progams were inadequate to receive both groups. The Rwandans were more fortunate than the Burundians, because the relief programs designed to receive Bumndiam (fiough they were t w late to help them much) were already in place. 'fRe mass exodus of Rwandnns was not anticipated. These exarnples suggest that mass refugee flows can occur at times of rising expectations, rather than durkg ti~nesof high poGtical or military ternion. Wring times of high ternion whm political violence is somehow expected, mass fight seems less likeb A possible I-eason why such times c-tf posiitive expectations are so volatile is that they involve reorientation in inkrgroup dmamics: "My enemy is now my neighbor, and aft is now forigiven." But such '"outbreaks sf goodwi21f'are fragile. W h such mass reorientation suddenly fails, as it did in the cases of both Rwmda m d Burundj in 199S94, confusion and fear erneGe quickly, a d the rcssuft is confused. Ri$t to a neighbming corntry. 'This circumstance does not necessarily precede every mass rehgee flight-the crnse of Rwandms into Zaire in July 1994 and the Camhodi in Thajland are obvious exceptims. Rut it does point to a politically l i d nal m a that shc>uld be &served by those responsible for assessing the potenlial of refuf;eenjght. From this observation follows the next cmdusion:
2,FlQlzt Across a Border Area Mass refilgee fli
Gavenz~nazZnlactors mutingly igrzouc. f i e ds .fact@political mlc of the refigees t r@~kgcercg zme, themselves as acton in the i ~ternntionnl The result is that governments and the aid bureaucracy assume p
'
rcfugees are responsive only to material factors such as asszrrances of physical safety, food provision, resettlement assisbce, and security of land. f i s is cornistent with the morals of =&gee assismre w h e ~ b y aid workas assume &at ~ f u g e eare s ocent byshnders in the c o d c t , not
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part of it, and constitute a political tabula rasn. The assumption that a refugee population is a politicd tnbzila msa i s just as unreassnab2e as it would be for any othc-r population. Zporhg the inherently polilical origj,, of Right is prczhably m k p o r t m t reason that repat-rialjonprograms were SO ~ S U C C ~ S S ~ U ~ .
The likelihood of ref~igeef;lightand r e ptriat k ~ nnzay be inJrretzceri by ~ ( ~ ~ u l a t i f l density. However, this very tnuch depelzds on how the population is dejned; d4spite their infuitiue appeal, yoptil~ticmdmsitks pmbably cxpluilz very liftlc. A characteristic of refugee movement in 1933-% was the back-andforth movemat across the Tamaxl;ian border. High population d e m i ~ e s in Rwanda and Burundi may very well contribute to the conditions leading to strife. However, there is no cwidence h a t h e likelif70od of movement inevitably increases with pqulalion density There has been too much hack-and-for& mwement to justify this conclusion, 5, Xep?atriationand "Bovdcu Straddlitzgi' "Border stmddling" has bee22 t2 e 0 ~ 1 ~ i s f sml tm t e g Oj:D~~undiUns, but nitf npparenfly of Ni-vandans, This pmdictl makes sporzfanct,sks repat.riatit?tzof Burtclzdians ~p~ore likely. As a strategy for deding with localized strife, moventea across tlne border into Tmzmia and back to Burundi has been a cc2nsistent sbategy. An, intuigve sense of this is pe&aps tlne reason why refugee influxes of Burunclians into Tanzmia have been predicted more accurately tban those of Rwandans. This could be an arlifact ol: cd'cu-ralhswlcdge specific to the Rurundian populaGon.
6,Efecfs of Closijzg and Opening Bordem The qfects ofclosil.tg nnd ~ c ~ i l iborders l f : 4w not eotrzpletely clear. However, if is c k r IlzarS such go"~temrner?tul policies are tzeuer as eflective @Spolicy-makrs m y wislz, policy all over the world is made in the context of both le and what is wished for. Whatever the explicit policy ants always sense the permeability of a border, whether it be that between the United States and Mexico, or Tanzania and IZ.warnda/Rurundi. (n this ~ s p e c trefugees , are social players who have wishes of their own. Even if thejle wishes lack legal standhg, those exp ~ s s e dby their feet have as much effect on policy &velopment as laws.
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Notes 1. In anticipa~onof this return, French-language classes began in the early 1909, as dreams of return were rekindled in refugees who had been away from Burundi for 20 years or had been born in Tmzania, 2. The Joitll Evaluation of the Emergency Assistnnct2 CO Rwnndn (196, vol. 3, p. 36) briefly discusses this preparehess. According to this report, the emergency reyonse team arrived on April 20 and identified the site for Benaco on the morning of April 29, and the refugees arrived that evening. My recollection is that the identificaticzn of the site had been initiated by h d r e s Jirnenez, the UNHCR field officer assiped tc3 Ngara earlier in 1994 tc3 supervise UNHCKs programs for the approximately 10,000 Burundian refugees at Lukole camp. Missicznary doctors s w i n g at Murgwanza Hospital in Ngara related to me in summer 19W that a number of UNHCR staff were present in Ngara in early 1994, some on short-term assignments to simply collect informa-l.ion.See also Jaspars (194). 3. Also of note was the rcde of the Western press. IEEAX (1996) pointed out that the press, which had been in South Africa in anticipation of widespread viofence in comection with the elections in that country, was disappointed when there was a peacehl trmsiGon f-rcjm the Naticznalist party government tcz that of the victorious African National Congress. The antidote to this disappointment, JEEAR reasoned, was the opportmity to cover the violence in Rwanda, which was best observed from Tanzania. There may be some truth in this. But it is doubtful that the story would have been m y differat than the coverage of the Burundi massacrm and refugee flight five months earlier had the international commu&v not already been present in Ngara-in Ehe farm of the Red Cross's Sheita Wilson and UNEICR" Maureen Gunnelly-to focus press attention on refugees and bodies in the river, 4. Unlike many of the journalists reporting on Ngara, Lamb had extensive experience in Africa, even having written a book about the conGnent in .the early I"380s. The book reflected his experience as Nairobi bureau chief for the Los Arzge5nir~t~7~ from 2976 to 19'79. 5, 'This border straddling had been observed on Tanzania" border with Burundi regularly since the first large refugee flight in 1972. This ac~vityis fafitciliitated by the regular passage of information acmss the Tanzania-Burundi border, which, unlike that beheen Rwanda and Tanzania, does not have major river or swamp barriers. 6, At the time the Tmzmians clcbsed the border with Burmdi, there were about 250,000 Rwandan refugees in Muyinga province of Burundi. The camps for Rwmdims were being closed by tl-re Bmundim ~ E t x ym , d the refugees were being told to return to Rwanda. Instead, virtuaily all of the refugees headed for Tmzania, These refugees were by and large apolitical peasants from Rwanda. According to the special fact-finder of the Scurity Cosmcil, Paulo Sergio PiAeiro, ""Contrary to the situatic3n in the refugee camps in Zaire, Rwandan refugees in the Budi camps are not armed, there are no militia leaders, and there seem tc3 he no soldiers of the former armed forces of Rwanda (FAR),'"
Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan: Water Crises
Water is a dry subject, so to speak. This is particularly true irr the context of the press" interest in refugee relief, where much of the focus is sn the dead and dying,li'me and other poputar magazines do, of course, .make good attemps at jazzing up the topic of sanitation with drama~cprose like h e fotIowiny;: Early on there was already a winner in the war, whose triumph will be unaffected by whatever the potiticims or sjldiers decide. Xt is the victory of disease. Sanitation is impossible; typhoid, dywntery; cholera are all menacing the refuge=, specially the children. Malarial mosquitc~esswarm above the swamps. As the rainy season c o n ~ u e in s the mr)untains, the dry cough of p n e u m o ~ aand tuberculosis echoes though the camps. (Gibbs, 1994)
Unfortunakly, the di,te clarity of such emotion.& apeals rarely tions take to develop. hchrd solutions to the lasts as long as soun prohlems of driding water and saltitattion to a lay audience are clouded by the technical calculations of engineers, Engineerhg, with its dependence on n o h u ~ n mtehology, conkrols available opGrtns, irresgwtive of human .wishes. Unlike urrfulfiSIed contingmcy plans (Ct-raptcrr g), where failures can be expl.aipled away in a fog of emtionat jargon, unsuccessful water engk~eeringresults in stockpile c-tf unwed, abandoned, arl$ broken, e q u i p a t , For this =ason, it is easier to Observe the lirnitations sf the Good Sanrari.tm bureaucracy in the water sector than in other sectors. WEer system are large, complex, and expensive, and by their nature, denand, careful engheer.ing if they are to work as planned. As with other large and expensive tmginerht; works, syste~naticralional p necessar-y to create comptcx water system. Underlying systernafic plan-
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~ n isgthe assumption that getting the most water for every dollar spentf pipe laid, pump primed, and concrete slab poured is a desirable outof Mieber 's concept c o ~ ~"I"hus, e . the engineer's tools reflect ckarartt?ris~cs ofl ratiorritli@ inclwding the ekrnenb of egiciency, predi~tabiiity~ calcdabifitiv, and, control. Alfhough Weber's thoughts about rationalization and burwucraGc o r g ~ m G o narcl not taught in enweer* schools, the elements he wrote about certainly are. Thus, in well-engirteered watw systems, purnp sizes, pipelhe desip, population counts, and delivery systems match the amount of water awailable, be it underground in an unseen aqugeq ur aboveground in a l& or river whose water m s t be purificd for h m a n use. Further, the installations are geart?d to the intended level of use by m e w of precise calculalions h a t w u l d intimidate a mat-lnphobic. In the case of Ngara, or any emergency for that matter, such a careh1 methodical approach coufd not be used owing to the very nature of refugee relief. ilopda~cmfigures were not predeter ed, l a g t h of stay was uerccrtain, and projects were funded in response to emotional appeals, especialfy I-he fear of cholera, rathc-r than ratimal cost-benefit calcutatiom. Despite this, the underXying engineeritlg assumptions r e m h the same. Principles sf design, pIann;ing, procurement, m d installation require a slow, methodical process. But in an errrergency where speed is necessary and population comts are imprecise; engineers necessarily relax their assumptions mcernjng the type of data necessary to provide water yuicMy, whcEher hey acknowledge it or not. h other words, they must accomplish a cerhin task without fn21owhg the p r o c e d u ~ sthat their discipline really requires. The result is a decline in the arnoultt of cone01 (in Weber 'S seme) hat engir~eershave over the resulb. ratiomlized enghering assmpThis chapter is about how refa* tions in the areas of data requirements, procuremmt, populations, and so forth affected the waltlr sector in :DJga~a.The consequences can be secn in the abandoned and mo&balled water systems that seem to be a feature of not just the camp in Tanzania but sf other emer;Jcn.cyoperations as well. The fault lies not with the enweers, but with an implied acceptance of increased risk of failure a eering standards are relaxed. @rentto emergency work: fn This is inlarge part a result of a dil order m e e t I-he emrtrgency, yuality standards must he rdaxed. Were texlbook standards to be m;aintained, of course, good water systems would have been built eventually in a place like YVgara, but they pmbably would have b e n too late to effecGvety comhat dbease. The diiemma in an mergmcy is really a westion of which engheering assumptims concer~ngwater supply wiff be relaxed; lo@cally there are only two possibiti.ties. Eithclu; installation of water supplies is delayed until data arc collected and design specificatiom are me&a strateg that
Water Crises
entails a short-term risk of qidemics uC water-shortage diseases. C)r gmera1enweering standards for careful and, systematic plamhg will be relaxed, and cost overmm and failure of inappmpriate equipmat will be tolerated. The latter is what happens in the cmtext of a modern erner-. gency grounded in the emoGonal demands of CNN and donors. :Ineffect, the short-term humanitarim disaster is controlled, but there is a concomitant hplied assumption that there will be breakdowns in equipment. Risks art. implicitly accepted when the well-publicized pressure to ""do some thing'"^ high Emergency administrators grasp the uptimistie best guesses of engineers who happm tu be on the s p t , which in turn beco~nesan incenive for engineers to generate estimate that solve thrt adediate problems with mpanding refugee papulali,ans. h this environment, asstlmptjms and presumptions are quickly made and become fact. As is described below, in Ngam h i s happened in lhrt assessments of groundwater, procu~ment,and water ratio Also implkit is that when Be coflsequences of relaxhg engineering ass u ~ n p ~ o develop, ns and as a comequence an inventory of unused, broken, and mothballed equipment accumulates, the press wijl be gme, and can be calteet hack to amounce another 'krisis." The paradox of the bureaucragzed Good Sa~naritan~neamthat even after h u m stmdards have been reached and "'lives saved," and more careful data collection becomes possible, standards for quick decision-making cstalcltished during the emergemy phase become standard, and risks of project failure conthue to be t-akm. I:n effect, a deal is made with the erngilneering devils: the danger of water-shortage diseases (cholera, dysentery, etc.) is postponed in the hope h a t before the system collapse, the refugee sihxaeon will have resolved ibelf poli~cal.ty.' Water Provision in Ngarai: 1994
The miginal site of the Benam camp was chosen because there m s adep a t e water in a small da ed sbeam left by the road comhucfion project scrm 15 years before, adequate quanaities of firewood, and easy X cess to a main Eu:ghway. For legal reasm, it was also important that the local and naei.onal officials hTamania appmved. The survey of the contingmcy site was prohably no morc than a w c k walk-arourrd and did not inkrolve assessment sf how fast thrz small lake was replenisl-ted by the springs feeding it." hfter refugees arriwd, filling initial water needs focused on developing the lake. MSF-Frmce installed a pump in early May 1994, so rehgees would not climb into h e lake with huckeb and potentially c o n b l ~ ~ a t e it with the bactcvria that caust. dysentery cholera, and other diseases.
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WitEn six weeks the a f a m Emergency 'Unit also installed a temporary water heahnent p h t , using a kit ai+lifted to Tmzania for the puspose. FinaEy, UNHCR contracted to &g a eench around the hill on which the campsite was sihated. The point uf this was to c h m e l any rzrnofiF carrying human feed m t t a away front. the lakeside water source. held their brwth to see whether the During the first weeks, aX1 in dreaded cholcra epidmic emerged or mt. Datln rates due to enteric diseases were high, but were considered to be under control, by internatic-mals t m d d s . The key point in June 1994 was that the emergency water C-rmmeflt:plant was operaCional, and adequate supflies of w&r were avaitable.Vt was the end of the rainy season, and although this conkibuted to the discomfort of rclfugees, it mead that there was a substantial flow repledsl-thg the lakc, no matter how much water was pumped by Oxfam. All we= concemd, though, that the lake situation was but a temporary solution. h the situalion was dacribed in JEEAR (1996377): '"It was recognized from the outset that the capaciw of the lake to provide a guaranteed year-round supply was quesGonable and that it would need to be complemented from other somes.'Trillkg far groundwater was considered cri~calbecause it would provide the needed, complement and also perrnit an expansion of the settle~~ent area. WIGEF-Uganda sent a well-driliinf;team to the camp with a rig, a d they began drifling in late May 1994.4 The WIGEF team were master draers, but were unfa geology of %e area. Brief comultatiom with local TanzaPlian technicians m d e it clear tlnat gealogiicaf advice was unavailable because there were no hydn,geolo@sts in -the area, and the k z a n i a n s had little experience with the dri1fit.l.gcayacity of a rig like UNICEF's. The team dedded to drill wells at the low points amund the campsites, in hopes of hitting quartzite layers through which watc3r flows readdy-stead, they found water in the much less permeable slates, which are %e rocky the clay fioors of ancient seas. Ilhe slates, which do not crumble as readily as the quartzites, conduct water only very slowly (?"he soils around Henaco are cc2mposed mainl,y of soft slates and crumbly quartzites.) Nevertheless, the yields in several. of the wells were adequak to establirih a new refugee camp at L u ~ ~ a shi .Juncl 1994, this was cri~cal,became rehgees cantinued to arrive 51large nwbers, deplethg the sources available on the hjU at Benaco, As part of .their drilling program, UNICEF lined the top SO meters of each well with plastic casing, even though the wells %ernselves were d l deeper. This is standard praclice to guarantee againist ground contamination, and is also standard practice in hard-rock drilling. Pumps were placed in lhrt hole fqpically 30 centimeters in diamekr), and then lowered into %e hole below the ca"iJng.
wars
180
Water Crises
h June11994, agencies were catled together to make estimtes about the water deEvery program, for the Benaco camps, Four tentat-ive planning decisions were made at that time. First, a plmning f i g w of 275,000 refugees would be used, and each refugee would be pwvided with 10 liters (four gallons) per daq.-"his was a high populahon = b a t e , well above the numbers h a t were expected to flee from Rwanda to Ngara+7 Second, a decision was made to develop the wells with pumps manufactured by the Nonopump company which at that &mewere available in the United fCingdom m d wcre widely used in "anzania. These j p u ~ ~ p s would replace the submersible pumps from the Oxfam h e n r y wX7ich were then behg installed. Monopump, eager for an order that they did not need to bid for, pro~niseddeliwery of the pumps in six weeks. WHCR, OxPm, and W F accepted Chese prcrmises, despite howledge that such orders typically tusk considerably longer. This decision was made because standard pmcedures rec end one type of pump, meaning smaller spare parts invmtories than ft>T multiple pump models, and a single training program fctr technicians. Then, the Danish submarine p u ~ ~w p us l d he replaced. Third, it wa,s noted that the reports of the WICEF drilfcltrs indicated that water supplies in the existing wells would be adequate? if all were developed to capacity Finally it was decided that LWF would instd and operak the prrm,s while Oxfam contkued installting pjpeLines Oxfam would quickly withdraw horn water-provision activities and would hand over its equipment to LIIVE These decisions were made with the limited data available at the time, but the assumptions behind them did not hold. TTbe resuft, as the foint Ewluation noted, was that by I995 the situaGon ""deterioratedr a ~ r t &an r improved." "(2'396:77) The first wata crisis began when the new wells began to cme in. As mntioned., the soifs around Benaco are composed mai.nly sf soft slates and crumbly quartziks. As water is p u ~ ~ p out e d of these sbnes, a cavity farms around the pump, and eventually the well itself caves in on the punnp. T11i.s what the Iinhg is supposed to protect against, Given, the k a v y pumping in knaco, this occurred in some wells in a matter of weeks. When the well caves h, the p m p is irreparabry damaged. This problm was first iden~fiedin August of 1.994 when two Nutwe@angeolqists made a quick visit. Subsequent visits by three British g e dot;ists and later an Aust.rian codirmed this analysis The lack of 1iniPlg m a n t that the wells around Benaco and Lumasi would slowly but surely collapse, and thrt water supply for a smhstmtial portion of the refugee p p u f ation with it. The i r s t well collapsed in September 1994, and slowly the other UNICEF-drilled wells began to follow. But, instead of us* the time bought by h e UNICEF-driIled wells to redesign the well-drilting program, the next series of quick water-
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engineering decisions were made, using the same esnergency focus lin which the first tentative decisions were taken. TTbfee conditims in particular were to result from inadequate anatysis and pl b w spots for drilling were chosen again without any systemtic &tention to the hydrogeology of the area. This memt that only slates were drilled, even though quartzite ridges were atso nearby A seemjngly cornonsense assu~~ptjon was made that the lake would not sustain continued pumphg durhg the dry season. This was made without any survey of where water in the lake The u1tima.t.erefugee popdation was again underestimated. Chollesa Zs Coming-Let's Spend a Lat of Money
Wakr provision inrefuge camps is measured in fifers of clean water produced (and consumed) per person per day This is simply the total arnorrnt of watrtf p u m p 4 k o u g h galxgs, divided by the total number of people. Rut what is the minimum. r e ~ i r e dfor healmu1 lking? For b e subsistence? How are you sure you al.o countir~gthe right number of p m ple? Rght number of liters? W a t Lcvel is a refuge assistance program obligated to provide? Figures having le@thaey in the relief c ranged fmm the goal of 20 liters daily which the Wrld Health lteeded for healtMul livhg, to a jow of 5 liters per person per day The 5-liter firnit is considesed the bare minim m need& to control diseases, pal-ticufarlycholera (Chalincier 1994.). VVater amomts provided in the Ngara camps were closely wnitorctd, whttreas those in Karagwe, where the NGO presence was llighte1; were less so. :lnitiiaI esti_maltlsbased on regstration figures supplied by leaders in June I994 indic&d that between the O x f m plant and the wells, w t e r was bejng supplied at a rate sf about 10 fifers per persun per day (JEEAR 19"3:77). This f i p r e dropped as more rehgees an-ived, but then at the when popdirtion figures were adjusted dowftward fob ng lowing the UNNICR" registration program, it jumped batlk up to 10 litess per person per day. This admjrU:sh.a~ve adjwtmenl occurred as the Oxfam plant was bought to full capacity and Lhe new boreholes were brought sn tine in July and August. This proved to be the last me tlne water sitruaticrrz in Ngara was to be viewed with co~~placency. In *ptemher 19Hf plamers were presented with the issue of whet_her reholes with pumps, to continue eefuqping more of the UNICE h o w h g that they would perhps collapse a few weeks, or abmdon them until more borehoks were drilted. Monopumpq which cost
Water Crises
about E4,000 each, were in short supply; the original emergency order was late, owing to delays in the UK, and ri.sking them in the colhpsing boreholes was potentidly embarrassing.8 Concern also mounted as to whe&er the lake would last Lfnmugh the dry season, given a pumping rate of 1,200 cubic meters per day &ou$ the Oxfam treament plant. i t was obvictus to thft untrainc.d eye Ehat the level of the lake was dropping. Straight-ljne calculations based on the assumption that there woufd be no replenishment sf the lake frctrn underground aquifers, and that the lake wodd supply 40 percmt of the water for the new p1 1500,000 people, showed that the lake woutd be exhausted at various times throughout the dry season of 1994. Ea these drops ixnplied that the availability of water pmvided by the CR would fall below the magic five-iriter figure, which was feaed by all,. The possibility of reaching this statisticd watershed was the cue to raise the cholera Rag. ?"he t-hreat of cholera was a potent symbol, particularly fsllowhg the disaster in Zaire, where a cholera epidemic in July resdted in20,000 to 30,OUO deaths (S= Pmnier 1995:302-304). 'The apparent collapse of the boreholes in Ntgara and tke assump~onthat water provision under 5 litms per day would. cause (as opposd to risk)disease epidenics was widely touted at meetings by the engheers h r n Oxfam and LWF, as well as the prtblic health agencies, particular@ the staff of the MSF agenciczs. Oxfam advocated aggressive a c ~ o by n brhging in consultants to assess the situation. Three hydrogeologists were brouE;ht between September a d DecemRer to evaluate the situation. UNHGR pl-essed other engineers to make estimates for what it wodd cost to pump from th9 Ruvubu River, 10 kilometers away over the 400-meterhigh ridge, and down to the camps. Brought to attentbn by the cholera scare and dropping produclion figurcs from the urrlined welts, UNHCR"s d a m s quickly funded each new cffost.9 :Most ex&awagamt was a waltlr-lrucb~gprogram desiped to supplant the enlire Ktmco water system, which c m e to be viewecl as failing. The Rasumo River Filter Schem for Carnp Watcrr involved instalkg a waterpurnping plant at the intersection of the Ruvubu and Kagera rivers. Witfin, s m t of the Rwandan border stattion on the oyposik side of the bridge, a p w p station was to be installed that could had water trucks with wakr on a round-tl-re-clock basis. P\[otably, no for~nalsurvey was dcme, and permission from local TizllzaIIian officials wa,s not obtained; these actjms were postponed o w e to the erner,vcncy situation, a detail ed to take care of during a tvvo-week purchasing period. The urn-and-a-half-pagc pmposal, including a budget, w s typed on November 11,1994. This program was funded with $797,300 that an LWF mgineer was authorized by the UNHCR to spend on a two-week shopphg trip to the
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UK and on airfreight to Mwanza. The 40 water trucks, fuel, and the spare parts m a h e d unbudgeted, even though the design implied by the purchases was an expenditure of over $2 million &I capital expenses alone. But by the time the engineer reached Dar es Salaam, the Tanzannt objected to the Rasumo site. Instead of behg canceled, s rescheduled for a remote lake near the Ruvubu River, some 17 kilornekrs (abouf: 10 miles) from the camp. M e n the engineer returned with the chartered airfreight flight after Christmas, the equigment was diverted to this site. A laterite road was built, at a cost of over $3CN),WOO,under a qwickly negot-iakd cmtract with the Cagefair cmstruction company. Ultimately, the gumpi% static-m on the Ruvubu was built with the eqtripment from the UK, but it still meded to be trucked to the Benaco camps. But by the time the water came on-line in February, only ten blNHCR-purchased trucks were available, and drivers were lacking. %e ofl the new drivers hired to drive a wakr h c k quickly roltd one. btel;, it was found that the en&e fleet itself was unstable, The trucks did not hawe bafRes in the tanks anci tlne sloshing of the water made them unstable, caushg them to tip easily. "I%enew water plant proved more expensive to operate than expected. Meanwhile, however, water supplies though the temporary Oxfam plant and boreholes uncxpectedly held up. A-s a result, the remote water plant and remai. g wakr truck were nnothtndled in May f994, after three m t h s of opera~on.. Two Tmzanian well-drillin,o rigs also mived, but then were dismissed when it wa,s detemined that l-hey cclutd not drill to desired specifications. In the rush to do sometking, no one from Ngara had taken the efementary precaution of determining h e t h e r the equipment was adequate for thejr prrt-poses- h rig donated by the Japanese government arrived, and the operator (not was deemed inadequate to the task, despite tlne fact that the U ad presumably preapprovclld the donation. Finally, N g m played a role in a, regional planning hilure. h July W 4 , the U ~ t e States d Ar~nyhad aidifted to Goma, Zaire, two reverse osmosis water pwification units cap"fDreof producing 57,600 lit- of high-qualiq water per day, These units produced tos little water for the large population in Goma and were mothballed in Kigali after three days of use UEEAR 11996:71). The United States ambassador to Tanzania was aggroached by UNHCR-Ngara in October-November 1994 to see if the units could be brought to Tmzania. The transkr was approved, and the units were brought to Ngara with some fa,nfal.e. Enginecrring staff in Ngam s m &iscovered that the units had arrived without direchons, and that operation required an expensive consufting conkact with a Texas company. Subsequently, the units were mo&balled in Ngara, al&ough
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the uil.iEs were evenhaally c ihalizcd when spa= parts fos other equipment were needed,"" Finally in January 1995, the Auskian-prowided wll-$rillil-rg rig began driiling the first new boreholes, which wa,s the latest promised solution to the water problem.." This well-drilhg rig was the first of tke measures taken-rigs, trucks, tankerir~gpoints, pumping stations, and c m s u l ~ g contracts-to actuallly illcrease the volume of water pumped into the camps. They did this by redriZ1I.hgthe coftapsed UNICEF-drilled wells in the slates, despite cclaims that the water table around the boreholes was dropping as a mull. of overpumping, and also wi%out apparently consult-ing geological maps which. showed, that water-hearing quartzite ridges wcre within three kilo~netersof the camp-sz In the conkext of repealrtd failures, the apparent dropl>ing uC the water table, a f l d the escahtion of water-trucking costs, UNHCR solicited m stimate f<)ra ~nassivepu~npir~g sta~on on the Ruw-LlbuRiver. Ad at UNHCR-fmstrated with hydrogeulogi who, in a professionally rer, hedged p d s e s until data,were availab.l+reasoncld pump only surface water they could see, and lkat the best sowce they could see was the Ruvubu River. Pumping over the 1,300-foot-high ridge that lay bcmeen the river and, the camps would require a ~nassiveir~vement.t5y 1995, m H C R had received an atimate of $5.1 d E o n and a mum cons&uctiontime of e m.on%s h r n an eng;inerhg consu1Gng firm (see FEAR 1996:T). Given the 1,300-foot-high ridge over the mountains, pu~npingcosts were also expectcsd to be high. kSever&elas, this solutiion became the focus of LFNPJICFs hopes over the next monh.13 Finding Water: Slates and Quartzitcrs Into this situation, in March 1995, a new well-clrilling rig from Norway arrived with yet another hy drogecrlogical consultant. The originator of the August I994 sbservation that uncased. wells would collapse on pu~nps,FridQov Ruden, also had a passion for bootleather-and-ha based hydrogeology, meatnilng be beliwed that obscrvalions from well logs on water yield had to be backed up by fidd-based observations correlated with t~eologcalmappir~g.His exploratims in the areas h ~ n e d i ately around the Wenaco area indicated that there were tall qmrtzite ridges surmmdhg the camps. The quartzite sandston is hard and, hrittle (my chilcjren called it ""sgm-stonc?'"because they coulct rub it together to generak a pite of sand).It also has large cracks in it, wkch meam that water is easy to pump out, In contrast, the soft slates weather into rounded surfaces, such as the flat-topped hifl on which Benaco itself was built- The harder quartzites weather differently, and as a result form the
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more jagged parapets, irrcluding those szlrromdhg the camps. Thus, for practical reasons, the camps were a.ll perched, on relatively flat hilltops of slates, rathttr on the jagged quartzite =@on%in the area. R~~den" research arl$ the gmlogical maps all inclicated that the slates of Kenaco were sitting on top of a bawl-shaped quartzite "'syncline," mmning that the water-yielding qual-tzites were typicdy thousands of meters down in the grourrd mdernea& both the camp itself and the river valleys where U N K W and the Austrjans had drilled their wells, The place where the quartzites were most. accessible was sli&lly above the camp onIke l w e r reaches of the sharp jagged hills. By the time Buden arrived in February 1995, however, the UMHCR was &using on the capaciq of the Austrian rig m d on finding donors to fund the major Ruvuhu pipeline prcrject. With a new burst of selfmfidmce with respect to water issues, gmerated primarily by t h i r &servation that "the only water source you can trust is the one you c m see,'"hey sent Rudern offto the Kibli Hills camp, to which water was still behg trucked. A variety sf personaljq issues arose during Rudenrsbrief time in Ngara, and some UNHCR staff kofted he would fail in Kitali Hills, which, as the result of other geologists' quick '*window-screen" sunreydfrom vehctes was believed not to have a groundcvater supply Rucim re~nainedin :Kibli Hilils for about three months, during which be successfully drilled and equipped emu& wells to provide 12 liters per refugt.e per day which was the highest inthe region, He then wanted to lnow into the Benaco area to drill on the still unexplored qual-tzite ridge above the camp, which Ruden showed was the source of the spf4ngs fetlding what had come to be called the "mjracte take" at the ternporary Oxfam w k r plant. Ruclen's surveys demomtratcsd that the reason the lake bad, never been p m p e d dry, in codorrndnneflt of everyone's fears, was that there were three spfings oozing out of a '%pr.inghorizonfr at an elevation of 5,251) feet. Benaco itself bad a high point of about 5,100 feet, which meant that the horizon codd be expf,oircc?dwith minimat pumping at its nearest poht, a chain of ridges about four kilometers from Bemco. -The r q l d s h n e n t of Benaco" lake had in fact little to do witk ~rilcles,and every g to do with the quartzite spring hori7;on. Iiuden drilled these ridges in August 1995, and LWF submitted a proposal to exploit them at a cost of $1200,000 for pumping and pipk~gto Benaco to the WHCR for lunding by its donors. UNHCR did not respond, and LWF offered to pay for the pipetine from the ridges with their ovvn money UNHCR, focused on the Ruvubu pipeline scheme, rejectcsd this offer too. In the end, neither Ruden's well,-field nor the pipeline were built; owing to what came to be perceived, a high cost, the fact that h z a n i a n s felt such a water-supply system imglied a permnmce to thc relirgee camp system, and, ultimately, to the f-orcible repatt-ial-ionin Daem'trter 7999.
Water Crises
Ironically, throughout the period the camps were in place, the miracle lake never gave out, the mll-field first drilled, by tlne UNKEF crew cont-ir~uedto pump, and a cholera epidemic never materiaIized. The water crisis ended, then, not: hecause of the predicted disaster' but only Mrhen the refuges were forcibly repatriated, to Rwanda. IroniealZy, among the reasons @vm for the repabiation was tke high cost of maintaMmg refugees in Tanzania indefinitely, with water provision plam being among the most expemive item. The Bureaucratized Good Samaritan and Water Engineering
WBter eflweerhg is a highly rafimalized profession and practice, one whose nodurnan elements control what its pracGfioners c m dol This is the source of both its effectiveness and, in the context of fie international refugee relief regime, its weakness. Engineering involves calculations rooted in the physics ol: how ntachery ancl materials react with the environment. Engineering facutties all over the warld demand, that students study a great deal of math, because, as e n e e e r h g scientists are wont to point out, heir activitjes are rooted in data that-, when avaiIable, can be used to predict what a pumy, pipelinter lake, river, or aquifer will pmduce. Enweers do not have the m e leeway to overlook weahesses arlQ ullcodortablc facts that the lnorcr human coordinating and lunding a g e n k s did, Rut by generating emotion, UNHCR could stimdate its donors to pay for ever more expensive pro~ectproposals. But nl matter what emotions were in playt the prindples of engineering did not change; drilling risks did not shift, weak planning continued to result in p ~ m a t u r eobsolescence, and broken and unused faciliGa accumulated. But, engheers-unlike engheerhg-are remarkably humm, and are su:bject to the same emotional d m m d to respond to an emeriJeytcy situatim as the managers of the intematbnat legal system, program ad trators, and others. Engineers give lin to the tempt-alim to emphasize best- or worst-case scenarios according to or despite the lack of data. Caufiously worcled '"guesseimaks" about yields, costs, and capacifies of equipment harned Into extreme claims about what could or could not be done given the expendibre of certain ansunts of money, Lost were the fundamental data. 'fKeenginers accepted the inevitabiliq of worst-case scenarios such as the lake dryjng up, borehole callapse, dropping w t e r tables, cholera epidemics, etc., Mritl-toutyudif cations. Conclusion: Why the Mistakes I have noted tkat a number of mistirkes were made because engineerhg decisiom were rushed. Were these rnistake~due to incorrect hydrogeol-
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ogy? C k to the way hydrogeological issues were mamged and fund& by adminisbators? My contention is that the way hydrogeology and welld r a n g was handld in Ngal-a illusbates fundamental weaknesses in the way emergency a d d ~ s t r a t o r seek s to control nohuman techologies and bureaucratized procedures, which they do by managing emotional appals. First, a quick rctview of the mistakes: I, The UNICEF crew chose low spots for drilling without any attention 60 the hydrogeology of the area. This meant that they dl-illed only slates lin focations remtste from the camps, even though vartzite ridges were afso nearby* 2. Engineers made a commonsense assump-tion that the lake wodd m t sustain continued pumping during the dry season, without making any survey of w h r e water in the lake was ack3. Consistent with practice elsewhere, UNICEF wc.11-driifcrrs h e d only for the first 50 meters of the wells, again, without reference
to the natrure of local geologicd conditions, with the result that wells begm to collapse. 4, The ultimatcl refugee population was grossly underestimated..
The assumption that the tedious work of geological survey could be short-circuited and q u i d s swvcys su.b.stituted led to three of the mistakes. %me shortcuts can be taken, but doing I-his uftimately impks an acceptance of greater risks of alailure. The lourlfn rnistakc stemmed from the fact that engheering pmceetures proceed on the bask of specific populatim fipres, and at Ngara, thft popdation to be served could not be accurately f o r ~ a s tdespite , the best eff;ortsof UNHCR. But the water problem in Ngara not =rely mistaka of hydrogeology*A bigger rnistake was a faifure to appreciate how much conbol technolou exerts on a situation. Just wi*in the water sector; the amount of equipment that was procured and, qrtickly abandoned was considerable: items such as the ~nothballedreverse osmosis unit from the U.S. A r q , the spare Japmese driffing rigs, atld an entiro wa,ter-&uckingunit When the techmolofyy asserted its buitt-in control over the situation, the technology won, regadless of how enehusiastic the engineers may have been orighalfy Each potential solutjon was greet-ed with enthusiasm, tcl the extent that demands for sound surveq.jng and techniyue were suspmded. Indeed, precisely the sidestepping of such requirements when the UNICE:I: rig arrived in May 7,994perxniHed the estabflishmmt of more camps, which greatly facilitated Tanzania" abifity to recei:ve refilgees, That gmble was, 6r, a certain depee, won, and time wars gained. Rut the time wasn? used. "I%e stake was that the pattern of decision-makhg
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never changed once the UNICEF wdls in effect gave t e c ~ e i a n as window of opportuniq to be xnore careful. and follow standard operating procedures. Rathc?r,technicians continued to suspend engineering assumptions. The resdt was m r e and faster purchases of equipment. Donors were also caught up in the crisis atmosphere, and will.ingly funded each new program wilhout a critical evaluation.
Was the Water Situation in Ngara Unique? My thoughts with respect to water provision go back to my time in Thai refugee camys in 1982-83. fn each of the c a m p f observed, there were massive water systems that were inappropriate .to the situation. ?"hemost egregious example was the white elephant the Japanme&stalled inK h o I Uang camp for Cambodians in 1980: a complete water system was insBLted before any drilling began. Water was not found in the boreholes, m d the result was a mu1Ei-~llion-dollarwater system that went unused. Compounding that error was the instjtlation of a costly wakr-tstlcking progrm that in 1983 was still bucking water to a camp located in .ehe mjddle of soggy rice fields. Other c m p s %roughout Thailand w e littered with e q u i p m t that had been abandoned or was only partially util lized. h d in many Thai camps here was still n(l operating water system (Waters 1984). The magnitude of the '*mistakes"kas lar beymd what happened in Ngara. At feast in Ngara water continually Rowed From both Oxfam's klnparary water plant and the poorly sited boreholes. At the time, I noted, with y~utkfuttemerity, that none of t l i s made much sense. I ran arotutd the Thai carnys asking anyone who knew anytRing about it why it had happened. Evctl-yoneshugged, and indicated %at bad decisions had been made, which probably hvolved kickback and corrup~an.The engineers assumed, that proper enginee~ngwould have resulted in better resulb. As with h e sitt~ation&I Tammia, none of %e people involved with the orlghal "*emergencyu-phase construction project were still around; less thm three years later, no m e knew who on the EJNHCR or Japanese staff had approved the orit;inal construction plan for Khao I Dmg and was around to mswer these questions. Presumably, as in Tanzania, staff turnover during the emergency had been rapid, short-term comultancies had been nulnerous, and, as a result, institutional memory was nonexistent, Frustrated, and with a youthfut bmvado, f even rail& about &&as I Dang and the other water systems failures in h e journal Disasters in 1984 ((seeTNilters 1984).All to no effect, I believe. The asticte was soundly ignored, m d I have yet to hear a comment from someone who actuauy read it, Nor has it been cited in the few publications written about refugee c m p water provision (see Chalinder 1994).
