17 November 2004
United States Continues Efforts to Help Darfur Refugees
State Department's Dewey looks at worldwide refugee aid, resettlement picture
A top State Department official termed the crisis in Darfur "the most acute humanitarian emergency in the world today" as he detailed U.S. efforts in refugee affairs for foreign journalists at a Washington Foreign Press Center briefing November 16.
In describing a new program of mobile human-rights monitors who would work in the Darfur area of Sudan, Arthur Dewey, assistant secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said, "If we fail in Darfur to get this protection regime [of monitors] built up into a robust, respectable, credible, believable force, we will have at least 100,000 refugees more in Chad, and there are about 100,000 now ... ."
Although the "best solution is to try to facilitate getting them back to their homes, their home country, ... the solution that may be the only one open for some groups that have been through so much trauma is to resettle to a third country," Dewey added.
On the human level, he said, High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbor must find at least 500 people -- and probably twice that number to account for rotations -- "who have some experience of living in the bush, know how to do investigation and just have the smarts for this kind of sensitive work, and they will have to be trained in the right way." This includes, he said, knowing "how to change the tire of a Toyota Land Cruiser, how to use your Swiss army knife, all of these basic things that are the keys to success of human rights monitors in Darfur. And then they have to be deployed.
Additionally, he noted, "All of these Toyota Land Cruisers or Nissan Pathfinders, whatever the vehicles are, they have to be found, procured and then there has to be a maintenance system to keep them going."
In discussing resettlement issues, Dewey called on the other 10 resettlement countries around the world to do more to alleviate the problems. "The United States settles 54 percent of them [refugees worldwide]. This is a disproportionately high level, and we wish the other resettlement countries would do their share."
Following is the transcript of the Dewey briefing:
(begin transcript)
Foreign Press Center Briefing with Arthur E. Dewey,
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration
U.S. Department of State
Topic: Global Refugee Situations and Proposed Refugee Admissions for FY-2005 -- Report to the Congress and U.S. Goals for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Washington Foreign Press Center, Washington D.C.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
(1:40 p.m.)
MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. We are very pleased to be able to welcome back to our podium Arthur Dewey, the Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration at the Department of State.
Secretary Dewey will talk briefly about the Department's annual report on these matters, but then also go into quite some detail about his recent travels to countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Far East, as well as in South Asia. That sounds about like everywhere, doesn't it? After his opening statement, we'll be very glad to take your questions. Secretary Dewey.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: Thank you very much, Paul. Thanks to all of you for coming, particularly on a day when so much else is happening concerning the State Department and the White House. It's a real privilege to be with you and to talk about, first of all, the report that Paul mentioned, the report on our refugee admissions program, just a word about that.
This is one of the approaches to solutions for refugee problems. Our strategy in the State Department with respect to refugees is to work towards solutions. The best solution is to try to facilitate getting them back to their homes, their home country. The solution that may be the only one open for some groups that have been through so much trauma is to resettle to a third country.
The United States did its share, more than its share, really. During this past fiscal year just closed, we welcomed 53,000 refugees into the United States. And just a brief note on what that takes. After the end of the Cold War, it takes a special effort. During the Cold War and immediately after the Cold War, we had large populations of refugees from which we could draw hundreds of thousands to come to the United States, and we did, particularly from Southeast Asia. And then with the ending of that situation and the lowering of the compulsion to flee the former Soviet Union on the part of Soviet Jews and Evangelical Christians, we see a radically changed situation as far as the numbers of refugees that are available to come to the United States. And then the events of September 11th in 2001 changed the picture again because of the security restrictions that were imposed upon anybody coming into the United States. We had to know who everybody was after 9/11.
And the challenge of 9/11 meant that we also had threats to American personnel interviewing possible candidates overseas, particularly in Africa, in Kenya. I'll just take one camp as an example of what we did to provide a secure environment. In Kenya, in the Dadaab camp, which is near the Somali border, where Somali, Bantu and other refugees have come for shelter, there were security threats against the Department of Homeland Security adjudicators, and so we couldn't really create a safe enough environment there and so our bureau decided to move the whole camp. We moved -- it was probably 13,000 people we moved, an expensive move, a long-distance move, over a million dollars to make the move. And then after they got to the place, Kakuma camp in Kenya, we had to build a secure environment again for the DHS adjudicators to interview.
