21 August 2003
Defender of Haitian Boat People Dies in Aug. 19 Baghdad Bombing
Arthur Helton was Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations
By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Arthur Helton, who began his long career in human rights advocacy by defending Haitian "boat people" seeking to escape their country's desperate political and economic situation, was among the more than 20 victims killed in the August 19 terrorist bombing of United Nations field headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq.
Helton, a 54-year-old American, was a Senior Fellow for Refugee Studies and Prevention Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based nonprofit and nonpartisan organization devoted to promoting improved understanding of international affairs.
During his time at the council, Helton observed that a combination of "crushing poverty" and "political crisis" in Haiti causes Haitians to risk their lives on small boats in search of better opportunity in the United States and other destinations. Helton also served as the council's Director of Peace and Conflict Studies.
The council said Helton was in Baghdad to assess humanitarian conditions in Iraq when the bomb exploded. He was believed to be meeting with the U.N. Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was also killed in the blast.
In a statement, council president Richard Haass said Helton "was one of our most respected senior fellows and a noted expert on refugee and humanitarian issues and international law."
Helton "had devoted his life to improving the lives of others, and, as part of that goal, was in Iraq to consult with the U.N. to help find ways to relieve human suffering," said Haass, the former U.S. State Department director of policy planning. "The world has lost a devoted and talented champion of the rights of the dispossessed," he said.
The council said in its obituary of Helton that he dedicated his professional life to working with refugees and recommending ways to ease their plight. In 1994, he founded and then directed the Forced Migration Projects at the Open Society Institute. For 12 years prior to that, he directed the Refugee Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. He joined the Council on Foreign Relations staff in 1999.
Over the course of his career, Helton wrote more than 80 scholarly articles and contributed to several books on refugees and the displaced. At the time of his death, Helton was seeking support and funding for an independent policy center to enhance the effectiveness of international humanitarian action.
Helton started his career in human rights law as an attorney working pro bono (freely donating his time and legal expertise) representing detained Haitian boat people in the United States. He wrote in 1997 that the slow pace of recovery of Haiti's economy, as well as political uncertainty in the country, had contributed to a "continued sense of hopelessness within the [Haitian] population."
Such desperation "fuels a desire to leave, and a trickle of Haitians continues to leave Haiti in small boats, often to be intercepted and returned by U.S. Coast Guard vessels," he said. "The potential for a migration or refugee emergency thus remains high and could be unleashed quickly by a political or economic crisis."
In a January 18 commentary in The Boston Globe about the world's refugee crisis, Helton wrote that "in the new century, there will be greater human displacement -- both internally and internationally -- and greater demands for effective responses. If humanitarian action is to become more than the mere administration of misery, we will need coherent, proactive policy, rooted in international cooperation and human dignity. This will require more resources and better coordination between and among governments, U.N. agencies, and nongovernmental organizations."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=August&x=20030821153807neerge0.8034632&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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