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The pattern of unused water systems 5I Thai camps and the chofic lack of usable eyuipmmt for refugee camps in h z a n i a indicates to me that the inability to implement complex engineering projects is a general phenomenon t%rroughotllthe inCermticttlal refugee relief fegime. This ins ~ b t i o n aweakness l is part and parcel of the international rehgce relief regime, m d this is reifitecrtced in how the regime uses enmeerhg science. 1s &is related to the bureaucratization of hummitarian aclivihes? Is the nature of '"technological conh-ol" useful in understanding the problem that emeqed? My answa of course is yes. But uncierstanding this question requires takhg a critical look at how engheerhg science conbols a context, and in par&cularwater engineering. Water engineering is about buying and installing equipment lhat can defiver speci.ficand predictable quantities of watet= Built in to the techology are assumptn'ons about what infclrmat-ion Ulc engineer will have available, TThis is the "con&ol" that technology asserts over its human actors, inclllding engk~eers.This control assert-t;itself, no matter what. 7i, buy the right pump, the engineer needs to know how much water is available, how long the pipelhe wilt be, hhow many water taps there will he, and how high the water will be pumped. Tt, find out these numbers, lime-consumin flaming must be done: welts m s t be pump-tested, sites for water taps idcmtified, and surveys done. If the engitlecr guesses (or doesn't Icno.kv) any of these numbers, the risk that the pump will not be appropriate increases, C)r; as in the case of Ngara, if the pla g is done, but them demands h r water yuickly shift baeause of inc~wil-rgnumbas of refugees or changing pvlitieal desires, the data collected become less useful.. The e q u i p m t that was bought under the previous assu~~ptions joins the heaps of abandoned equipment in warehouses "I'his exertion of conbol by the techoilogy is what happened in Tanzania, and pmbahly in KEzao :IDmg inThailand. Does it expZain how the inkrmational refugee relief re@meseeks .to relieve suffering elsewhere? In sociological term, is there a crmtmon strutturaf explanation for why refugee systems broke d o w n m i s subject will be taken up again in Chapters 12-34. Notes 1. Pis engineers are quick to point out, neglecting water supply and sanitation has profound consequences. Lack of attitmGczn to the tools of the water engineer is a prerequisite for epidemics of the water-borne disease that holds a special terror: cht3lera. Cholera has rarely been seen in epidemic form in the West since the nineteenth c e n f U ~yet contrc?i of &e massive and devashrcing cholera epidemics 06 nineteenth-cenkry Europe conGnues to have a special place in public health and water enGneering textbooks. C)ne of the great triumphs of nineteenth-centuy en-
190
Water Crises
gineering was the creation of the clean piped-water qstems that made mr:,dern urbm life healEhful and long (see McMeill 1977). The quick and ht3rrible dea& caused by cholera added to the mystique that the disease held far the sanitarians and water engneers (see press desc;+pljczns quoted in P This why in the d n d s off sanitarians and water engineers, cholera and the control of sanitation disease hr>ldsa u&que place as a theat to refugee popuhtions. The mix of professional mystificaticzn, the emergency context, m&the clear importance of prc3viding water permit water engineers to exaggerate &e centrality of their trade without challenge. Vacuous superlatives like ""\Vateris the single mr:,st important provision for any population; pec3ple can survive much longer with(3ut food than they can with(3ut water" "hdinder 1984:8) are published and treated as policy touchstone, and cited in meegngs to just-ify the expansion of water equipment purchases. h T a r n h a , fears of s ~ t a t i o diseaw n jusljfied large expendihnres for water supply ecjtuiprnent without dokg preliminary engineering. Ngara is a good example of this dynmic, though it should be emphasized that the introduction of the emotional need to save lives through water prczvision is a general phenomenon in emergency operalt-ions.Again, the pattern of mistakes emerges systematica11y czut of the poor fit behrJeen the need for emr)tional need to "save lives nc:,w" and the methud(3lc:,gical requirements of water engineering. 2. Tn November 1995, the Tmganyika Chislim Refugee Sewice Water Devdopment Unit noted that the ""Efencco Dam""was "by far most succasful water point" in the area. The lake had in fact been created by a darn that had been built by the Italian Benaco Construction Comyany when they constructed a hxghway in the early 1-90s (see TCRS Water Development Unit 1995:8). Presumably an engineers-eport on the darn-si~ngprocess is buried somewhere in the archives of either the Benaco Gons&ucgonCompany or the Tanzanian gr:,vernment. As far as X knr)w, though, no effort was made to locate such a report in 1994-95. 3. According to JEEAR (1996:77), ""t Ngara, water prc3vision was initially at least a success story. . . that providd satisfactoq levels of water in the camp, . . ." The water and sanitagon report generated on 'June 18,194, by the UNHCR indicated that 300,000 refugees were being supplied with 5.5 liters per person per day. TXs was before the first refugee census, thou*; the aclual pcsgulation was probably about 200,0130 at that time, and the water ratitjn on the order of 7.5 tc3 8.0 liters per refugee. The memo of Juliy 29 indicated that 200,600 rehgees were left in Benacc:, (decreases were due to transfers .Lo Lumasi and downward population es~matesfullowing a census), The tcztal suplied on that date was 12.7 liters per refugee in Benaco and 13 Iiters per rehgee in Lumasi. Pi memorandum T wmte indicates that in September, a total of 2.6 Allion liters per day were being provided to 300,000 to 358,WO fuge ea. 4, Despite hihigh rainfall levels in Ngara (the rainy seasm Eygicalfy lasts from October to May, and about one meter falls each year), there are few lakes or small skearns. Mast of the rainfall quickly seeps into mdertrgrc3und aquifers, runs off into the Ruvubu fiver, or seeps into the smdy quartzite formations around the camps..Pis a resull-t.,it was not possible to expand refugee camping areas without searcKng for gmmdwater, 5. Quartzite stone start out as pure quartz sand, are then buried, and then are heated over millions of years. During this process, .the sand turns into a very hard
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but brittle rcxk called quartzite. M e n bent by geologic forces, this rock cracks easilypp e r m i t ~ g the ready flow of mdergrt3md water (see TCRS 1995). 6. This comes from an August I, 1994, memo to UNI-fCR head of sub-office Rick Garlock from Gerry Garvey; an Oxfam technical team leader, Quofiing UNICEF statistics, Garvey noted that the total yield for the well-field was expected t.c, be 118 cubic meters per hour. On August 8, h d y Eastable, afarn's acting technical leader, began to express Oxfam" reservations abc~utwhether the wetl-field would be sustainable. Nevertheless, he continutzd to express hopes that 10 liters per refugee cotliid be supplied, 7. The census figure of 229,000 had recently been released by the UNHCR. It was assumed that the number of refugees w d d not conGnue to rise much beyond this figure, as at that time it appeared that the war in Rwanda would end sc-on,The assurnpgon that more refugees would not arrive turned out to be false (see Chapter 9 for a discussion of the difficulty of predictkg refugee movements). 8. Irr respc3nse to a perception of slow delivery times and higher costs, at the request of the UNHCR, and tm the reco dation of the engineer tm the spot, in early 1995 LWF shifted orders from Monopump UM to Monopump %U& Africa. The assumption was that spares would be interchangeable betvveen the twcz pumps. In fact, there was c~nlylimited interchangeability, as one pump was ""lfth d drive" and the other was "right-hmd drive." Thus, a third type of pump and a sqarate Tar= invmtory were added to the prcYgraim. 9. A d m p e r was initially put on the cholera scare by Rick Garlock; whc3 was on tempczray assipment tcz Ngara as a UNHCR bead of suboffice. He pczinted out calrnly that cholera was inevitable in the cr3ntext of a crowded refuge camp sihnation like Benaco, and the trick was to be prepared tcz isolate, control, and treat cholera, rather &an cast blame about. In this context, UNHCX;: funded the establishment of cholera isolation units by MSF agencies, a brief study czf a large pipeline to the camps, and the hiring of a weXX-drilling rig from eastern Tanzania. Carloek left in late September, and the UNHCR was left withwt a leader until Maureen Cc3nnelly rehxrned in early November. ConneXly was much more susceptible to the pleas of water engineers tc:,fund expensive solutions tc:,what came to be temed the "wafer crisis." Her experience in April-July had also @ven her experience in the uses of crisis tc3 shake loose othewise Eiight donor cash. The water-crisis red Bag worked: in her first weeks back, donors fmded the rental of two well-drilling rigs from Tanzania, water-lxuck rentals, water-lruck purchases, a water-hckiing scheme, and an Austrian-funded well-d~llingp r o p m . Ultimately, 1 case of cholera was treated by MSF-Spain in the chc3lerai isolation unit before November 7, and between December 12 and December 19,63 suspected cases treated there. The peak day was December 15, when 10 casm were referred. All cases were the result of close persoml contact; none was caused by contaminat-ionof the general water supply 10, Similar units were provided by the United States in the Kosovo emergency in May 1999. See Komvo Fact Sheet #52,17 May 19%, USAID, 13. R. W Treves of Water Surveys Botswana was one of several consultants who assessed the well sikration. A subcontractor paid for by UNHCR via Oxfam, he described a chaotic drilling situation in a December I994 trip report, but
Water Crises blamed the problem on a lack of technical specifications rather than a more general problem with overall p1 ng, which, adntittedly was beyond his purview: There are twc:, drilling rigs currently working at Ngara. The Benwell rig [Che of W Oprivate Tanzanim d r i l h g companies which was bred by TCRS with UNZ-XCIR funds] is under-powered for the jcjb and is considered incapable of driilling boreholies to specification. An aikmative design has been prcduced W that they can drill IEtmporary boreholes at Mgara. . . . The operators of the Japmese rig are not ccmsidered capable of drilling succssfully at nigara so it is suggested that their rig is assessed ta see if it i s capable of drilling Ehe recyuired holes. If it is, train& persome1 should be found to operate this rig. Three other drilling rigs have been asked to c m e tc:,work at Ngara. Two of these are NGO rigs, the first is from Austria and representatives of this rig are believed to be cm site at presmt (13/ 12/94). . . . The other is a Nomegian rig and is expected to arriive in Ngara in Jimua"y 1995. . . A commercial rig (Afridrill)presently dfiXiing at Ngara fc~rmineral expXora.trian has also been asked to drill wafer supply ht:,les for the camps. The m o n q for this rig is ready and the ~ w n e r should s be contacted again. . . . The drilling program at Ngara has suffered b e c a u ~ of the failure of agencies to write binding technical specifications. . . . Even though drilling NGUs such as AAR [Austrian NGO] they . . . must also be bound to a technical specification so that their work fits in with the overall site plan. They should not have been invited to drill at Ngara without a is;pecialiist confirming that they were capable of completing the work,
Tn his report Treves did not assess Ehe recharge of water intc3 the lake at Benaco, This jab was at the time considered outside the purview of a hydrogeologist. 12. In my role as an a d ~ n i s b a t o for r LWFJ 1 visited the Austrian geolo@stat his officein Benaco in Fc3bruary 1995 after he had been in Tanzania a few weeks. 11 had the geological maps of the area, which he had not seen, and specificalily asked why he had not considered drilling cm the quartzite ridge that was visible from the office door. Even though maps had been available in Ehe area for the previous six mc>n.lls,none had been given to him. 13. In a July 15, 1995, document prepared with Daniel Mora-Castro of UNHCRGeneva, a comprehensive drilling program was dst? proposed in ad&tion to &e $5.1 millic3n pipeline. The total cost of the program to drill and equip wellis was estimated at $5 million, The aim of this pmgram was tcz prc~vide20 liters per refugee per day to about 226,800 refugees in nine camps outside the Ngara area. Despite the continuing lack of a ft3mal hydrogeologicail andyt;iisin nigara, the memo noted (falsely) that the lake at Benaco dries up in the dry season. Neither of the welf-drilling schemes nor Ehe river pumping proposals were ever funded.
Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan: Defining Genocide
In Decernber 1997, Secretary of State Madeline Atbright said, that the West should hawe d e f h d the cwents in Rwanda as genocide earlier, for example, in April-May 1994, when it w a ~ actually happening. Had this tion been made, legal obligaGons would have been triggered e M t e d States to react to what was happening in Rwmda, potentially h c l u d i q a politically unpalatable military action. hlbri&ht was strongly implying that those who said that the United Sktcls was ""cicken'" the wake of the %rnalia debacle and herefore failed to respond to Rwanda were correct (see Destexhe 1996; MSF 11994; Adehan and Sukrke 1996). Albright and others may be right in assu g the United States was cficken, Rut it does not cowetely explain the failure to do someth.img about the siSuaGon in Rwanda. Even in the.complete absence of 'Smalia Syndrome,'"bureaucratic, legal, political, and diplomatic institutims must react qldickly if kkcy are to stop a fast gelnocide such as that which occurred in R m d a inApr2-May 1994, Acthg quitkly mans that there is little room for gray areas-hat s o m l o w intema~onallaw, diplomacy, m d the bureaucracie supporting them c m work together like the parts of a clock. This assumes that all involved en~Gesm d their staff are honest, fearless, and act in good faith. C m the bttreaucracies concerned do this? Mare specificat@ can they do this in a situation Like the Rwanda genocide?Can a spwialized legal blxreaucracy quickfy assert control over the process of diEferen~atil7t; gemcicSe, war crimes, war, exac~ons,collateral damage, and the other plausible categories ofl violent events in a cmtext like that hRwmda? als from Ca~nbodia, But there is no such bureaucracy, as war cri Ethiopia, Sornatia, and a host of other counh.ies me well aware; the
process of systematically categorizing diBerent types of violent death internationally has yet to be bureaucratized. .Albri.ght%statement ipores what is known about the slow and often muctdled process by which events become rationalized and bureaucratized. Bureaucratized law moves slowly; even a mundane thief cannot be classif ed as such unGf after a lengthy and bureaucr;ttic procedure in which a court assips the label. Genocide, the geatest of crimes, is even more disficuft to define, even when evidence is presented clearly W e n codronted with evidence of the Hoitocaust in 1942, Supreme Court Justice FeEx Framurter said: "I do m t beEeve you. . . . f do not m a n that you are lyhg, 1simply said. 1 camot believe yt,-u'"quoted in Shawcross 19@:47), Wi& the hmefit of Endsight, Albright: s e w to be assumin that somehow ho& this disbelief in the face of gseat evil can be suspended, and, that the bureaucratic m e c h ~ s m of s law cm be brought to bear on a case like Rwmda. The bureaucratized Good Sarnaitan, though, is probably nut efficimt in the mnner implied by hlbright. Examining how the violence and genocide w r e evaluated in Ngma illustrates why this is so. a1 or not, iderently occur as a Classification of musual events, cri ha&% process in wkich even.&are cogni.tively framed invarious ways:
* m a t has occurred, What is familiar? Are there 'Vrames" that can serve as precedents for thjnking about these occurrenres? * What is expected or hoped h r ? a M a t are the legal precedents (in the case of events involving the law)? a
Such framing occurs wiain a legal bureaucracy specidked to accompIish this task: even in the case of an ordinary liquor store robbery thjs process of defS.lcjon can be uncertain, imprecise, and halthg. h the case of extraordinary events like a genocide, the process is even more haltk~g-~~staker; and miscalculations occur in frmhg-before what acrhnally happen4 is categorized (Coffman 1974:3,7). Opposite: Ody one of the over 900 bodies from the Kagera River Bczdy Recovery Project was identified, that of Ngirabatware, son of Rubashum&ere of Cyabhgu, RAengeri prefeclure, This card was fomd in the pants of a vic~tzim in August 1994, The card indicate that he was born in 19517, was a peasant, and a Huhr. He ha8 four dau&ters, born liaeween 1980 and 1992. The Icywer photograph is of a "ody found Roating in the Kagera Ever in March 1995. (Phob by Tony Waters.)
Befin i12g Genocide
ficcogrriticm, idenkificat-ion, and labeling the Rwanda kiltings as the legal category "'gcnscide" in fact tosk about four weeks; six more weeks passed before h e first interventrion by the k~temaGonalcom~nuniv,h t of the French ~Ii,tary,which secured the southwest cormr of IiwanJ,* Unfiktl Afbright, :lth* that the process of idcnti.fying what happened in Rwanda as genocide happened fairly quicuy :lwas sitting on the edge c-tf it, w a t c h g body after body come down the river, and to he honest; I did not recopizc it as genocide. Possibly :l was shnpid; more likely, though, the actual process of classification is bureaucratic, and framing disparate incidents accurately is therefore uncertain, imprecise, man$bal-tci,ng. fn the case of the lipwan& genscide, :laargue in this chapter that the delays in legal diaposis m d rer;pmse had several causes &I addition to the "chickcn"~iss~e identified plrbficly by hlhright- Notably, these causes afe rooted in the very nature sf fie bureaucratized Good Samaritan. 'The first reason h a t h e Wet did not ~ s p m with d a qUiCk copi it ion arl$ labehg was the pattern of obfuscat-ion il-rherent in the perpekaticm of genscide. It has been well doclxmmted in Europe and Rtlranda that the l m g u a g of genocide was hi$den by means of l m ~ ~ a developed ge for the purpose of veiling it (sec;.Pr er 1995:239-252). For example, Prunier (1995:24'1) writes about tkte "pattem fmilias to those secking to deny genocide. . . . M m talking to your supporkrs, m w r claim "redit-or what you are acCually do,img but tint at the great betlefits derived from the nameless thing which has been done shwhg complicity in the mspoken secrctt with your audience." h example Pr er f 199$:242n) offers is a specch by "13rovisional President" Theodore Sind&ubwaha of Rwanda in a speech he lnade in May 1994, congratul.ahg his audience on "the return to a quiet sihxatrim . . .nuw that aH the trroublemakers have been dealt with," Second, there is a n m m l confusion in separatiing types of mass kiZEhg into relevmt categories. As Justice Fra&urter impfied, this is an unusual cog&ti.r.e task. It icnvolves digerentiating events like genocide, mass mder, civil war, collaterat damage, exactions, mifitary conflict, summary execution, retribu~onkillings; all terms that carry potenCially either euphemistic or dysphe~sticmemhg. Thus, in response to the Secretary of State, I wilf write about how the Rwanda genocidc looked from late April 1994 unit October 1995, from two perspwLiVes: first, I will give the stmdard story that has emerged out of scholarly sources, along with better-knom accounts of Prunier, des Forges, and others, MJho provide syntheses and conclusions about events. These alnalyses are the result of the aAer-&c-fact compilation of what wihesses obsemed in their own daily interactiom. Secmd, :lwill offer a personal account of what :lheard and saw in T m zania bemeen 1994 and 1996. This persmal account wilt I think illustrate
how unusml and horrific events beecome kamed as genocide or sometl-ring else. I myself did not have the co@~vetools to r e c o e z e a gene cicfe even as it was literally floating past me in the Kagera River. Ra&er than a naiijet4 in the face of the obvious, tbugh, X. tfink that my reactim reneck the faet that a genocide can be sbsenred only from afar. The problem is I-hat as emotionalized Good Samaritans we were cxpeckd to .make such judgmenb (see Chapter 44, even though as individuals we did not have the training or bureaucratic tools to do so. Those of us close to evenb were hcused o d y on the events wcurring in w r imnediate vieinity. But: legal classification occul-s at a distance, from which perspective is possible, in a bureatlcsatrized prosecut& office and courtroom, but also in the press and wi.thin the purview of international politics.
Genocide and the Rwarrda Crisis Unfold =ough 1993, Rwmda" President H&yarimana attempted to convene a government in accord with the August 1993Arusha Accords. P0litica.J.&servers disagree as to whe*er his failure was deliberate or not, but what is hewn is that by the be g of 1994, Habyarirnana was a fad.ing figure, unable to pull his more rad.ical Hutu fottomrs into compliance with the a g ~ e r n e n bhe had negotiated. Uistrmt of Ifabyarimana came from both his m&t.a,ryopponents in the WE"and as m d a s ofl his own party oppsed, to any power-sharing agrecmenk. In early 1994, Hutu radicafs associated with Habyahana intitlgated Wings that included assassinatiom of opposi.Eionleaders and s&eetriots. hdeed, even as H&yarimana con.tinued his public attempts to implement the Arusha powcvcsharing ag~exnent,m~norsof a '"final soltltion" in Ihe works began to be h a r d in Kigali. The rumors were loud enough that the UNAMZR commanders like General R m e o Dallaire heard them and transmitted mmings to UN hadquarters in New Vork in March 1 9 9 4 . 3 Howevel;, international attention in the region was not directed at the Rwandan situation, but on Sou& Africa, which had elecGons scheduled for April 1994. h fact, in its April 9, 1994, issue, 7'lzc Economist in its lead article &umpekd fears of a South Ariean bloodtoalln, while the death ofl the b a n d a n president and the killings received only brief mention in the back pages. Mso, in October 1993, 8urundi"s first dcrrrocratically ent was overthown by that counby% Tutsi-dominated military, working &ough the Uprona (fJarti de lfUnionet du Progrirs National) party. This crisis led to the death of approximately S(f,llffO to lr)(3,000 F-tutu and Tutsi and the flight of some 750,0(50 refugees to Rwanda, Zaire, and Tmzania (MSP 1995; Rmier 1995:198-212; Lemarchand 1994:xvi-xix). This quickly mushrooming crisis became the regional focus far peacemaking; the large nurnhers of deaths and the
198
Befin i12g Genocide
refugee sitmtlon meant that diplomatic circles probably interpreted the Burundian crisis as being the more daargemus of the two ongoing crises in Africa. Rumors of a repeat czS the October-November Inassacres in Burun& were c o r n o n throughout early IS)%, and when President Afi Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania called the regional leaders to Dar es Salaam, Tanzarria, for a meeting on early April 6, 1994, it was for a cfiscussion of Burundjan as well as the Iiwandan problems, ft is easy to say inhjndsight that as of April 6, the genscide was beginning. But consider how -things would look tt, you if, like thct journalist Marc-Daniel Gutekunst, you were hiding on the streets uf Kigali and were phoning reports outside the country You mjght observe what Gutekunst (1095) did ineady April: The presidents of tvvo countries are dead, kil.led by a mysterious rocket attack. Government sources are claimhg that the attack on the presidents is the resdt sf W F beachery. RPF radio speaks of a soul;hward lnilitary st in order to rescue their beleagllcred gal-rison, threatens tc, fight any French soldiers brought into the country as peacekeepers, and refuses to participate in m y negotiations. You wonder about the perilous status of Burundi, which o d y days befare had also been a focus of attention and consem, Ur,u probably remember h a t the last death of a Burundian president (six months previouq) t e s d t d in major mssacres and refugee flight. You are probably aware of gmgs of Hutu militia with lists of specific individuatskname, s e e h g these people out to kill them. Vou mi.ght be aware that the people on thes are members of opposition pohtical pal-ties or are of Tutsi e Perhaps you hope for help from the Unit rnifitary forces. But you also are aware that they do m t have a mandate or enou* weaporrs to make a siwficant stand. MO&immediately you are worryillg about your own safety, and that of the people in your immnedjate vicimity You do not have the big-picture view that would alhw you to identify the fegal conditions For defining the events around you as a genocide, mass murder, chaos, or general rnilitary action. Certainly you do not have enough evidence to form an upjnion of: legal intent. Nor do you have deta_i_Eed;informaGm from the countryside where HutU mili.tia are also being sent as part of the genodde. These uncertainties are probably why The Economist avoided uskg the word "genocide" until its May 21
issue. Neverfieless, as Pmfier (2995:265) points out, durhg the next six weeks ( h m April 7 to mid-May) 500,000 to 800,000 people were killed, most of them Tutsi who were vicgms of militi_aunits conducting what is now iden~fiedas the genodde. But agailn this is a retrospective a t i m t e . Even W E radio claimed that the killings were "pofitjcal, not ethic" (irke Economist, April 14), and even the RPF also underesti_matedthe n u ~ ~ b e r of dead as late as May 15 at 300,000 Prranier 1095:262).2 C)utsi.de est-imates were even more scarce. PruX^t;ierts"first estimates" were based on obsclrvatiom made by Kigali garbage collectors (M),(fi)O bodies picked up by mid-Maq.), ;and a vague reference to 40,OCXJ hodicrs buried at the mouth of the Kagera :River in western Ugandit."e first credible estimate of 1 ~ICEondead caxne on August 24 (Pr er 1995:262-263). Meanwhile, the term '"genocide" has become so overused that it is diWlicult to seyarate its rhetol-i.calfrom legal, usage."^ h r as :Ican tell the first time h t Ehis term was used was on :May 2 in the Intctmatimal f i r i j l i d Pibwze by a writer from Hurnarn Rghb WaCcb. She made the now-obvious r and the genscide were two separate even.&, and that ry ceasefire did not necesarily stop the genocide. But the clear-cut nabre of these body-counf: nurnbas is ody part of the story. Resides a body count, a genocide r e ~ i r e the s idm~ficationof a pe~ekatrtrwith the power to have m explicit policy of eli c group. In retros~e"~ it sczerns obvious that this cusrdi~onwas met by the circu.m.stances.But at the time, with a paucitJI of reliable sources, efforb to obfuscate gmocidd ir~teneimon lhrt part of the pevebators, a simultmeous civil wax; spwtacular exodus of Hub refugees to h z a n i a , and a conquering army concerned with issues of control, menge, and exaction, the pichre was not cohertJnt.
Refugee Reports The first major source of inbrmation lin Ap":if-June 19% was fleeing refug-. R&gec?s began to appear in Karawe disbict of northwestern Tanzania shortly after April& Almost by definition, refugees are of one politi,cat/cthic persuasion or llhe other.Us a result, the veracity of their accounts is inevitably treated with skepticism. Their ifismation also ted use in m a h g gentends to be very locakzed, which renders it of edizatiom about widespread genocidd intexlt,%cb;alty ubserk-hg a violent deatih is a traumatic experience, in wlnjch the most common respotlse is to kide or leave without obserc.it-tgmore. The -X"utsiwho arrived first in Tanzmia, the k w ~~r\jiVors UC what was later called ""he genocide?" 'provided, explicit accounts of this n a t u . ~Nso . appearing in Tanzania as refugees, however, were H u b c l a i ~ ~tol gfear the adivancinty WF, who they said were mssacring as they ad.vanced, These claims were fil-
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tered through the reporting appatatus of the hutnanitarian agencies, which also had ideas about how the events in Rwanda should be framed. As the RPF pushed south during April 1994, this combination of to aprefugees: first small numbers of fitsi, and then Hutu-ontinued gear. Fhally, large numbers of refugees began to accumulate behind the one bridge frczm Rwanda to Tmzania at Rasurno. Aerid photos of the bridge broL?dc;?Sf:by CNN showed masses of people poised to leave Rwanda, but prevented by Rwandaar government (Hlxh) border guards from crossing. O n April 28 the border gumds abandoned the bridge, and during the next hours masses surged into Tanzania. The vast majority were HutU, but small numbers were Tu&i,fj. 'The inhere& confusion is rwealed in the reports couected by Prunier (1995265-267) in late 1994. He did this to illustrate what he then saw as the comgticity sf the international community with the genocidal HutU. ent. He aEso did it to ifluskate the disarray alnont; UNHCR and NGO officials confronted with over 1O-(J,(JWO refugees in Tanzania. But these obsemat-ionsillustrate mart; clearly the disarray inherent in assessing a confusing situation. merefore, 1 use his examples here for a different purpose than the one he intmded: to dlustfate the f m i n g proccss inherent to the bureaucratic and legal definition of a series of events as c o m t i t u ~ ggenocide. Note tkat each of the observers is kying to identify linferencs that can be made horn the only information that they have: stoIles and observations of refugees arriving in Tmzania,
* Ch May 3, the UNHCR official Panos Moumtzis observed that
*
Fcw refugees were wounded, so he infcmed that the Hutu refugees had not been attacked as a poup (Prunier 1995:265). (Moumtzis had been in Ngasa Icss than four days). Orr May 21, tlne UNHCR field &c= Jasper Jensen infcv~Mtfrom h e few wounds on people crossing rivers and swaxnps hat: tke WF was dohg a "'clcan job,"i.e., their killjng did not: result in very many wounded, but most people who wert; attacked died. Jcnsen apparently believed what be was told by the Hutru refugees he had k e n &ying tr, assist during the two wecks he was in Ngara (Pmnier 1995:265266), Marc Pmbalis of Rehgees Xnkmational on M a y 20 cautiously took an opposite view h a s d on the same lack of aormation. His inferewes reflected an merging view that reporb of RPF abocities could be discounted. 'I'he reasons he gawe were (1) the qualiq of &anslators, (2) hek uf eyewihress accounts by expabi&s to RPF killings, (3) the Fear factor of contradicti.~ accounts of reflugee leaders, and (4) the possibility that tioxne (ahough not all) refugees are guilty themselves of committing atrocities
(Pmfier 11995:266),(At the time senioriv among us expatriates was measured in terms sf days. Prutsalis arrived in Ngara on the sa~neplane I did on May 2, but reached the opposite conclusion as Jensen-)B Sociology 101 in Ngara: The Rise and Fall of Random Sampling I watthed the April 28-29 exodus acmss the Rasumo bridge on CNN while on an airplme over the Atlantic. f had b e n hired two weeks earlier by the Lutheran Miorld Federation as a logistics offjcer,inresponse to tXte di refugee crisis, which was still seen as a theat. C l n May 2 h a s dropped into the camps nearest the h s u m o Bridge i17 Ngma district. Being there was something of a dream come true fur me as a sociologist long interestcsd in the social world of ~ f u g e assistance e proFa"s. It was more codus.ing for me as a normal human being in the process of observing the process of violent death. All of this social interachon m s before me. HOWto observe m d make sense of it? W o r n to believe? There were Tamanian villagers, and the newly arrived UN expa&iates,Recl Cross apatriates and missionaries were there who had watchtld events unfotd. There were refugees. I made several ohservaf-ionswhile coming to gripwith the idea of genocide. Not everytbng seen and head fits easily into such a category; nevertheless, it is impormt to use Ehat term: seen from thft big-pichre pmspective, the gover ent of Rwanda did implement a program to lcill afl Tutsi in that country, However, as I will Show, hthe fiefd, the concept c-tf genocide is still of little pracGcal use for classif;vingpeople or orderhg daily activity.
My Life as a Wihess to Genocide
h the terms of social scimce, what lawyers and solne diplomats do when g genocide is collect evidence h m wal-ious sources. A prcssecutor then groups it together in order to present an theorelically gromded hkrence of guilt or ixmocence. This theory is then evaluated by a court of some sort. Different courts have different criteria for r e a c b g different conclusions. For example, Axnerican courts and tbose of many other countries assume that individual guilt is proved "'beyond a reassnabfe doubt," and that evidence is collected under carefully qctcified rules of search and seizure. While sfow, this court has at least two advantages. First, there is little doubt about the legitimacy of its concfusions. Second, it grotctcts the rights of the cent. Finally, conclusiom abwt groups are avoided by cafefully assigning responsi.bility to the individual.
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At anoltner extreme is the more general "court of public opitljon." The requirtzments of the court of public ophion in which the tern "genocideff has k n used hits vaple criteria for decisions, a s s i p collective m d hdividual guift, has vague rules oof: evidence, etc. TXle ahiZity to punish, tl-rough, is limited to public humifiatjon, m d development of prejudice and udattering stereotypes. Legitimacy may be specifie only 6t, a particdar commud5, and. far only a short period of time. Both courts are involved in weighing olctscrvations collected from the g an issue. 130th nwessarify discount data that doesn't ocence. The of:al,lowingaccount of what I saw fit a theory of guilt or and heard about violent death during my tjme in Tmzania semes to illustrate the randoxn nature of field-level observations, made before a "theory" has emerged to strhg observationstogether; to aust-satethe extent to wkich genocide is a bureaucratized legal conclusion, and not a ""scial fact'witt cm be observed &I the field. May 2,2994: Arrival in Ngam flying into the area in a small plane, we circled over a carnp of orderly white tents, These were the 10,000 Bumndian refirgees who had arrived the previous year. I was amazed at the size of the cmpf Then we flew over the Rwmdax.1camp. We were told that there were 250,000 people scattered in a field,The carnp was dissrderlq., They had, ns food. No water. No toilets. From the air the people looked like pieces of tissue paper tossed, on the fields. We then landed at a dirt airstrip, We drove past the Bumndian carnp and skaigbt to the Rwandan camp. What to do? We were a carload of Tamaxl;iansand three expat-siates (me, an Irish mamger/enghec32; m d an Elhiopim policy-maker from W F Geneva headquarters). M a t were we l o o h g at'? My fellow expatriaks wondered out loud how m y of the Hutu were guilty of mass murder and specul&ed about whether you could see it in, thelr eyes. I saw a lot s f w o m n and children, and wondered what proportion of the populafim they were. (Iater centiuses indicated about 70 percent were women and cfildTen mder Is),F shouted for someone whs could speak Swahili and a middle-aged, male refugee in the back came forward to chat. He was fmm Rwanda and wanted to h o w il m y help wczuXd come. He was a Hueu, and this was the third or four& refugee camp that he had lived in shce hehg displaced from, his farm by the RPF in northeastern Rwanda in 1992. His name was Leokdas and he obviously h e w more than I did. At: his request, 1took a picture of him and,his faxnily Next,we took a trip down to the Kagera fiver. We stopped first at the T;znzani.mborcter post, where there was a hrge pile of machet-esand hoes seized, horn the refugees. The RPF had controlled the bridge for three
days, stopping the direct exodus, although it was clear that along the road refuges were still sneaking across the river and marshes and making their way to the camp. &e of my colleap~es,thft engineer, made a cont. Somefiing like 50 refuges along the road in thee mhutes wMe we were travehg 60 kilometers (37 miles) per hour, Twenty nninutes later we arfived at the river, m d wondered what we could do and see. There was a war going un across the river and, we had all head rqorts of bodies in the river, The river was at full flood from the rains, and we stood above the faus about 3011 meters from the river, wary of approachin, the river-borcler i.t.self.Smething brown floated bye My more expaienced colleagues insisted that it was a body. We stood watching with a few other obswvers. I did not know wheehrtr I was a wihress to history; or just plain silly, and .I had sincere do&& about how to present mysdf. t wmdemd whether it could be a log floating d o m the flood-swelted river. We drove for an hour m d discussed what we had seen, My e n e e e r colleague asked b w many bodies we saw. I responcled, "Sometkg like ten or fifiteen,'We asked me how Isng we were there. I had fo.t.gottcsr to check my watch but glihly responded, "Oh, maybe ten or fifteen minrrtes,'We ohserved that that worked out to 42 per how wkch is about 1,000 per day. Two years later, I saw a film inMrhich this number acbally appeared. That day though, I still wonder& whether they were logs, even though my Ett-riopian collague insisted they were bodies. He was right, but I did not acknowledge tlris to myself until later. After an b u r or so, we drove up to a missim compound where a WN flag was flying. hside was a hub of ac~vity, My more senior colleagues went inside lo start negotiating with the UNHCR fsr a piece of the relief action. I chatted with Marc Pmtsalis of Refugee International, who was tryiaig h a d to figur~out how many refugees had Ilcd, and was locrkiflg for a way to get a number back to his headquarters in Washington, In hopes of heigir.~gMarc Pn~tsalisout, and .to practice my Swahili, I wandered off and asked a k a n i a n villagw who like most of us was hmging around.. :fXe told me that the people hanging amund were refugee flee@ from Rwanda. I asked someone from the W H C R what all of tlrre refugees were doing. The permn from the UNHCR told me that they were Tammims, that the refugees were not here and were all down by the river. &sides, refugees we= nrlt supposed to come to this &cl;;. but go "raight to the camp 40 ki1ontett.r~(25 miles) awaq; as this was the only place the UN would offer assistance. I chatted with the villager some more. He assured me that they were Marndarl refugees coming up from the valley past the UNHCR office because it is a tradi~ona3.route h r casual bade from Rwanda. But, he said, this is the first afternoon h a t they crossed this far south in fight from the fighting in Rwanda*I asked him how many refugees there w e in the large val.%eybelow us. He said with passion, "Lots." In the interest of
Befin i12g Genocide
helpkg Marc, or perhaps soxneone else, I pressed hirn for a number, and he responded, "Lots and lots." I started to laugh out loud when :Irealized that I had just heard the m s t seaGs~cally accwate report of the day It was drizzling. I asked the vilkger what the refugee should do besides stand aruund. He indicated tlnat this was somehow my responsibility; so bcscause no one else was doing anything, h e two of us w n t and f o n d the school principal and asked what he was gokg to do. He said that they could. sleep on the concrete floor of tl-te rundown open-air ssbool building. Later I mentioned to one of the expatriates what the teacher had done. The expatriate recommended strongly a g a h t doing this because, in his experience, refugees would use the few pieces of schoohouse frxrdtnxre far firewood. (So~nedays later, I checked to see if this had happend. It bacfn?*The refuge= stayed in the school for the next week or so and restrricted, their firewood pmc~remmtto groves of eucafyptus in the village.) h o & e r sdppet I remember: On May 2 tlnere we^ no markets in cannp; the only thing I could find for sale was locally brewed beer and a Spanish peseta coin h a t a refugee wanted to exchange. M e n I returned on May 4, though, markets were in full swing despite the fact that food distributions had yet to start, By May 4, here were esalished exchange rates beween the Tanzanian shilling and Rwmdan frmc and a market full of items carried out of Rwmda. Tanzanians were beg ng to afrive in order to buy electronics and other items at bargain rates. The ecwo~nichisbrim Eric Jmes, with his faith in mark& economy wodd be laiscisrated by the phenomencm.