All this was very expensive and hard on the refugees, too, but it illustrates the lengths to which we have to go to be able to reach refugees now, whereas before it was really three major parts of the world -- Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union and Africa -- where we received refugees. Now we receive refugees from about 46 different locations, much smaller clusters around the world, and there are about 60 different nationalities.
So bringing in 53,000 this year was a source of great satisfaction for Secretary of State Colin Powell and for all the people in our bureau who worked so hard to make it possible. It wasn't easy.
As we look at the year ahead for fiscal year 2005, we have received a ceiling from the President of 70,000 refugees that could come into the United States, and I'm optimistic that we could reach 70,000, even though we had to work very hard to reach 53,000 out of that ceiling of 70,000 that we had for fiscal year '04. But we know how to do it. We know the effort that it takes. We know what it costs. The impediment to reaching 70,000, or even 50,000 in fiscal year '05, is the funding impediment. And this we are continuing to work on to -- we know we have friends in the Congress who are also interested in this. The White House is very interested in building the refugee resettlement program and we're counting on support from both of those places to help us get the funds that are needed to demonstrate to the world that we are indeed growing in the program and to demonstrate to refugees where that is the only solution or the best solution for their problem, the United States is prepared to do its part.
We're doing a little bit more than we should, as I mentioned at the outset. Of the refugees that are referred to, the 11-resettlement countries around the world, the United States settles 54 percent of them. So this is a disproportionately high level, and we wish the other resettlement countries would do their share. It's not a sustainable situation for the United States to do more than all of the other resettlement countries in the world combined, of those refugees that are referred by the High Commissioner of Refugees to resettlement countries.
Let me go now to the trip that I just completed, which was a series of three trips, which went initially to Africa and then back through Europe. And then secondly, I went to south Asia, in India, Nepal and Bhutan, and then back to Washington before going to China on the third trip.
I'd like to concentrate on two of the locations -- Africa, specifically Chad and Darfur -- and then on the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and how we're moving, trying to move forward on getting a solution to that.
First of all, Chad: Chad is one of those out of the way places where when conflicts started in western Sudan and Darfur in January of 2003, there was not a capability to handle the flood of refugees that started moving across the border into Chad. The international organizations such as the World Food Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees didn't have their strongest teams there and they didn't have their largest teams. And they certainly were not ready for an influx that has now reached 200,000 in Chad.
Look at the environment in which they find themselves, these 200,000. They're actually in 11 camps and they're spread out over a 1,500-kilometer -- this is almost a thousand mile front for these refugees that have come just across the border from Darfur. And the food pipeline has to go either from Douala in Cameroon, which is weeks away, months away during the rainy season, and another pipeline which has been opened up, which could be more reliable. This comes from Ben Gazi in Libya to the border area with Darfur. And this, again, takes weeks. And it's a very inhospitable logistics environment.
The representatives of the High Commissioner for Refugees faced this flood of humanity that started in early 2003. They did their best. They were low in numbers and they weren't all the all-stars, but they did a courageous effort in holding the line, and prevented mass malnutrition and starvation among those who came across. Very quickly, the High Commissioner reinforced the team, got more people there, parachuted in the aid teams from other parts of the world, and now they're almost up to the level of where you could say the daily needs are being met.
It's not satisfactory yet. The World Food Program still has a way to go, and UNICEF has a way to go, in terms of water and sanitation, but it's been a heroic effort. The problem is that with the world food crisis, which exists today, the food needs for next year are going to be $1.4 billion under-funded. So it's a huge world food crisis, and if you look at a specific case, such as Chad, and realize that this month, they will have to cut back rations to about one-half, as far as corn-soya blend, which is a basic food for refugees, and as far as pulses, that is, a protein, high-protein foods, that that will have a sharp impact.
Now the impact will be even sharper if more refugees come from Darfur into Chad. And because of the rainy season, because reliable resupply of food during the rainy season depends on pre-positioning food, right up near the refugee camps ahead of time, and there's no food to do prepositioning before the rainy season this year -- or coming next year. This could be a huge emergency in Chad if more refugees come from Darfur.