May 5:M o v i q info Bazaco Late aftemo-on, I was dumped at the edge of the Benaco camp with tools, tents, a Tanzanian senior staff member, three Catholic nuns, m d Tamanian drivms-We had, vague instruclions to set up a camp. This was easier said than done. :I had diarrhea and lay down in the small shade of a bush in order get out of the hot sun. Refugees quickly rushed over to give me a mat to lie on. Vaguely I was aware &at the group was organized by Leonidas, the refugee m n d o s e picture I had talcen sn my an hour I also had the only privates toifet in a cornunity of what was said to be 2W,000. I was a guest of the refugees, and the norms of hospitahty reigned,
otian b e h d our tent as 20 to 30 lnen agToward dusk, there was a co gressively jumped on somet~ng.There was nowhere for me to run as tales sf these refugeesr involvement in the ongoing kiHing passed
through my head. For lack of any rmsonable thing to do, I wader& over Ervm my bush, wondering whefier I ncleeted to do the hummihrian tRing and rescue a Tutsi, but not havhg a clue as to how to go about doing it. In the center of the men I finaXIy saw it, a bloody carcass in the mid&le, which they are ripphg a p r t by pulling on the timbs. It was a alled a d-rcikr., It had rushed into the tent of a Rwandan Tutsi nun, Sistw Agnes, who was part of our emcam,mmt. Codused, it had punched, a hole through. the back of the tent. This was just enough time for the h u q r y refugees to corral i t anci h e n tear it apart with their hands-all tools used for butchering had been seized at the border:
Skter A p e s had b e n assitgned to a school in central Tmzania and was in Bemco to see Mrhe~ershe could find news of nuns from her order Mrho had lived in Kigali. She had heard rumors that the CaaoXic church had been targeted by Hutrr. f?ztt.mimmwe,but n w s of sped.fic convtints had not yet developed. She never did find any survivors in Benaco, so instead, she walk& around the p ~ d o amdy H U ~camp U trying to cornfort whomever she could. I passed along to her the names of several Rwandan H L Iwho ~ were relaGves a Ph.T>.studmt &I Davis. She was Wable to find news of them.
VJPs, the Press, and Me C)ne xnorning, on about May 14, the UNHCR coor&nator, Maureen Connelly, c m e around onc of the cloth warehouses we were erecting. She was escorting the lrisl (or was it Dutch?) ministtzr for devetopment cooperation, X said hi, as I did not know what else to say He was &zed, by the whole experience. So was I, VII' and press were co on. Time and N m York Times stringers bo& asked to file slclries on our satellite phone and promised to pay us for the cost f&ey never did). All press we= looking for the yuick, concise story that would fill a news slot, or generate pressurc_lon the pzlblic to donate to the carrse of Rwandan refugee relief. During the first months, X was the subject of films, a satellite phme hterview on VISN and tlne BBC, and a kattrre story in the Gesman edition of Gco magazine. At one point; a stringer from Time magazhe intent on having a photo of a white hand distributing paslries to mw rehgees also took pict-urcs 05 me. CNPa cmeras wero in our camp at one; point; and one Sunday morningI a reporter from the Ci'zrisfianScietzce Morzitor chnced by Some material was eventually used, most was not. In retrospect, I will conkss to liking the attention even though their storics did, not fit my idea of the sociofogkd '*comptexiQYI' very well.
Befin i12g Genocide
A
in the eddies below the Rasumo Falls and could easily be seen from the bridge while facing the falls. Bodies had been there for about two months by that time, swirling around before being periodically flushed down the Kagera to Lake Victoria, whence the Nile flows. Ttne price of fish was reportedty falling all the way down the Nile to Cairo, as people were reluctmt to eat fish that rnight have eaterr human flesh*The URIHCR agreed to call a meeting of NGOs concerned with the issue lor the fotl.owing day, m d Wijmans m d I went as LWFk representatives, Wijmans a d I, Mameen CanneHy from the UNHCR, and someone from the Red Cross were the only ones to show up. The representative from the Red Cross asked what the m e e k g was about. I told him, and kleft as fast as politely possible, We talked to Connelly and.asked her what should be done. She agreed that something should be done, but: noted rueful1y that the bodies were outside UNHCR" sandaterefugees are by definition alive, and the bodies had not even clearly passed the Rwanda border. But we had to do something, as we took ourselves quite seriously by now. This had something to do with genscide, which made it particularly attractive becituse it would raise our agency's profile, which to date had suffered from a lack of flags ur: stickss and our focus on the low-profile business of diesel procurement and trucking food. Meantimie, ir7 Dar es Salaam, W F %director a3,7pma&he the Dutch and h n i s h cmbassit?s with a plan for a river 'kleanup.'They agreed to fund the cleanup to the tune of $40,000. The director told me &at this was one of the easiest pTOjwts to fund he had ever had, We asumed that it w ~ d d take about two mon*s to remove all of the bodies from areas on eitl.Eer side of thc bridge, and that it was a one-off project. Since lhrt area dong the river was under the cmbol of the RPF and not the genocidal former government, there would soon be no more bodies appearing: the project and mass grave would be done by Aug~st.
But, Are We Really That Inzportant? At ;about this time, Wijmans and X decided to take a morning off. Egil Nitssen, a Norwegian acquaintance working for Norwegian Feoplers Aid, haci asked if he could do anything for the Catholic ntissionary priests ir7 a nearby village. We had been takhg ourselves quite seriously and agreeet that now was a good time to deliver Nilsscn's offer. W dmve an hour and a half to the village and asked a girl near the rnission compoulnd where we could find the faLlnera She and her friend said that. they would show us and climbed into our car, They directed, us d o w roads that had not been haweled by a car in some m n h , all Lhe while waviLng gaay at their friends.
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hfter about half an hour, we arrived at a very modest. building. lnsjde was a young Italian priest who did not feel comforta:ble speaking English. Never&eless, he made us comforbble, and offered to show us his prayer room, which was a small room with an altar. We asked &out refugees. He shrugged and said that a k w from Burundi had been in the wihge, but had gone back. We told him that we wczrked with 250,000 refugee a short djsknce away and, that Egil Nilssen, uC Norwegim Pew plc's Aid would send him anything he needed. H e indicated that he needed nolhing and was cmtent with his prayer room. T'be girls piped up that they h e w where sotne other priests were ;and offered to show us the way. We ended up 100 yards away from where we had started, These priests were much mart. appreciativcl of Nilssen's lmgesse. We returned to the carnp atld river taking orrrselves less seriously.
The Body Project Begins Mark Ajobe-the man who in May 1994 had coordinated the removal of 11,000 bodies f r m the mmeh of the Kagera River in southern UfSanda, dczwmlver from b s u m o far LWF Ugand,a+arne and set up a "body rennoval team" based on prhciples sf plent_vof liquor, food, and cigarettes for "the boys." He pointed out that Ehe cigwettlss art. particularly important, as it covers the musty-swcet s m l l of the water-logged bodies. Ajobe, a formes officer in the Ugandan army, tended toward military metaphors, as we31 as principles of solidarity. We hired local youth at wages three or four times the going daily rate to take over 100 bodia out of the pools at the foot sf Rasumo Falls, and then add& a bounty of 1,000 shillings (about US $1.89) per body Most bodies were rttmoved via a boom hstalfed on the Tmzafian side of the river, wlnjeh was a bit ticHish for the h z a n i a n and Rwandan dtitary, whose border after a13 it is. The Rwandans in par~cularwere concerned and inspctcted the boom to .make sure it was not a howitza. Ajobe was at times praphic inhis storis of particular bodies, refleckg an attempt to find h m o r or m g in tke ~nacabrt~ opera6ion. We attached p e r s o n a l i ~to~bodies that were parlicdarly difiicult to remove from the river because the eddies they bobbed about in were not readily accessible. There was one that he made up about a disedoweled woman and her fetus, still attached by Lfne umbi&cus, By Ad-JulJi,over 200bodies had been rebieved and buried in the mass @we h a t had been dug. NOW,Ajohe was ready to leave h e pro~ect,and in a sober and sole moment he came to me to amoume that 1 was now in chase and pointed out that there was nothing in the project that wRiskey and cigarettes woutdn't solve. "The day before he left, he walked me down to the bridge to introduce me to the RW sotdiws on duty there.
We expli\l'ned that we conkued to pose no theat, and that we shpliy wmted to remove the bodies From the river. On the way back he introduced me also to the Tmzanian soldiers, Mrho named a machhe gun nest tucked behilnd some bush- about 100 feet fronn the bridge. As the battle for Ki.gali. was going on at that time, we took the kiefhg seriously d bodies horn the area Betvveen June 28 and July 33, we r e ~ ~ o v e331 arolrnd the bridge. Most of the tclodies were not fresHy kittcd; a nrix of wmen, men, and children, the victims had been hacked to deathf and W knew that they were probably Ttztsi wicths of the IzleraI?anzwe.nrue. Sadly, aough, this was more &an a cleanup operationXI By Iate July, it was clear that new bodies were arriving daily, and,were beiPrg swept over the falls where once a g ~ they n were swirlhg aound in the eddies. With ts, we inst-ctlled a rope net across the the permission of both %over river to catch them, bUCIget a fact my director in 'The project went smoothjy, but was Dar es Salaam was quick to note. It was over budget for two Easons: istrative @icy sf udimited whiskey, cigarettes, and workoblem &at fresh bodies continued to be cartght in h e nets. Nevertheless, Dar es Salaam gave me as the on-site ad enviable task of cvsapphg up the body project.' I was also presented, with the necessity of making an adlninistrative decision concerning how much of a body counted for the 1,00f)-shillhgbonus. is a leg enough? An arm? What about a k h s I-i.ppedout its mofier's woxnb? Was this worth 1,000 or 2,000 shUings? 1 passed the body statistics along to the UNHCR, which used them as a monibring toof to infer that conditions in Rwanda were at best unsettled, despite RPF claims to the contrary Ar; the year went on, the URIMCR-Ngam office used the statislics we cdected to continue makimg a case that voluntary repatriation was unlikely to be a realistic alternative, despite UNHCRGenwa's claims .to h e conbay (see Chapter 7). In early August 7994 X. got a new boss in Ngara, an hust.ralian, Gary Sibs~n,whom X took d a m to the river and inboduced to the RPF military guarding the border post and the approaches to the b r i e e . We walked down to the bridge where we spoke English with a soldier whose first name was, of all S n g s , Imocent, I explained to him our continuing projecd and Mr. Innrlcent expressed surprise that we were still getting boJies out of the river, which was suhstantiatly under the cantrol of the WE;by nom He speculated that these m s t he d d bodies washed out of the reeds. Mlith a seaight face, I a ~ e e h d a t thjs must be so, even hough the day before our people h:ad told me that the bodies were in fact fresh, and were still bleeding from head wounds when they arrived. Later Sibson told me that both he and another soldier Mrha was here lau@ed at the ridiculousness of our conversation.
Befin i12g Genocide
Murders and Riots in Befzaeo h early June, a karn from lhrt Gennan magazir~eGev c m e to stay in our co. 'They had a great story idea: they were pl about the refugees, and would follow up with the same refugees in a year%Girne. They got more thm they bargahed for. They wi-ssed the who was accused of sol.cery. sured them that: this was the first msder in a 400,090 peopte, and that this was not too bad a record. Then, an June 15, they wihessd the cortf'rontatiotnbeheen the refuge leader Remy Gate& and a k l g i m UNHCR field officer, Jacyues Franquin.(see Chqter 7"). At a meeting the day after the Gakte incident, Maureen Connelly asked that all NGC) aclivihes be suspmded p d i n g a resotulion of the siiruationi to her sat-isfacE-ion,She framed the issue in terms of Gateters usurphg WHC:Rfs au&ority in the camp, whjch she claimed thrt confranhtion represented, She pohted out to the expatriate audience that Gate& was a m4or war c r h h a l , a fact that had, been publisked in the N m York Ti~?zes.l""TheN m Yrlvk I'inzm as a court of law: my sociological imagination reeled.) Comelly a r r m v d for the NSF agencies to say how they would respond. Representatives of each MSF agency (France, Hol1 4 , and Spain) expressed their hrd-line views about not working with krillers, even if it memt that the withdrawal of their services resulted in the death of innocent people. MSF-Fmnce"s representative, in particu2ar, had a sbong view that the refugees were killers, a view substantiakd by the Tutsi staff that worked irr Benaco at MSF clinics. The UNtlCR concluded that all agencies should cease camp activiiies until Maureen Comelly paid a visit to the camp to assess the retations h i p d e t w e m the refuges and the NGC)s. Clailning with a bit of pseudo-psychology that 'Tfoscefut action is the only ~ n such g killess undt.rstmd,'WR/ISF ~ s p a n d e dby sttspendhg ifs own acfivi.ties unfd fur&er no~ce.I later beard that they drove off the Srengeti, where, shipped of flags and st-ickers, they had a =&eat to discuss the m a l s i e f i a n c e c-tf Ekeir work in the context of genocide. The next day, after her mtu;?Gng Cwnlnelly told us that rcsfuge leaders agreed to coqeratt? wit11 NGOs, and we were again pernritted to m f r c in the cannp. Gatete himseff was quietly spirited out of the camp a week or two later by the Tanzanian police.13 I still lived in Benaco at the time, and asked same of our Rwandm refugee workers about the incidenl. They shrugged and indicated that it was not that innpostant. They expressed no sympathy for Catete but claimed to be confused &out why MSF c1i;nics had been shut for a fcw days, -This did not surprise me, since the facility closure had resulted from a confXict between the French-speaking refugee ;and expatriate
elites. Given the Emita~onsin language m u~cation,there was no way hdependent informatim could be c cateel by the expatriates to tke refugee ~nasse?;. W i t h a we& or two, more murders were reported at methgs, and the total reached five, It was still less than the murder rate in Sacramento on a per capib basis, so I was m t worried. But the European expabiattzs who attributed the mlrrders to Intcmhami~uepfots R,ipped out, Oddly, on 'June25, the UNHCR Ngam Securi.9Advkory Committee recommended in a widely disbibutcsd Inemo on IJNE-ICR letterhead that the streets in Benaco be nmed, and reco ended Avenue de Bdgique, Tutsi Square, and Avenue du NSX; as starters. My boss at tlne time, f.ao Mcbrhdt, who had 15 years' experience in Africa, hit the roof &I the interagency mec?ibing arl$ pohted out &at such a memo on LENHCR Ictterhead was extremely provocative for the Hutu population, which blamed the Belgians for shooting down General Habyarrimma's pIane m d the Tutsi-dominated WF for causing them to &e to Tmzania. fn August and Septrmber, rumsrs of nocturnat disapy earances and murders began to circulate, and were reported at interagency mcc?&~gs; the UNHCR protect_ionofficer described mw1y distwbed ground, wbere she had been, told bodies had been blxried. I asked whether anybody fnad actually dug up the ground to see whether bodies were hrtried there, and if so, how the victim died. Na one had, Later X offered some of the workers h m our body pgect to &ig up tlne putative grave sites. The protection officer accepted the offer, but it newer happened. One reason was that at that lime, refugees were arriving at remote viliages in Tclnzania at a rate of about 3,000 to 4,000 per day. X was involved wi& bucking the refugees a w q from the border, which d altld my time. The protection ofiter was involved with evatuating their accomb of why they were fleeing and assessing what type of legat refugee protection they were enGGed to.
The president of Tclnzania, hli Hassan Mwinyi, visited the refugee camps in Octuber 19912, Philip Mmgula, the regional co sioner of Kagera, Mt stroqly that Presidmt Nlwinyi s h d see .ehe project and put it first on hiis tour of the border region.. X had fnet Mangula a couple of times. As I got to know Mangula over the tvvo years I spent in Tanzania, I became more and more impressed with b. In a quiet fashion, he melded the different worlds of the Tmzanian villagers and the htemam i v into a humanitarian Force ser\rir.lg the half fiIIion refugee "pests" in his region. This he did at political risk to himself. Indeed, he lost his seat h Parliament h the 11995elections.
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w a y , Mangula wanted to take the p~"sidentto the river for two reasons. First, he wanted, to demonstratt.that at least one agency is taking a concern for local Tanzanians, anst removing bodies was a service 60 them (the overall refugee opmation had been crilicized in the national press for iporing Tanzanians),Second., Mmgula wankr? to drive home the point that there was c o n ~ u i r ~ fi);hting g right on Tmzamia's border, and that the sihaa~onin Rwanda was not settled, cIa m&to the contraf~i. 'The prcwious week, the body count had been down to a point where on some days no bodies appeared; we wondered whether we should save one or two as evidence, just in case. We did the right thing, thou*, and decided not to do this. Anp-~ra~; that day three bodies turned up. f received the prcrsidcnt when he alighted from the car. No one else got: out of the car, and no one introduceet him to me. I said hello, oddly disconcerted to see a man who is about eight inches shorter than I but whose picture is on the money inmy pocket, The presidential aides finatZy reached us. He shook hands with our body project lnen, a d then his aides escorted him to the river" edge. "I%e men showed him how they did their job, and pull& an executim victim who had his hands tied behind his back out of our net. They plopped the body onto a piece of plastic at President Mwinyi" feet. S ~ U U Y Y - l othe p , musty sweet smelt of the body greeted our nostct-iXs. An aide caned atten~on,and the President%party headed back to his cat quickly I kept wondering whether President Clinton would go to a river border where a war was gokg on next door. Spurrr-lop! Later that day, President Mn.inyi announced that the Tmzanian governmrtnt wanted the refugees moved to thlJ southern part of %mania, where they would not be a securiv threat and could be given land to farm until they returned to Rwanda. Ody one week later, tl-te mangelist Uavid was killed in the camp by refugees while diskibuting Bible tracts. This event (related in Chpter 7 ) shifted the Tanzaplians' sympa&y away from the Rwmdan refugees and their plight.
P e ~ e pions f u f Gcnucide: Kibti~go,Rwazzdcl, 1995 In JuIy If)%, I met Philip Mangula in Ngara again. He had just returned from Kibungo, Rwamda, m d was again wonclering &out the stat-usuC the body project. We had disconhued it in May 1995 owing to a low body count ( d o w to "justf' seven in that month), but he wanted to check. This was his first visit to Kibungo since the genocide, and the killing there was what he reafly wanted to talk &out. He kept talking about the church where the b0dic.s czS severaf I-housand Tutsi views had been lying out in the open since they we* kiiI1r.d in April 19%. ETF? also repeated the tales
of how victim had been chloroformed in order to keep them for krilhg overnight. What was more shocking to him is the fact that somt of the Rwandm leaders he h e w fmrn Benaco were accused of this deed. He kept talEng about the '"red-eyed om,'hune of the leaders in the c m p whose red eyes, as it was believed in African mythology, betrayed him as being of the devil. Other eripatriates who workd in Ki:bmgo also told me ahouf:the same bodies; they descriZ>edhow they would pass each day on their way to work and watch h e m "'move'% the sun as they shl-iveled and dried. At first I was suvrised that Mangula was so unaware of sornethjng that all the expatriates had been talking about for the last year. Then my sociolotj-icalinta@aCion took over and I marweled at the different ways experience with gmocide were evaluated in different cultures. Mangula talked about the eyes of people, vvhile Mauren Ze@tirnatedher attiktdes by c i ~ n New g Yo& E m s stories. 1995: Visitiag Bcmctl wii.12 ti! lirtsi Czles:;t
Mso in the summer of 1995, I met the hnglican bishop of Cahini, Rwanda, Aupstin NIvurzrbmde, He (Hutu) and his wife Virginia (TUG) w r e old friends of a Brifcish physio&erapist at the hglican :hospital in Gahini, Tkish When. Tndeed, I had interviwed the bishof3i and his wife for one of the issue papers I wrote as part of my job (sce Essay 7). They told ~ n of e the Inassacres their fa~lictshad suffered during the genocide, and the terror hvohed in passing through Irtfeuahnnzic?pand RPF madbluc-ks on their way from Gahini to &ke in September 1994. By this time I was living in Ngara townrwhere our office had moved in late 1994.1 had wmted to go down to the camp in Benaco far some time with Trisln to visit some of the refugees I.iving there that she h e w from Gahini. For too long I had been kapped &I offices and mee&~gs,and such a visit was sowthing I looked f0rwar-d to, An added bonus was that Trish spoke byarwanda fluently. When we picked up Trish, she asked whether the bishop could come along; he hoped to spend the night in the camp with some of his pad*ioners, who were refugees in tlne camp, as he &n did. While we were picking him up at his smaH house, his wife c m e out and asked if she could jojn us. Without thimkjng I, of course, said yes. Eve nrin-ruteslater, while driving toward the camp it dawned on me. She was a. Tutsi, going into a camp that h e UNHCR had been insiskg was under the control of b t u mditants. This was also her first trip to the camp. The case of David, the evangelist who died in the middle of a crowded market at Benaco, occurred to ~ n eI, brned to her and asked her if she h e w what she was do,img. tihe told me yes, that God was with her. I had visions of the
Befin i12g Genocide
reaction from UNS-ECR staff and my career before my eyes. She asked if somone like her did not xnake the trip, how coutd they ever tive together again? She pointed out that the people we were v i s i ~ were g her lselong friends. They had gmwn up togehex: The bishop u owingly appeded to my sociologicaf sensibility by pohthg out that quite often e t h ~ idenc tity is o d y situaticzrtally sig~ficant.He pointed out that in fact, even after all that had happened in Benaco, there were still Tutsi living in the camps- "men tall ones." 'The bishop's wife turmd out to be right, and the trip d e d up being. a success. 0x1the way back she bubbled on about who had had, the courage to greet her, and d o had shied, away, as well as her hopes for a hture of peace and reconcitia~on.During the co g year; she would f r e ~ e n t l y return to Blrcnaco and began to spmd the night there in early 1996. Witness to Genocide?
I have, pusposely, presented, a complex variev of relationships. H m to make sense of these experimces? There are people representing cowage, fervor; arrogance, buxnfity, naXvet&$cclmpassior?, civ3it.y, cmfusion, and evil. How is such a range of characters qanizedt into a coherent aplana'Fion of what *pened? W h t generahmtions can be found by p u t k g the charactas you met above into the same pot? A;LL of the adjectirres described above, inconsistent though they may he, are reasonable ways tu organize such experiences. Far examplc there was evil in a number of circumstances: the m in which Uavid died, the necmsity to decide whether my body team should receive one or two bounties h r a mother and her fehxs, the need for h o c e n t and me to lie to each other that recovered bodies were not fresh, and the presence of a mass m u d e m like Gatete in'lBnzania. At the same time, hough, I-here was a g ~ a deal t of courage and contpassion. Here, I would first point to the Tutsi wife of the bishop, who visited hel: Hutu hiends incamp; Sister Agnes, who walked qtlietly h m tent to tent to comfort Hutu refugees; and the PU1SF staff who were able to spirit their Tutsi staff out of Rwanda and begitl work again in Kemccl, There was an exbeme civiliv in the wlllinpess of Leonidas m d his friends to set up camp m d dig me a toilet, when they themselves did not have the tools to do so on behalf of their own children, Sister Atgnes showed, a great deal sf compassion, as did the refugces who dug the pit toilet for me. T k expabiates aeternjpto get ' k u ~ ~ b e r on s " the refugee influ were something of a ntix betwt?cm astute bureaucrats and petty publicity seekers. And what of the ft.alian priest and kis prayer room? He lived physically in the eye of the refugee crisis tieeking God, but was Winterested h the world outside his small remote corner of the village.
Confusion and naiiieM were also present in b o m ~ f usupply l Oddly, tl-rough, what was confused and na&e overlapped a great deal with what was evil. Much of this codusion and naiIvet4 emerged out of the need for strangers to quickly est&lish relations in an unusual situation, Where were the confusion and naivetk? The Gate& s i b t i o n comes most quickly to .mind. Certainly Gatete fimself lnisread the situaliun by going to the camp in the first place. The UNHCR" response to Gatete campomded the situation. MSF's respsnse tu the Gatete incident could be seen as nake. And whal about Mant;ula%slack of interest in framing the sihxaGon in Rwmda as evil. until he saw the church in KibmgoT This could be framed as his naiivetk or as UNHCR" inability to frame the issue in culhLraUy relevmt ter~ns. The murder of Uavid was an accident of interpret-ati~n~ by both the refuges and, David, Rut David mded up dead., and, the h z a n i a n s despised the refugees as a result. h reh-ospect, we can conclude that David was naive to go in the cam,, and the refuge=, evil and brutal. 0x1the other hand, had the bishop" Tutsi wife been murdered when I took her down to the Hutu camp, I would be calling her brave but native today rather than courageous m d insi.g:l?tful. The pl.oblem is that the Good Samaritm, when he sr she becmes part of a bureaucracy, becomes inca@lc of ctealing with the subtlety developed in both genocidal and refugee sihatiom. This happem because, in a context focused by the emo~onafizednatu.re of modern refugee relief, certainv and rnoral righteousness arcl demanded, irrespctc~veof whtltker the bureaucracy has the tecwcal compekncy to deaf,with the sihation appropriately. h the vacuum, the need of the reli.ef bureaucracy itself to order facts tru~npsthe technical needs of the legal bureaucracies and y genclrate effect-ivelegal crnscs suflfe1.s. their a b ~ t to
The Problem: Framing, Recognizingt and Responding tu Genocide Nowpback to the apology of Secretary of State Albright for the United States' not h i n g idel.ltified what happened as genocide earlier, and more important, not havng taken acGon to stop it &fore it started. :fIad she colfectcrd my observations, I do not think that she would have reached the conclusiurn she did: that earlier inkrnational: intervention could have prevented the genocide. 'The reason why, is that there was m neat frame leading to a logcat intervention policy that her bureaucracy codd have acted on. Neat logical analysis was not what the internatiomf, refragce relief regime could gmerate. Rather the American policy was a respame to persistent press =port."; questiod~gthe role of the intematioml cornmud5 in '"permitting'"gr;moeide, and not a measured mlyti-
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cal assessment of whethw this was the most appropriate incident on which to establish a precedent for the prosecution sf war crim.es. The willinpess of the international refugee regirrre to focus on -the issue of '"assisthg murderers" cmtri,buted to the State Depmt-ment's weahess for developing policy on the op-ed page of the RIPrtl York Emcs, and not in ir~dqendentassess~nents. Also, it sidesteps cluser examination of the issue of the existing stakte against gmocide, which is probably i n a d e ~ a t for e what Albright desired to use it for. This stal-rttcltwas ulGmately the "frmc.'%at Albright m d others used. The international legal system, imprecise though it m y be, classifies different types of kiHhg according to intent. Thus, killing that is organized by a government to exterminate an ethnic group is genocide; a finding of genocide requires intematiunal aclion to stop it. This legal frame was established in a retrospwtive look at the Alhed lack of interest in bombing the rai1.w~to Auschwitz. Had the genocide in Rwanda been similar to that at Auschwitz in its durat-jonand bureaucratizcrzd nature, the statute might have worked in the way that Albright thought it should have.12 But the genocidc inRwanda was different from that in huschwif.~, Perhaps events in Rwanda were more anafogous to Kristullnacilzt, with its rovhg gqmrga"i"ed by the Nazi pary, or marbe to the exter tions by SS-organized "'special detachments'Yn eastern Europe (see St.rawcross 1984:15--17) than to Auschwit.z. TTbe b a n d a n genocide was conducted by gangs of machcjte wielders m e l i n g on foot or vcJhiele on a rudimentary road system. Thus, al%ough in a moral and practical sense the resufting crime of gclnocide was very similar to that co Auschwitz in the 1 9 4 0 ~I ~have solne doubt as to whether the actual slat-ute derived from the German situation is appticahle. The nub of tche problem is that the logistics of fie killing were different. Had international law with respect to genocide been in place after the Armenian genocjde in Turkey in the late nineteenth and, early mentieeh cenharie rather than not until after the Holocaust, would such a law have obkigated the internationat community to respond to KristalJ~acht?And could they have? Codd a coherent policy have been formrrbted using the bureaueratized &"try and political tools mailable?
The Basic Paradox: Bureaucratic Framing; and International Humanitilrian Law The rules of collective memory and cultural. restraht have shaped the post-Holocaust view of genocide (Olick and Levy 1998; Shawcmss 1984), and a w i s M "never again"' spirit suffuses both the literahnre and legal system. That the internatioml legal system did fail to realize its highest
ideal in Rwanda is ;appafent. Mihat is less ayparent is that %is fact is not due to the faults of ;individual actors, but is .5;herent in the bureaucratic capacity needed to ertforce tke stahte, The standard sociological exptanafion for this is that: sihrat_i,onsare "complex,""as I have made every effort to show. To some this sounds like amoral rela~vism,It's not, btlzer, it is a recopition h t what the international refugee relief org"niza.6ion can do is limited. This is because there is paradox bemem the nature of law and policy, and social life, Genocide law, like a l criminal law, is embedded in broader social undershndhgs. Policy-makers will inevitably try to simplify, and to do this they will use preexis~ngcateg0ri.e~.M a y of these simplificatiom will be cloaked in tke le@Gmacyand certainty of written law. The problem with this certainty is that the sociologists ;are in fact right. Social life is coxnylex, and because of the inability of complex bureaucracies pounded in emotion to recowze this, the intema.6ional system wilt pmbably r e m h caught in its cmtradiclions. Sadly, this means that no matter how much self-criticism Secretary of State afbrigkt may engage in, international law is a weak tool for the prevmtion of h h r e Marnda-like genocide. Notes I. Prunier (1995:198-212) asks whe&er this was enough to anticipate the coming '%agocalypse." He pokts out that the allusiczns and nuances of memjing were det?ply embedded in Rwandan cullure, which made difficult a '"meaningful connecGon beween such obscme culturd allusions and the m a p i b d e czf the horror then being planned" "mrunier 1995209-212). In fairness to the LPJ% NW York bureaucracy, the international context of General Dailaire" w a r ~ n galso s need tc:, be considered. New York was evaluating warnings in a worldwide context, including probably similar warnings from Cambodia, Liberia, Somalia, and Budi. Bosnia waslis still a hot spot. The site of peatest concern was pr&;lbly Sou* Africa, where pditical parties backed by miligas were contesting the first muZtiraciai elections in that cc)untry amid warnings of potential catastrophe. W-illiarn Shawcross ((12000:84)has recently poinkd out that the UN Peacekeeping Office received masses of infornagon in 1994, nut ail of which proved accurate, 2. The search for precision con~nues.Piliscm des Forge in her 1999 book puts the totai. at 500,000 dead. The total number of dead of cotlrw does not matter sc3 much. in a prcisecution for gmoeide, which is ultimateiy about intent and not numbers. 3, Marc Ajobe, the tigandm coordinator of this body recovery protect, told me that the number was 11,000 as of mid-June 1994. 4, William ShawcrossfsThc Quality cf Mercy: C~nzbudk,Holocaust, n ~ l dIblodenl Golzscience includes an extended discussic->nof this issue with respect to why mmer Rouge atrcsci~esin Cambodia were defined as genocide so slowly (1984, 4W9).
Befin i12g Genocide S-.Similar qumtions about the veradq 13f refugee repc3rts were raised wit11 respect tc3 Cambodians fleeing the Khmer Rouge before 1978. Their stc3ries were greeted with skc3pticlsm, and of course were denied by the Khmer Rouge gc3vernment itself. But, like Hutu tales of RPF massacz-ets in northeast Rwmda, the accounts proved accurate. As in Rwanda, the ~ c ~ cu p I-ting the peatest akctdties ultimately lost the war. But just because the refugees-side lost the war doesn't t e r n that stories they told about massacres are polilically mo~vatedlies, Prunier ((199%:360n) indicates that UN officials were aware of at least 30,000 killed by the RIPF in nortl~westRwrnda and Kbungo by November 1994. Several hundred thousand more were ta die owing ta the policies of the RPF; and its allies in 199697 when the Zairem camps were emptied f lemarchand 1999). 6. As part of the body recovery prc3ject described below, I was often asked where the 900 bodies pulled out of the Kagera River came from. I never had a straightfoward answer, because we never knew enough to evaluate how long the bodies had been in the river. Tn general, we assumed that the bodies that had been hacked t-o death m d were recovered early in June-Aupst 1994 were 1Inter.nhalrzzoe victims, whereas the execution vicgms we recc3vered during the Eollciwing year were victim of RPF exactions, althou* we had no way of verifying these assumptions. During a violent spell in northern Burundi in early 1995, the men on the body recovery teams speculated that the victim recwered were from that country. Tl-tis seemed plausible, and it would not have been the first time bodies di appeared at tlre Rasumc:, bridge. Missicmaries from Ngara t d d me of seeing bodies in the Rasuxnu bridge pools during violence in Bu late 1980s. 7. The Ecarzorrlisf in their May 7 issue described the good relations betvveen Hutu and Tutsi refugees. This report, too, was part of the framing pro~cas. 8. Time seems to be on the side of Jenstm" analysis, Prunier (2995:265266) thought him preudiced. But des Forge" ((19%) assessment confirms that RPF massacres took place firoughout the re@onin April-July 1994, and with the benefit of more hindsight, Prunier (1997) indicats that the death toll in northwestern and eastern Rwanda from RPF killing was probably at least 30,000 (Prunier 1997:35940). But in retrospect I think that both were looking at the wrong thing. They should have looked at the demogaphrcs of the rehgees, They would have found an extraordinarily srnall proportion of srnall children and elderly, which is the real indicator of the hardskp that they went through during @i@t(see Essay 1, and M t e r s 1996). This would have permitted a statistically sound inference about what was happening, 9. Pi total of 917 bodies was reported remc3ved between June 26,1994, and June 1, 1995. Of these 311 were removed in the first month of the project, and were mostly v i c ~ m sof the It2terafzanzwe. There was a mixture of childrm and adult males and females. EighQ-four and 87 bodies were found in the net in November m d Becembeu; 1%4, respectively, These were fresh bodies, and primarily adult mala. I assume that the majority were victims of what nestexhe (1996) calls "exacGczns'%by the RPF. 10.11 have been unable to locate this story; It may have appeared in another paper.
13.11 heard that later in July he was spirited out of the Tanzania by the Ministry of h-LorneAfifairs. 12. The July 1999 issue of American Heritage (vanden Heuvel 1999) included an article about the nature of the decision-making that went into the decision to bomb or not to bomb the railway to Auschwitz.
Why Only the Rwandans? Relief *erations and Politics
lntroduction In the first chapter I posed the question: Why were the Rwandans forcibly repatrialedwhy only the Rwmndans? Why were Rwandans forced back to their country, and not the Mozarrrbicans, Afghans, or A facile mswer is '"olitics.'"ut politics is a ccmstant of a ~ m e Rouge? r refugee situations, and not a variable. h fact, nasty po:ljtics is a constant. The Inlernhmu?c committed war crime^ and genocide, But so, prhably, did the Khmer Rouge, the Laotim government at;ainst fie I-lmong, Iraq in Kurdistm, factions in the Mozambicm wars, Serbs in the former Yugoslavia, tndonesians in East Emor, and the various forccs killing Hutu. refugees fn Zaire /Congo.Kurrently (September 2000), war crirnes andlos genocide are probably being committed in the southern Sudan, Colombia, the Democratic Rcpublic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Angola, and Rururtdi. h order to assist refugee masses, the international rclfugee relief regime has assisted populafions under the control of deptorable political movements, inctuding the mmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Mujahetlin in Afghanistan, rebel groups in Liberia, Somali clans, Mengistds Ethiopia, the Revolutionary United Front: i,n Siena Leone, etc. Thus, the reason why the Rkvanda rehgee relief operation collapsed is not to be found in m e s y answer like tbe '"politics" of the Rwmdans, The f~~femlramwe and Hutu radicals may have well been, for a short period, more brutal than the other bad guys, but this is at best a matter oi degree and not a qualitative difCerence. Thus, the Rwandms wcre ~patriatednot because they or their pditics were different, but because the international rehgee refief regime was unable to cope with the variations on the problem presented by the Rwandans, and colltapsed on its ocvn internal contradictinns. This is why
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the Rwandans were forcibly repatriated. It is my assertion that the answer to the question "Why only the Wandans?" lies not in the nature oi the crimes committed, but in weahesses inherent in the international refugee relief regime that manifested lhelnselves most forcehnlly in the case of Rwandan refugees. fn effect, the question became: What was it about t-he Rwanda operation its& that led to the forcible ~patriation? What happened in Ihc case of the Rwaxldan operation is that &ere was an emotional b u d h p generated by what was broadcast about the establishment of Renaco, the genocide and war, and hta t-he chdera epidemic al occurred more s ~ ~ d d ethm ~ ~ lin y other in Goma. 'This e ~ ~ o t i o nbuildup emergmcies (for example, Cambodia, Elfiiopia, and Somalia). The situa" tion in Rwanda was presented as a hummitarian crisis-which indeed it was; but this led to the inferclmce of an &normally hjgh level of blamelessness on the part of the refugees. fn the cases of the Khmer Rouge h Cambodia, General Aideed in Somalia, and the Nlengistu govc Ethiopia, an analytical separation of the ~ f u g e e and s their poljtics from that of the '%ad guys" was made before the humanitarian relief operation was initiated. In hands, the speed and vollame of refugee flight was unusual. Charity was proffered at a commensurate speed and Icvel, and in this process, underlying assumptions about blamelessness and victimizatim were puslned to a l e d too high fnr any r h g e e population to achieve. Consequently, "compassion fatigue" set in much more yuicky and forcefully than elsewhere. The early phase of a relief operation is called the ""tp-cm" phase, and it is the period when procedures are establishd. As briefly a h d e d to in Chapter ;7, in the Rwanda emertgency, "There was a masked contrast h =source availability bcrtween the 'ttap-on' period from mfd-July to 5eptembes, w k n fundir?g appeared ijmitlcss, and other periods wheln it was less readily available." "EEAR 1936:14), This tap-on phase, when the UNHCR told its partners ""t spend whatever it takes-the money is there," lasted mtil about: Septennber 1994. The funded NGOs responded by developing operating procedures that assumed that money would not be an issue for maintaking retief programs Although this happened else\Yherc, as well, for example in the Thai camps for Cambodians, it was in the Rwandan operation that its practical litnits were breached. Just one of the long-term problems c ~ a t e was d t-he opportunity for the Tanzanians to insist on crowded urban-style c m p s , in which farming was impossible, Had expectati.ms for feeding programs been more modest, probably reltugees would have instead been pushed to start farmimg with the raix~sin Septelnber instead of relyjng on the gelwrws food djStributims, By the time money becam an issue, however, the urban camp style was dogma, and transportation for the rdugees to another location where they could farm, kvas considered fhancially prohjbitive.
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I thhk that part of the problerx was too much food, not because the refugees did not dcserve it, but because it meant that the nnzanian govent could restrict ~ f u g e mwement e m m seveely than they bad in the past This bureauemtic precedent: of oversupply had the ultimte effect of curtai1in.g mfctgee farming activity, meaning that high levels of assistance needed to be maintained, even as the interest of the W s t in sustahing the camps wmed. The establishment of such high standards affected the rehgee assistance bureaucracies themselves. It became bureaucratized dogma that the refugees should be provided with the full measurc3 of h o d and hvater provided at the beginning. Then, when the gaps in the food pipelines appeared in early 3995, agencies in Ngara p ~ s e n t e da plausible case that .food riots and starvation acsoss the regio~nwndd necessariry elnszxe if this standard was relaxed. The international refugee relief regime was doing the bumaucratically rrcrrmai thiz~g-seeking to expand operations from its Junc 1994 stating poht-and l-hey were dojng it using the mems that had been available in the past, emotional manipulation of the Western public by the media. The point of this continuous emergency state was to repeat the procedures that had worked in the past, rathcr than to msess and expand refugee reception capacity along the Tanzanian border. The Strength of Bureaucrilcy, the Weakness of Emotion A central lesson is that the strength of the international rt.fugee mlief rclgirne comes from its organizational capability-its abdity to sustain people in =mote areas of the world on short notice. This is the strength of rationalized bureaucracy. The problem is that this s t m g t h became depelrdent orn clnotion to fund itself, In the prwess, an illusion was created that the bureaucracy could manage the press to generate funds in the same way that port deliveries and food distrihutit,n are brareaucratized m d controlled. But the only way to maintain the hterest of the press and thereby that of USAID and ECHO was to demnize the refugees themsefves by spotlighting the genocide, a status inconsistent with a belief in their status as victims. Thus, despite the fact that the vast majority of refugees could not have had a plausible connection to the genocide, perceptions of apolitiahnocence and victim status became more untenable wjth time. In part, this was because there was no mysterious Pof Pot, General Aideed, or Mengistu on w h m the contradictions codd be plausibly blamed, so that the rr-?fugeescould be absolved. fn such a contat, as critics pointed out, the refugees' staying in Tanzania was hcompatible with their presumed apolitical nature, and having political views became e ~ " t e dwith having sympathy for the hteruhar~w(?. 'I'he assrtmed cence and deserving~nessof Che refuses could not sustain this repeated
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assault, and as a result donors became more reluctant to sustain the camps themselves. Limiting R@hugeeConCributictns The litg gee agencies art. not the only factors in the situation. There is an inherent pattern to refugee resettlement and self-suffi:-idencyNearest- the crisis in time, rclfugees are at their most vufsterabfe, and death rates are highest. As time passes, though, ~ f u g e life e becomes mutine and bortng, even for a group of people who have suffered through Slight and terror. The tasks availabk tend to fill the day, whether it be inwaiting in line for distributions, collecting water, firewood, chitdcare, education, politics, establishhg small gardens, etc. 'The resul"cis that places like Benaca give off an air of permanence after only a few months, as new relationships are established, birth rates rise, and an urban communit?i,with all its ifis, emerges. 'This air of permanence permitted scfugees to improve the situation as they saw it through their own eyes. But the nature of the permanence that develops can be affected by the sikation created by the relief program (see, @.g*, Malkki 1995). In any event, refugee resomefu1ness and. capacity for self-help improve with time. The people vvho we= unabte to feed themselves when they arrived in h.ugtlst 1994 we= later able to cope with breaks in the "food pipeline" b' y resorting to social devices unavailable just months earlier. 'fhcy wercl. stabte enough even to begin replacing the infants and toddlers who had died in 1994, which for a substantial portion of the population undoubtedly refocused social energy Morc ominously, the urban-style idleness so near the Rwandan border made credibfe, at least to some refugees, plans to violent-ly retake Rwanda. This was why the militia groups were able to flourish in the camps, at least for a t h e , But the experience from Tmzania also shows that when opportunities presented themselves, the refugees chameled eMort into rcsettfement acthities and dreams, be they Fr@nchlanguage classes in Katumba, Swahili language classes in Ngara, clearing farmland, seekjng jobs with NGOs, this resourcefulness devetor the formation of political movements. HOW ops, though, is highly dependent on the context created. This was a central point of Liisa Malkki's (1994) study of Burundian mfugees in Tanzania. Refugees isolated in relnote settlemellts without alternatives developed a radical poti.tical movement, with the result that one of the pmtagonistti in Bumndi's civil wars of the 1990shad its beg camps*Rut refugees l h h g in urban Kigonta imested their &forts and resourcefuhess in apolitical pursuits, and in the long run they were more likely to achieve a social status that ble~~ded with the urban Tanzmim milieu (see also Sommers 1994).
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The relief programs as they developed in Ngara did not recognize this shifting refu:ugee capa:bility for self-sufficiency The problem with the Rwandans in Tmzania in 3494 was that the relief programs continued to be based on first-arrival conditions and the assttmption that total szlpport was necessary, Thus, the short-term practicd decision when the ooperation was first established in May 1994, to house refugees in crowded camp conditions, became bureaucratiized dog~aa.Bureaucratic systems establirjhed to mahtajn this level of dependency develoyed their own interests, and socm their staffs assumed that there wap; no other w v to deal with the refngees. In the end, policy-makers assunted that there were only two choices for refugees: repatriation or continued existence in crowded Benaco. Had policy-makers undertaken a more far-reaching analysis, they could perhaps have moved refugees away from the border and given them larger plots, as was done with Rurundi refugees farther south in 1993-94. Indeed, President Nwinyi brjefly made this offer in Octoliler 1994. Instead of accepting it, though, the international refugee refief ~ g i m opted e for the defauft conditicm of continuing with the status quo, irrespective of its u~~sustainability. 'This mistake was repeated in 1994 in the Zairean camps, which lay dlmctly on the Rwandan border. In Zaire the comequences wem more sericrus: refugeewere left along the border where they first arrived, and no serious efforts were made to move &em, or any assistance program, toward the interior. This decision uttinrately played into the hands of radicals organizing cross-boder raids. Xn each case, the de facto derision to support refttgees in c r w d e d camps, once made, created constituencies within the UNFICR, the T m zanian government, the NGOs, and the other elements of the htemational refugee relief regime. Refugee wodd views were interpreted to fit this goal; for exmple, it was asserted that the vast majority of the ~ f u g e e were s apolitical peasants controtled by the hteruhar~w(? and had nothing to fear bp returning to Rwanda. People who worked within the relief regime Qpically asserted this view without any mnre andysis than that provided by the popular press. They also brushed aside efforts to provi,de a more coqlex, and nuarlccd view, such as that of thc UNFfCRfs own G e o ~ Chaponda, e Instead, bureaucracies were conditimed to base decisions on SW-word essays on the izJevl Yo1.h- Tinre op-ed page that focused 011 "killers in the camps" and "cycles of impmityf?ather than on its own analysis and assessments, The last chance to shift gears from this entrenchment of the emrgency relief progrms in self-servis-rg burcaucracjes was probably in late 1994, when the Tanzanian government and the local UNHCR office briefly proposed ~settternmtprograms. But wen this proposal was evaluated only in the context oE what was aiready there-i,t. was conceived as an add-on
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to existhg programs and methods, not as an opportunity to initiate m overall self-heip program. for refugees, The cost estimates for resettlement were high, irrcluding as they did the costs of mcrving 250,000 people to ~rariousremate sites via UNHCR transport, and the program was dismissed out of hand. By default, a policy of perpetuating large crowded ~ f u g e camps e won, But the camps were not sustainable in the htng term. Notes 1 . Bestexhe (1996) claims that the only three clear cases of genocide in the twentieth century are the Ottomans against the Armenians, the Germam against the Jews, and the Rwandan Tutsi against the Hutu. This seems overXy simplistic to me. Tt also seems so to Ren4 Lemarchand (1999), who counts no less than three genocides in the Great takes region of Africa beween 1972 and 1997, He classifies the massacres of Burundian Hutu in 3972-74, the InCe~altnmwemassacre of Tutsi in 1994, and the apparent elirninatim of several hrmdred thausand Hutu in Zaire by RPF and Congo rebels in 1996-97 as genocide.
From World War I1 to Rwanda and Kosovo
The h i t a t i o n s of the Bztreaucratized G o d Samaritan were apparcnt thruughout the conduct of the Rwanda rcfugee rclicf operation. h a gene r d way they were the followhg: I. Lack of a wetl-defined planning horizon 2. Susceptibility to manipulatim by politically interested parties and the press 3, Artificial rigidification of new social boundaries by the assistance bureaucracies Each of these limitations was inherited from a structure that was bmu$t to Tanzania-from Smalia, Ethiopia, CambocJia, and the other emergencies that the hternational ref-ugee relief reginte responded to. II effect, the response to the hands refugee flight was the sum of the strmgths and weaknesses built into the UNHCIC and other agencies since the 1950s. 'There were improvements, particularly h the speed of initial response, in the ability to field staff and coordinate international NGOs effectively, in procwment, and in field-based deeision-making. The speed with which the UNHCR, was able to furnish Belzaco with a potablte water supply reacted these improvements. The ability of Oxfam and MSF-France to respond was due to fmpressive fmpmvements in engineering desig~zand logistics. "Mmagement'kf the hternational press for the UWFECR" purposes was also done well. Coverage was heavy, and war; widely credited with stixnulating generous short-term revonses from Western do~zors. But the weaknesses were aXso inherited f r m previous emergencies and ultirnatdy led to what horn a hurnanibrian perspecthe should be viewed as a failure of the htemationaj refugee relief rcgime: the forcible
From world War 11 fa Rzuandn and f i s o v a
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Refugee girl with cloth doll, Keza camp, February 1995. (Photo by Dagmar Waters.)
repatriation of over 1 million Rwandans and the night ol many into Ihe interior of Zaire, where 200,U00 to 300,000 disagpeamd. h th forests h anitarian outcome, &is was worse than the excesses of the Thai military on the Cambodim border in 197%7C), which did not involve the comp1ici.ty of the international humanitarian cmmuniv. The collapse of the Rwandan relief crperatial~afso o c c u r ~ dat a time when systems for Ihe provisio~nof food and maintenance of refagees by the international community were breaking down. By their own standards, which r e q u i ~ dcmplete suppod fnr rt-ifugees, the operation was failirrg. This breakdown occurred not because of costs, which we= not higher than in other emergencies, but because th emphasjs on human suffering needed to sustain interest and cash flow changed the morality calculation. Victims worthy of succor became redefhed as vict-ixnizers needir?g international tribunals rather than international protection, Meanwhirie, political support for the operation in the West was wifting as the portrayai of the crisis shifted fSom "ancient tribal rivairies'?~ the evil of gcrnocide. Academics and field bureaucrats object& to both characterizations as simplistic. But, in an crperatim whose managers self-cmscic?ut;ly viewed it as depelndent on the press rather &an on the rational analysjs
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From World War I11 to Rzoln~daalzd ECosovo
of their own bureaucracies, only the more simple explanations could be sustained. This shift in the ever-squishy goal of press reception meant that attempts to achieve greater efficiency were stymied as humanitarianism-previously seen as huntanitarian relief and psolmtion from forced repatriation-was redefined in the p ~ s as s justice for genocide survivors a d promotion of repatriation. In terms of the biblical parirble of the Good Smaritan, no longer was the yuestion frmed as one of mercy for an mmymous rubbeq victim along the side of the road, put these as a result of irrational ""ancient tribal Avalries," Now, the victim was still alo~zgthe side of the road, but he was assumed to be lylng there because of his own sham, and therefore not deserving of assistance, Or he was left: at the side of the road while the Samaritan-in pursuit of an implicitly higher good for the victim, n w l y , "justice"-rwshed off to apprc3head the robbers.
The E m e q i n g Strengths I h e fnternatianal refugee relief regime views itself as being humanitarian, nonaUgned, apolitical, m d impartid This goal is enshrined in agelncies such as the ICRC and.the UN agencies; though it is less explicit in osanizations like Mkdecins Sans FrontiPres and Oxfam, they all hart;that goal to some degree. This is reflected i,n the focus over the last 20 pears on i;mproving tt.chnical competency in dealing with straight emrgencp relid programs. Provision of water, establishing rnedical pmtocols, UNHCIC's stockpiling ol trucks in Dubai, UP.jMCIZfscontractjng with emergency consultants, and. the consolidation of financial appeals by USAID and ECHiC>are all examples of this streamlining of operations. AZI of these irnprovelmts had an impact on the i,nitial respmse in Ngara, and Benaco was established efficientv and effectively as a consequence. The April-August 3994 phase can be considered an outstanding success. There was no foscible repat-riation, the refugees werc fed, there we= no serious disease outklreaks, and functjoning communities were established, However, when the time frame is extended in either direction, it is dottbtful whether the more cent-rd humanitarian rcsponse has innproved significantly since the C a d o d i a n emergency. Before April 1994, the tragedy of the Burundians was neglected by donors uninterested in fuxzding an monymous mergency After 9 p t e d c . r 1994, the opera.t.ion slowly unraveled as high initial expectations of refugee virtue and momentum to develop programs for &em could no longer be sustained.
The Role of the Press The central weahess in the whole scenario is the role the press is permitted to play inpolicy-mahg regarding relief, By its naturc, the press, as it
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swhgs its illurnhating light from crisis to crisis and issue to issue, is surprisingly arbitrary and, from the perspective of humanitarian relief organkations, irrational. A camera poit7ted at a Rwandan, Kosovar, or Timo, not: rese refugee is effective in generatiag attention for those ~ f u g e e sbut refugees in general..The press's focus is on the particular situation when and where a reporter happens to alight, not on the more. general issue of effective refugee relief. Bureaucmts in hunanitarian organizations everywhere tremble at the press's potential presence and "ipnpute,'' or imagine, its prt?sence, even when it is not there. This is of course fine for the press's 'katch dog'hole regarding bureaucratic arrogance. Massive amnunts of bureaucratic excess, inhumanity, laziness, and pulchritude are prevent& through the deterrent power of hureaucrats"'imputing" the presence of the press everywhere.. In Max Weber's terms (1948:254-256), the power of the prcss is charismatic, meani~~g it depends on unpredictability-for exmple, a special qualiv of a clip of film or an article that catches the .fancy of the West-. The best example of this charisma is Mohammed Annin" film of the Ethiopian famine that was broadcast on BBC news and that practically by itself riveted the at-lention of the West on famine issues in Ethiopia. Clips of film from the Rwanda crisis, Somalia, Kosovo, and other emergencies were aka of this naturt.. It was arbitrary that there were no such clips that focused on places like BurLIndi in 7,993, Liberia in 7,995, East Colombia ~ in the 1990s, Guatemala h Emor in 1976, Sudan in the 1 9 9 0 ~ the 198Os, etc. 'The phenomenon is explained by the '" refcrs to the importance of film hotage in directjn,g the world's attention1 think this explanation is accurate. The problem is that the CNN effect removes the most basic decisions about how and when to mount relief operations from the bureallcracies best prepared effectively to make those decisions. The press assrames enormous power wbrn it comes to fund-raising.As a mode of fund-raising, depending on the press to pub1icii.e hwmanitarian disasters has become routhized ;in the bureaucratic structures of the international refugee rekf regitne. For example, they search for dramatic situations that rnight: be covered, at the expense ol Ihe mundane, They hire staff not lfor their skills hrefugee relief, but far their ability to attract the press m d thus generate future donations. In this p r o c e ~ the ~ , oversimplified mcvers to oversi.mgliied problcms dfered up by the popular press become dogma. For example, the cause of the Rwanda refugcre crisis is shifted from "prktndial hake&" to simply ""genocide'" a m m nuanced assessment of both factors was not: an option..h the same vein, in 1999 the problem in Kosovo shifted from the KLA, which was described by the U.S. government as being a "terrorist mganization'" involved in the drug trade, to Slobodan Niloscvic within a period of a k w months. The problem is that these answers arc too simple to provide pidance
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and goals for the more complex task of institution building, which is needed to improve the world" refugee relief capability. Organizational Integrity and Press-Driven Funding It has been shown time after t h e that press-driwen funding, though generous, is not reliable. Reliance on press-drive11 funcfing bedevils all of the international refugee relief regime%programs to some extent, Without it, the international refugee relief regime cannot: respond effectively, as was the case when Burrandifs refugees Red in 7,993. Moving back in time, it was seen in the cases of Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Carnbodia as wcl): in each case, reficE programs began lmg after burczaucratic warnilngs had been issued. For each crisis relevant bureaucracies issued rational analyses of famine and refugee Bight in a tirnely fashion, but these analyses collected dust on shel\ies. Only when the p ~ s raised s the tevel of attention to an e~notionallevel appropriat-e 'or the six o'clock news were programs funded and action taken.' In the case of Ngara there was a second problem with press-driwen fund-raising. Here, the blitz of publ,icity about the Rwanda genocide brought in so much money in a brief period h a t the UNHCR and NGOs were able to make major decisims without ~ f e r e n c eto cost efficimcy, As a wsdt, it was not necessary to develop bureaucratic p r o c d r e s reflecting the efijciency that should underlie modern institutions, The influx oi money was necessary in the cmtext of m acute emert;ency, but it skould be kept inmind that the level of "acuteness" is primarily a t~nc.lionof the press presence, and not the nursrber of people dying or deservitng of mercy, as the case of the Burundians of 1993demcmstrates, Because of the general percepti,on of acuteness, bureaucratic efficiency was p u h e d aside, and unusual risks were accepted in program development. Rushing from a "¬hingf"to a "do everything" phase is not what staid and methodical bureaucracies do best. But in Ngara, as in Carnbodja, Somalia, Ethiopia, and.other hi&-prclfile emergencies, bureaucracies did rush from a ""d oothingf20a ""d everything'" phase. Consid,er s o m of .the down-to-earth problems this led to in Ngara:
* Standad hydrogeologicd standards wert3 relaxed, with the result that boreholes collapsed wjt31jn six months and the water supply suffered. * Procurement was done from a broad variety of s o w e s without respect to standardization, with the result that the vehicle fleets and water systms often broke down for lack of spare parts. * High staff and NGO turnover meant that survep, social analyses, and consulting information that these staff had genaated
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was in efkct squandered, as the hstitutimal memory was regularly lost. Stteurity cmcerns werlt overemphasizc.d. mere was no commit~nentto train long-term local or rcfttgee staff; the emphasis on emesgcrncy personnel meant that as one expensive expi-ltriateleft-, anotkr was hired. Improvemer.~tsin refugee S&-sufficiency capabilj4ies w e ignored.
The Fixing of Bureaucratic Assumptions Early in the Process As I have discussed, in Ngara, bureaucratic systems became mtrmched quickly*During the first year of any operation, a wide range of st.mda.rds are established for how the relief operation will be run, how decisions arc t&n, what standards arcr most important, and what is to be done. Many of these stmdards have little to do with rehgees per se, and much to do with the rclfugee assistance agencies, The standards that are adopted do, however, have longer-term imglications for both agencies and ~ f u g e e s . They concern refuge rations, registratim procedu~s,expatriate expectations for security, standads for office space, assumptions of refugee capability, length of contracts, segrt~gationof expatriate and locals, and many other abinistrative m d day-to-day isues. Many of Chese poljcies were established to solve an immediate problem. When an agmcy didn't get its way both the UN and NGCls mgaged it.% back-alley d i v e r i n g to the press, The concerns in Ngara about expatriate scl-czlrity generated i,n June 1994 with respect to the Gaktc incident is perhaps the best exmpfe of this.h o t h e r example of using the press to gain leverage is the March f 995 memo from NC;;Os complainirrg about delays in.food deliveries. The problem was that when NGOs engaged in such b&avior, the critical and predictdttle standards needed to brareaucratize refugee relief itself' were ignored. As a result, less attention was paid to mundane needs for refugee livirrg space, appropriate water provision, effective contingency plamhg for refugee influx, food rations, and a twcking capabilities. The water sectors in Ngara and Thailand are &so good exmples ol these problems. Uecisims about where to drill, what types of pumps to buy, etc., wert? made on the basis of short-term availability or the person& preferences of a particular engheer present during the financal "tap-onF"hhase, m d not sustahed engineering analysis. Irrespective of the faet that such decisions were assumed to be ""Cmporary,'"hey bec a m permanent as brtreaucratic assumptions were fixed. The same can be said of camp design, En both Thailand and h z a n i a rapectjvely M:hao I Dang and Benaco were desiped as temporary solutions to an irnmediate crisis. But both violated assumptions about what makes a refugee
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camp sustainable or not. m a o I Dang persisted despite these assumptions, while Benaco did not. In efiect, in lowering standards, accerpt.ing higher risks, and throwing the dice, Khao 1 Uang wm, in large part because a resettlement program emerged. Benaco lost. The Fixing of Moral. Assumptians
Also behind the quick decisions are moral assumptions about victimhood that. are a more enduring part of refugee relief work. 7'he assumed passivity of refugees was found in many of thc operations descrihed here, hdeed, it is what makes the international refugee relief regime intmzatinnal, and not a group of agencies focused by various national Red Cross societies, local governme~~t agencies, or representatives of, say, the United. Nations Development Programme (IJNUP). A big part of the reason this occurs (as opposed to development work wherc. the opposite is more typical) is that rcfugee work is wen as a skill focusczd on the victims themselves, and not the development of a broader social milieu. A second moral consideration that emerged sometime between the Cambodim m d Rwandan crises is the assumption that mass refugee relief programs are related to the crimes that people in a population have committed. As a resdt, the assumed guilt of some refugees affected relief politics for ail relwgees fsom Rwanda. As a coacept, though,this was rarely examined beyond m occasional op-ed piece. Thus, while virtually everyone concerned agreed that war criminals should be prosecuted and .fairly tried, it: seerns odd that bu,reauccacies hvhose job is refugee rcllief and the delivery of food, water, and medical care shodd do so, Xn effect, in addition to its core responsibilities, the international rc-rfugee relief regime was asked to estat?ljsh a legal precedent. for sornethhg as sodally cmplex as an international justice system. This goes against the grain of "bureaucratization,'hwhh focuses on specidization of tasks, and not generalization to unrelated fields, Bureaucracies on Parachutes Tn large part, both the weaknesses in program administration and moral uneierpinnings are limited by the nature of the '"parachuk bureaucracies" that now make up the international refugee relief regime. 'The idea behind the ""parachutefpimage is that at any time and m y placer, the goal. is to provide a standad relief package y?xicklyfjust as the mititary parachutes trclops into remote battlefields quickl.y. MSF, IIFRC, the Oxfam Emergmcy Unit, USAID-sponsored disaster and rapid response (DART) teams, and UNHCR have all done this to a greater or lesser extent. M m y of the standards they establish make refuse relief more effective, partic-
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ularly in the short run. But, such ""parachute bureaucracies'koperatkg independently from local institutjms arc expensive, and as a result can he estabtished only during a point when there is a generous press-driven "tap-on" phase of fhance- Such agencies are very aware that their constituency is the international press, not the country in which they operate or the refugees themselves. But because they h w e the highest budgets, press agents, and the most expatriates, they quite often are the most prominent when standards for assistance are established. In Chapter 3, the stengths and weaknesses of bureaucracies in general we= djscussed. 'The strenglt-rswe= in efficiency in the cornpletio~~ of cornptex tasks, while their weaknesses were in their rigidification, meming their inabiliq to ~ s p o n to d change quickly Here too is a paradox because rclfugee situations are fluid almost by definition. N'evertheless, the bureaucracies ds rigidify as surely as they gmw. Turf, respmsi10ilities, and budgets are carved out quicfcly ir~spectiveof the type of emergency. The social analyses that provided the rationnle for assistance in the first ptace become volatile, Given that it is embedded in the needs of the p ~ s s to smsationatize, it seems relevant to recall Tuchman's Law (Chapter S), which is really an assault on the mamer in which disasters are discussed and evaluated: Tuchman" Law: The fact of being repc~rtedmultiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable event by five- to tenfold (or any figure the reader would care tcr supply).
Parachute relief bureaucracies, in order to expand, need action to take contrd of the situation. As a result, 'litchman" mmultiplier imrnediatefy rises. I11 Ngara, those oE us who we= interested in development issues called the emergency crowd ""adrenalinejunkies" because they preferred action to waiting or andyzing. The international relief regitne of corarse sought such people, shce action is what is routinized. The point of bringing this up here is to point out that when bureaucrats seeking action arrive, they are likely to find action in one way or the other. But this led to the false positives that compromisr.cf the whole effort. More recently; I watched the effect of action-oriented relief admhistraand read about it in Time magazine during the April-July I999 reports about the elhnic cleansing in IXosovo. Seeking to justi.i)l action through bureaucratic norms rooted incalculabiliSy, there was again a persistent demand for a body count. The information is not easily calculable; nevcrt-heless, people contjnue to make estimates and thereby create the impression that the information is calculabllc.2 For example, in May 3999, when no one really knew very much, estimates of dead ranged er on. refugee interviews, to 2UQ,QOC), which is from 4,080, a n u ~ ~ bbased
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From World War II to Rzoln~daalzd ECosovo
the nulnber of Kosovar males unaccounted for in the refugee camps. Even when a little bit more was known by mid-June 1939, estimates oi Kosovar liead ranged from an assertion of a ""possible If),t)OO kitled, as many as 100 mass grave sites at latest NATO count'" the June 28,1999, issue of Time to President Clinton" assert-ion in a news conference the same week fiat tens of thousands had hem killed during Serbia" e t h i c cleansing. M a t hiippe11c.d was that d i f f e ~ nburcaucraries t with different interclsts were generating figures as they pursued their own interests via fie p s s . 'The process of hamfng the Kosovo situation as of that week had yet to work itself out. This happened rcpeatecaly as the genocide in Rwanda was framed and continues to be framed. fn Kosovo the problem is still working itself out. Predictably, more recent estimates of the dead tend toward the lower end of those made on CN'N' during t k war. Notes I. The press and NGOs are oddly atzrare of the irrationalities of press-driven funding. There is no shodage of art..icles asking why one emergency is more irnpc~rtantthan the other. Far example, recently an article in the Christiatz Scierzce Monitor by Peter Ford was brought to my attention (1999). In the front-page article, the leader noted: "The Red Cross raised $7' million for Turkey" quake vict i m . A Congo appeal: $0.'" In the text of the article, Denis 13ingaud,director of development for MSF, is quoted: "When the media go all out on one crisis they drain a lot of donor money to the te;?le-rrisualevtznts. . . and that means there is less money for other places." Later in the article, be is again qucrted: ""Nowadays TV crews get to the major crisis before tzre do." The explmation far this seeming anomaly is not that TV crews are partjcularty fast; rather it is that the aid agencies in effect let the TV crews select the crises they respond to. MSF is fc~llawingthe TV crews became that is where their fmding base comes fmm, rather than the other tzray arnrmd, Had MSF selected emergencies on the basis of actual assessments of humanitarian need, they might very well have beat the press to the scene. 2. Gkrarct Prunier wrote about the difficulties in counting the victims of both the Rw-anda genocide and the "eexact-iont;" of the RPF gcrvernment. See Prunier (1995 and 199%:261-268 and 358-368). Such difficulties are also described in Chapter 10.
A Broader Context:
Overcoming the Limitations of the Bureaucratized Good Samaritan
Millions who would have died are today alive because of the effarts of the international refugee relief rt;gime. Xn addition, it is clear that the international refugee relief regime has improved its capabilities during the last 20 to 30 years. Equally, though, it is clear that the international ~ f u g e relief e regirne does not realize its full potential for delivering both aid and Che protection of hmanitarian rights. This book is about why this is so m d identifies weahesses inherent to the bureaucracies delivering aid. AIthough these weaknesses cannot be diminatecl, their e&ct can perhaps be d i g a t e d . My cen.t.ral pajnt is that to take advan.t.age of bureaucratic strengths, bureaucratic decisim-making needs to be further sationalized. This means developing procedures, policies, a d technology, which are predictaklle, e%jcient,calcuiable, and give bureaucrats the tools to control the situation. Most important, it means defining precisely what the internationat rt;fupee relief rr.gime does. 111 Tmzania, it became involved in a host of cmplex issues beyond its care responsibilities, which are refugee relief and protection. The peripheral issues like the administration of justice, promotion of reconciljatio~~, and pmmotion of voluntary repatriation, ultimtely compromised the cent-ral godmf d u g e e relief and protection,
Refoming the International Refugee Relief Regime As a result of this lack of task definition, there continue to be weahesses in t-he jnternatio~~al ~ f u g e rcllief e regime. To =view these hveaknesses, it is useful to frame them in terns of the five elements of a bul-eaucracy that were discussed in Chapter 3. 'These five eiements were Weber's four elements-efficie~~cy, calculability, predictabiiity, and control-plus the
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A Broader COBtext
problem oE defining a goal. These can be assessed to idcntify the =forms these qualities suggest-,These were: Ucfinition of a goal: careful specilication of what the international refugee retief regime is tving to achieve * 'l'he lack of prczdictdbility ir-therent in rehgee crises The impact that control by bureaucratic procedures m d techology has on refugee relicf * 'l'he impulse to catcuiate Mow overall efficiency suffers
S g ~ z & i t ~the g Goal A chronic problem is that it is unrlear what the goal of the international =&gee rt?lief regime is. The international refugee relief ~ g i m tried e to achieve the followhg goals in Tmzmia: 3.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Delivery of a comprehmsive relief program (program administration) * Doing so in a mamer which means that maxhurn effort is seen and reported on Doing so in a manner that is iscally rcsponsibte and results in comparatjvely low morbidity and mortality rates Protection of refugee rights (advocacy and enforcement of internatio~~al refugee law) * Protection agajnst forcible repatriation * Protectim against exploitation by other refugees Promotion of peace, reconciliation, and justice efforts (diplomacy, developmnt, and.crimhal l w ) * Cross-border visits by selected refugees Identification, exclusion, and prosecution of war criminals and genocide perpetrators * Operation of racfio stations Murnanitarim rclportjng for the hemfit: of the press * Collecting refugee narratkes * Evaluatiing and assessing veracity of refugee reports R e p r t h g and pub.icizing human rights abuses Generation of reports necessaq- to sustain political support in donor countries Maintaining support for donations from USA:ID and ECHO * Maintainjng support for specific NGO prqrams Promotion of repatriation and resettlement policies Arrmgin.g cross-border visits
Arrmgement of resettle~xentpolicies
* Promotion of Tanzanian and Rwandan political policies The list could be longer. But the point is that one bureaucracy; or even a collection of bureaucracies like the international refugee relief regime, ot be expected. to do every task well. In the case of the international refugee relief: regime, what it does best is deliver relief programs and protect refugee rights (items 1 and 2 in the above list). But in Pagara, the UNMCa and its partners went beyond this level, becoming involved in diplomacypadvocacy, administration of justice, and other issues normay u n d e r t a n by other bureaucracies. When this occurred, the primary relief m d protection funclions suffered. For example, the insistence that voluntary repatriation was the only solution o r the Rwandan refttgees meant that relief progrms were compromised. Even water provision poficies, which are at the heart of any relief program, were s u b s u e d to the repat-riation goal. More central, of cotrrse, w s the neutralization of the very concept of ""voXuntary," which inevitab2y sacrificed the apolitical reputation of the W H C R and NGOs in the community they sought to assist. The International Committee for the Red Cross, in contrast to the UNHCR, carefully defines its capabilities and rclsponsibilities as assisting victims of mititary confict, and prisoners of war, and limits itself to those activities. It is atso consistently the agency most likely to be first in delivering relief to war-affected populations. Finally, it is the least likely to be seen ferrying reporters around refugee camps or, as I ~ c e n t l ys a ~ ion ,dsantatically dumping reljef goods out of a helicopter emblai.,oned with WFP stickers in a remote vil.lage in Kosovo. The clip made for dramatic footage, but the narrative also irzdiuated that the expensive helicopta was deliverkg one to tvcro days' rations to a village that was not suffering from a food shortage. :I wonder how WFP programs are being bmaucratized fn Kosovo as a result of this precedent, and comparc. this progrm to the qlliet success of ICRC, whieh, was the agmcy with the incountry stacks of food hTanzmia in May 1994. fames Ingram, the former head of WFP, and A n d ~ w Natsios of World Vision have also noticed that ICRC has had unusual success in developing relief programs, They crc3dit this success to ICRC" llong tradition of quietly negotiating with warring parties for humanitarian access. I would credit thc su,ccess to ICRC's ffocus on a single compkx bureaucratic task, on wf-iich all its operational goals have been well focused. Most important is thc. emphasis on ccrnfidentiaiity, which efiFectively means that though the press is allvays free to report on its activities, I C K does not rely on the pmss to identitjr crises or micro-mmage its humanitarian work to provide story opportunities. K R G undoubtedly has numerous ""irationalities in its rationality" bee the example of the Ger-
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man XCRC officer in southern Sudan described on page 50. Rut hordinate numbers of these examples do not make their way into th press in the mamer that the irrationality of "feeding murderersf" in Goma and Ngara conthued to be hammered on. There is no reason why the UNHCR, WFIP, and the NGOs could not effectkely ""define out" the peripherai tasks that negatively affect h w they respond to refugees"For example, both the promtion of volw~taryrepatriation programs and the development of an international justice system for prosecution of war crimes arc? important goals. R u t they are goals mast appropriate for bureaucracies designcd for those speific purposes. When policies and procedures of relief agencies arc reoriented to take account cJf such issues, the relief programs themselves inevitabIy suffer. Ultimately, defining the goal carefuly will, requirt. an assertion of: will on the part of the fundting bureaucracies at ECHO, USAIU, and elsewhere. This ~ y u i r e sa culktral change, a redirection of attention away .from the immediate domestic appetite for news as satisfied by CN69"s cameras, to the broader question of how best to develop refugee relief programs. Most important, the location and timing of fnterventions need to be identified on the basis of syste~saticassessment of humanitarian risks on the world" borders, not by the press. These assessments are al.ready being quiety generated in foreip ministries, miversities, and relief bureaucracies aroulzd the world. Neverthe&, leaders cite as the criteria for action not these assessments but photqraphs and footage shown by the broadcast rwdia, op-ed pages, and ad\locacy groups (see USAID 1998).
Bureaucracy ahhors a crisis, which by definition is unpredictable, Which is why the international rehgee relief regime seeks to routinize plannfng, be it for standardization of water s ~ ~ p psystents, ly food pipelhes, or me& ical pmtocols, In effect they seek to routinize crisis management Planning is dcme to take the unpredictability out of operations. The irony in emergencies is that planning means making something predictable out of what is unpredictcd. Rut this can be routinized, too, despite the seeming contradiction. For example, fire deparments routinize every darn as being an emergency that is vigorously responded to, even thou& most are false alarms, In effect, the tolerance for the "boy who cailed wolf""(the false pogtives) art? routinked and expc~ctedbecause not doing so inlroduces unacceptable risk. In refugee work;, though, the tof,ermce for Mse calls has yet to be mutinized, Instead, false positives bec m e a criterion for believing that there is a habit of exaggeration. In l q e part, this is becarnse there ,?re two d i f f e ~ nsets t of bwaucsatic W-
tors, the conservative diplomatic repctrters and the staff of the moro aggrasive international rclfugee relief regime, which have implicitly different criteria for assessment m d action. Predictrzbility was also a bureaucratic strength found in the techology used at the beginnjng of the crisis in Ngara. h the water sectorf the Oxfam emergency water system was used to good effect. The prtiblem was that this initial setup established bureaucratic assumptions that the available procedures could not cope with. This was not the issue of the technology per se, but the assumption that t-he initial influx wollld end. This assumption is embedded in water-systems el~gir\eering,whose principles are based on fixed populations and are i_nappmpriate for unpredictable ~ f u g e populations. e Refugee popuiations grokv, shxlnk, and change quickly. 'This is essentid if rights to protection and return arc to be maintahed. Refugees should be h a l t with and p1 ed for in terns cJf years, not months; complex issues cannot be dealt with quickly. Furt.hermore, dogmatic insistence on voluntary repatriation policies are also unrealistic in the polilicized world of the refugee. Repatriation may be appropriate for many refugees, bat no refugee crisis is likely to be solved hp this '"msize fits all" policy The predictable aspects of refugee mnvements have not been "engineered" into the technology and procedures deweloped by ernergency agencies like MSI; and Oxfam, Inked, inTmzania these two agemcies in effect engineered their own exits from the systems they established, leaving the tlNHCR and other agencies with the more mundme role of operations and maintenmce. This raises an issue about the nature of "parachute bureaucracies," meaning qencies brought from outside with bureaucratic systems moted elsewhere, In Ta~zania,for exaxnple, one such agency, Oxfm, literalXy airlif-ted in prefilb e m q e n c y water systems. Such bureaucracies become most necessary when there is little contingency preparation, cost consikrations are minimal,, and local bureaucratic capacity is weak. Parachute bu~aucracies,though, establish unsustainable stmdards for their successors, who by definitkn include the agencies best able to develop ret"ugee and local skilts. In effect, they were, korn fie context of 10cal conditions, disconnected. and thesefore unpredictable. In t e m s of "prc.dictabilityIrtthis raises the question of why the international refugee relief regime is not involved in Ihe systematic strengthening of"emergcrncy response capa:hiliq FR potentjal host countsies. The agencies that tried to do this in Ngara-LWFd Caritas, and the Tmzmian Red Crosshad difficdties compet;ing with the MSFs and the Oxfam emergency unit during the initial setup period. Equally predictably, they also inherited the setup and the expectations generated by the better finmced and "more professional" setup agency
A Broader COBtext
Why Bumuemtic Control ShonM Be. . . Controlled Bllreaucratic control is the engine on vvhich operationat efficiency is achieved. The slrength of contml is in large part &pendent on the devdoprnent of procedllres and technology guiding decision-making and guaranteeing the quaiity of service pmffered. fnncrvatim can occur before and after a refug= situation, but not during. The bureaucracies in Ngara brought to the situation a strong set of technological and operating procedws, As long as these elemmts were permitted to cmtrol the decision-makil~g,things went as weXf as c o d d be expected. Refttgees were received, fed, and provided wi& shelter and water, which is what the internatimal refugee regime i17 its impersonal fashion does best. Procedures were established to maintain control over the relief situation. The pl.oblem emerged when UNFXCII, folJowing its naturaX inclination to expand, did so into new fiefds such as the administration of justice and the advocacy of repatrwion prograans on behalf of national governments. The UNHGR and its partners were ill sraited. to perform these complex tasks. 'f'he "natrtral" tenciency for the bureaucracies to expand should hnve been in the direction ol refugee reception capacity, which was xcurrjmg in January 1996, when rcfugees from Burundi were received efficimtly. But this more appropriate expansion was Mocked by the tendel~cyto expand into repatriation politics and the administration of justice, which were incmsistent with the core requirement to provide =&gee relief and protection.