The High Commissioner for Refugees and I traveled together, both in Chad and Darfur, so it was a good way to look at both of those situations. The strategy which the High Commissioner for Refugees is pursuing and which we support is to try to provide a presence along that border on the Sudan side to give some confidence to those oppressed and uprooted, displaced, internally-displaced people, that there are eyes and ears out there, that there is a voice out there on their behalf.
And so with a very small contingent of UNHCR protection officers, they are trying to be that voice, to be the go-to place; and a go-to place for human rights violations and criminal violations is desperately needed. If you just look at the options that an IDP, an internally displaced person, faces when they need firewood or when they need to go out of the IDP camp for water, the options are this: if a woman goes, she's raped; if a man goes, he's murdered.
And so what happens? The Solomonic judgment is that you send a woman. But when a woman is raped or a man is murdered, there is no place for that family to go to report the violation, to get the criminal act investigated even. The Government of Sudan will not open an investigation.
So you see the need for the High Commissioner for Refugees -- even though he is not mandated to work with internally displaced persons -- to do his very best in Darfur until the other side of that strategy comes into play. And the other side of that strategy is to try to build up the capability of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbor, a very competent new High Commissioner for Human Rights. And we've had conversations with her. We have stressed that she needs to plan for or recruit and train a massive deployment of mobile human rights monitors all over Darfur. We're estimating at least 500 would need to be deployed.
And so we're working very hard with other parts of the UN because there is no designated part of the UN to do internally displaced persons and, unfortunately, the UN patches it together on every situation. And so, we are helping, trying to help on that patching it together, putting together the building blocks that will permit Louise Arbor to step up to her role.
Now what is her role, really? In addition to finding at least 500 people -- and she'll probably have to find twice that number because there will be a rotation -- and getting the right profile for that number of people -- they don't have to be lawyers, but they have to be people who can live in Africa, who have some experience of living in the bush, know how to do investigation and just have the smarts for this kind of sensitive work, and they will have to be trained in the right way, not just on the human rights instruments but on how to live in Africa, how to change the tire of a Toyota Land Cruiser, how to use your Swiss army knife, all of these basic things that are the keys to success of human rights monitors in Darfur; and then they have to be deployed. And all of these Toyota Land Cruisers or Nissan Pathfinders, whatever the vehicles are, they have to be found, procured and then there has to be a maintenance system to keep them going.
Now, all of this is rocket science for the High Commissioner for Human Rights and for many parts of the UN system. So we're working now with the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Norwegian Jan Egeland, to have him bring his internally displaced bureau to bear on getting these building blocks, these pieces put together so that Louise Arbor can do her mandated responsibility to be the go-to place, to be the voice for women who are raped, and more who run the risk of being raped if there's nobody there to go to, report the violation, and put it into channels where something can be done, including the African Union channels, where we're seeing a gradual buildup of African Union forces to provide this kind of protection.
So it raises the question, why is the State Department so interested in this since it's not strictly a refugee problem? Listen, I can defend it any day, because if we fail, if we fail in Darfur to get this protection regime built up into a robust, respectable, credible, believable force, we will have at least 100,000 refugees, more, in Chad, and there are about 100,000 now that are making up their mind, are things so bad in Darfur that we will have to make this move across the border? So this is the basic challenge that we have in that most difficult and most acute humanitarian emergency in the world today; that is, the Chad and especially the Darfur emergency.
Let me shift to the Bhutanese in Nepal before taking your comments and questions, to note that this is another longstanding refugee situation. About 14 years ago, the first movement of largely Nepalese-origin people from Bhutan moved into eastern Nepal. And they've been there ever since in some nine camps; and there just hasn't been any movement to either get them back home or to get any of the countries involved to start this process.
I recently visited there and went to Nepal and to India, and then on to Bhutan, and the paths that we had been pursuing before, that is, to get the verification of who these people are in the camps, and to categorize them as to who are undisputable citizens of Bhutan, and who are not, and who are criminals, and who might face prosecution if they go back. This process was completed in one camp. But when the Bhutanese came back to announce their reaction to it last December, there was a riot, and the Bhutanese said, we're never coming back unless the Nepalese can give us assurances that our teams will not be abused the way this team was abused in December.
So it was clear that they weren't coming back, that no matter how much security Nepal offered to continue this process of verification in the other eight camps, that this wasn't going to happen, and yet, the whole international community was bogged down on pushing to make this security tight enough and the verification process continue.
So it was clear to me after meetings in Nepal, and then in India, that we had to look at another tack, and I didn't know what that tack was, but when I met with the King of Bhutan, I said we really need to see the start of something that will break this logjam. How can we start just by getting the approximately 300 so-called Category 1 people in the camp that had been verified back to Bhutan? They are citizens of Bhutan; nobody disputes that. There shouldn't be any problem starting with this group. How could we do something like that? And the King said, well, this is what would have to happen. So he went through a list of steps that would start with a letter from Nepal saying that this was acceptable to them for these people to go back to Bhutan. And then Bhutan would send a letter back and say, yeah, we approve of this and we will support it. And so it was a rather remarkable suggestion, which was not imposed from the outside; it certainly wasn't my idea. But it came and is now in the bilateral process between the two countries to work out the arrangements with foreign ministers on both sides playing the oversight role and then representatives of both the Bhutan and Nepal working out the texts of these letters back and forth, with India being kept fully in the loop.
And the feeling is that although that's not totally satisfactory, it doesn't indicate what will happen after these 300 go back. We don't have the capability to monitor them the way the High Commissioner for Refugees usually monitors returnees. Bhutan won't permit that. There are a lot of questions in this. And I'm not saying that this is going to be the solution or even that it is going to start the process, but I haven't seen anything else that shows more promise with starting this process than with this one group, the Category 1 citizens of Bhutan group.
We just had a teleconference with the other interested parties, the European Union and representatives from India and Nepal, this morning and we're trying to get a common position that will encourage Nepal to see it in their own interest to accept this idea.
But just to illustrate, it's the kind of intensive engagement that it takes to get solutions to refugee problems. This is not a small population; about 104,000 that are in these nine camps in eastern Nepal. So it could be a big move forward if this could happen.
A year ago, I had estimated that with the progress that we see on getting solutions to refugee situations, that over two years we could see about a one-third reduction of worldwide refugee population. And at that time, the worldwide refugee population was about 10 or 11 million worldwide. Now at the one-year point, we have looked at how much that has been reduced, and it's been reduced by 17 percent. And it's been a combination of things: A lot of it is hard work, just diplomatic work, getting countries to agree to certain procedures. Some of it is very dramatic things like the liberation of Afghanistan, which permitted more than 3.6 million people to come back home; 700,000 of them came back in this fiscal year that just ended.
So it's a combination of things that brings about solutions, but they're happening around the world and I think we're on track to bring the total down, this total of one-third by the end of next year, which was our expectation. It just takes a lot of work. It's not just money that it takes. It takes operating smartly. It takes commitment and it takes knowing how to work with the United Nations system. I think this is key to the work of our bureau in the State Department that we put almost all our refugee money through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. AID puts nearly all of its food money for refugees through the World Food Program. No one is more multilateralist than the United States when it comes to humanitarian action. We wish the Europeans, for example, and other donors were more multilateralist. They certainly accuse us of being unilateralist, but in humanitarian action we would like to see them contribute more and work more with the United Nations agency. I will stop there and welcome your questions.
MR. DENIG: Let me ask you to please, as usual, use the microphone and identify yourself and your news organization. Let's start on the right here with Sudan.
QUESTION: Thank you. Bashir from Sudan. Your statement that whenever a woman leaves the camp to get wood she is raped, and whenever a man leaves the camp he is killed, this raises some serious questions. Number one, how many Jingaweit are there just waiting for these women to come and rape them and waiting for these men to come out and kill them? This is not -- it's just -- I can't imagine it. And I think it goes with what the rebels and pressure groups in the United States are saying.
Number two. If wood is so important and, I mean, is the problem, then why don't you send them, instead of food, send them wood, or maybe wood and food, so this raping and this killing will stop? I think these kind of statements just give the wrong impression and also encourage the rebels and the hardliners in Khartoum to do what they are doing. There is a big crisis in Darfur, but we should not politicize it like it's now being politicized. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: Yes, thanks for that question because it's been asked by other people. I wish it were overblown. I wish these were exaggerated reports. But these are not reports we get from the rebels. These are reports from impartial humanitarian groups that include NGOs that finally have got some access in Darfur. It took a long time. It was not easy to get the Government of Sudan to permit this kind of access. But now they have access and they are witnesses to these events. They know what the patterns are when people go out of settlements where they have some security to areas where they don't have security.