The ability to calculate also underlies efficient:bwreaucracies. fndeed, it is in those f id d s where calculation mached its highest levels that the internation& refugee relief regime did its hest. Precision was sought, and achievccf, in terms of kilocalories per refugee delivered, morbidit-y and mortality rates, and refugees received and protected. These are of course ail indicators of h w much succor has been provided along the side of the proverbial mad. Had these criteria been the sole bases for assessment, the operation hNgara wodd. have been viewed as successful. But, these indicators of bureaucratized success were not the basis of assessment; the more emotional issues of genocide, war crimes, and the volrtntary repatriation program were. The response of a normal bureaucracy should have been to shout: from the highest hilftop that initial relief cmditions were otltstandjrrg, and that the burearncracy should be permimd to expand its relief function by estabfishing more camps, providjng mort. relief, or irnprovhg refugee protection capabilities. tnstead though, the response was a pandering to the unmeasu,rabl,e demand lor a vague
"justice" of the popular press. And wfien Che fcalcdable) voluntary repatriation program stumbled due to rcfugce disinterest, the bureaucracies permitted themselves to be labeled as incompetent by their donors for the failure of a p g s a m which success was bp definition beyond their control.
Secki~zgEficic.)zc$/znitt'z Respect fo a Well-Defi~zrdCoal Efficiency, measured fn the terms of rt?l"ugees succored per dollar, is an admirable goal. It is also one that can be done moro or less effectively-In large part, as :I think this analysis shows, this efficiency is dtixnately dependent on how w& what is being done is defined. Shary>ct.nfngthe goal will have ripple effects on the entirety of m operation. But refugee Aief will never be as bureaucratiraX1y efficient as corporate or even social welfare bureaucracies. This is because the feedback mechanism between betneficiaries of the agencies' assist.ance (mfugees), field staff,and donors is ~ e r e n t l qweak. i There are no profits generated fnr sharltholders or elections held to measurt? rttfugee faith in program implementation. The inescapable fact is that evalmtion wi.31 continue to be dmor-centric to some degree. The beneficiaries are still the donors, a d must somehow must count the '%lesshgsNof extending mercy. h maral terms, success is mercy; and to extend mercy, as the Good Sarnaritan did, is simply the right thing to do. But it can be extended more or less efficiently when m e a s w d per refugee, per dollar spent, titers of water pumped, and Ikilmalories djstribukd. Relief as a Function of Development Ultimately, the abiIi_tJito provide refugee relief is a lunctim of general ecmomic development. It is somefiing the developed cowtries do automati,cally as a function. The United 5tat.e~accommodat-es Cubans, Haitians, Vietnamese, or others with littlie reference to the international refugee relief regime. En the same manner, G m a n y accommociates Kurds and Bomims, m d even Chha h 1978 received Vietnamese. The =ason such countries do this is that they have the resources to do so, and it is somehow consistent with poZirtical fnterests. They do so via domestic institutions, be they govertzmental, nongovernmental, or part of the Red CrosslKed Crescent movement, Notably they do it without thr prior diwction of CNP-J, although the press may well play a role h spotli,ghtingthe more dramatic portions of relief programs. It is in this context that the international refugee relief regime needs to develop refugee ~ c e p t i o ncapability in countries like Tanzania, which me likely to continue receivhg refugees. -The question of how
A Broader COBtext
242
s o m of the very poorest cot~11tric.s of the world, s o m of them producing refugees themselves, will be able to accommodate refugees in the future needs to be answered, and m e a s w s to help these countries need to be built into relief policies, Ironically, this was consider& elernmtal to rcljcf programs, particularly inAfrica, in the 19RUs, a time of skimpier budgets and a different attitude toward =&gee relief. Millions of rczfugees from Mozambique and Angola were removed from the fighting in those coumtries for years. In the process, the refugee reception capability of countries like Malawi, Zambia, m d Tmzania improved. The massive Burundian settlements in Tanzania continue to p v i d c a hvay for Bmndians to shield family and friends frm the fighting even today In this respect, the decisions of the 1970s to accommodate ~ f u g e e facilibted s the capacity of %mania's refugee reception capacity in the 1,9961s.
The Persistence of Refugee Movements Far irom being an anomaly in the postwar world, refugees are a product
of the ccmsolidation of the political authority of the modern natim-state and will continue to be so. By deihition, they are people socially located in the interstices where a nation-state: does not reach, As with the fire department, the question for humanitarians should not be one of "if"" or an assertion of ""never againefTatherit should be a qrxestion of ""vYhe~n'kand "how cast its effects be mitigated" when it happens? This means that =&gee assistance agmcies need to establish mechanisms for the long haul. 7'he relief and protectim issues rajsed when the governant in R:wanda changed arc rarely solved in the short term. Assuming that there are short-tern solutions to problems of refugee movemetnt only mems that- probletns are dekrred rather than solved. In, the case of Wands, long-term development m d humanitarian needs would have been better served by diverting the political focus of the c m p s away from the borders, and toward an organjzed dispersion of a substantial proportion of the refugee population across Africa, :In fact, this happened wfim the Zairean and Kwandans militaries forcibly dispersed the camps on their border, but at considerable cost of life and suffering. As it is, Rwanda has a substantial Hutu population, which is cmtrolkd by the Tutsi-dominated W F government throttgh the imprisonment of a substantial percentage of the male Hulu population of mi1i"cary age As Ren4 Lemarchmd (1999) pojnted out recently, such formulas of political exclusion have contributed greatly to the rewrent massacres in the region. Irmically, the Tanzanians achowledged the need for dispersion of the Rwandan refugee population in October 1994, when they offered land h the south for rural resettlement. rlhe refqees also asserted it in 1996 when they tried to walk (aftcleit improbably) en masse to Malawi or some
other distant destination. Though the Tmzmian proposal may well have been insufEiciesnt to solve the whole problem, it recognized that refugee movements are rarely ccmlpletely ~versible,particularly when there is a n ? onc entrenched political sudden and vident shiFt in poljtical power b party to a completely new one. It also recognized that one of the issues that Rwanda needs to ccmfrcmt in one way or another is tbe cclntinuk~g pressure on the lmd of the substmtial rural popdat.ion. This insight goes wefZ beyond. that of the international refugee relief regime" simplistic and implausible assrtmption that war crimes trials for 5,000, 40,0(10, or even 130,OOO people will "break the cycle of im,purity" and solve the broader questions raised, by such, violent political shifts, It is also probable that Rwanda will not be the last small authoritarian country to generate refugees along remote borders. Again, this is because often enough, the generation of refugees is a process of poli"ricalmodemization fn the ccmtext of regionaf poverty Asserting ""Never agai~t'krassunting that new rules oE international betnavinr will solve this paradox is counterproductive. To contixzrae the fire department analogy it is well mderstood that neither fire departments nor fire insurance cause very many fires. Rather, these institutions m acknowledgments that &ere are imperfections in human societies which have the potential for catafitroing for such catastrophe does not in and of itself i ~ ~ v iit. te
The Need to See Evil The analogy between fire p ~ v e n t i o nand the internat-ional refuge relief regirne is not perfect; the human element in a genocide is much greater than in,say, a dangerousiy wired building, Dealrzg with the emotions involved in genocide, and thc violence typically assocated with refugee fiight are a necessary part of the resolution of refugee crises. Une way to do this is to assign blame. We need tc:,find a bogey-man tc:,blame, to explain away the evil that is before us. h mailmd, Somalia, Ethiopia, etc., the bogey-man was just beyond reach of the courts legit.irnated the mercy offered to refugees in these crises. The Rutaneta sit-uationwas different, in part because the international refugee ~ g i r n had e becom more efficient than in the past and. was able to accommodate everyone outside the country but also because the really bad guys htst, and as a consequmce they tas were in the clamps being assisted. So we want and need a bad guy*But a bu~aucraticmechanism to provide this bad guy in a legitimate and just fashion is beyond the capabiliw of bureaucratbed relief operations; indeed it is a complex legd task unto itself. Crimind law, imperfect as it may be, is the best techni.cal means to legitimately put a face to the evil. Rut it is a very technicat process, and in the context of intenationaj laws about genocide and war crimes, still an
244
A Broader COBtext
i~sperfectlyunderstood tool. The different ways in which people as thoughtful and central to the refugee crisis as Maurcen Connelly, Philip Mangula, and Bishop hugustin f i u r u b a n d e interpreted reports of killing in Rwanda iiiustrate hokv difficult it is to establish a reliable w c h anism for meting out justice, even among well-educated people. Providing a smse of justice to the poor anci semiliterate, who have little concept of the roiie ol the state in protecting the rights of the innocent, wijl be more difficult. Likewise, such a system is more just than havirrg relief workers and reporters gaze into the eyes of refllgees i,n order '"sense eviY in order to identify who is deserving of relief and.who is not.1 :If for no other rcason, the emergence oE the war crimes and genocide trials will have the positive effect of Iegiti."izing relief progrms for the vast majoriFy of refugees who are as innocent of wrongdoing as the man lying at the side of the ancient fudem road. Cridiqui~2gflte It1 ferzatiOna1 RIftlgee Relief Xqime
I m well aware? that my analysis is different than most. Sbce U mant f i s t criticized UN agencies for their weak response to the Bangladesh emergency, there have been persistent critiques of the international refugee relief regime. The typical cornpaint has been that relief has been too chaotic and uncoordinated. The Qpical prescription has been to designate new " c ~ ~ ~ ) r C i i n afor t ~ different r~" situations. Sometimes this happens whesz the UN Secretary General assigns coordbating responsibility to a special representative (Ambassador Shahrayar m a n in R:wanda), a new agency (UNBRO on the 'T"hai-Cambodian borcier), or m old agency (U'NHCR, UNICEF, or UNW). Other tinnes, lCRC has emerged as a de hcto coordinator, even though, so far as :I can tell, they have never cmtered into the close relatiomhips with other field agencies that tbis implies, as it is against their care operational principles, And thus the "problem of coordination" reemerges. 'This occurs, I think because the prowrbial cart is put before the horse. Lack of coordhation-another name for weak bureaucratic cmtrol-occurs because the ultimate goal is too often weakly defined. This opens the "coordinatingf"bmaucracy to charges of &efficiency as the situation is defined m d redefined. In such a co~ztext,one bureaucracy fails and another is appoint& to take its place. Were the task more carefully defhed, one bmaucracy or the other would probably emerge as the 'koordi.nator" rdformers desircj, It is very likely that &&rent bureaucracies would. emerge in different countries and situations. Which agency &ough, is not at; important as the goal of
creating the powerful b~reatncraticmechanisns neccfcd to extend mercy to the hurt m d hungry lying along the world" hhi&ways, Notes 1. Agatha Christie in her mystery novel Nemesis ('p. 130-131) informs us that Miss Jane MarpXe had this sense. X have no doubt that Miss Marple did have this sense, as did Hercule Poirc~t.The ever-rational Sherlc~ckHoXmes of course, did not. However, as Miss Marple also paints out indirectly, such senses are just that, senses, and difficult to analyze. Meaning p u have to take the wcwd of the persc>n I-taving such a skill that it exists; uunfc3rtunately the mc~8e1-nrational world wc~uld need to license and certify such skills before they could be used to legitimate court decisions. received an umalicited mailing from MSF with a headh Oddly, in M a ~ 2000,I line ""Ian smell the fear." This is a good example of MSF's focus on generating emotions rather than evaluating critically, as Pattier Q1996b) advocates. The prclblem of course is that MSF's appeal is effective in raising funds in a fashion that the dispassionate (and competent) apprc~achPcjttier advocates is not. Ambiguous references to the ""sell of fear" are more effective in fundraising appeals than the actuarial tables of risk asxssment.
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PART THREE
Much of my thinkng has been done through witing, and much of this writing was clone in the context of my burclaucratic duties while working in Tmzania and the Unfted States. This book is a srtmmary of such writing, a process wh,ieh has been goi.ng on since about 1985. Much of my this writing emrged. while 1was puzzling through what people said at meetings or in refugee camps, and my efforts at advmchtg the vision that I and my colleag~~es at LJWF ( h o w n in Tanzania as TCRSTanganyika Christian Rcftlgee Service) bad for how refugee work shoufd be done, The fotlowing essays were all in some way part of this thinking pmcess. The essayhcluded here were writtell between 1989 and 1997, and refiect many of the issues that challenged us in our day-to-day activities. They are ir-tclulied here not as a part of the general arg bureaucratized Good Smaritm but as examples of the types of discussions we had in the field, 1have tried to choose essays ilustrating the parameters in which rc-rfqee issues were discussed at the time. Those prirrted here are the followkg: "The Demogmphy of a Camp for Rwmdmsff ""Chabalisa 2-One Year Later'' "The Chahalisa 2 Market Ucvelopment Project" "HIV and M W in the :Nf;ara Reftxgee Camps"" " ~ Many 6 Refugees ~ Are mere in.Ngara?" "Wishing for Repatriation, Late 1995'f ""A Bishop in Exile: The Anglican Church in Ngara Campsf" "Some Practical Notes on a Names Taboo in Wester11Tanzania" The essays were all witten at specific times and pkces, and for a specific purpose, I wodd :like to both put them inlo a specific context as well as indicate how they relate to the main. theme of this book, Three of the essays reflect the vision that I shared with my colleagues at IMF for how rtlfugee work should be done (especiaw Essays 2,3, and
248
Part 3: Bnckgmzr nd Essnys-Irttroducf ion
6). Much more s s than other agencies, we believed that Tanzania's refugee relief issues were a long-term concern that Tanzanian institutions should be helped to deal with. In contrast, oher agencies believed that their role was to deliver relief, save lives in the short run, and protect refugees from abuse, irrespective of the capabilities or views of local. institutions. This is a legithnate difference in vision, and is reflected in mnny of the different- ways that agencies developed policy in Ngara (also see Waters 1999a). I think that the different views of refugee programs at LWF were in large part l.he result of the agency's longer history in Tanzania. As described in Chapter 2, LWF began its programs in Tmzania in 1964, The work conthued in the 1960s and 19ms in camps for Mozmbicans and Burundians. 'The work with Burundians, most of whom arrived in 1972-74, continued through the 198Qs,as large settlemnts in what had been sparsely populated bush were established for over 100,000 rczfugees. The development work involved programs buildkg schools in Arusha and general development programs in Singida and Aruha region, and Kibondo district. n e s t . progrms were far fmm Ihe lintclight and, as described in Chapter 1, were chaotically funded. Oste conseFence was that there was a heavy emphasis on developing local capacity, which tryas both cheaper and consistent with the morc general developmetnt goals. h the process of establiishhg the refugee senlements, as well as development programs in different parts of Tanzania, LWF necessarily developed pmgrams emphasizing the skills and capabifities of Tanzanian staff. They were so s u e cessful at this that in the late 1980s m d early 1990s LWF was one of the largest and most influential NGOs in the country And, consistent with developmel-rt agencies in mmy cotmtries, the relatively few expatriates who worked for LWF development and rdief programs often spoke the national lmguage, or leanled it (in the case of Tmzania this was Swahili). In essence, LJWF was a Tanzanian agency with an expatriate presence rather than the other way around. The relief prcljects in Ngara and Karagwe in 1994-96, however, were domhat-ed by hiernational. agencies run by expatriates who often had s o m experience with relief projects, but little experience in Tanzania, h the rt;fugee relief operatrim in Ngara and Karagwe, this meant that LWF's nnzanian managers sometimes had a tough time presenting Chemselves as possessing the s a m level of competence as the expatriate engineers and administrators brought in from Euwpe. For this reasm, the Tmzanians working for LWF and other age~nciessometimes became scapegoats ior the probkms the operation suffered from. At the time of the rt.fugee emergency in 3994, most agencies, i n c l u d a the UNHCR, responded by hirkg more expatriates at ten times what a
Tanzanim professional cost as described in Chapter 8, This spendkg did not matter in financially flush times. As USAID and ECHO kept their checkhooks open, expatriates were hired by UNHCR and other NGOs fairly easily But when the checkbooks closed in late 19994, pressure mounted to lay off expatriates m d curtail expatriate-intensive programs. This led to bureaucratic attacks on LWF's programs, some of Mthich were legitimate assaults on our befficiencies. mese assaults (typically verbal, sometimes written) were often expressed as doubts about whether Tanzafiian managers were capabte of managing complex programs tike trucking and water delivery. The bureaucratic assault on LJWFfswater programs even made its way into the Joint Eudzration of the Erne~qencyAss i s f u ~ c to e Rzua~zda(199h:volume 3, Chapter 4).1 But at ZJWFwe cmtinued to maintak our ide~~tity as an. agency able to work well with Tanzanians, The bright spot in our programs was the quality of camp management in Chabalisa 2. 'f'his ~lirgtrecamp had a deserved ~ p u t a t i mas beixlg one of the most efficiently and fairly m. The nutritimd standards of the refugees were high, and unlike other camps, there were never rr.fut;ee demcmstrations or ccmfrontationp; (""rots'" the emotion-laclen term oZ1 the olfner camp rnanagentent agencies) about the mfairness of our dktribution policies. Nor were there mmors of major food sales to traders as occasionatly wcurred in some camps. The expatriaEe project coordinator, who attended the coordi,natix~g meetings at the UNFlCR office in Karagwe town, was typicalily given credit for the good record in Chabalisa 2, even though the actual on-site stafl: was Tmzanian m d Rwandan. This is why a number of the e s s q s (Essays 2 , 3 , and 6) reflect our need to brag about the capabilities of our Tmzmian staff in this context. In effect, they were p r t - a p t h e defenses of the capability of our Tanzanian and Rwandan staff. In rl.scadi,ng them, I recognize that the essays were very much written in the context of the moment h e n bureaucratic maneuverings were taking place..As a result, in retrospect, they appear perhaps too flippmt for thc serious book I hope this volurne will be considered. FXowever, I want to include them because they, like much of the operation, are an emotional res t my atsponse to what was really a bureaucratic problem, It is j ~ ~that tempts at diciting emotion were different than those of the CJNHCR and other agencies seeking to perpetuate generous funding policies. S m e phenmenan, djfferent god. A proper burearncrat would prefer a costbenefit comparison assessing food distribution in Chabalisa 2, with a comparison to the expatriate-intensive camp management programs run by Concern International or CARE. Such a comparison never happened. In this context, ""cute" essays about our camp management programs in Chabalisa 2 were the next best bureaucratic defense we had to offer. They are present-ed here by and large as they w e hvritten during the
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Part 3: Bnckgmzr nd Essnys-Irttroducf ion
time I was in Ngara. The date attached to the essay title is the date it was written. Essay 1 is also about Chabalisa 2. Wi-th the assistmce of the two LWF project coordinators, Michael Hyden and Denise Barrett, m d during my own brief tenurcl there as actjng project coordinates, I was able to coUect data about food deliveries, health, and demographics, At the time I thought this data, would be useful i,n managing the camp in the most eMicient bureaucratized fashion. In Tmzania, though,I never had a chance to organize the data to my satisfaction Notably, thou$ the W N M C a was aware that I was colfrltcting data in this fasfiion, thejr staft: had little interest in, using it, and as a result my data analysis was put on hotd.. After retumir~gto the Llnited States, I diif begin to andyze the data; at one point, I had an interest in publishing the data as an article in an acad m i c journal, While writing this book thctugh, I became more and mort. m a r e that as long as refugee relief programs are &pendent on emotion in order to achieve efficiency rather than systemtic data colkction, Ihe delivery of refugee services remains problematic. Thus tbe data arc included here as an example of what could be, rather than what is. I think it ~ne is intpmtant to include the data in an abhrcviated form, inthis v o l ~ ~ for the benefit of readers who may share my interest m d hope that rehgee work will became more rationalized. Essays 4,5, and 7 werc answers to spceific questions asked by visitors we had k m church agencies in Europe. Since they were intended for a church-based audience, I also rttspollded to requestti tc:,personalize the writbg in a fashion which appeals to that audiexzce. HXV and AIRS (Essay 4) are important concerns in any Rwandan population. It is also an issue of great interest to the West; imdeed, it was one of the best-funded programs in Ngara, being directly fuxzded by USAXD via CARE. Esaay 5 is a response to the many normal bureaucratic questions we fielLied as to how many refugees thrrl, were im Ngara. We never had a good mswer. 'This essay is about the reason why. As described in Chapters 3 and 7, it was one of the first questions asked, because of the obvious need of the bureaucracies for calculabitity. Refugeefihave an interest in frustrating this purpose, therczby nbtaining more food in order to supplement what is, after all, a fairly mager ratjon. This is a nat-ural conflict in refugee c a p management. As described in Essay 5, though, the numbers published with such certahty are often based on shaky assumptions, This is not due to any ill-will on the part of the international ~ f u g e e~ l i e regirne; f rather it is due to the very natlrre of the process. Despite the certainties of bureaucratic and press accolmts, refugee n m bers are inherently difficult to determine, and reyuire specialized (bureaucraitized) attention.
Just how much specialized attention is required is illustrated by my own efforts at census taking in 198'7, which are described in Essiay 8. (h earlier ven;ion of this essay was published by the journat Dir;~r?;tcrs in f 989.) 'This is one of my favctrite essays, and X am trying to raise its profile a bit by including it here. As a descriptive essay it also fits in well with the bureaucratic pursuit of calculability. Essay 7 is a short stmy about how the hng[iean church hvctl-ked i,n the refugee camps. The international refugee relief regime is of course a firmly secular operation, even though it relies on a number of agencies that have a base h various religious communities. This essay about the Anglican church was written in response to LWF" own church donors, who often had questions about what the church was doing in the =&gee camps*1 hope it is stilf of interest to people wiCh those concerns. But 1believe that the essay is also of m m gmeral interest, as it reflects well the "situational" nature of ethnic identity, especially that of Hutu-Tutsi elation~,and is included here primarily for that reason. Notes I. The attacks that appeared in the JEEAR reELected the problems we had with the management of our water delivery prc>gramsin the Benaco camps. In my view, the assertions made about LWFrs performance in this sector were erroneous. But this was the program with the most expatriate involt\rernent, and as a result the prc~blernswere brc~adcastmost widely, eventually reaching the ears of the JEEAR consultants.
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The Demography of a Camp for Rwandans
It is well known that the demographic structure of migrant groups is unusual; migratian is a process that selects by age, family status, and gendey: The most likely age af immigrants is in the ecmomically active years (15 to 30 years) when unmarried people seek work, Immigrant groups may have a disprcsportionatety large number of either males or females, depending on the nature of the work sou&t (Weeks 1996:218-220). Refugee grctups, though, differ from the typical immigrant group in matters of motivation-refugees, by definition, are not pursuing economic gain but fleeing persecution. The specific demographics of a situation have an efkct on the ethnic groups that are subject of the persecution. They also have an effect on age and gender of refugees, for flight itself is demographically selective process (Munz 4983; Harrell-Bcmd 1986)-The elderly and very young, who are the most vulnerable in any population, are more likely to die during a difficult flight or to be un.abte to Ree in the first place. This in turn can effect the demographic gs~tentiai within the refugee populations: women in peak fertility years are more tikdy to be present within the pctpulations, whereas thc.se at ages where mortality is mc)re likely (the very young and the very old) are less likely to be present, Understanding these issues is impc~rtantfor three reasoJns. First, in the short run, rmberstanding refugee demgraphics is important if relief services are to be delivered efkctively. Poor understanding of refugee dynamics has led to policy errclss in the provision af relief supplies for targeted portions of the population, as will become apparent betow, For example, child mortality is systematically overestimated by formulae which assume that 20 percent of a refugee population is under five (as it is in most rural African areas-see Quist 1995; Mkdecins sans Fronti&res 1995); an unusually large number of younger fertile females in the pc~pulationcan mean that fertility patterm will be incorrect1y estimated (Waters 1996; Quist 1995; /EEAR 1995); ~Jverestirnationof the rmbe~fivepopulation leads tcr vaccines and medicines" being aver-ordered. The size of the elderly population is also likely to be overestimated.
Tn a longer term, demographic generallizaticn are often made having implications for political claim, For example, claim are often made about refugee fertility patterns, death rates, and the relative health of hosts compared to that of the refugee population.l The latter claim is often the most palitically sensitive owing to the impressian held by many that refugees, who are the recipients of international largesse, somehaw have an "easier" life than locals if health indicators are better.Us is described below, there is some factual basis to such arguments. However, this variation is not due only to international largesse. t o w mortality in ChabaXisa 2 was also the consequence of the absence of the very young and old who are the ones mc)st iPik1y to die. Third, a broader theoretical literature dealing with the scjciobgy of refugee p~pulatic>n~ has emerged, some of it fc~cuwdon central Africa (Malkki 1995; L). Newbury 1998; Lemarchand 1994; Long 1993; Cl. Newbury 1995). Implicit tcr this discussion is how refugee groups grotv, contract, and h r m new social groups (Sommers 4994; Waters 1990; Malkki 4994). The demographic infc~rmationhere describes the basic social material among whom new social account's, ar *'ethnohistories," will be generated. Be that as it may, it is hoped that the following data will form a stmnger foundation for discussions in the future. Admittedly these data are from only one of the 30 ar 40 refugee camps in the Great Lakes region and are subject to all the disadvantages of a "'sample size of one." Hc>wever,given their empiricaly grounding, in cmtrast to the impressionistic demographic canclusic>nsso quick1y drawn in policy circles, a number of salient points can be made, including the following (see also Table AI .l): Total fertility rates-an estimate af how many children a woman would have-in Chabalisa 2 in 1994-95 may have equaled those in prewar Rwanda by the end cE 1995.11:toc~kapproximately ane year for the fertility rates to recover to prewar levels. Crude birth rates-the actual number of children born in a poputation-on the other hand, were higher owing to the dispmportionatc)iy large number of fertile females in the refugee population. Reparted child mortality rates (children under five years old) never equaled tho>seof Tanzania or Rw-anda, even during the period shortty after the establishment af the camp, ar during the succeeding 45 months (see Tkble A I .l),Crude mortaliv levels were also low. This was prcjbably due to a cornbination of the very small pmpc~rtionaf the papulatiun between zero and two years old, and the high lwef of medical care delivered by the UPIiIHGR and Mernisa, a Dutch Catholic agency ass i p e d by UNHCR to provide medical service, There was no apparent correlation between d e l a y 4 food deliveries in April 1994, suboptimal patable tzrater deliveries in late 1995, receipt of a ration rarefy exceeding 1,1700 kcajts per day, and the regc~rtedmol"cality rates. Presumably the low rates of delivered supplies were supplemented by refugee foraging in surrounding areas, Neonatal death rates were about 10 percent of all births.
TABLE A1.1 Mortality and Fertility Data far Chabalisa 2 Refugee Camp in 1995 Week
B bf Its
Deaths under 5
Denilzs otter 59
4 10
It
-
II II 5 7 8 4
-
9 3 4
It 9
12 28 18 18 15
1s
25 20 25 24 25 26 30 38 (to 9/24] 20* nia
October 1995: 156 (35 births per week) November 1995: 162 (36 births per week) Total: 927 births for 4995. Crude birth rate of 2.5 percent (X/I,U00) on po~putatic>ns of 317,026.4.2 percent assuming 30 bit.C.E.rsper week. GDR 517/378026, i.e., 4.4 percent, Natural grc~wthrate wautd have been 1.1percent for 11995, Sottree: Complimentary records for ChabaXisa 2 were photocopied by the author.
*
*
Mortality peaks were reached just after the camp was estabtished in late 1994, and during an epidemic of gastrclenteric diseases in February 1995. Othem-ise mortality rates were IOW. Approximately one third of all deaths tzrere attributed to malaria. Nevertheless, as with deaths from gastrointestinal disease and matnutritic~n/starvation,there were notable decreases acrrlss time.
The Data: Chabalisa 2 IRekgee Camp A chance to more carefully specify refugee demographics came up in 1994 when Chabalisix 2 camp was established in western Tanzania. ChiabaXisa 2 war; established in September 19% to accommodate refugees who had arrived in Tanzania between ApriX and August 19% frcwn two communes in Rwanda. All of the refugees had made a difficult trip by foot across swamplands on the TamaniaRwanda border between Nay and August 1994, and were then received at a campsite named Chabalisa. By the end of August 1994, refugees were cxeupying swamplands that threatened to be flood& by the rains in Sc?ytc?mber,As a result, a new campsite was established four kilometers away and apprc~ximately40,000 refugees were moved there. At ChabaXisa 2, the refugees were r e g i s t e ~ dand assigned I-rouseplots. At the time of registration, each refugee family had to present itself to the nongovernmental agency managing the camp, LWF. The name c~fthe head of household was recorded, as were the age and gender of the household members, This infc3rmation is repc~rtedin Figure Al.l. In December 1992, a sample of 1,4M famiries (17,480 individuals) was entered into an Excel computer file. From this infc>rmation,it was p~~ssible to calculate age and gender distribution and the f a d l y structure of the arrivals. Data regarding camp fertility was also obtained for the period January 199SDecember 1995 from the camp hospital which was run by Memisa (see Quist 1995). fn adciitic>n,death registrations for the period October 1994-December 1995 were also obtained for the camp management agency LWF, which maintained a death register on the basis of inhrmatisn from the hospital. Refugees had incentive to register deaths, in order to be provided with a burial shrc>ucland burial plot. Tnfc?rmation about fc~oddistributicm was ava iXable from ApriX to December 4995. This infclrrnation was generated by Mernisa, which did random sui-veys at food distribution points every I-mro weeks or so, Water deliveries ranged from two to five liters per refugee (about one half to one U,$. gallon) per day during the period discussed. Water deliveries were by a combination of piping water from a spring and trucking. W t e r distribution was cuordinatd by the agency Oxfam.
The Demographics of Chabalisa 2 Tofnl Population At the time the camp was founded in Spternber-December 1994, 42,000 refugees were registered. Throughout 1995, a population of 43,000 was assumed for food
FIGURE A l . l Age Distribution of Pc>pulat.ionat Chabalisa 2 Refugee Camp. Data collected at Chabalisa 2 refugee camp indicated that the refugee pupubtian had an unusual age distribution. Unlike most African gopulations, the largest age grc~upis not the very young. Rather, it is the 7-t0-15-year-a1ds of bath sexes. Compared to other African poputations, there are also relatively few people ower 60. (Sazirce: Sample of ChabaZisa 2 pc2pulation dcme by the author; data collected under the supervision of Michaet Hyden.)
distribution%plot allocations, and other administrative tasks. This figul-e tvas adjusted downward to 33,000 in December 1995, after a district-wide UNHCR census of four camps indicated there was a 21 percent overregistration in aXI K a r a p e camps. It is not clear how much of this overcount had occurred in Chabalisa 2, as camp-by-camp statistics w e l not ~ released by U N H C R , Because of the mare systematic prrjcedures at the initial registration at Chabalisa (the other camps relied primarily on refugee generated lists as the refugees arrived directly fram Rwanda), it was assumed that Chabalisa 2 had the most accurate count in the area. For this reason, this paper assumes a 37,000 refugee camp pc~pulationin the calculation of rates.
Age S ~ t r u ~&fa y Records of 7,480 refugees from 1,401 families were examined. This is assumed to be 20.2 per-cent of the total populatitsn, and a multiplier af 4.95 was thel-eEt>reused to generate camp totals for age-specific rates. Half of the records sampXc3d were Erorn each of the two Rwandan communes in 611abalisa 2 present in the camp. Ages for 300 heads of househafds were randomly assiped due to missing data caused by an omission by one clerk.
Food Distribtttints and Morta tify As part of the food distributitic~nprogram, rations w e l distributed ~ to refugees at a central distribution point every week two weeks (Table A1.2). During the year,
TABLE A12 Food Distribution in 1995 Week
Kcnts per pcrs.son 4,647 1,600 4,692 1,710 4,468 1,770 1,409 1,614 1,641 4,655 1,677 no records 3,401 (1700) 3,647 (1823) 3,748 (1874) 3,596 f 1798) 1,829 3,438 (1719)
This table shc>wsstatistics Ercm Food Basket Monitoring developed by Mernisa on behalf of the World Foo>dProgramme. Sampling started at week 16 of 4995, when there were weekly food distributions. After week 42 distributions shifted to a biweekly schedule. Estimates of the weekly rations are therefore given in parentheses. Generation of the data involved random assessment of the ratians received by individual refugees as they left the distribution point. Food basket marketing was done by weighing what each family actually received at the faad distribution, and then converting the amounts into a figure for kilocaXories per day per person,
monitoring data showed that mean rations prcjvided per person ranged laeween 4,41)0 and 1,900 kilocalaries per person. Low points in distributitic~ndid not have an obvious correlation with fluctuations in fertility or mortafiq. This data do not include what the refugee actually ate, These rations were supplemented by refugees through a range of activities such as fcjraging, day-labor work, tilling small plots, etc.
Cause5 of Death The under-five population had a brge proportion of the deaths, as is common in a rural African poputation (Tabte A13).Ffc>wever,as Table A1.3 shc)ws, the nature of the under-five deaths varied over time. Indeed, in the course of the year there war; an owerall improvement in the health of children. For example, in October 4994 there w e l ~ 24 deaths of children between one and five years 018, and two neonataI deaths. In contrast, a year later, in Octc~ber1995, there were no recorded d e a t h of one-to-five-year-oldsfbut there were nine nematal deaths, and gasThe cames of death were primarily malaria, rnalnutriti~~~/st;larvation, trointestirral diseases classified as both diarrhea and dysntery (rI"ableA4.4). The TABLE A1.3 Monthly Mortality Data
Morlalify darn
Total
Tofaliday Under S/&y Under 5 per l0#000 per 20,81)0
Neonatnl T~?fanl CMR l nzorz. ur2der l mod$ed"
iirjder
Oct, 94 Nov. 94 Dec. 94 Jan. 95 Feb. 95 March 95 April 95 May 95 June 95 July 95 Aug. 95 Sept. 95 Oct. 95 NCW.95 Dec. 95 "Mc~difiedCMR is done with a population of 5,000 under 5. Neonatal deaths are excluded, as these reflect primarily the increase in the birth rate and not overall public health and sanitation standards. Compiled from the death register maintained lay the camp managers. Rates are calculated using an assumed population of 37,000 persons.
TABLE A1.4 Mortality by Disease for Chabalisa 2 Refugee Camp, October 1994Decernber 1995
Cause of dentll
Total
Under 5
Ulzllsr I
Under iT monf h
Malaria Malnutrition/stawation Gastrointestinal, diarrhea, dysentery Pneumonia Neonatal Childbirth AIDS/ElIV Kidney Bacterial Other Totals
total number of deaths was highest during the period i diately after the estabiishment of the camp, but dedined tc>wardDecember 1995 (Table AZ.5). This decline correlates not with fluctrratic~nsin fcmd prc~visictn,or wa ter provision, but with time,
Standard demographic indicators for Tanzania and Rwanda are fc3und in Table AZ.14. These data indicate I-hat relative to Tanzania and Rwanda, the fe&ility rates of the refugee pc~pulationin Chabalisa 2 were higher and the madality rates we= lower, In large part this is to be expected fram the data in the age pyramid in Figure Al.l. There was a deficit in the age levels vulnerable to mortality and there was a large proportion of fertile women without small children.
Discussion: The Demographics of Chabalisa 2 Refugee C m p The arriving population had, by African standards, a deficit of children under five. Typical African populations in rural. Tanzania and Rwanda include about 20 percent under-five-year-olds, with the largest number under one year old. The arriving population in Chabalisa 2 had 13 percent under five, with larger numbers at ages four and five (see Figul-e A4.4). This probably reflects high death rates of small children on the trip to Tanzania. Two demographic consequences of this rmber-five deficit seem to be decreased overall ma&ality rates for the camp as a
TABLE A1.5 Mortality by Cause and Month, October 199kDecember 1995
Oct. 94 Nov. 94 Dec. 94 Jan. 95 Feb. 95 March 95 April 95 May 95 June 95 July 95 Aug. 95 Sept. 95 Oct. 95 Nova95 Dec. 95
Totals
TABLE Al.6 P>evelo>pmentIndicators in Tanzania and Rwanda, 1989-1 994
TbtaI fertility rate Maternal mortality /100,000 Dependence ratio Population growth rate Life expectancy Child malnutrition under 5 Ax~erage;?household size GNPlcapita IMn Under 5 mortaIiv Demographic indicators far Tanzania and Rwanda show that the Rwandan refugee pc~pulationhad low martality ratesf and tctward the end of their sta5 comparatixrely high fertility rates.
Source: Socinl Indimfors of L)evel~7pmertt,1996, Washingtcm: world Bank,
wholie, and the rising fertility rates, which were apparent during the latter part of 4995.
The mortality statistics indicate that the mortality rate of the population of Chabalisa 2 skeadily decreased throughout 1995. lnfant mortality rates, when corrected far the neonatal death, dwreased to an amualized rate of about 12 per 4,OUO. NeverZheless, about 10 percent of the newbarns died owing to a variety of conditions. There was an epidemic of diarrhea diseases in February; which resulted in a climb in death rates. Tn sum, the Chabalitia 2 population was healthy. This is reflected in both declining death rates and increasing fertility rates. This occurred during a time when official fcmd and water distribution Ructuated at levels welt belc3w international standards.