In terms of giving firewood instead of food, or firewood in addition to food, we're doing that. And when I was there with the High Commissioner, we saw the deliveries of firewood to minimize the risks that people take to go outside the camps or settlements for firewood. But that's been slow because, again, the problem of access -- the Government of Sudan has been so slow and has made is so difficult for the relief agencies to get the firewood and any relief supplies out to where it belongs. It's a need for more eyes and ears to give pause to the Government of Sudan and it's advocates, its surrogates, the Jingaweit, in doing this dirty work that they're doing.
At the same time, I'm not defending the rebels, because they've also given us no end of problems and have been impediments to, certainly, the Darfur ceasefire agreement, the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, and will continue to be unless those with some influence on them are just as tough with them as we are with the Government of Sudan. But it's not a symmetrical violation. It's the Government of Sudan that has the firepower. And it's the Government of Sudan that has been using the Jingaweit proxies, and that's what has to stop.
QUESTION: (Inaudible), Korea. When you visited the parties to the region, did you check with the North Korean refugees stationed in China and Russia, and if so, what have you found, and then, do you have any plan to help them? And one more question, President Bush already signed on the North Korean Human Right Act, and then, do you think North Korea, you know, can be helped by the act?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: Yes, thank you for that, and that was a topic of this visit to China and previous visits to China. In all of our contacts with China on the North Koreans in northeast China, we stress that China needs to abide by the Refugee Convention. China is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the '67 Procotol. That means that the UN High Commission for Refugees must be accorded access to persons who request asylum or who are in a suspected refugee status in places like northeast China. That access has been denied. On every visit, we make this point that you are in violation of your signatory obligations for the Refugee Convention by not granting this access.
At the same time, we have discussions on the issue, which have been conducted in a businesslike manner, and the upshot of those discussions is that we have agreed to disagree on what we call the people that come across the border from North Korea who would be in deep trouble if they were pushed back to North Korea. Still, China calls them illegal immigrants, illegal border crossers. We call them refugees because we have some idea of what happens to them when they go back. The punishment is not proportionate to an illegal border crosser. Sometimes it's the death penalty that is imposed. So we agree to disagree on what we call them, and we're not going to argue that point. We will continue with our label and China will continue with its label. But there is agreement that there is a group that ought to have the opportunity to go to South Korea, to the Republic of Korea, and that the current orderly movement needs to be increased or the pressures will become so great that you'll have more of these consulate-jumpers.
And so this is the heart of the discussion with the Chinese: Isn't is possible to have some very quiet but increased orderly departure of this category of persons that we call by different labels, but we understand that this category could and should appropriately go to South Korea?
Now, with respect to the North Korean Human Rights Act, we don't know yet what the response will be to that requirement. One of the requirements is that there be a special envoy for this situation, and the State Department is looking into that requirement, and will, in due course, fulfill that requirement. There is the need for that envoy, or whoever is working the problem, to stay very closely engaged on this issue to try to avoid the kind of publicity that can stop the program, the publicity surrounding the group of 400-and-some that went through Vietnam on the way to South Korea, where an NGO leaked this to the press. This is unhelpful and it slows up the process. And so it's a delicate tightrope to walk, but I think we know how to walk it. And it's a matter of convincing the parties involved -- and that includes both China and South Korea -- to work on this increase and the flow of people who can get to South Korea.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) with Radio Free Asia. Is there any thought to expanding the Hmong resettlement program in Asia? Do you have any comment on that?
And just another quick question on Uighur detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Any developments on that front, in terms of are they going to be allowed to seek refugee status in the United States? I know we're looking for third countries to send them to, but you know, up to this point, nobody has accepted.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: We'll continue to look for third countries for the Uighurs in Guantanamo. The numbers are small. We're optimistic that we can still find some help there, just as we found help on the Cubans and the Haitians who are in Guantanamo. Costa Rica has agreed to take some of them, the latter, and also Honduras will be helping on that.
So we're not giving up on other countries helping us. This is part of the burden-sharing I talked about. It's unconscionable the numbers that we take in the United States. We ought to have some help from other countries. So this is what we're working on, particularly as far as the Cubans, the Haitians and the Uighurs.
As far as the Lao Hmong, the Highland Lao in Thailand, expanding that program, we have completed the interviews for the 12,000 or so in the Wat Tham Krabok, the temple complex, and nearly half of them have already come to the United States. We'll finish up that resettlement program into the next fiscal year.
Some others have flocked into the temple trying to shirttail on the U.S. resettlement program. Thailand is very concerned about that because this could be a magnet effect and bring ineligibles, which could put the whole process in question. So we have been conscious of that and have made it clear through radio announcements and getting the word out, the eligibility is confined to those who are in the Wat at a certain time, in the temple at a certain time. So I think that's been the responsible way to handle that situation.
The expansion, I think, that we see for Thailand right now will be with the Burmese population. We already have interviewed most of the some 2,000 urban Burmese and we're looking at UNHCR to register, to start registering the camps on the border, the Burmese camps where about 140,000 are located on the border. And we hope that we'll be able to start resettlement in one of the camps, which is badly overcrowded and has several handicapped and vulnerable female heads of household, vulnerable groups that are represented. That hasn't started yet, but we expect the UNHCR to complete the registration of that group before the end of the year and we can expand the program in Thailand in that particular way.
Again, recognizing that for the Burmese the best solution -- that they have held out as their best solution -- has been to go back to Burma. But with recent events in Burma with the imprisonment of the Prime Minister, then it's interesting how those attitudes changed almost overnight and people now are willing to think about resettlement to a third country.
So the United States will do its part on that, if that becomes possible, and we will again call on other countries to help us in that result.
QUESTION: Thank you. Charlene Porter with the Washington File. Your remarks, Secretary Dewey, earlier about the number of U.S. admissions disproportionately high compared to other donor nations, the words you used were, "It is not sustainable."
Why is it not sustainable, number one? And also, that's a statement that kind of suggests that there's a strategy beyond, you know, if it doesn't change, then X happens. What is X?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: It's not sustainable in the sense that financial resources always come to bear. Providing -- this year we did 45 percent of the emergency food; that is, AID did it. That is not going to be sustainable next year because of several factors, the budget factor but the fact also that food prices increase and over the last two years we've been able to buy 40 percent less food because the food prices have increased.
So in terms of the costs of resettlement, this is another reason there has to be more burden sharing because of the needs for resettlement. If 140,000 Burmese, for example, if a large proportion of them become available for resettlement to third countries, the United States can't or shouldn't do it all, and we couldn't do it because of the financial constraints that I mentioned for the next fiscal year. Therefore, we do need other countries to step up and to do their part. So it's both on the resettlement side and it's also on the assistance side, particularly for food, where financial constraints are required.
Another reason is more -- is more psychological. I think we've made a lot of progress with the High Commissioner for Refugees to develop a resettlement mentality in UNHCR. Before, there was very little interest in referring people for resettlement to third countries because they said, well; the best solution is to go back home. I think there is more realism now and there is a greater capacity in UNHCR and we need other countries to keep up that pressure on UNHCR. It's not sustainable for the United States to be the only country that is reminding the High Commissioner for Refugees that one important solution among the three is resettlement to third countries. So we need help in that respect as well.
QUESTION: Filam Raman from APP, the official news agency of Pakistan. (Inaudible) since 1979, with the former Soviet Union invading Afghanistan. There were over 3 million Afghan refugees on Pakistani side. And also, during this Taliban regime, there were attack against the Taliban regime. There are some more Afghan refugees came to Pakistan.
Now, you said there is a, can you say that (inaudible) now in Afghanistan. In how much duration do you perceive the remaining Afghan refugees will go back to Afghanistan?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: On the refugee outflow after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001, that outflow was almost negligible. We prepared for it, just as we prepared for a big outflow in Iraq. It didn't happen, and I think a lot of it was due to the good preparations that were made to take care of that flow.
What has happened, as you rightly state, is a mass movement back from Pakistan and from Iran to Afghanistan. Now we worked very hard to sustain that return. Returns aren't just fire and forget. You have to make them stick, and our bureau in the State Department has worked very hard to make it stick in Afghanistan. And one of the ways is to provide employment. The markets are full of food. It's just the money that's missing. And so, the returnees need employment.