The Elder DCficif Over-65-year-olctswere a small proportion of the populatian in Chabalisa 2. This could mean two things. First, it could mean that fewer over-65-year-olds Bed in the first place. This would g e m unlikely, as in Rwanda, the elderly population ws~uldhave had the same reasc~nsto flee as the younger Rwandans. More likely it could be due to the fact that elderly were more vulnerable to death on the road to Tanzania.
Though there was a deficit of elderly and young in the Chabalisa 2 pc~pulatic~n, there was an unusually Xarge prcyportion of youths beh-een the ages of 7 and 22. This will have a long-term fertility implications as the bulge of females enters the reproductive years between 1995 and 2003. A similar bulge in the male side of the pogulatic~nwill mean that there will be a surplus of males entering military age, Given that most Chabalisa 2 refugees have since returned to Rw-anda, it: is not known what effect this issue will have.
Conclusion Systematic demographic informatian about refugee camps is not generally availabte (for exceptions see Harrefl-Bond 19% and Lcmg 1993). As a result, it is not known tzrt-rekher the data from Cl~abalisa2 is typical for refugee pc~pulationsin general, or even far Rwandan refuses in particular. The data, though, do clari@ a number af commonsense assumptions about refugee pctpulaticms. For example, it is generally assumed that mortality is high during Right, and that as wcial systems become remtablished (a process that took about one year in Chabalisa 21,
fertility rates increase and mortaliq rates decline. Significantly; a similar pattern seems to have been described in the sketchy demographic data generated by Lynelyn Long for Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand. Had refugees remained in Chabalisa 2, the camp woutct probably have developed in the same way as Ban Vinai.
Notes I. See Mkdecins sans Frctnti&res(1995:444) and M M W (1996) for discussions of the upper limits of refugee mortality They report that death rates of 5 to 2 0 per 30,000 per day are ""fequent." This was not the case in Chabalisa 2.; judging from the age survey, this seemed to be due to the demographics of the population which actually arrived. In effect, high mortality either in Rwanda during the trip to Tanzania meant that few were Left in vulnerable age groups in the camp population. 2, Clear-cut evidence of this difference was pointed out by a surgeon who OPerated on both refugees and Tanzanians and refugees who lived in Karagwe district, Tanzania. He told me that refugees had more subcutaneous fat than locals. Such dialogue about health status often shapes discussims by nonrefugees about qualiv of refugee life. Health status, though, should not be coni-used with overall living conditions. The health status of refugees in the Tanzanian camps war; retatlively high. FTc>wever,much more significant for refugee quality of life was the lack of freedom, denial of basic civil rights, and, most important, the lack of a permanent h o m e t h e defining feature of refugee status.
Essay 2
Camp Management 1994-95 By Tony Waters and Michael Hyden
In August 3.994, the UNE-IlCR approached LWF-Ngara about assuming carnp management respomibilities for a new camp being v e n e d in K a r a p e district in Tanzania. From April to August 1994, the camp at Chabalisa had been receiving wave after wave of refugees from Rwanda. In respome, the carnp managers, Caritas Tanzania, two other agencies which had withdraw-n from camp management, and the UNHCIZr had been crowding more and more refugees inta the camp. Compromises were made, particufarly during the dry seaso)n, when it was agreed that the cmly place to house more refugees tvas in the lowlands. This cl-rmpromiw was made even though all were aware that the land would be uninhirbitable once the rains started in Octobe~ LWF-Ngara was iXI equipped to cope with this request, It meant establishing an operation ower three hours' travel time to the north of our office in Ngara. It also meant putling staff out of an already stretched operatim. In the p ~ v i o u July, s we had begun to accept respc)nsibiiiity E c x the water system. Our trucking operation also cmtinued to be challenged as further waves of refugees arrived, and more water needed to be trucked h r n the border with Burundi and Rwanda into the Ngara camps. In these respects, however; rmfortunately cjur Ngara operatim tvas the urgency of the request from no different from other agenciesf. Con~quentXy~ our partners at UNHCR tvas respected, and LWF agreed to begin operations in
m a t Is Camp Management? The camp managers in each refugee camp are the hands and arms of the UNHCR. in many respects, the carnp manager is like the town cauncil, The agency that takes over the camp manager function is the one responsible f o x assigning plots (120 square meters, or 144 square yards for each family) to refugees,
maintaining registration recods, and coordinating other agencies such as medical, social senjices, education, and water in their day-to-day work, Mast impartant, though, the camp management agency organizes the distribution of bctth food and nonfosd items on behalf af the World Food Programme and UNHCR. UNHCR and WFP prwide general guidance on such matters in accordance with intei-na"tona1standards, but it is the camp management agency that organiz;es the refugees into lines, and then literally scoops the rations into the refugees3ags. B e c a u ~of this, the refugees in the carnp are very aware of who the carnp managers are. More irnportant, the refugees are aware of how fairly and openly their subsistence-level rations are distributed-. Mr. Pantaleon Cambona is LWFs camp manager for Chabalisa 2 refugee camp, and he is justifiably proud of the job that he and his staff have done during the last year. In particular, he paints to the fact that there have been no major incidents during distributions during the last year, a claim that none of the other agencies serving Kwandan refugms can make. ""Memake sure that the refugees understand clearly the limitations under which we veraterf%e says. "It is irnpodant that they understand that when a shodage occurs in WFPs food pipeline, LWF deals as equitably as possible with the situation. This is a sensitive issue t-o deal with when you might be cutting a weekly maize ration by thirt.y or fifty percent. After all, this fo'oitd is what they must live on; by cutting it you are threatening their very existence. In such a circumstance, it becomes very easy for the refugees tor blame the distribution agency for the shortage, rather than, say, the shortage of railway wagom, which is the actual came." Refugees are by definition vulnerable, What little they do receive they tzratch carefully and even jealously. For this reason, it is important that they understand the reasons why sc:,me people receive more than others, and how- target poputations are identified to receive b d and other items.
Starting in Chabalisa 2 Much of the success in Chabalisa 2 comes from the quick planning that began in September 1994, The camp tzras laid out in 2'7 blacks, and each hut received an 8by-15-meter piece of land. On tlljs land, the refugees were required to build a small hut, typically of grass and sticks that they collect, and covered by one cjf the most valuable commodities in a refugee" life, a pIitstic sheet. Shared latrines are dug in the rows in between the huts. Chabalisa 2 is located around a gentle valley, the camp itself situated on opposite hillsides, Standing on the hilltops, it is possible to see the finit- work of the plot allocators. The carnp itself is in 27 clearly defined blocks of 280 family huts each. The distribution center is a lang building with 44 stalls located near the camp headquarters. Because of the dependent nature of tbe population, the distribution center is critical tor camp management, and tzras one of the first common buildings to be constructed. The building was designed this way so that the refugees coufcl go to the same stall each tzreek, To avoid ccmfusictn, in and out stiles were installed. Because of the urgency of the situation, the camp manage-
Essay 2: Camp lLlnnage~nent 1994-95
266
ment jnfrastructure-the survey distribution centex; latrines, etc.-were installed even as the refugees moved in. Most impc~rtantwere the toilets, which were being installed by Oxfam. Tbilet construction involves the organization of large teams of labowrs, and this was the factor that slowed movement into the camp. At times in 1994, it looked as though the state of the new buildings wc>uld not keep up with the need to mclve the refugees out of the old Chabalisa lowlands. Fortunately, thou&, hard work and good cooperation between the refugees, Oxfam, and UNHCW meant that the rehgee population did not expand more rapidly than LRrF's ability to receive them.
Effective Camp Management
Ref'llgce Regr'sfmf ion If a plastic sheet is a refugee" most valuable visible possession, the family" ration card is the most valuable document. The ration card is what gives the refugees access to fooct, a place to build a grass hut, and occasional distributions of jerry cans, soap, plastic sheets, clothing, or other ncjnfc>oditems. Accurate registration is a difficult chore for the camp management agency. There is incentive for refugees to exaggerate the number of people in their family or to double-register and receive two ration cards. Registratictn and issuing the cards is a tricky matteu; in which norms of strictness and fairness must be observed. Like income tax fraud, cheating is more likely if it is believed that "everyone else is doing it." born this perspecthe, it is important for the camp management agency to instill a spirit of '"eke all in this together, and we had better make it tzrork." Tn the case of Chabalisa 2, this was easier than in other camps; because LWF was able to accept only refugees tzrho had already established themselve at Chabalisa, we did not have to deal with a disorganized arrival fram across the border, Refugees were selected at Chabalisa, received a numbered card at that time, and then were transported to Chabalisa 2. At Chabalisa 2, each family presented itself for a ration card which was punched to indicate family size. Aid workers dubbed "shepherds" then took them to the plot that had been saved for them.
Plot AElcteafioit.2and Dauda Musa Plot allocation is an ongoing process, and this is where LWF assumes its t o m coundl role-.Dauda Musa, the head of the plot allocation section, spends much of I-tis time tzralking arcjund the camp making sure that zoning standards are met, meaning that he boks for abandoned huts, and new huts built outside allocated areas. He also checks to see that all families are maintaining fuet-efficient stoves constructed of mud, dung, and ash, rather than the traditional *'three-stone" mcydel. Musa takes great pride in his work, and likes to take visitors up on the top of the hill so that they can see the straight bloxk pattern. "Yc~ushould be able to see where everyone is, and easily know how many huts are in each block, This has to
tally with the distribution lists which IEWF uses for the weekly food distributic)nff' he explains. Among Musapsprc~radestaccomplishments is LWF" plastic rcmf policy. "Look, every hut has a piece of plastic. And because they are in mws, we know that some are not cheating by building a second hut just tcr get an extra piece. Finally, all plastic is blue side u p w o white tops in Chabafisa 2!'The color is primarily a matter of aesthetics agreed tcr by Dauda and the camp management, who prefer the blue color, When asked about a single white top in the distance, Dauda sheepishXy explain&, "We have a few who have sheets of plastic that are white on both sides. That is one of them. But what else can we do?''
Equitable Food Distribution Fcmd distribution in ChabaXisa 2 begins with the storekeepes; who receives bulk food from the central WFIP tvareh~use.Each week, the bulk bags are received for distribution. On each Wednesday; the emptying of the warehouw begins as the food is moved into the distributic~ncenter. At the distribution center, refugees queue with their registration cards. After presenting their cards, the week's rations is then sel-roped into their bags. There is potcmtial for a perception of unfairness at each stage of the process, At the warehouse, refugees might wonder why bags are left over after the distribution. The same happens at the distribution center. TAlorse, scoopers may run out of a commodity before finishing with the entire group of refugees, The key to keeping the distribution fair and accurate is to have the proper scoops. This is not as easy as it sounds, since the hags are measured by weight, while the ration is determined by nutritimists t v h ~ measure by kilocalories. The scoops themselves are measures of volume, Finally WFP supplies food that is available for distribution to the refugms, and that depends on what their dc~nors have provided. The staple grain may be sorghum, maize, maize flour, or a highprotein corn-so>yablend. If there are chronic shol"cagesof the high-prc>teinblend," the nutritionists may substitute the equivalent kilocalories in maize. The list of variat.ic>nsgoes on, with the resuit that there may be some confusion and misunderstandings beween refugees and the camp managers.
The UNWCR purchases and collects donations of nonfoc>ditems from a variety of saurces. Among the basics are plastic sheeting tcr cover the grass huts, coc~king pots, jerry cans, and blankets. These items are typically purchased in bulk, so that every family can receive a basic issue. Other items come in varying quantities. Among the biggest and most generous nonfood item donations that LWF has been involved with was a major clothing donation frc~mthe Salt~atlionArmy in 1994. Lutheran World Relief (USA) made similar donationti through the Christian Council of Tanzania. Soap is also regularly provided. The distribution of both donations was ultimately coc~rdinatedby the camp management agencies, which in the case of Chabalisa 2 was LWF. Smaller donations also arrive, and might include extra plastic, hoesf craft kits, maternity kits, etc.
Essay 2: Camp lLlnnage~nent 1994-95 Now that Chabafisa 2 is estabtished, the smaller-quantity items are the fc~cusof distribution, Typically there is not enough to give one to every refugee, so LWF works to target the nonfood item donations for the most appropriate or needy refugees. This requires a lot of focltwork on the part of the staff, and gocd comperation with the other agencies, like Mernisa, which has public health visitors, $we the Children (U.K.), tzrhich comrdinates sclcial welfare seivices, or Helpage, which is developing income-generating programs for the elderly and vulnerable. These agencies come in contact with refugees who are particularly vulnerable for one reason or another and make recommendations about haw to target danatians. As the camp managex; though, 1EWF has the respc~nsibiliityfar ensuring that the lists accurately reflect needs and verifying that the targeted populatim actually receives the donation.
The Importance of Effective Local Staff From the beginning of our work in Chbalisa 2, LWF has been relying on Tarnanian and Rwandan staff to manage the camp. That they have proved effective managers means that systems tzritl be maintained past the paint when UNHCR funding for the comparative1y expensive exy atriates employed by other camp management ends in 1996. The heavy reliance on locaf staff was in large part made passible by LWF's long experience in Tanzania. Experienced LWF staff frown Ngara, t i k u y u settlement for Mozambicans, Mishamo, Kigoma, and Ulyankulu project for Burrmdians, and Handeni settlement for Somalis are all now working in Chabalisa 2 programs. Irr>nicalty although it is often o~bservedby the UNHCR that Chabafisa 2 management is a model for other camps, the fact that heavy respomibifities are assumed by Bmanian and Rwandan staff is not often cmnected to this success. One of LWFs recent expatriate volunteers in Chabafisa 2, Tda Grum, fmm Bemark, complained about this problem. "When visitors come to see the hodelkcamp, they look to me for answers. T in turn simply turn to the Xocal staff for the answers. This happenti despite the fact that peapft? like the camp manager, Gambona, and Dauda have been here longer and indeed deserve much of the credit for the gocd tzrork."
What Future for ChabaXisa 2? LWF staff at Cfiabalisa 2 are justifiably prc~udof their work. Tn one short year, they have built on a bare hillside a commrmity of 41,000 people who are able to live tug~etherreasrrmably well. But of necessity, Chabalisa 2 is a temporary settlement; it is still a crowded refugee camp in which people can only wait out a permanent solution to the Rwanda refugee crisis, Certainly the 220-square-mew plots o~ttferlittle to a population of what were recently self-sufficient farmers. Assuming land is of good quality, a minimum of about two hectares per family is required for self-sufficiency. Clearly Chabafisa 2 does not even offer a fraction of this opportunity. Currentty, the refu"uges resist suggestions of vcduntary repatriation. 'They continue to hear rumors of killings in Rw anda and point out that the t and in the com-
rnunes frc~mwhich they come has been occupied by others. As farmers, this is an important question. When can they start farming in order to sustain themselves again? One year of living in the crc~wdedconditions of Chabalitia 2 has yet to offer an t~bviousanswer to the vast majority. As camp managers, it is our hope tl-zat we can offer them a safe if austere haven from which the search for more permanent sc~lutionscan take place.
Essay 3
The Chabalisa 2 Market Development Pr
An Introduction, to the LWF "Building Code Inspector"" Consolata meikiza" oofcial title is "assistant plot aUocatorMh r LWFs camp management prc3gram in ChabaXisa 2 camp. Chabalisa 2 is a compact "urbanr' area of 41,000 people in a remote corner of Tamania, As with any urban area, the camp requires sclme discipline and organization if people are to live together in as healthrrl and safe environment as is possible under the difficult circumstances. Consolata, a Tanzanian in her early twenties, is in effect a building code inspector, It is her job tc) see that the rules that are adopted for the well-being of the camp are enforced as effectively as possibleConsolatak rather dry title of ""assistant plot alfocator" obxures the enthusiasm she has for what ig from her perspective, exciting and challcsnging. Ch a recent Saturday afternoon, she explained to me her latest problem: "We had two trucks for hauling garbage from the marketplace yesterday. But it wasn't enough. We need more! When can you send them?" I had to swallow a couple of times. Frankly, 1 hadn't heard that the marketplace was in such bad shape; refugee camp marketplaces are usually chaotic places, and to be honest, I had never given the issue a second thought. But Consulata continued anyway, describing what she had been organizing with the camp" l'market cc3mmittee." "Now we are getting everything in the market organized, The traders have to build proper tables of sticks. And we want the trash out of there. No more heaps of garbage just behind the building. We have tcr have proper pits, and then get the garbage out of here." Ever the buwaucrat, I quickly asked who was going tcr pay for this. This came up because Z know that the giant camp at Benaco has a separate line in the budget for markeQlace garbage collection. E knew that Chabalisa 2 had no such line. But the question of who would pay had nwer w e n occurred to Consolata,
"hay? She " exclaimed. ""Nobody has even brought up the subject. They have to do this themselves. The same goes for building the tables, and they better do it in a straight line, and. leave five meters on either side for the road, to~c)." ""Oh?" 1 asked. "And if they do not, who is going to make them?" couldn't forget that Consolata was talking about a population that had recently gone through a war. Likewise, I was awaW also that at least same of the young men in the camp had been members of the Hutu militias that had committed the genocide last year. Who war; going to keep thern in line? Consolata was not worried about these questions and had a quick answer: ""Mef of course, See that stove over there? 'That is going to be moved out of the five-meter road easement by Rllonday"7a emphasize the point, she painted to a nearby hut where a new fuel-efficient design was being finished. "%e, she is getting ready already." An alder man passing by overheard us and started to laugh. I: asked him if the stove woufd be moved by Monday. "Oh yes, of course it will. This is going to be the road." Consoiata's assertions went against every theory of refugee participatian that has been preached by the UPIiIHClR and LWE The theoxy is that outsiders, be they Tanzanian or Europeans, simply facilitate the "felt needs" of the refugees, Nowhere in the thmry is there rc~omfor a brash young woman to run around ordering refugms to pick up trash, make tables, and move stoves. The theory is a product of past practice and is grounded in concrete experience. Such top-down approaches are avoided because they do not work. Refugees, like most people, do not respond well to arbitrary orders from strangers. Consolaka has never read of such theories, but she knows what she tzrants for ""her market, "Now' we are organizing a1l the sellers into sections. On those tables over there, tornatc~es.Onions are over there. And no more banana beer [pombe] drinking or eating is a l l w e d on the road. It just makes a mess. The houses for prittrzbe drinking are ower theref and the restaurants are over there. Fish is sold way there in the back; you h o w it stinks. And way over there in the carner is where they slaughter the pigs. Some people don't like that, you knc~w-." Consolata's next goal is to enact building codes for the mud and stick buildings that make u p the marketplace. ""took at that wall," she says pointing at a leming wall that has started bedding lumps af mud. ""Not anly is it u g l but ~ it is also a hazard; the house can crumble at any time on whoever happens to be sitting inside." %e then shifts my attention to another building. "NSIW;compare it to that one. They have only w e d local materials [typically sand, clay, cow dung, and ashes], but there is a thin plaster wall to hold things to>gethez:And most irnportant, the walls are straight. That is the tzray all of the buildings should be done,"
The Importance of Language Skills in Chabalisa 2 Later 1 asked Jean-Claude Bucysengef one of our senior Rwandan staff members, how Conmtata does it, He explained that it was difficult at first. "You know, at first the peapfe in the market did not want to go along with it. But she talked and talked with them, and now they see that it is best for thern to organize together in
272
Essay 3: The CIzabalr'sa 2 Illal.ket L)e.tlelollment Pmjecf
order that the marketplace is better for at1 cmcerned. Tt also helps a lot that she speaks our language, Kinyamanda well. She can talk tcr the people easily, and gets along with them well." Consolata, tvhose first languaga are Kinyambo (the local tribal language) and Kiswahili (Tanzania" national language), explains that she began teaming the refugees" language, Kinyarwanda, in April 1994, when Rwandan refugees began to arrive in her home village of Bugene, some 40 kilometess (25 mile) from Chabalisa 2. "I have always known Rwandans, as there were Tutsl refugees from the 1960s living in Bugene. Howwer, they learned our languages, Kswahilti and the local Xanguage, Kinyambo, and we did not learn theirs. In April 1994, though, things changed. Thousands of refugees began tcr arrive in the area, and 1 began to learn a little, Later, I started working for LWF and living near Cltabalisa 2, so then I really had incentive to learn, as did all of the other LWF employees, N o w , most of us speak Knyarwanda, even though it is so different fram Kiswahili."
A Meeting with the Market Committee The Wedneday after Consolata gave me her tour, Dauda Musa, head of the Plot Allc9cation Unit, took me and Consolata to a meeting of the "market c~mmittee,~' a group of 2 5 to 20 people who have stalls in the market. Dauda has a philosophical bent, and he explained that for Comolata to make the market project tvorle, it was necessary to "force" the market vendors to cooperate. He elaborated later, though, that this was a "fc3rce" h a t came from verbal persuasion, and not from violence, He says that this is difficult with Rwandan market vendors. Everything for them is business, which is fine, but sometimes they do not see that a day's work together to dig a garbage pit, or make proper tables for their food products, is related to the success of their business." Nevert.heless, at the meeting, the cornmittee immediately cmfmnted me with a number of requests. Could LWF provide tools for the sanitary needs of the market? The answer was yes but only if a plan was presented that would insure that the toc~lsw e l not ~ stolen. CczuXd LWF provide gay a salary to the market committee members? UNHCR was paying camp security to provide a similar public service, so why not pay the market committee? The answer was no way- WUNF-XCR and LWI; have similar polities about many matters, but not this. After all, the market committee were among the most economically fc>rtunatein the camp, and keeping the market clem and safe tvas at least as much in their interest as in LWF's. Out of this request thaugh, came an explanation of how market deanfiness policies work. The market ccjmmittee wanted LWF to pay for cleming the market. Currently, the committee members explained, the vendors hire other refugees, typically the handicapped, to clean the market. Each vendor pays the refugee with a bit of produce, so for the day's work, a refugee receives a banana from one person, a bit of cXothing from another, some local tobacco frc3m another, etc. These '%axesnare obligatory, and vendors who refuse to pay are sent tcr the refugee leadership for punishment.
The market committee also wanted additional cleaning in the market. Would LWF provide money to pay them to clean the market another two times per week? This was a trickier question, but still the answer was no. Again it war; explained that they tzrer-e responsible for the market and LWF would cmly support their own efforts. X even quoted the former president of Tanzania, 'Julius Nyexre, who had always emphasized the importance of "self-reliance and self-help" in projects such as market improvemrtnt.
Warking with Rwandans and Tanzanians: Dauda Explains After experiencing Consc~Xata" enthusiasm, 1 went away from the meeting a bit concerned. Had my presence as an expatriate raised questions of payment and money that would damage the good work of our plot allocation team? 1 do not have an answer tcr this question. Dauda, though, offered an explanation of what he thought-had transpired. "You were offering them the solutions of Tanzania, where we have been brought u p believing that individuals must work together for public goods," Dauda explained. ""The refugees from Rwanda do not have this backgrc~und,and are more focused on what is in it for them as an individual*This m a n s that our approach must be adjusted. They are used to the 'forceQof physical compulsion or money, and not the Yorcekf persuasion, to accomplish group tasks like main.taining the marketplace. 1 do not belime this is goad, but- it: is a fact that we must work with."
Urban Planning for a IRekgee Camp? Despite the difficuXties, Camp Manager Pantaleon Gambona is highly supportive of his plot allocation team" attempts to establish a good standard for what might be called urban planning. "LWF is very proud of the way that Chabalisa 2 looks, whether it is in the neat and pleasing way that the refugee houses are laid out, or the way the market is conducted," he says, "W find that when, in consultation with the refugees, we enfc~rcegocd planning habits, the results are pleasing for most, and cedainfy serve the broader benefit of the public. It is bad enou$ that these pclople must live as refugees in the first place. There is no reascon we cannot work together to make the best of a bad situation, though."
HIV and AIDS in the Ngara Refugee Camps
September 2995 I spent sc~metime in August talking with Jucly Benjamin, of CARE" HIV cmtml prc3gram in Ngara, and Dr. Rwenkyendele, of the ELCT (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, the Ncrrthwest Diocese) AI E)S prevention prc3gram in Bukoba. HIV and AIDS will become a very important: issue for the refugee pogulatic~naver the next few years, and I think it is worthtzrhile briefing LWFs church donors in North America and Europe about how the issue is being handled now. Before the war liw-anda had a very high HTV infection rate. The best survey indicated that 30 percent of all women seeking prenatal care in u&an areas were HIV-positive. The rate in rural areas was considerably lower. These different rates reflected the greater number of sexual cmtacts by people living in the relatively anonymous world of Rwanda's cities (especialXy Kigali) than those Iiving in rurat areas. Furthermore, social control of sexual behavior remained stronger in the rural areas, where informal social monitoring is easier because everyone knows everybody else. Benrlco camp has a population that was orignally half urban and half rural. However, the social habib o~bservedthere during the last year indicate that the habits of prornixuity are more like those of urban Rwanda. For this reason, the HIV infection rate is expected to climb toward at least 30 percent of all women seeking prenatal care, as it was in ul-laan Rwanda. Presumably, a similar number of men could also be infected. There is sc~mefeeling among A I M workers that prc~mixuityis a bigger problem in the camps than even in urban Migali, due, they claim, to the lack of activity for the yomg adult pcjpralatic~n(nor secondary schools, and no jobs), and to difficulty in maintaining normat ""social control monitoring" by parents and othersa condition creatd by the camp envirc3nment. There are anecdotal descriptions of despair among young people who have witnessed the death of their peers and family; and have themselves fled to Tanzania. Under such conditions, young people can become very reckless in their sexual habits. The attitude described reminds me of the way sodat workers in South Los Angeles describe gang mem-
bers there. The young people say that they have nothing to live forr, and will prcrbably die solon anyway. Commercial sex is available in the camps for about 2W Tanzanian shillings (about 33 cents), and many young men and women engage in casual sex, A new fashion for same young men is to baast about their sexual ccmquests by wearing the rings fram condoms as wrist bracel&s, The anonymous nature of a refugee camp adds to this lack of social cmtml. It is easy for young people to avoid monitoring from parents or peers by disappearing into another corner of the camp, where nobcrdy knows them. Because of this anonymity they can behave in ways not possible in a more settled rural or even u h a n envirc>nments.The anonymous nature of this situation will have impacts on the camp papulation, both immediately and in the long term. Short-term impacts include high rates of crimef higher rates of fertility and public health prc3blems, in addition to incwased promiscuity. In the long-term, AILIS is expeded to increase dramatically as a public health concern for the Rwmdan refugee pogulatic~n. So far, AIDS itself is p ~ s e n at t relatively low rates in the camps. It is hypothesized that this is because only healthy pclopte were able to Ree from Rw-anda; individuals with AIDS were too sick to Ree, Howwer, the incidence of AIDS is now increasing as those who were HlV-positive when they entered the camp come to the end of the latency peric~dand develop full-blown AIDS, CAREfs HIV-cmtrol prc>gramfc~cuseson prevention at several levels. Education programs emphasize abstinence by singleg fidelity for those who are married, condom distribution (currently 150,000 per month) to the sexually promiscuous and H1V-positive, and control of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as gonorrhea and syphilis, STD control is perhaps the must effective concrete anti-AIDS measure that can be undertaken, as the ulcers created by gonorrhea and syphilis made the i..ransmissianof HXV much more efficient. Convincing the medical NGOs t c ~act aggressively against such otherwise nontethal diseases, though, has been difficult. Emergency-focused medical agencies tzritl treat acute diseases likely to result in immediate death first. CARE has had some trouble persuading them to take treatment of STDs seriously as the problem is neither acute nor the consequences of treatment i ediate. On the other hand, in the context of a long-term public threat such as AIDS, cmtrol of STDs can prevent great loss of life. For example, a 1 percent decrease in the HXV transmission rate in the Ngara camps would be expected to save 4,080 lives in the long run. Care of the terminally ill AIDS patient is also consider& to be part of AXDSprevention proIgrams. Current protocols at Red Crcrss Hospital call for the referrat of terminally ill patients to the home far care. Rwandans do care well for the terminally ill at home, and. CARE has been attempting to reinforce this with the targeted Bc~nationof cc~mmoditiesand supplementary food. This has become more difficult since adult supplemental feeding programs were discontinued as part of the recent budget cuts. As a result of the AIDS cawload, the need for adult supplemental feeding programs will prcshably rise with the AIDS rate. It is unclear how or if this need will be met.
Essay 5
How Many Refugees Are There in Ngara?
Inquiring minds often want to know haw many refugees there are in Tanzania? It is a fair question; after all, much of the refugee assistance prclgram is dependent upon refugee counts. Most critically, policies about haw much food and water need to be distributed and pumped require a good head count. Medical statistics, mortality rates, and birth rates are based on number of cases per 10,000 people, which implies a good census. Donors are interested, because they want to know how many dollars are being spent per refugee for a particular service, D m it cost $50 per year to maintain a refugee, or $15Q?Both WFP and UNHCR set budgeting figures tzrhen doing their planning. Officially; there were 472,811 refugees in Ngara as of February 2% ,1996. Arriving at such a figure inevitably involves compromises and approximations, a result of practical Xogistical reamns, bureaucratic inertia, "cheating the system" by refuvees, and wishful thinking by agency officials and journalists eager to make the veration seem as big as possible-
But 1%"Not That Easy This may be a legitimate question for inquiring minds. But even the total number of refugees is a hard number to get a fix an. People move here and there. Refugees exaggerate numbers to get more rations per person----if you wilt, rations for ""ghosts."Turing census times, there are inevitably rsxrnars that local Tanzanians are "rented'" for the day to make head counts higher and get a higher number punched on the ration card. h addition, mast people simply like bigger numbers. As a result the numbers go up and up. A good example of how difficult it is to keep numbers dow-n was in the first days of the Bmacu camp. This was especialy apparent at the beginning of the emergency when efier)rone wanted to know how many people had crossed the Rasurno River bridge fmm Rwanda into Tanzania. At that time the LINHCR, claiming that 25Q,QQQ had crossd the bridge, called the period April 28-29,1994,
Essny 5:Caunt ing Refidgees "the largest and fastest exc>dusnh mc>dernhistory Estimates of the total that actually crossed the bridge ran from about 130,000 to a high of 400,000. In a recently published book, whose author shoujtd have known better, the number war; again reported as 250,000. What was the actual number? Probably about 70,000-which is a lot, but still is an overestimate of about two times the lowest figure that was bandied about in May 1994, The 70,000 number, thou*, was arrived at only after the refugees had been in glace in refugee camps for seven to eight weeks, and was obtained by means of a large wristbanding exercise in which every single refugee had a non.remc>vablewristband gut on in one day. The resulting figure was 229,008, which included not just the 70,000, but also the tens of thousands mow who forded the river in May and June. In contrast, the Lists provided by refugee Leaders at the time, which cmstituted the only source UNHCR and WFP had for population, said that there wwe well over 400,000 in the Ngara camp complex in June 4994. This number was arrived at on the basis of repods of refugee leaders and the distribution of ration cards which had been given to the arriving refugees at the border during the previous weeks, Both ways of counting are easily undermined: refugee leaders had incentives to exaggerate family sizes: it meant more rations for the fc>Ilowerswho had elected them, As for the cards, a second card could be obtained by f'recycling," i.e., walking back to the border from Benaco and then reappearing in Ngara and getting a second card. Many young men did this. Aff involved in the wrisl-banding initiative knew this, and were aware that the actual nurnbers tzrere in fact much lower, Indeed, in order to facilitate planning, different programs were using lower figures. As a result in June 1994, fmd distribution was done on the basis of a count of about 450,000; water systems were being developed far 350,000; and medical statistics were gathered using yet another figure. No matter haw much we all were aware of the potential for fraud, we still like big numbers, and the tendency is to ""round up." h a betting pool conducted by the UNkICR staff in Late June 1994, before the wristbanding exez-cise, most estimates were in the 300,000-plus range, which was 33 percent lower than what was actually being used for food distribution. The actual number of people banded was under every single guess, and came to 229,000, a substantial number by most standards, but disappointing for many in the context of the former figure-.The 229,000 confirmed in the camps at the end of June, atso called into question the count of 258,000 crossing the bridge in the first day.
How Counts 'Mfork A look at three counts that were released by UNkICR for the Ngara area camps in June and July 1995 points at how- much numbers can vary (see Table A5.1). The June lists tzrere estimates develitsped by the UNHCR in cooperation with refugee leaders. The UNHCXZ was suspiciom though, and let the refugee leaders know it..As a result, they requested the refugees tcr provide Lists of people in their administrative units, which they did, and the number dropped by $5,000 people.
Essay 5: Cc~zintifigRefigees TABLE A5.1 A Comparison of Refugee Counts
Camp
Previous lists f l ur2e)
Lendcrs' lists
ne)
Ver@ed
ly)
This is apparently the number that the leaders thought they couIcl get away with without incurring too much wrath fram UNHCR and WFZ3. At a verification exercise conducted in mid-July in which every refugee had to show u p and be sprayed behind the ear with Rorescent dye, the number dropped another 26,000 people, a total decline in population of about- 16 percent. AccordingXy the WFP rations provided to all of the camps was cut by 16 percent. The total amount of water grc3vided stayed the same, so actually nc>wthe paper figure of water provided to each refugee actually went up 44 perccmt. Whm calculated on this lower total popmtation, the birth rate, mortality rate, and other statistics which had been using the 502,000 figure also went up.
Haw the Population Count Xs Done The best counts in the Tanzanian camps have been done as part of vrzrificatian exercises. This was last done in July 4995, in Ngara, and December 4995, in K a r a p e . All refugees were required to arrive with all family members on one day All refugees are s p r a y 4 with fluorescent dye behind the right ear. At the first booth, each refugee is checked for the Ruorescent dye, If they d o not have any dye, they are sprayed; the dye is difficult to remc>veduring the first 48 hours after it I-tas been sprayed. The family then reports to the next booth, where the name of the head of family is checked against computerized lists..Finally, they are given a numbered card in which the camp they are assigned to and the number of people in the homehold is punched. This can be used for collecting rations as well as tcr verify plot assignments. This is a verification of physical presence, and not individuals. In effect the e x e ~ i s ei s desiped to see if an actual body is there. Attempts are made tcr keep the day of the verification exercise secret so that refugees cannot hire Tanzanians to be part of their families. This seemed to work in the December 1995 verification exercise in Karagwe District. A small number of families went from previous counts of say, ten persons, down to three who actually shcjwed up. Overall, for the district the count in all five camps was dc>wn 22 percent.
Essny 5:Caunt ing Refidgees
How lnfiuxes Are Caunted-The Case of Keza Much of the initial number reports are made when the refugees arrive. Refugees do not arrive i-hrough a border control, so the counting is often haphazard. Fur example, during the January 1996 influx from Burundi, different numbers were pmvided from least five different sources. A soldier told me how many had passed a particular point that day. A driver then told me how many trips he had made to the transit camp, carrying 60 refugees each time; you could then multiply the number of trips by 60, 'The manager of the tramit camp also had a rough idea of how many he was putting wristbands o n and feeding; while the head of the ti-ucking operations had added together the manifests of the number of refugees being sent from the transit camp to Keza. At Keza, the UNMCR took off the wris&ands, issued ration cards (as above), and c a m up with another number.
How Caunts Came Undone Despite the hard work that went into reaching the 421,059 figure above, or the 25,0(20 figure for Keza, such numbers can become obsolete very quickly because refuge p~pulatic>ns can be very fluid.. Refugees repatriate bc,tfi through offidal channels and on their own, tots of babies are born in refugee pc~pulations,and a few refugees die, However, the annual natural rate of increase (births minus deaths) is prc~bablyabout 3 to 4 percent per year. Other refugees have disappeared into Tanzanian towns and into Kenya and Uganda. Tanzanian police even picked up seven Rwandan refugees on the Mozambican border last month who were on their way to that corntry! Now that 1 think of it, even a number of refugees 1 know have done the disappearing act . . . Ana went to Rwanda tcr have her baby . . . Mary went to Kenya with her E C ~ Uchil~ dren . . . Mary" husband went to Poland (I) on a Ee1Sawship to get a 1Ph.P). . . . Petrel moved from Chabalisa 2 to Benaca to start a small store. Then there tzras the 'Tutsi family I: met in Msuhura who picked up and went to ratvanza, in Tanzania, one day. And those are the ones I know; what about the hundreds of thousands I've nwer met? But then last October it was pointed out to me that a number of the huts in Lukole camp were new, and had been built by refugees who had recently arrived despite the legal restrictions on entry, and who did not therefc>rereceive fc>odrations, Presumably they tzr ill be added during the next verification exercise. Oh, and then there were the 25,OCf0-plus who slipped across the border legally in January and are now wttled in Keza. I talked to a few of them, whc~were in fact Tanzanians who had been living in Burundi. They had had it with rdugee life, and plamed to leave for Mwama as scion as possible. Others were Burundians who had lived in Tanzania some years and had plans already to slip surreptitiously into Tanzania to begin farming in the countryside. And another one 1 remember was talking about slipping back to Burundi to find his wife and children. 1 don't know what side of the border they ended up on, even though they were counted as refugees at one cjr two points.
Essay 5: Cc~zintifigRefigees
280
TABLE A52 Fluctuation of Refugee Population in Ngara Camps
5% annual growth rate to March 1996 (9 months) Official repatriation since July J a n u a influx-Keza ~ Voluntary rmofficiat repatriation Leaving for other countries Unofficial1y moving into camps Recycling and double registratbn
add subtract add subtrad subtract add subtract
Total
Okay, but Horv Many Refugees Are There in Ngara? Despite this confusion, we can do some quick adding and subtracting to figure out how the refugee population is probably changing in the Ngara carnps (see Table A5.2). The UNHCKs official count was actually 4"i",811 on February 23, 1996. You judge now. Which is better? The UNHCR method, or mine? X like big numbers toa, sa I will acknawledge that we are prclbably bath a bit high. But campromise is always the preference in bureaucracies, so let's split the difference and say the actual number is in the middle, After all, this is how a lot of our figuws are arrived at, even if it is not statistically a valid way to p! The net result is that when ail is said and done, a .\rerificationexercise done today would probably show that there are slightly more refugees today than in juty 1955 The Keza influx, poor response to voluntary repatriation prc)grams, low mortality, and high birth rates all point at such a canclusion. Sa, how about 458,000 as a figure for the number of refugees in Ngara camps? This can be roughly translated as "half a millim" by people trying tcr impress (say, in press releases and donor appeals), and ""up to 500,a00m by the more p ~ c i s e l yinclined. Both effc3rts keep with the tradition of rounding all figures upward, tzrhich has been going on since the first day.
Essay 6
Wishing for Repatriation, Late 1995
1 was acting project coordinator at LWFs project in Marawe during the last two months, The permanent project coc~rdinator,Denise Barrett, arrived in early January, and I have been handing over the operation to her during the last ten days. This involves briefing her on the myriad of daily issues about which a prc>jectcuordinator must make decisions. Most are mundane issues: leave schedules, night allowance payments, lorry servicing, and so on. Something came up the other day, though, wlzich Denise, at least, thinks is more illustratirre sf the unique problems that a refugee service agency occasisnatly faces. At its most simple level, it is a story involving the theft crf an employee" belongings, In the background, thaugh, is enough refugee politics, duplicit_r;and even international intrigue to make the story worth retelling to a brc~aderaudience. But to get the whole flavclr of the situation, it is necessary to step back to 1994, when the refugee emergency in Tanzania began.
The Story of Pieme and Petso The story started in September 1994, when LWF-Ngara ageed to take over as the ""camp manager" ~ a g c for y Chatralisa 2 in K a r a p e district. One expatriate, MichaeI Hyden, two refugees, and three Tanzanians were hired to set up the camp and went off in h - o Russian Karnaz lorries to do so. As an afterthought, Michael hired ansther Rwandan refugee, Petro, as a cook fclr the camp he planned to set up. For the refugees to move from the Ngara area camps to the Karagwe camps, it was necssary to get permits from the Tamanian goverment. After getting the necessary permits they set off. A year later Petro was still a cook in the camp. Pierre, one of the tvvo original Rwandan refugees, had become LWF" head of distribtrtim. Neither Petro nor Pierre was satisfied with refugee camp life, and by November 1995, both were dreaming of returning to Rwanda. Both had received messaga from friends and family in Rwanda saying that it was safe for them to return. 1 alsc. knew that both young men, though nominally Hutu, also had Tutsi in their family background. Some months ago, Pierre had told me that his mother is Tutsi. Petro, while work-
282
Essny C;: Repatriation
ing in Michael Hyden" house some months previously hha eevn sung Rw-andan Tutsi songs, which, he told Michael, he could be attacked for in the Hutu refugee camp. The dream of return was so powerful that Petra volmteered for an UNHCR ""g and see'" visit, which is a trip back to the home village of the refugee so that they can see the conditions of their home and family. Each volunteer was screened by the UNHCR, Tamanian government, and Rwmdan government, so that they can avoid sending somec)ne who may try to sabotage the prc3gram far political purposes. During the visit, the refugees are permitted to visit privately with their FarniJies so that there can be a frank discussion of conditions in the refugee camps, as well as in the home village, The refugees are then accc~mpanied back to their home camp in Tanzania by the UNHCR. The purpose of the program is to build cmfidence in the voluntary repatriation pc~licythat UNHCR is advucating. f talked to Petm and Pierre just before Petm Left. Both tzrere excited, and speculated that they would soon be able leave the refugee camp and return home, Pierre in particular wanted to find an opportunity to study languages at the postsecondary level. So Petrc~went to Rwanda in Nc~vernber39%. 1 ran into him just after he returned, in early December, and he tzras breathless tcr tell his story. IIe very much wanted to start at the beginning, and narrated how the UNHCR Karagwe office I-tad taken every care to eni;ul-e that the refugees on the trip w e l comfc~rtable. ~ He continued to narrate about how he had been searched at the border by "unfriendly" Kwandan soldiers. Later he was received by the prefect of the pmvince, who was cordial and gave him a letter to facilitate his visit. Finally; he got to the point of the story which was his visit with his mother: He was pleased to find her well, and was received cordially. But after that, things went wrung, grievously wrung. He narrated to me that his mother told him grivately that he should use his exit permit, and never come back to Rwanda; that he was fc>rtunateto be in Tanzania where he was safe. He went on to relate how he was told that all the young Hutu men w e l ~ either in jail or dead. That people continue to disappear in the night, and that the govmment soldiers have sealed the border; stopping all illicit refugee exits. He was told that the head af the district where he Xived had spread rumors that Hutu men were not welcome in the area. 1 drove away with my head spinning. There had been encouraging signs that the voluntary repatriation prcjgram would take off during the previous mo)nth. Two to three thousand refugees, most af whom w e l ~ women and children, had volunteered to be what were presumed to be "scouts" k ~ the r men. The UNHCR and the government tzrere issuing press releases about how they expected thousands to be returning to Rwanda daily. The UNHCR even bragged that the Kwandan government had committed itself to accepting 10,000 per day. Buses were p u ~ h a s e dand positioned in Ngara for what was expected to be the repatriat.ic)n of 1996. Who was telling me the truth? Mras UNHCR engaging in wishfuI thinking about the Rwandan government and refugee safety in Rwanda? Were the political leaders cof the Hutu refugees manipulating this situation?
Essny
I;:
Rep~tn'ation
283
A n y a y , Petm went on to tell a number of people, including other refugees as well as expatriatesf the same story he had told me. I assumed that Pierre of course would no longer have any interest in repatriation as a result of what Petro had told him. I also l~eardthat one of the refuges in Petro's ""g and see" group had just about been lynched when he was accused of genocide; only the prexnce of a UNHCR officer had saved him, sa the story went.
The UNHCR Talks About:the Visit Two weeks later, in early January, there was a regular UNHCR coordinating meeting. At the meeting, a UNI-XCR repatriation officer explained the situation in Rwanda. The driver of 13etro's car in Rwanda had heard 13etro and another refugee concocting their story to discourage repatriation, he said. This refugee I-tad indeed almost been lpched, but I I ~had encountered an unusual situation, the repatriation officer asserted-.The officer pointed out that the matter had been discussed at the na"tic1nal-level tripartite meeting beween UNHCR, Rwanda, and Tanzania, where all ackn~wfedgedthat such t-hings were unavoidable in such a charged situation. The situation is cmfusing for everyone, after all. Further complicating matters was the fact that one refugee who had participated in a "go and see" visit in early January had been arrested for genodde, after being duly screened by the UNHCR, Tanzania, and Rwanda. On the visit, he had gone to his home commune in Rwanda and there he was promptly arrested. The subject came up at our meeting, and UNE-ICR explained to those at the meets to go, as it was ing that this refugee had been warned earlier by his f ~ e n d not welt knawn in the Tanzanian camps that he had participated in the April 4994 massacres. Oddly enough, this came to light only after the fact; it was not apparently well enaugh known for the UNHCR or Tanzanians who screened him to have caught wind of this explanation before he left in early January. Finally, at the concluslion of the meeting, we received a stern warning fro~m both the UNHCR and the government that we staff members of NGOs were not to discuss any such issues with the refugees; anything that could be interpreted as discouraging vc~luntaryrepatriation wc~uldresult in our expulsion from Tanzani a. My own view is that there is same truth on all sides, It is apparent that cmditions are safe far some in Itwanda, and not for others. finally, there are at feast as many accusations aE lying and duplicity as there are actual lies. Mcwt significant, there is a lot of wishful Illinking on the part of refugees =arching for a future and of the UNHCR searching far a workable policy. Identifying such a policy is extremely difficult, given the emotional, suspicious, and fearful atmosphere in which such decisions are being made. Anyway; this is all just background to the problem that Denise will c~jnfront, which has to do with theft and not rei-ugee repatriation policy. Her problem involves Pierre and, indiwctly, Petrel. I was briefing Denise m expense vouchers, ar one of the other mundane points of Marawe ad&istration, when Pierre c a m in with an agitated loc~kan his face. He explained that while he was on a LWFsponsored trip to see the distributian system in our Khondo camp, his home had
284
Essny C;: Repatriation
been burglarjzed, and all of his possessions stolen. It seems that he had left Petro in charge of his house. During the two days when he was on the study trip, the UNMCR had informed Pest-ro that he would lose his refugee status in Chabalisa 2 because he was really from the Ngara camp, whence Michael had taken him the previous year, Shortly thereafter, he went back to Ngara. And Pierre" money was gone, The coillcidental departure and disappearance of the money looked suspicious. But was Petro the thiefwr was he the witness? Pierre, agitated, wanted to follow Petro to Ngara with a policeman so that he could be brought back to Chaballsa 2 as a witness or be placed under arrest, or something. Likewise, it wcju1C-I not do to simply call on the radio for a policeman from Ngara tcr go find Petro; he was in a camp of 150,000 people, and Pierre tvas needed there in order to identify him. So, Denise, what to do3 She quickly ticked through the standard adrninistrafive decision tree. Sending a car for this puryuse, a personal matter, would set a bad precedent. But Pierre is an important employee, SO is there another way? What about that Kamaz with the two flat tires? (The Kamaz is a heavy-duty Russian truck maintained in Karagwe as a recovev .\rehide).Didn? you tell me that those tires could only be replaced in Ngara, and don't we have to pick up generators far the UrVWGTC a n p a y ? Okay T think we have a solution our prc)blems. Generators, tires, and Pierre, I think we have a go. Let us know haw things go. . .
I went to ChabaXisa 2 two days ago, in F e b r u a ~1996, in order to buy some baskets for a neighbor, I saw Pierre, and again he had something urgent to tell me. 1 wanted to find out what had happened with Petru, the arrest, etc., but instead he wanted to tell me about his own "go and see" visit to Rwanda. He had gone in early January (when the refugee described above had been arrested). He had visited his house, which had been destroyed, and had walked into his neighborhood, He said that many of the refugees9ouses were empty waiting for their cjwners to return. He said that though 'kvevthing has changed," life war; returning to normal, and he was thimking of returning in May 1996, when he is due his annual leave from his duties at LJWE He also reported that he visited the LWI; office in Kibrmgo, was well received, and was considering asking for a job there in their repatriation program beginning next May. Certainly this was very different version of a ""g and see" visit than that offewd by Petro. Also encouraging for Pierre was that he had recently received a letter from his uncXe who is a Catholic bishop emeritus in Rwanda. Pierre had met a Danish journalist, Ulrik, in December wha was to visit Rwanda on behalf of Danchurchaid. Pierre asked Utrik to visit his uncle to deliver news of him. Ulrik did this, and the bishop, delighted to receive news of his nephew, immediately wrote him a letter. He then did the commonsenx thing, and posted it to Pierre in a Zetter clearly adclrssed to him at Chabalisa 2 refugee camp. He then gave it to the Rwandan post office, which had it delivered to Tanzania promptly. What about I-tis trip to Ngara, about Petro? Pierre told me that he had fc-ound Petro and had had him arrested. After the police threatened to beat Petru, he ad-
Essny
I;:
Rep~tn'ation
285
mitted to stealing the 2Q0,OQOshillings Pierre had saved from his work with LWF. Rfty thousand shillings were returned to Pierre there, but the other 450,000 shillings had already been sent to Mwanza to purchase the stock necessary to open a small retail shop in the Benaca camp. I was told that the police have agreed to seize the stock when it arrives, presumably so that it can be turned over to Pierre,
What About VaXuntary Repatsation"! The question donors and visitors always ask about the Rwandan refugees is, when will they go back to Rw-anda? Is it safe or is it not? Some pmpte working here have quick answers to these questions. They say that if the Hutu intimidators guilty of genodde were arrested, the rest would go back. They think that the only reason the largely peasant refugee population stays in Tanzania is that they are manipulated by clever leaders who, guilty of genocide, need their ""potection" to avoid Rwandan and international caurts. Others say that the government in Rwmda is so hostile to repatriates that few refugees tzrill go back. Those who say this can point to the influx af 20,000 to 25,000 Rwandans into Tanzania fram refugee camps that had been closed in Burundi in late January 1996. Given the option of a lorry ride back to Rwanda c>ra risky night to Tanzania, this many chose the latter, Now, the rumor is out that the Rwandan government has requested that the Burundian military government forcibly return all Rwandan adult males. My own inclination is tc:, usually side with those staying. Tf I were asked to make such a choice, I would be hesitant to return under such unce&ain circumstances. I d a not believe that large nurnZaers of Rwandan refugees will go back voluntarily in the immrtdiate future and agree that the recent influx of Rwandans into Tanzania is a bad sign, However, this an outsider" s a y of reasoning and is not how refugees like Petm or Pierre think about their future. Individual refugees fc3cus on what they hear from people they trust on both sides of the border, rather than on the larger glc>balpolitical issues that outsiders fc~cuson. The people refugees listen to might include LWT: or UNHCR staff but are more likely to be their friends, eenmie, and families. They took at their c>wnindividual situation and future and assess their chances. What do they hear in letters sent from Rwanda? Is news permitted to go back and f a r t h W h a t do those who go back and forth say, and what personal motives shape their views? The messages they receive, though, continue to be and will continue to be canfwed. Leaving one's home war; an emotional decision that many made quickly in a dangerous situation. Likewise, any decision to return will be an emotional one that is based in the individual relationships refugees have on both sides of the border=
Essay 7
A Bishop in Exile-The Anglican Church in the Ngara Camps
I first heard about Bishop Augustin Mvurubande from Trish and Rob Wilsan, British medical missionaries who had lived in Rwancla b r 15 years, The Wilsons had fled to Tanzania in late April 1994 after the haspital in Cahini, where they worked, had been attacked by the Hutu Irtteraltatrzluc. During the attack, many of their staff and colleagues w e l ~killed. Later, advancing Rwanda Patriotic Front (Tutsii) hrces entered the town of Gahinii and ordered many of the remaining Hutu to leave. The o n a who left became the refugees we nc>wserve in Tanzania; many who remained behind were killed. The Wilsons had met Bishop Augustin in Gahlni, where he had been an Anglican pastor and later bishop. He himself was Hutu, whereas his wife tvas Tut~i, The couple fled Rwanda fctr Zaire in mid-1994. Frc.m there he moved to Ngara in Tanzania because that was where many of his chul-ch members and other pastors had gone. The Wilsons had also stayed in Ngara, where they helped provide medical services in the camps. Rob and Trish mentioned Bishop Augustin to me last January because he had a special desire to return to Gahlnl" in order to promote peace and recmcil-iat.i~>n. He proposed to d o this by taking personal messages back and h r t h between refu"uges in Benaco and those who had remained behind in Gahini. First, though, Bishop Augustin needed transpc~rtto Kwanda, and then he needed travel papers in order to be able to return to Tanzania. As a refugee, he would lc~serights to internatic~nalprotection at the time he stepped back into his home cormtry, Rwanda. LWF was unable tcr assist with the bishop's request. Despite claims to the contrary by all sides, visits to promote peace and reconciliation never actuaXfy seem to work out, for a t~arietyof legitimate reasc>ns.For example, the Rw-andan (RPF) government wants to examine every returnee to see whether he has committed war crimes, the UNMCR wants only elected '"official" "leaders involved, and the Tanzanians tvorry about cross-border security. Finally, many of the leaders in the Tanzanian camps have ambitions of one day seizing power in Rw-anda and view
the camp population as ""leirsn-theif future political supporters. They, too, have an interst in frustrating cross-border ccjntacts and keeping the camp population in their sphere. Despite the fact that this request tvas denied, we have been able to cmtinue in our relationships with the Bishop Augustin and begin better to understand the difficulties of the route toward peace and reconciliation that he is trying to develop, which he calls a "middle road." By that he means participation by Hutu and Tutsi in all spheres of society. Fundamental to this is building relations between individuals, without recourse to revenge. Today, he lives in a modest house in the AngXican compc~undin Ngara, where he is the guest of the Tanzanian Anglican bishop of Ngara, Edwin Nyamubi. k-le is the only Rwandan bishop in the area; cJtherswho Red I-ravegone to Nairobi, Zairef or other places. In cooperation with Bishop RIyamubi, he is helping tcr rebuild the Christian community among the 6M,000 Rwandan refugees in Tanzania.
A Visit to Gahini Cornmtme/Msrrhura Camp: The Pressures af a Mixed Marriage Last J a n u a 1~spent my first day with the bishop. 1 had asked Trish for a chance to visit with the ordinary refugees she h e w from her days in Gahini. I had been spending much of my time in offices doing such thiings as writing reports, meeting with other expatriates and Tanzanians, escorting donors to project sites, etc. In other words, despite my ctairn to be a refugee worker X am usually doing things that administrators any-here in the world would do, without reference to the fact that the purpose of LWF's work is service to the refugees. Trish offered me a break from these necessary routines. She speaks Kinyarwanda fluently, and as the high-status wife sl the former director of Gahini Hospital, she felt a respc~nsibiiiityto visit the people she knows who fled: her gardener, the woman tvho had done the ccjoking in her house, t l ~ neighbc~rs e she had known for so many years. As we were leaving far the drive to the camp on a Saturday afterrnon, she was asked whether the bishop, w h ~stays ) in a neahy hc>use on the Anglican compound, could get a ride to the camp. This is a common request in transportation-pc~orTanzania, so we went to his house to pick him up. There X met his wife and chitdren. As we were getting ready to leave, Trish relayed the request of the bishop's wife to come along, Without t)rinking, X said yes, not at first realizing the unusual nature of the request, Virginia is a Tutsi, and we were going to go into the heart of a Hutu camp where in previous months anyone resembling a Tutsi was murdered. Since we were going to a place where many people knew Virginiia and her ethnic background, she was obviously at great risk for her life, I asked her why she would take such a risk. At the time, she replied that God would protect her, and left it at that. Later she explained that there are many Tutsi living quietly in the camp. Many of them are Tutsi women married to Hutu men, although the bishop claims that there are also a few men as wefl, "even tall ones," referring to the physical height that is considered basic to Tutsi identity, Nevertheless, tensicjn beween Hutu and 'T'utsi is high at times, and so the bishopis wife usually CJCEG
Essny 7:A Bishop i~zExile
288
not spend the night in the camp, whereas he does. Virginia claims that relations with her Hutu friends in Benaco are better than they have been in the five years since the Tutsli-dominated Rwanda Patristic Front invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 4990, and especially since the massacre of the Tutsi by Hutu Intcraflamw last year, This is the backdrop against which Bishap Augustin and his wife are attempting to develop a ""moderate" mad. "Their work is though the church, which is for many the focus far sociaX activities within the camp. The centraj point, the bishop explains, is to welcome, not alienate, This is difficult because of what many refugees have seen in the past; many hold onXy a very distant hope for life beyond refugee camps in the future. For this reason, Bishop Augustin pc~imtsout that reconciliation with Cod must cc~mefirst. Only when a reconciiiation has been made with Cod for the crimes committed, wrclngs suffewd, and I-tate felt tzrill it be possible to make a reconciliation with other Itwandans. Currently, much effclrt is being put into what is haped will be a chair competition four times a year for the church youth groups. Choir competitions are almost like a sport in Rwanda, and the refugee youth of Ngara are enthusiastic. The Anglican church is currently sponsming about 140 choirs, each with 20 to 30 youth members. Each choir writes its own sc:,ngs for the competition around a particular biblical theme. The theme of the current competition was deliverance, not a particularly surprising theme for a population that has so recently fled its own country. Next quarter" theme will be peace, justice, and reconciliation. Ephesians 21%-16 is the passage fram the Bible tl~atthe bishop uses in talking about these issues. These verses reflect well his goal of peace and recanciliation through the church: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulatic>ns."
The Choir Competition. The chair competition itself took place under the tumasi Camp ""circus tent,"" tent donated by a missionary sociev from Canada. Trish, Rob, and 1 were introduced to the audience and then ushered into a nearby mucl hut, where we tzrer-e fed a lunch of rice and peanut sauce and given a soda. There was also a calabash of traditimal Itwandan brewf not yet fermented in deference tcr the Protestant pastors in attendance, In the hut, we prepared the prize envelopes for the winners, while the competition continued in the backgrc:,und-.There were 30 prizes in all. The 15 semifinaXists received 2,000 shillings ($3.30)each, and the grand prize war; 30,080 shillings ($39.50). Later, Trish brc~ughtout a letter from a British missionary who had worked in Gahjnj in the 1970s..The missionar)p wanted to know what had happened to the pastors he had tzrorked with sa he could include them in his prayers. The answers that Trish received illustrated well the difficulties involved in focusing their choir pmgram, or any other subject dealing with Rwanda today?on subjects like peace and reconciliatian.
Essny i": A Bishol1 i1.1Exile They went through a list of about 30 pastors. Perhaps 15 to 20 were in the Tanzanian refugee camps. One or two were still in Rwanda, and one tvas in a Burundian camp. One or h - omore had disappeared. The rest, 5 or 6, they repc~dedhad been killed. By their reckoning, about half of these had been killed by the Hutu Interahanrw during their attacks in Cahini in mid-April 1994, The other half they claimed had been killed by the ftPF after they took over Gahini in late April, Trish was surprised somewhat that they were willing to discuss such a subject after lunch and viewed it as a positive sign that the recent terrible past was moJving further away. The bishop later explain& to me why the choir prcjgram was important for the process of peace and recmciliation. He said that the choir competitions expose the people to the gospel in an enjoyable way. This expcJsure is impo&ant, he explains, because pectpie must become united with God, because itiis Cod who protects, not the politicians and big government who promised protection in the past. "Forgiveness cl-rmesfrom God and passes to those arc~undus," he explains, In effect, he argues that the vertical comes before the horizontal, meaning that without God% forgiveness far our own sins, we canno>tforgive those arc3und. us. And until Hutu and Tutsi forgive those around them, reconciliation carnot beggin. The bishop views the discipleship training required to produce good choral singing as a way to preach the principles of Christian forgiveness. He is well aware that this is by itself not enough, but views it as a start. Particularly important is the fact that the competitions are particularly interesting for the young people, a few of whom were active in the horrors of the past but in whom the future of the refugee commrmities in Tanzania nevertheless lies. Because af this paradox, he emphasizes that all must be welcome; the point of choirs is not to directly coni'rcynt, but to present all with the need to seek and offer fc~rgi~~eness.
Reconciling People Who Don't Talk to Each Other When 1 first met the bishop earlier this year, he had hopes of returning to Rwmda himset f to persc>nallyfacilitate the reconciliat.ic>nprcxess. Sadly, he no longer believes this is passible. Since I met him in January, pc->sitionsan both sides of the border have hardened, and cross-border communication has decreased as a consequence. There are also further restrictic~nsto travel across the barder. In the case of the Rwandans, no one can legally leave the country to visit Benaco, although the UNEiCR is trying tcr initiate a "go and see" prclgram (see Essay 6). Tanzania has also sealed the border as best it can in order to prevent further refugee infituxes, Thus, even though relations between Tutsi and Hutu within the Ngara camps may be improving, the refugees are more separated than ever from their families back home. As a result, cammunicatic)n has been reduced to radio broadcasts from Rwanda which refugees ciaim inciude veiled threats; contacts are occasionally made at public ccjnfewnces in other cities. The bishop recalls attending a cmference in Hairclhi in December 1994 at which many public daixns about peaceful ct~ex&tencewere made, In private, though, his colleagues frc3m Rwanda warned him not to return.
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Essny 7:A Bishop i~zExile
What is the next step? No one has a good answer. Everyone is aware that something must happen tc:, alleviate the crc~wded,unstable cmditions in Ngara's camps. The grc>undwatersupply is being depleted, firewood supplies are dirninishing, and the crowded cc~nditionsconstantly present the passibility of epidemic disease. T-heseconditions can only be alleviated by spreading out the populatian, whether in Rwanda, Tamania, or elsewhere. Everyone involved, including the bishop, believes that voluntary repatriatian must play a role, but no one knows what is next. One thing is clear, though: as long as there is no cross-border dialogue, nothing-no matter how necessary-will happen. The bishop and his wife have a few suggestions about how this prc>cessmay begin, but little means with which to implement them. T k y suggest mediated meetings in neutral cities such as Dsdoma in central Tanzania, where refugee leaders could meet with represntatives of the Rw andan government. They are also critical of current efforts being made by the UNHCR and the governments of Kwanda and Tanzania to design mechanisms for voluntary repatriation because no representatives of the refugees are involved, They point out that without such involvement, the mechanisms designed could very well prove meaningless. Neve&heless, they claim that Tanzania, with its history of mediating the 1993Arusha Accords, between the RPF; and the ErIrrner Rwandan go>vernment,has the best reputation for neutrality and is the best site. Can the church play a role? Bishop Augustin and his wife believe it must. Hotvever, they also note that divisions are deepening between the church in Rwanda and I-hat in the camps of "Tanzania,In this respect the church is like other institutions. They paint out that the positions within the church that w e l ~'%acated" when they Red have been taken over by Tutsi returnees from Uganda, Tanzania, and Bur-imdi. Indeed, there is now a new bishop in Gahinii who is a returnee fmm Uganda. In this respect, the church is not unlike many other institutions being rebuilt in Iiwanda after the terrible genodde and war: life in Rwanda will move m, whether the refuges return or not. Perl-raps the church in Rwanda has good reaso)ns for doing this; after all, they need to get the wcjrk of reconstruction under tvay for the Rwandms still left in Gahini. Unh~rtunately,the reasonable dialogue needed to include the 25 to 30 percent of Rwmdans living in Tan.zania and Zairean refugee camps is not occurring. At the root of any solution is such a dialogue, Howwer, even with good and well-meaning Rwandans on b d h sides of the border the pain is still recent, and suspicions high. Overcoming this will be a stowydifficult, and necessary process.
Essay 8
Some Practical Notes on a Names Taboo in Western Tanzania
In July 4987, I had occasion to distribute rice and household goclds to a small village of Burundian refugees in the Kigoma region of western Tanzania. The refugees I-tad been in the area for about 45 years, and had established themselves in association with a village of the Waha, the most numerous ethnic group in Kigoma region. All were agricultural people who considered tl-temselves tcr be Hutu or Ha rather than Tutsi. Notably, the groups spoke mutually intelligible languages, and also had very similar cuftural practices and beliefs. Nevertheless, as a result of an expulsion order issued by the Tanzanian pvernment, the Burzmdian households 'had had their houses burned, and a small relief program was mounted (see Wters 49813). The relief goc)ds were distributed by household, with special allowance made for unusual circumstances, especially large family size, The final count tvas that there were 796 persons living in the village, of whom a slight majority were adults. Most families had 0,1, or 2 children, though there tvas one family with 8, and another with 12, The tow birth rate indicated by the count surprised me somewhat; this area of Tanzania was known for a high population growth rate, and in addition, local people had indicated to me during the previous three years 1 had lived in the area that the refugees from Burundi who were living in the village were even more prolific than the Waha. 30 why would they say they have only one or tvvo children or none at all? Particularly in these circumstances, for the refugees there was a potential material incentive to have more children, for they could then claim a larger share of the relief goods. Yet they did not have even the fc>ur, five, or six children i cl-xpected, To rationalize the survey results with these other reports, i simply assumed that there must have been an unusually high infant mc>rtaliv rate, Thus satisfied, I sent my report to Dar es Salaam,
Adapted from Di$aslrrrs 13,2 (1989):f 85-186,
292
Essny 8: Notes on n Names Tizboo
But the prc>blemstill bothered me. 'Two weeks later, l visited a Catholic sister who had been working as a nurse in the area for over 30 years. Somewhat smugly I told her about my little survey and indicated to her that there must be an unusually high infant martality rate among these people because the family sizes were so small, She lau&ed, and told me no, that it was impossible to take a cm.sus among the Waha or Burundian people in the area. Mentioning a child by name, or even counting a child, it is believed, makes that child potentially visible to maXevolent spirits. Thus, any ackncjwledgment of a child, particularly to strangers, is taboo. The same restrictions apply to cattle or goats, which are an important fc~rmof wealth in the area. In effect, asking hc>wmany children, cattle, or goats a person has is the same as asking a Westermr about his or her salary or bank account. A light went on after her explanation, for it shed light not only cjn the prcjblems with my census but on a number of other obsemations 1 had made during the previous three years. It also explained a number of anomalous circumstances 1 had &served during my time in this part of Tanzania. Several are of interest,
* A Dutch doctor once told me that the Waha women did not know how
*
*
*
many children they had; even when three children were standing around a mother, obviously hers, the mother would sometimes acknowledge only one pregnancy in response to a direct question by the doctor, A contractor I worked with, a mason, was knc>wnfor being a man rich in cattle and goats. Inded, he would periodically suspend his work for me because it: was his turn to herd the flock. When I casually asked him how many animals he had (1 was trying tcr be polite in a Western sense by showhg an interest in his afhirs), he said that he had one goat and one COW Later, when I was married, he gave me a goat as a wedding present, Presuming this was his entire Flock, X was taken aback by his generc3sity Rethinking the matter in the contczxt of the taboo mentioned above, t h u @ 1 was still i m p ~ s x dwith his generosity, I was relieved that he had not been completely impc~verishedby his gift for our wedding. The sister who described the taboo to me in the first place explained same of the anomalous situations that developed for her clinic as a consequence. Children's names would inexplicably be changed, presumably because the child had attracted the attention of malevolent spirits. The names were changed so that the spirits would be fooled as to who the child was. This made maintenance of health records, a major tool far such health clinics, a chancy affair at best. l needed a g u a d at the compc~undwhere l worked, and l hired a man who remembered when the Germans had occupied Tanzania, and therefc>re must have been about 85 years old in 1987. One day be proudly announced to me the birth of a son. I asked him hilw many children he now had, and he indicated that this was his first, Pressing my question fitrthel; 1 expressed incwdulity that a man of his age and
Essny 8: N o t e ou a Ntzmes Taboo
293