One way we've tried to provide employment now for thousands of returnees and soon, tens and maybe hundreds of thousands is through a program called the Afghan Conservation Corps. We took a page from our own president in desperate times and our own depression in the '30s when Franklin Roosevelt started the Civilian Conservation Corps. Afghanistan and all similarly desperate times needs this kind of employment for returning refugees. They need them for demilitarized militias, for vulnerable groups.
A large part of the beneficiary population for the Afghan Conservation Corps includes women, and they're doing a substantial part of this work. So that's the way we're working very hard to get other countries interested in the Afghan Conservation Corps and giving money to it because it's a low-cost buy-in to a pretty major return on the investment. But we still need other countries to permit us to expand that kind of employment generation to every province, and nearly every province in Afghanistan has a plan to do this kind of expansion.
Now, in terms of what will be the end state for Pakistan and Iran, the UNHCR is in intense discussions. It has been in intense discussions with both countries as to what will be the situation. We've seen initially the closure of camps -- what we call the new camps -- the camps right near the border with Afghanistan but in Pakistan, and notifying in advance that those camps will be closed. And then the refugees going back to Afghanistan, the difficulty has been to follow up, to trace what happens to them. Because when they go into Afghanistan from western Pakistan, from the tribal areas of Pakistan, they're going into very insecure and dicey parts of Afghanistan.
So we don't have good information as to what's happening with that part of the solution. I think there will be more of it. I know in my contacts with Pakistani officials -- and I've been working with you almost since 1979, since the Soviet invasion -- you have a tremendous record. You've got a humanitarian image that very few countries can touch. Don't do anything to spoil it. We've got just a few years to finish this and I think we see a way to not only diminish this population, which was huge, initially, and has now got down to a fairly manageable number, to stay the course.
The international community is going to stay the course with you so that when that solution is finally reached and those that go back home are back home and they stay back home, and those that will have roots in Pakistan are permitted to stay in Pakistan, then Pakistan will be able to keep its head held high and say, okay, we stood the course, we're a model for how an asylum country ought to operate when you have a huge population that impacts very adversely on our population. Really, Pakistan is showing the world how to do it.
QUESTION: Going back to North Korean refugee issue, according to the State Department report to the Congress, you have fiscal year 2005 East Asian program. Do you think North Korean refugees may be possible future group of the program? And one more question, you have worldwide priority system, like, Priority One for individual, and Priority Two for group. Which group North Korean refugees may apply for to settle down in this country?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: Yes, we will take either Priority One or Priority Two if we have information on the background of the individual. That is, the Department of Homeland Security, before admitting them to the United States as a refugee, has to know, are they a bona fide refugee, that is, someone who for their religious beliefs, if sent back to North Korea, would be punished or killed, that kind of a test. Or are they someone that North Korea has planted in the refugee stream for their own intelligence or other interests.
So that test has to be met. But we have said that we will accept refugees from North Korea, either on an individual basis that is a Priority One and acute need for asylum status. We would provide that if DHS could establish that background information. And secondly, we are also prepared to declare North Koreans a Priority Two, if that appears to be an appropriation solution for them.
As you know, in South Korea the constitution provides citizenship for anyone born on the Peninsula, and so the most appropriate solution seems to be for those who come out and are allowed to move on to go to South Korea, and we are having and will continue discussions with South Korea on ways to increase their capacity to accept people that are provided citizenship under their constitution.
QUESTION: El-Bashir from Sudan. Last week, there was a very provocative program in Al-Jazeera. They brought some women from Darfur who claimed that they were raped, which was a very painful thing. And there was a woman from Khartoum who claimed that she was not working with the government, and she accused them of saying this so that they find -- be given a chance to come to the United States or to Australia -- I mean, to be relocated. And this raises the question, number one, are you aware of any refugees from Darfur in Egypt? And the second question is, have you, or are you offering any chances for people to be relocated either in the United States or in other place? Have you reached that stage or you are just feeding them now? Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: No, we have not reached that stage of resettlement of refugees from Darfur to the United States. We are taking some Sudanese, and have been over the last years, that come to Cairo, but there are Sudanese mainly from the south that are accepted in the U.S. admissions program.
I don't foresee in the short-term the need for third countries to take refugees for resettlement from Darfur. We're working very hard to get these eyes and ears and a huge human rights buildup so that the situation can be stabilized and the practices of the Sudanese Government and the rebels can be changed, stopped, and totally turned around.