experience would be having his first child at age 85. He insisted it was true, sa I dropped the subject, once again puzzled by the nature of communication. Having by now- establish& for the reader that I spent my years in Tanzania as a cultural maladroit, I hastcm to add a ctdicil: 1 am an American, fox whom Tanzanians graciousiy make exceptions when dealing with spirituaf matters. As 1 was told by the Tanzanians an occasion: it is not passible for me, as an expatriate, to camp~henctsuch spiritual matters, no matter how much my Western-derived rationality asks me to do sc~.NCXis it considered desirable or purposeful by the Tanzanians for us to focus on the local spirits, for they are not believed to bother outsiders. From the Tanzanian perspedive this is a blessing, as who really needs the malevolcsnce this implies? Although 1 may not comprehend Tanzanian spiritual matters, T think it is irnpc~rtantfor expatriates at least tcr acknowledge the significance such beliefs can have for their work. Aside from the benefits that good manners and crosscultural understanding always bring, there are material benefits as tvell. Most expatriates working in Third World countries are there to assist with the material development of physical and human resources. Effective adaptation of these improvements depends on how well such development is adapted to local perceptions and beliefs. Certainly, the taboo described here did not destroy the effectiveness of my smalf,relief prc3gram. Nor did it cause the sister's ciinic to collapse, nor did it mean that the Dutch doctor was not able tcr treat the patient who refused to acknowledge more than one pregnancy. H~fo-wevex;questions of program quality are also involved, Accurate record-keeping is likely to imprc~vethe quality of many of the types of programs that are comp~nentsof development, a view shared by Westerners, Tanzanian government officials, and, in a samewhat different tvay even Tanzanian villagers. Record-keeping is inherent to the operation of both schooXs and clinics, institutions badly needed and wanted in even the most remote villages, and by the most isolated villagers. Other activities of modern life are also involved in such recod-keeping, from the maintenance of payroll forms to the provision of relief supplies. Ultimately; Ic>calcultural institutions such as this naming taboo are incompatible with development cjbjectives. I suspect that as the schools and clinics that are being developed by the Tanzanian government (sometimes with the assistance of fc~reipers,often tvithout) take rc~ot,this particular taboo, along with other saciai activities, may well withe5: Until it does, though, it should be treated with a sensitivity that will serve both the more traditional W h a and the new institutions emerging in the area,
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Index Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), 60 Administra tive systems, 114-119, 236 Afghan rek~gees,33j116) Africa Watch, 107 A f ~ c a nrefingee crises, 17,21-22,242 SLY a k a Btrrundian refctgees; Rwandan refugee crisis; ittdividtrul rrf'ilg~t? clzlnps A f ~ c a nrelief operations, 27-29,33(n7) Agence Internationale Cuntre 1a Faim (AXCF), 136,142, 153(n3) Agnes, Sister, 20s1214 AXCE Sc.e Agence Internationale Contre Ia Faim Aideed, r-lussein, 62,63,66,221 Aidirzg Molt.?zce: T%rDer~clc?pnterztEnfrvprise in Nulaz~dlz(Uvin), 14, 81 AXE, 141,250,2X-2'75 Air Force, U,S., 119 Airlifts, 27, 28, 117, 119, 183 Ajobe, Mark, 208-2W Akagera Nalic>nalPark (Rwanda), 108,146 Albania, 18 Albriglrt, Macleli~~e, 193, 195, 196, 215, 216 Alnericnn &rif.aXe, 219(n12) Amin, Idi, 93 Anglican church 130(n3),Z31(n10), 146, 251,28&290 Angola, 22,26,27,242 Aman, Kofi, 235,538 Argument by anecdote, 77 Arusha Accords, 84,85,92,197,290 Arusha (Tanzania),831, "L?, 248 Assumptions, 98,231-232,239 Asylt~m~ 5,2&21,144 fear of persecution and, 49-51,56,120, 144 5 ~ also e H c ~countr"ies t AWood, Brian, 146,149 Auscfiwitz, 216,219(n12) Dakevymusaya, Avmerand, 165 Ban Vinai (camp), 263
Band Aid, 61 Bangladesh crisis, 32(nl), 244 Bantu people, 82 Rarzyan~ule~ge militia, 149-150, 153,171 Barre, Siad, 28,f;l Barrett, Denise, 250,281, 283 Etastable, Andy, 1191(n6) Bazungu, 1tlIl(n2) Belgium, 82,8%89,96,97 Benaco Dam, 190(n2) Benaco refctgee camps (Tanzania), 109, llgr 204--205,221 development of site, 106,115 preparedness at, 164-165 site identification, 106, 175(n2) as urban community, 126,1412-142, 221-222 violence in, 120,210 SLY also Rwandan refugee crisis; Water systems Benjamin, Judy, 274 Biafra operation, 18,23,33,44 Bie&auer; Charles, 52-53 Bizimtmgu, Pasteztr, 138 Bodies in Kagera River, 108,126,134,138, 153(n4), 194-l95,20&209,218(n9) removal prc)ject, 208-2013,211-212, 218(n6) Boninc), Emma, 146,149 Border straddling#174, 175(n5) Bosniit, 9, 118, 217Cnl) Botswana, 27 Britis11 Overseas Development Agency (0DAj8111, 112, l19 Brown, Roger, 6"j)(n7) Bucysenge, Jean-CLaude,231-272 Bujrrmbtlra (Eurundi), 85, 164, 166 Bukoba (Tanzania),274 Bureaucracies, 8-9,34-35,71 catculabiliq and, 36, 4244,235236,250 calculation and, 240-241 contrrrl and, 37,4447,189,235-236,240
efficiency and, 11-1 2,35-36,42-44, 72-73,235236,241 elements, 35-36,235-236 expansion into poititical concerns, 227-228,237-238,240 goals, 353T,40-42,47,74,235238 organizational integrity; 230-231 parachute bureaucracies, 232-2311, 239 predictabiliq and, 36-37,4244, 23%236,238-239 rationality and, 37--39,4[7,50,63-64,66# 156,177,186,237-238 relationslGgs betwreen, 22,27-28,44 SLY also Bureaucratized Good Samaritan concept Bureaucratized Good Samaritan concept, 1-2, IQ,72,155-157 assumptiorzs, 231-232,239 identification of genocide and, 196,215 limitations, 226 paMerned mistakes, 155,178,184-189 water systems and, 18G188 SW also Bureaucracies; Emotion; fi7lernational refugee relief regime; Ratic~nality Bur~tndi,12,26,53, 79, 83 bodim in river and, 218(n6) contingenq planning, 163-1 71 coup, lf15,159,17&171 demographics, 98-B elections, 104,165, 166, 172, 197-198 events of 1%>ZW6,169-170 Hutu popt~lation,M-85,104 map, 4 October-Nczvember 19% massacres, 197-198 s&tlement schemes, 103 Tt~tsias ruling party in, 84-85,90,92-93, 97,100-101(n4), 197 SLY also Durundian ref~rgees Burttndian refugees, 152(n2) border straddling, 174 return from Tanzarriia, 163, 164, 172 return ta Bumndi, 163,172-173 in Tanzania, 204-106,151,161bllii;l, 223, 248 in Zaire, 171 5 ~ also e Burundi Bush, Gec~rge,29,52 D u y ~ y aPierre, ~ 171 Byumba district (Rwanda), 96, 108, 109, 119, 120 Cairo World Population Conference, 99 Catcutability, 36#42-44,235236,250
Ca tculation, 240-241 Cmbo?dia, 2>26,31,33(n4), 4M4,51--52, 544t1,68(m 3,4), 173, 217(n11), 228fn5), 225,227,232 refugee camps, 56-58 SLY also mailat~d C m p management, 249-250,264-269,281 defined, 264-265 local staffI 24&249,268 plot allocation, 26267,270,273 refugee registration, 266 Cmps. Sep Refugee camps; indk~iduul cam;?$ Canada, 85,150 CARE, 22,29,45,4S,132(n41), 133(n20), 142,206,249 HIV and, 250,274,275 Rwandan refugee crisis and, 111-114, 122 Caritas, 239, 264 Cader, Rosalyn, 57 Carter administratio3nfX Catholic cllurch, 205, 207-208 Catholic Relief Services (CRS), 18, 22,28, 50,61 CDR. See Coalition pour ta Dbfense de fa R4publique Censuses, 123-124,130(n7), 133{n22), 191Qn7),276 5 ~ also e Demographics Central Africa, dernographics, 98-99 Chabalisa 2 refugee camp, 77,104,139, 249 age data, 2%,259,2a, 262 causes of deafi~,259-260 demographic indicators, 261 epiclemiology, 262 fertility and mortality rates, 2.%256, 263Cnl) ftmd distribution, 258, 265, 267 language skills, 271-272 fayout, 26S2M market development project, 270-273 mortalitJr by muse and mo?nth, 261 nonfood diskl-ibution, 267-268 total population, 256257 Chabalisa re-efugee camp, 256,264 Chanda, Nayan, 56 Cl-raponda,Ceorge; 1149,224 China, 56,93,241 Choir competitions, 28&289 CI-roXera,139-140,153(n5), 178-179, 189-191I(nl), 191(n9) expenditures, 181-1% Ch~stianCouncil of Tanzania, 267 Christian Outreach, 131,112,132(nll)
Clzristh?~Scieftce Monitor, 205, 23(n1) Churches, 274 Anglican churcl~,130(nJ), 131(nII)), 146, 251,2862911 Catholic churclz, 205, 207-2418 SLY also Anglican cht~rch CIintc>n,Bil, 98 CIinton adinis~istration,29, lN(n12) CNN, 129,205,206,237,238 CNN effect, 72,74,229 Coalitic)n pour tiz D6fense de Ia Reptrblique (CDR), 84, (34 Coffee prices, 84, 88,93 Cogefar, 115,119,122,132(n23),183 Cc4d War concerns, 55-55,liO Communication, 210-211,248,271-232 Cc~mparativesocictogy, 73-75 Compassion, 6%66,69(n7") Compassion fatigue 221 Cc~ncernInternational, 241, 248,249 Concern Worldwide, 111,119,128 Cc~nfidentialitjli17/45 Congct, 21 Scle also Zaire Cc~nnelIyMaureen, 121,124125,129,205, 207#244 as cotrrdinator, 10T,130(n5) funding and, 191(n9) NGOs and, 113 press and, Z75(n3) repatriation and, 134, 144 suspension of activities and, 210 Cc>nstructio~7i projects, 12 Contingency planning, 10, IhW138,238 Bumndi, 1993-94,163?--16$ Bumndi, 1994,164-167 Bumndi, 19951996,169-1170 Bumndi cc>up,t 996,270-171 false neetives and false positives, 160-1 62,238 f imitations, 172 policy assumptions, 162 predic~c>ns, 159-1 51 preparedness, 125-126,161 repatriation and, 13&136,171-172 Rwanda and Bumndi, 1994,164-167 Rwanda and voluntary repatriatioi3, 2%%96,167-169 trigget-ir~g events, 172 water systems and, 176-1'77 Cc~ntrol,37,4447, 177, 189,235236,240 Cmrdinal.ian, 30,45,244-245 Cc~t-sharing,W Counts, 2762811,291-293 Credit, 2-3
Crisis management, 120,153(n3) Cross-sectional da ta, 76 C B . Sec Call~olcRelief 5ervices Cydes of impunity and justice, 91-92 Badaab, 45 Daliaire, Rc>meo,85,97-98, 197; 217Cnl) Dcmish embassy, 207 Banish Refugee Council, 114, 212 Dar es Salaam (Tanzania),85,106,123,127, t 28, 232(n9), 136,183 Data collection, 250 David [evangelist), 127-128,2212-215 Bavidson, Basil, 89 Decisiun-makzng, 9, 10, 15+15'7, 226 argument by anecdote and, 77 compamtive approach and, 73-74 contri>land, 240 patterned mistalnes, 278, 186-189,226 in Rwranda refugee crisis, 86-88 at UN headquarters, b%,126-127,129, 134, 137, 165, 197,217fnl) Democratic Republic of the Congo. SLY Zaire Demographics Benaco, 2%-277 central Africa, 98-99,174 Chabatisa 2,253-263 counts, 276-280 estimation of supplies needed, 253 fertility and mortality rates, 253-256 political impf ications, 2% pressures, 83-%,98-W Bes Forges, ALison, 24,81,97, ZQZ(n9), 153(n4), 217(n2) Deservedness, 13-1 4, 50, 65,222-223 Bestexhe, Alain, 225fnZ) Development, relief as function of, 27, 242-242 DE-IA. See United Mations Depa&nent of Humanitarian Affairs Disasters, 11, 188, 251 Diseases, 1058176 cholera, 139-140,153(n5), 1723-179, 189-190(n1>,191fn9) epidemiology, 262 HIV infection, 241 mortality rates, 253-256,258-261 SLY also Health issues Bodc~ma(Tanzania),290 Donors, 13-14, 16, 149,2416 ernotionrs, 4142,227 frttstration wit11 prcjgrms, 135, 143 mercy and, 2-3,31,4143,71,241
repatriation and, 136 victim identification and, 65,71,72 Drpsdale, Joltn, 63 Dtltc11 Aid, 112 Dutclt embassy, 207 East Timor, 156,220 ECHO. Sec European Cr>mmuniQ Humanitarian Organization Emfzomist, 110, 197, 19g199, 218(n7) Economy tnternaticlnal order, 92-95 in refugee camps, 127, 339,151,204 Efficiency, 3 1-1 2,35-36,4244,72-73, 235236,241 ELCT. See Evangelical Lutheran C h u ~ fin l Tanzania ELites, 88, 94 Emercorn, 111,112,138 Exnergencies, 10, 125 acute, 23Cb231 emotions aznd, 74-75, l56 planning, 238 retaxed standards, 177-1713 reliabifiv of data and, 75-77 study of, 73-77 T~ichman'sLaw and, 75-76 Emotional labor, 1 M 4 Emotions, 8-11,4142,47,227 crisis management and, 120 emergencies and, 74-75,156 funding and, 12-1 3, 156,222-223 water systems and, 17&177,186-188, 19{1(nl),191(rrn 9, 111, 230 5 ~ also e Bureaucratized Coc?d Sarnas-itan concept Engineering, 10,37;.176,186,189, 239 relaxed standards, 177-178 SW also Water systems Eritrea (Ethiopia), 60, 61 Etl-riopia,18, 2&28,43, 51-53, 229 United States and, 60-61 Etl-rniccategorizatic111,88-90,95 Eurcjpean Community Httmmital-ian Organization (ECHO), 45-46, 48(n4), 129 funding 111,243 Rwandan refugee crisis and, 110-424, 118,146 Europeans, IOQ(n2) Evangelical Lutheran Churc1-r in Tanzania (ELCT), 274 Evil, 243--245 Expenditur-, 2,3(nl), 9,1C)C),112,181-184 in Itx~docfnineseref~tgeecrisis, 6849(n5)
on water systems, 182-1 85, 192(n13) 5 ~ also e Funding False negatives and fabe pc>sitives, 160-162, 238 Famine relief, 16-19, 27-28,56 militay protectiorn and, 29,52, 62-63 Faubert Carol, 68Cnl) Field-level bureaucrats, 66 Food distllibtition, 26-27,57-58,62 at Chabalisa 2,267 memo, 137, 152-153(n3) monitoring prcjgrms, 141 mortality rates and, 25&--259 Rwandan refugee crisis and, 11.5-l 17, 123-121fj131(n9), 133(n21), 136-137, 141 type of camp and, 221-222 Ftlrd, Peter, 234(n1) France, 658(n3),86,96, IOl(n9) FranMurter; Felix, 195, 146 Free Khmer, 56-57 Frc~debtl.Srr Front des D4mocrates Front des Dernc>crates(Frodebu), 104 Funding for cholera, 140,153fn5) emotions and, 12-13,156,222-223 fi-nancialcrisis, 146-148 media infiuence, 434,121-122,125, 229-231,23if(xtl) political nature of, 30, 126-127,221 Rwandan ref~zgeecrisis, 105, 111, 113, 118,121-122,125 UNI-LCR, 17',22 SCea1s0 Expmditures; United Nations High Comrnissicmer for R e f ~ ~ g e a Gabon, 95 Gahini (Tanzania), 1(18,1&, 2%-289 Gambona, Panlaleon, 265,273 Gartock, Rick, 192(n9) Gamey Gerry, 191(nI;) Gatete, Remy, 120-123,132(n16), 210, 215, 231 Geldof, Bob, 61 Geneva Cc>nvention,30 Gk~ociclniri~s, 3 Genocide, 9,52,79, 137 agenciw and, 205 attacks from Uganda and, 35-96 bo~fiesin Kagera River, 108,226,134, 138,20&2@, 211-212 court evaluations, 201-202,216
cyclical explanation,91-92 defining#19&197,215-216 demographics of Central Africa and, g%%, 101-102(n12), 127 econcmic explanation, 92-95 explanations, 79-82,159 frameworks, 195,215-21 7 Hutu reporks of, 1%-200 international legal systm and, 216-217 intrigue and politics as explanation, 96-98 lack of response and, 91-92, 98 militias and, 85-86 numbes killed, 198-199,203,208-209, 212, 217fm 2, 31, 218(nn 5,8,9) primordial explanation, 88-90,229 rationalizing, 14S146 refugee repor%, 1%-201,21S(n5) rhdorical m. legat usage, 199 Ttttsi ethnic group and, 198-1W, 209 U.S. gc>licy,215-2165 witnesses to, 214-215 Gm,205,210 Gennany, ):.at3, 93,96,9i", 241 Go and srr. programs, 168--169,282-283,284 GOAL, 142 Goals, 35-37,40--42,744,235-238 Goldstone, Jack, 78(n2) Goma (Zaire), 21, 138,183,221 Gcwd Samaritan parable, l-2,49,53-.S, 228 SW atso Bureaucratized G o d Samritan cc7ncept Gore, May, 99 GoriIlas in thc Mist, 83 Gourevitch, Pl~ilip,153(n7) Great. takes regio1~6,103, 129,225(nl) Sec also Durundi; Contingency planning; Itwancta; Tanzania; Zaire Grum, lda, 268 Guinea, 22 Gutekunst Mare-Daniel, 198 Ha etlvlic gromp, 291 E-labyarirnana, Juvknal, 83-85,91-94 Arusha Accords and, 197 death of, 97,101(n9), 107-108,159,164, 211 France and, 97 repatriation and, 9C1,95 Hamedi, Syivester, 133(n19) Harrelt-Bond, Barbara, 26,33(n4), 65 E-lealth issues, 44,2%,263(n2) 5 ~ also e Disease E-learing process, 51,67 Helpage, 268
High Commissioner for Rdugees (League of Nations), 17, 19-20 E-listc>~cat approaches, 14, 71, 87-88,99-11115 HIV infection, 141,250,274-275 E-lmt~ngrefugees, 69(n8), 220 Hochscl~ild,Rt~ssctlX,12-2 3 Holocaust, 195,216 E-long Kong, 22,55 Hotrver, Flerbert, 16,18-19 Hospitality 26, 127,204 Host counb-ries,7,26,1217 See also Asylum E-luman Rghts Watch, 40, 81, 199 Humane deterrence program, 25,33(n4) H~tmanitarl'anvalues, 13, 2425,228 E-lungary 21 H~tssein,Saddarn, 69Cn9) E-lutu ethnic group, 79#82-83 in Burundi, 84-85,104 internally clisplaced persons, 96, 108 massacres of Tutsi, 83,iW, 91,94 as refuge= in Tanzania, 86,105,107, 124,154(n(a),172,199 reports of genocide, 19-200 as social category 82'88 in Zaire, 144, 129-1511 Hyden, Michaet, 250,281 ICRC. See International Committee for the Red Crc~ss Identiv cards, 82,83,89,101fn4) IDPs. See Internally displaced persons lfc~a m p , 45 Federation of the 1FRC. Set>Inter~~ationat Red Crc~ss IMF. See International Monetaq Fund Implementers, 22,210-1 2 2,115,130-131 (n8) Irnptmit~cycle of, 94-92 Incfncl~inclserefugee crisis, 17; 18,22-26, 32(nl), 53,68(n3) morality and, 54-60 United States resettlement program, 58-59 Indonesia, 55 Ingram, James, 33,46,47(n3), 237 Ittlemfianll.r?e*, 86,90, I(XX, 166,2(26,211,220, 289 chttrchw and, l46,205,286 in refugee camps, 1151,224 Internally displaced persons (TDPs), 17-18, 32,53,96, 108 1nternat.ionatCommittee for tl.le?Red Cross (ICRC), 17-18,21-22,24--2% 29, 44-45,228 goals, 2237-238
Tnduchinese refugee crisis and, 55 nonalignment policy 17,45,49-50 Rwandan rehgee crisis and, 107, 115-116 Somalia and, 62 International commrrnity, 5 capadty to receixre refugees, 103-104 cycle of impunity and, 91-92 fc3lrible repatriation and, 15G151, l%frt12), 171-172 lack of response, 91--532,98,20O Internatic3nal economic order, 92-95 Irzternatioml Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), 106,129,2116 I n tert2aticttzazul Her~zldTrl"ribt4tz~, 199 Irzternatioml intrigue and politics, 9698 International Monehry. Fund (IMF), 4% 84, 88,% International rekgee relief regime, 3 critique, 24&245 goals, 40-42, 74 as Ittlmanitaria~~, 13, 24-25, 228 moral assumptions and, 232 organizational capabiliq, 222-223 osligin of, 16-20 overview, 29-32 patterned mistakes, 178,186-1 89,226 principles, 30-31 refc>rming,11, 72,235241 relations with retingees, 119-123,133fnn 19, 20), 210 Rwandan refugee crisis and, 110-114 strengths and weakness@, 34-35, 186188,228,233,235 victimhood and, ( i s 6 SW atso Bureaucratized Goad Samaritan concept; Decision-making; Irzternational regimes, 32-J3(n2) International Rescue Committee (XRC), 11-12,22,111,152(n2) IRC. SCe International Rescue Committee Ireland, 119 Iron cage, 38 Israel, 96 Italian Benaco Cr>nslfuctionCompany, 19Q(n2) Japan, 25 Jensen, Jasper, 200,218(n8) Jestlit:Refugee Service, 143, 153(n6) Jewish refugees, 17,19-20 Jimenez, Andres, 13Ofn5),175(n2f foirll Evaluatiotz qf Enzergency Assislnlltctr to Rzi?nndafIEEAR), 14, 31, 109, 125,
137-138, 149, 175(xzn 2, 3), 179-180, 190(n3),249 Joint Voluntary Agency OVA), 59 J u d m w t s , 49-51, l'?';",221 Justice, 91-92, 244 JVA. SLY Joint Voluntary Agency K-9 ( c w ~ ) ,122-123,124 Kabanga (Kasulu prefecture), 130(n3) Kabita, Laurent, 149-150 Kagarne, Paul, 91-92,145 Kagera (Kegic?n) bodies in river, 108, 126, 134, 138, 153(n4), 134-195,2Q&2119,211-212, 218(n6) WF conl.ful of river, 202-2133 Karagwe (District), 77, IQ?, 116, 123, 137 camps, 139,151,181,248,281 refugee column, 150 wat-er stlppty, 181 Kasulu prefecture (Tanzania), 106, 13Ufn3) Katumba refugee settlement, 163 Kayonza (camp), 119 Kenya, 44,61-62, 13Fi--119r136 Keza (camp), 135, 14&149, 151,279, 280 Khan, Sl~akrayar,134,138, 244 Khao I Dang (Rwilmd), 25,188,189, 231-232 Qartoum, 28 Khmer Emergency Group, 56 Khmer Rorrge, 23-26,33(n4), 44,52,5440, 217(n4), 218(n5), 221 Kibeho Displaced Person Center, 143 Kibondo (Distn'ct), 106, 152(112),248 Kibungc? (District), 108, 104, 128, 1145, 212-213 Kigali (Rwanda) government at, 5 5 l%, 150, l%(nl), 154(n12) WF capture of, 86,107,1(18 as urban capital, 83,tW-, 274 Kigc?ma (Region), 12,223/ 291 Kitali Hills (camp), 13&139, 147, 151, 185 Kosc3vo, 18,33(n7), 92, 156, 229, 233-234, 237 Kouchner, Bernard, 4748(n3) Kristullnaclif, 216 Kurdistan, 69(119) Lake, Antlnon~r,40 Lake Tangmyih, 21 Lamb, David, 165166, 175(n4) Laos, 58,68fnJ) Lac~tiant;,54,55, 58-59
League of Nations, 17,19-20 Leave Nvvle to R11 the Story (des Forge", 14, 81 Lemarchand, Rent!, l04,150,225(nI), 242 Liberia, 27 Lc~bbying,4 6 4 7 Local pc?pulationr;, 65 Lokichokio (Sudan), 50 Long, Lynelyn, 263 Lukole (camp), 175Cn2) Lurnasi (camp), 117,119,124,141,151,179, 288 Lutheran World Federation (LWF), 11,12, 14,46,78, 111,239 Africm relief and, 18,21-22,28 c m p management, 249-250 Chabalisa 2 and, 281 Etl~opiaand, 40 funding, 132(nll) genocide and, 201,207 Rmiandan ref~~gee crisis and, 121, 129(&), 231fn9), 246-147,148,149 Tanzanian staff, 24K-244 water systems and, 180,185 Lutker'm Wortd Relief (USA), 267 LWE Sec Lutheran Wc~rtdFederation Maisr~n,Jean-Piem, 99 Malawi, 27,205,242 Malaysia, 23,55 Malklu, Liisa, 223 Manguta, Philip, 142-146,211-21% 244 Marines, U,S,,62-63, 108 Market development prcject, 2701-273 Mason, tinda, 69(n7) Mass refugee mclvements, 67,242-243 meikiza, Consolata, 270-273 m u b a (camp), 148-149,151 Measuremeni., 4142,24(?-241 Mbdecins sans Frontigres (MSF), 22,40-42, 4647,4748(n3), 48(n4), 153(n3), 206, 228 funding, 236,24Ei(nl) judgments, 51,121,137,210 Rwandan refugee crisis and, 109-13 0, 111, 113-115,117; 119,142,152(n2) Tutsis and, 132(n17) M4decins sans FrontierwFrance, 117, 152(n2), 178, 211If 226 Mbdecins sans FrontiGres-Holland 117, 210 M4decins sans Frontt&res;-Spain,210 Media, 2, 8, 72, 237 in Benaco camps, 205,210 CNN effect., 72, 74,229 as emotionalized, 11,13
Ethiopia reports, 60-61 funding and, 4344,121-122,125, 229-231,2X(nI) on Tnduchinese mfrcgees, 24-26 influence of, 25-26,28,30-31, 4041,46,48(n4), 52,157,175(n3), 228-230 inter~~ationaf press, 113-115 leaks, 231 press management, 11, 223-114,226 singular fc~cus,52-53 Mdical programs, 119,206 Sec also M4decins sans Frc3ntiGres Mrmisa, 256,258,268 Mengistu government, 52,221 Mercy, 2-3,31,41-43r 71,241 Metlncx3ology %10,73-75 cross-sectional data, 76 data collection, 250 o?utliers, 74, 78 random sampling, 2411 Military bases, 7-8 protection, 29,552,62-63 virtuotls power doctrine, 91, 101(117) Mili~as,8S86,90,96 Milose~~ic, Slc>bodan,229 Mitt.&rand,Fransois, 97 Mobutu, Joseph D&ir&,93/ 97 Mobutu regime 8, 149-1-W Mogadishu (%)malia), 62 Mombetssa (Kenya), 136 Monoptmp, 2M-182,191 (n8) Mora-Castm, Daniel, 192(n13) Morality, 1-z2,47,232 defining victirnhood, 51-54 Tnduchinese reft~geecrisis and, 54-40 judments, 49-51,197,221 pctliticat concerns, 60-61 Mortality rates, 253--256,258-261, 263Cnl) Moumlzis, Pano, 114, 200 Mou~erne~It R6volrrtionnaire National porrr le D4velopment (MmD), 83,M, 86, 94,164 Mozambiqrre, 22,26,27,105,127', 242,248 MMB. *MauvementRbvalutictmaire National pour le D6vrlopment MSE S ~ Mkdecins P sans Frc>ntiPres Msuya, Brigadier Generaj, 149 Mtrragwanza (hospital and village), 130fn3) Murambi {Rwanda), 109,120 Musa, Dauda, 26&267,272,273 Musevmi, Yc~weri,90 Mtrshura (camp), 151
Mtryinga province (Bctrundi), 14aF1751n6) Mvuruibmda, Aupstin, 1&,146,21 3-215, 244,286288 Mvurubanda, Virginia, 213-214,287-2238 Mwanza (Tanzania),l123 Mwese settlement, 21 Mwinyi, Ali F-fassan, 127,198,211-212,224 Nairobi (Kenya), 118-119 Nansen, Fridtjov, 17, 19 NafiofraEGeogmyhk, 79 NATO, See Nort1.r Atlantic Treaty Orgwizatian Natsios, Andrew, 3(1-11),29,237 Nahralization, 103 Nazis, 1719-20 Ndaclaye, Melchior, 159, 163 Neutratity' 17,45, 49-50 New York Tirnes, 60,205,210,224 Newburyf Catl-rerine, 93 Newsztteek; 29 Ngara (mstrict), 14,46, 77-78, 106-107, 116, 138,248 UNHCR office, 106, 115 water systems, 17%181 SW atso Benaco refugee camp; Tanzania NGOs. Sec. P\Jongc>vernmentalorganizations Nigerian Civil War, 17,21 Nilotic peoples, 82 Nilssen, Egil, 207-208 Non r@oztlc>rnerat princlipfeg220 Nongc>vernrnenQIorganizations (NCQs), 2, 122-193 funding, 22 implementers, 110-91 2 independence, 31 SLYalso Relief agencies; indiul;ilual
agencies Norholt, Leor 211 North Atlantic Treaty 0rganizatic)n (NATO), 18,92 Norwegian Pecrple's Aid (NPA), 142, 207-208 Nomegian Refugee Corzncil, 112 NPA, See Nowegian People" Aid Nyamubi, Edkvin, 287 Obote, Miltc?n, 93,95 ODA. Sce British Overseas Development Agency Oliver, Thomas, 32(n4) Operatic3n Lifeline Sudan, 28 Operation Rwtore Hope, 61--63,6546 Operatianality, 21, 22, 30, 131, 130-131 (n8) Ort3mo (Ethiopia), 61
Outlie=, 7478 Oxfam, 22,42,47(n3), 117-218,119,148, 191(n6), 226,228,239 Chabatisa 2 and, 266 water delivery 179,180,256 Pakistan, 32fnl), 33(n6f Palestinian refugees, 17 Parachute bureaucrariiet;, 232-23,239 Parmehutu. SWParti btu Mouvement de ]'Emancipation des Bahutu Parti d e YUnion et dtl Prc~gr&s National (Ugrona), 104,197 Parti drx Mouvernent de VExnancigation des Bal-rutt~(Parmehutu), 82,8Y, 1011(n3) Partnerships, 22 Passpoes, 17 Patterned decision-making, 155,178, 186189,226 Peacekeepers, C;244,84,85,9T Persecc~ticn,fear of, 167-168 Phanat N i b u r n (camp), 26 Pingatrd, Denis, 4O4lF234fn1) Pid~eiro,Paulo Sergio, 169-170, 175fn6) Planning. See Contingenq plannir-rg Policy decisions. See Decision-making Politics, 10, 30, 220-223'254 bureaucratic expansion into, 227-228, 237-238,240 emotion and, 222-223 expectations, 272-173 genc~cideand, 9698 moraliq and, 60-61 victims and, 67, 71-72 Pottier, Johan, 68(m 1,2), 154(n10), 245Cnl) Predictability, 36-37, 42-44#235-236, 23&239 Predictions, 159-161 false negatives and false positives, 16l5-162 Preparedness, 125-126,161 at Benaco, 16&165 Presidential Guard, 85 Primordialism, 87-88,95,228 explanation for genocide, 88-9i5,22Y Prior connection criterion, 69Cn8) Prc~tection,5, 17 military pmtection, 29, 52, 62-43 Prunier, Gerard, 14,81, 92-93,97-99, 101(n9), 171 genocide r e p o ~ s 196, , 1"39,20t1-210, 217(nl), 21tZfneS),2,34(n2) Prubalis, Mare, 200-201,203 Quartzite, 173,280, 184-1 85,190-191 (n5)
Radio static3ns, 143,153(n6),199 bfidorn sarnpli~tg,201 Ratic)nality, 13,317-39, 50,63-M, 66, 156, 177,186,237-238 goals and, 35-37" Reception capabilitia, 148--149,242 Reconciliation, 214,286-290 Red Crc>ss,16,46, 106, 1131, 114, 115,207 funding, 132(n11) SLY also International Committee for the Red Cross Red Crtjss Hospil-at, 275 Reform efforts, 11,72,235-241 Refugee camps, 7 birtlrs, 142-142, 169, 223, 254,279 economy in, 127,139,151,204 11ealth slams, 254,2631n2) Kmya, 61-62 as military bases, 7-8 pusihlpult factors, 25 reception capabilities, 14&149, 242 ringleaders of genocide in, 109, 120, 132(n14),137; 144-145,149,202, 210,232 security 122,128 sernipemanent, 106,13U(n4) sustainability, 251-152 as tirban com~ntmities,140-142, 221-222,223,270 SLY also Benaco rehgee camp; Chabalisa 2 refugee camp; Cl~abalisa refugee camp; Rw~andanrefugee crisis; Thailand, refugee prolgram Refugee movements, persistence ofg 242-243 Refugee rigl-rts, 96, 151,236 Refugees as apolitical, 617,90,134, 1173-174,222, 224 border strzzddlina 174, 175(n5) counts, 11 genocide repo&s, 199-201,218Cn5) limiting contributions frcm, 223--.225 pemanence of, 149-151 reasons for moving, 172-1 174 repatriatic>n,5 4 , 12 self-sufficiency 27, 141, 148, 151, 223-224 as vulnerable, 55,265 SW also Burttndian refugees; Repatriatim; Rwandan refugees; i~zdiz~idadal canlps.
Refctgees Intentational, 200, 203 Reliability of data, 75-77 Relief, as a funceion of development' 27, 241-242 Relief agencies, 16,2415,231 SLY also International refugee relief regime; !;c>ngovernmenhf orgmizatic>ns;irtdividual ngcncirts Relief Web, 151 Relief workers, 69(n7), 69-70(nl0) as endal~gered,121-122 reporting by 14-15 Repatriation, 12, 15{nl), 126-127, 142-143,281-285 classification scktemm, 1%-145, 154(n8) contingency plannhtg, 134-136,167-169, 171-172 fc3rcible, 149-151, 154(n12), 15>156t 226-227,242 go and see programs, 16&-.169 Indoclthese crises and, 23-24 ininternational commtmity and, 150-151, 154(n12), 171-172 justificatio~~s for, 6-8, 156 nun r~foukemrtzfprinciple, 20 Pierre and Petrcj story, 281-285 politics and, 220-223 Tutsi diaspora and, 90,95 UNHCR policies, 134-1 38,144-145,209, 281-283 voluntary, 143--148,163-264,167-169, 209,239,285 from Zaire, 150 Resettlement prcjgrms, 26-27; 69(n8), 103, 126-1 27,13U(n4) Africa, 2627 Tndochinese refugee crisis and, 58-59 Tanzania and, 203,127, 130(n4), 224, 242-243 Retrospective interprdation, %, IOI(n10) Rigl~lsof reh~rn,96 Risks, 177-1 17%1% Ritzer, Gec?rge,38 RPF, See Rwanda Patriotic Front Ruden, Fridtjov, 184-185 Russia, 9, 18-19, 118 Rusurnu Falls bridge, 109, 120,126, 200, 276 Rustlmc?River Filter Scl~emefor Camp Water; 182-1153 Rusurnu (Rwanda), IO&I 09 Ruvlxbtt River, 119,182,183,1M,190(n4) Rwanda, 5-7'31 amy, 108 attacks from Uganda, M, 9(5,94-97,288 Befgium and, 82,88-89,96,97
=,
civil war, 8%84,86,96,105,153 contingency planning#1&169 economic conditicms, 84, 88, 93 fc3reign aid, 83,93,94 identity cards, 82,83,W, 101Cn.t) impriwnment of I3lllt.r males, 242 internatic?nat relatic~ns,9&98 Kigati regiare, 5 5 l%, f 50, 152(nl)n15d(nt2) map, 6 massacres, 108,126,134, 138,142-143, 145, I53(m 5,7) SW atso Dernographics; Genclcide; k;tepatrialion Ru7und1-1Crisis, 7112~:His t o y of u Genocide (Prunier), 14, 81 Rwanda Patriotic Front (WF),8, 86,91-92, 124,146,159, 286 attacks from Uganda, tW-,911,94-97,288 capktrre of Kigati, 86, 107, 108 execution squads, 108,216 Zaire and, 150 Rwandan ref~~gee crisis, 164,16&167,173, 17575(n6),202-2M b0dii~3fiin Kapera River, 108, 126,134, 4 38
census, 123-1 24,13O(n7), 133(n22), 1911117) contingency planning, 166-16T 170, t 72-1 73 decongestion camps, 138-139 deparh~reof agencies, 138-1 39 emotion and, 8-11 ftmd distribution, 115-117, 123-124 food ctistribtltion and, 125-117, 12.3-124, 131(1%9),133(1121), 136-437,141 funding, 305,121,113,118,121-122,125 l-tistoslicalassessments, 14,711,87-88, 39-1 00 international refctgee relief regime and, 110-114 medical programs, 119 planning for repatriatic~n,134-138 relat-ic3nswith refugees, 119-123 security, 122,128 transpodation prcjgrm, 11&119,123, 142 water supply, 117-11 8 Zaire and, 124-125 SLY also ReEugee camps Sa Kaeo (camp), 25 Say, Teng, 6Y(nG) Save the Children (U.K.), 268 Scond-corrntry resettlement; 59
Stttement programs. Sec Resettlement progfams Sl~awcross,Williarn, 68-69(n5), 69(n6), 217(nn 1,4) Shinyanga (Tamaniit),123 Shunga (Kasulcz prefecture), 130(n3) Sibson, Gary 209 Sierra Leone, 27 Sindikubwaho, Theodore, 196 Singapore, 55 Singida ('Gnzania), 248 Slim, Elugo, 69(1C)) Sociolr>gy,73-75, 2% Somalia, 28-29, 331, M, 51-52,53, 133fn20), 221 Operatio3n Restore Hope, 61-63 Somalia Syndrc>me,63, 193 South Africa, 26, 175(n3),197,217(nZ) Soutl-teastAsia, 26 Soviet Union, 20 Spirihal bef iefs, 291-293 State Deparment, 12,59,98,216 Structuralism, 87-88 ana'iysis of Rwandm crisis, 93-95 Sudan, 26,27, 28,33(n4), 44,65 Swaziland, 27 Swedish Refugee Cr>uncil,112 Taboos, 294-293 Tanganyika, 21 5cc ~ ~ E s oTanzania Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service (TCRS), 245 5 ~ also e Lutheran Wc'trtd Federation Tanganyika Christian Refugee Sewice Water Development Unit, 190(nZ) Tanzania, 5, 27,44,53, 73, 79 border closings, 142-143,170,173-1 '74, 175(n6) Bumndian refugees in, 1(M-106,162-164 Chabafisa 2 (camp), 77,104,139 expulsion of rehgees, 5-45, 12 Hutu refugees in, 86,105,107,124, 154(n9), 172,t(39 K a r a ~ r eEstrict, 77 map, 6 resettlement pro~posal,127, 130(n4),224, 242-243 settlement schemes, 103 Tutsi refugees, 86,107-108,1%(n9)
SLY also Benaco rekgee camp; Chabalisa 2 refugee camp; Ngara (mstrict) Tmzmian Red Cross, 106, 115,119, 131I(n3), 14at 239 Tap-on phase, 221,231,233 TCR5 Set*Lutheran World Federation; Tanganyika f hristian Refugee Service Tl~ailmd,refugee pmgram, 18,22-26, 33(nn 5,7), 68(nn 3,4),73,173,227 Ban Wnai (camp), 263 bureauaacy and, 11-12,411: Khao 1 Dang (camp), 25,188,189, 231-232 Phanat Nikhorn (camp), 26 victimhood and, 51, .S40 water systems, 188, 189 Thant, U, 17,244 Tigrap (Etliispia), 40,61 E ~ P8,24, , 62,80, 89, 109-11 0,176,205 Transportathn programs, 118-1 19,123,142 Treves, R.W., 191-192(n11) Triggering events, 172 T1-ipartite agreement, 163 Tttcllman, Barbara, 75-77 Tuchmank Law, 75-76,233 Tutsi dhnic grc~up,79 diaspora refugees, 82-83,89, 164,167 genocide and, 19&199,209 massacres by Hutu, 83,84,91,94 Mkdecins r;ans Frontigrw and, 132(n17) as refuges in 'fanzcmia, 21,86, 107-108, 154(n9), 164,167 refused repatfiation, 90,95 repabiation, 167 as ruling party in Burundi, &85,90, 32-52 J,97, 100-1 Ill (n4) as scxial category, R2,88 in Uganda, &4,9U,94--97,288 Twa grc~up,IIM)(n2) Uganda, 27,7"5),8&85 Rwanda Patriotic Frcmt and, 84,530, 94-97,288 settlement scltemes, 103 UN Peacekeeping Operations, 85 UNAMIR. See United Naticms Assistance Mission to RwanJa UNBRO. See United Nations Border Relief Operation UNDP. Set4nited Nations Development Pmgrcmme UMHCR. See United Nations Eliigli Commissioner for Refugees UMHCR-Geneva, 192Cn13)
UNICEF. See United Nations Intentational Chitdren's Emergency Fund UNICEF-Uganda, 117,179,187 United Nations, 32(nl), 98 irrter~~ationat headquarters, 56,126-127, 129,134,137,165,197,227(n1) repatriation policies, 126-127, 234-138, 144-145,147-148,209,281-283 United Nations bsistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR), 97,197 United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBRO), 44,58,59,244 United Nations Department of Humanitarian Afi(i7irrj (DHA), 107, 251 United Nations De\relopment.Prt3gramnze (UNDP), 22,JS United Nations E-ligh Cc>mmissionerfor Refugees (UNHCR), 12,14,18,103, 206 administrative systems and, 114-119 asylum and, 20-21 bureaucratic power, 11tI-111 Chabalisa 2 and, 264 charter, 45,111 emergency response system experiment, 110-111 funding, 17,241, 22, 24, 105, 111, 113, 118, 121-122,125,136 l~earx'ngprclcess, 51,67 implementers, 22,4546,110-112, 115, 130-1 31(t38) Indc>cl-rheserelief operatic~nand, 22-25, 5541 internal sectors, 22 1 Karapre office, 137 Ngara office#1206, 115, 137,146, 167-168 Rlgara %curiq Advisory Committee, 211 as nonoperational, 21,22,315,111, 130-3 31(118) relief cmly poIic)i, 133(n10) repatriation policies, 126-127, 229, 234, 137,144-145,167-169,281-283 staff, 2207, 109, 121-113,122,124,128, 133fn23),147-149,ICrJ,24%249 United Nations in Ratrgladesl~,The (Qliver), 32 United Nations Irzternational Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 18,22, 227 Unit4 Naticms Relief and Works Agency, 17 United Nations Relief Operatic~nin h c c a (UN-ROD), 32fnl) United Nations Volunteers, 111, 112
United States, 28,154(n12), 241 Ellniopia and, 5041 genocide policy; 215-216 Tnducl2inese relief operation and, 23,25 resettlement programsf 58-59, Rg(n8) Somalia Syndrome, 63, 293 United States Agency for Internatic~nal rlevetopment (USAID), 18,28,45,149 fundir~g~ 111,249,250 Rwandm refugee crisis and, 210-424, 118y124,129 lB(n8) Uprona party. See Parti de Illinion et du Pmgres National USAID. See United States Agency for Interna tional DevelcIpment Uvin, Peter, 14, 81,99, 100(n2) Uwilingiyimana, Agathe, 97 Validity, 73-75 Vansina, Jan, 74,78 Velvet rage, 38 Victims, 88 definitions, 51-%,66--617,227-228 international relief and, 63-66 peacekeepers and, 62-64 politics and, 67, 71-72 Vietnam, 2%-24,33(n4),5440,68(n3) Vietnamese boat people, 23, 54,56 Wrtuous power dodrine, Y1,101(n7) Waha ethnic group, 291-293 Waldheirn, Kurt., 55 Walkup, Mark, 4042,4!%46,48(n4), 50,56 War crimes, 9, 132(n16),145,149,154(n12), 210,220,232,243 international comm~xnit;F. and, 91,92, 94-95
W~shir ~gtof~ 120sC,60 Water systems, 25, 37, 115, 1117-119, 138-139,190fn3), 239 bureaucratized Good Samarihm and, 18&188 collapsed wells, 180--182 emotitsns and, 176-177,18&188, 19O(nl), 191(nn 9, 11), 230 expenditures, 182-185,192(n13)
geological considerations, 179-180, 284-186, 19&1S%(n5) measurement of supply, 118-1182 Monopumps, 180l-182 N~jara,l7&181 patterned mistakes and, 186-189 plaming, 176-277 reverse osmosis purification unit-s;, 28%1M mailand, 188, 189 water-trucking system, 182-183 "We Are tlne World," S1 Web sites, 151 Weber, Max, 9,12,13,38, M, 47,177,229 WFF. 5 e Wc?rld ~ Food Programme Wl.-IO.See*World Healtl-t Organization Wijmans, Phillip, 2W207 Wilson, Rob, 286 Wilson, Trish, 213,286,287 Wc'trld Bank, 35,83,94 World Concern, 132(n?l) Wc'trld Food Frogramme WFP), 12,22,28, 42,44,45, 103 Chabatisa 2 and, 258,265 Indocl-rinescrefugee crisis and, 58 media clips, 237 Rwandan refugee crisis and, 110,112, 115,122-124,136,141-142 Wi>rldHealth Organization ( W O ) , 22,45, t 81 World Vision, 112, 131-132fnII), 237 Wi>rldTrVar f, 16, 19 Wc'trld War XI, 17,2@21,79 Zaire (DemocraticRepublic of the Cc?ngo), 5,7, 79,83,93 Rany~nzulenge,149-1 50,159,171 Etumndicm refuges in, 171 cholera crisis, 139 cholera epidemic, 182. H u b militia in, 144,149-1511 Rwandan exile gc~vernmentin, 97 Rwandm refugees in, 86,123,124-125, 13G137, 152(nl), 159,173,227 Zambia, 27, 105,242 Zimbabwe, 27 Zone Turquoise, 97