I can see that if that's not done, if we fail in Darfur, and you have refugees that have been -- and let's not forget the fact that even if there were some women who incorrectly claimed rape or that their husband was murdered when they went outside the camp -- that there are a lot of people, there are far too many, maybe 70,000 is the estimate, who have been killed, who are casualties of this, and we don't know how many women have been raped.
But the violations are so acute and so severe that there are some who have gone to Chad to escape that, or to escape the memory of it that may never be able to go back to Sudan. And that's one of the tragedies of this -- when a humanitarian emergency reaches the stage of genocide, which it is -- Secretary Powell has called it rightly, after an intensive investigation of the case for genocide -- that there are some who won't go back.
And I've seen it -- refugees from Liberia, who won't go back to Liberia. These are refugees that have come out to Ivory Coast. Unfortunately now, because of what's happening in Ivory Coast, there are people going out back to Liberia. There are 10,000 in the last ten days that have gone. Some of them who have been through the trauma of the crisis in Ivory Coast may not feel it's possible for them to go back to Ivory Coast, just as some of the Liberians won't go back. And we're taking some of those into the United States. These are people -- these are women who have been so traumatized. No one would ever ask them or expect them to go back. Other groups that have been tortured -- that's not going to happen.
And so that's why you need this robust resettlement capability on the part of countries such as ours to take refugees for whom the best solution is foreclosed, the solution of going back home is foreclosed.
QUESTION: Is your work just limited to refugees, or you are getting into the displaced persons? This is number one. And number two, are you getting enough money -- I know that the United States is the most generous so far, but whatever you're getting, is it enough, or you are pressuring for more, and do you think the Congress will give you that?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY DEWEY: On the first, our working with displaced persons, we're work very closely with USAID, which has the principle role for Internally Displaced Persons. They have the lead on Internally Displaced Persons. But we work very closely with them. Just today, I was in conversation with AID representatives that are meeting with the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, trying to build up this robust protection regime in Darfur. And AID will be the one putting the money into that from the U.S. side, but we are supporting AID in this, because we have a vital interest in that working.
As I say, if it fails, if it fails in Darfur, if we don't build up this robust protection regime, with the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the center of it, then we, the refugee part of the State Department, the U.S. Government, and the refugee part of the United Nations, the High Commissioner for Refugees, will have a huge problem, which, in Chad, as I said, we don't have the food to preposition for the next rainy season. We don't have the food for a single additional refugee coming into Chad, and yet, every day, there are additional refugees that are coming across.
So that's why we work so closely with AID on getting it right on IDP programs and assistance and human rights protection, because if we fail there, then we have refugee populations we just can't handle.
Now, in terms of the adequate resources, the United States is committed to fund 25 percent of UNHCR's refugee requirements worldwide. We are reliable for that, we are on the table for that, and we try not to deviate from that. In Africa, we have to do more, again, because other donors are not doing enough; we do 30 percent in Africa. But we use those proportions all the time with other donors and say, listen, we will do our best to provide this core funding, but there are other needs that we can't fund. There are certain protection needs that NGOs are helping on, International Rescue Committee is one of those NGOs. They're doing supplemental protection work for the UNHCR.
We don't have as much money as some of these NGOs need to do their work. We need other governments to help in that supplemental funding, or we need them to do more for UNHCR. The Europeans, through the European Community Humanitarian Office, ECHO, we're always beating on them, because they give the bulk of their refugee money directly to NGOs. They give about 25 to 30 percent to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and they give the rest to NGOs, 75 or 70 percent to NGOs. And that's not right. It's failing to use the UN system and to make the UN system work. And so, we continue to urge them to do more so that our 25 percent of UNHCR, or 30 percent in Africa, will be enough.
Now, we have friends in Congress that are supporting that, and they have been reliably behind us on both the Authorization and the Appropriations Committees of Congress. We're counting on that continuing. The uncertainty, as I mentioned before, is whether there will be enough money for admissions program of refugees to the United States. And that's what we continue to work on with Congress, with our Office of Management and Budget and the White House, to be sure that our rhetoric -- that is, to grow the refugee admissions program in the United States -- is matched by the resources from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress, which will permit that to happen.
MR. DENIG: We unfortunately need to end the formal session. So I want to thank Secretary Dewey very much for coming here and being with us.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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