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BOOK
REVIEW
A history of helping the
displaced
The UNHCR and World
Politics: A Perilous Path, by Gil Loescher
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
 Gil Loescher
can lay claim to the honor of writing the first
definitive history of the world's premier refugee
organization, the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Moreover, it is
history with a difference. Instead of merely recording
the past, UNHCR and World Politics also launches
into a critical prescriptive analysis for the future of
the organization that was originally meant to be an ad
hoc answer to a temporary malaise affecting post-World
War II European refugees.
It is at one level the
story of how a UN agency perpetuated itself to remain in
existence as long as there is violent conflict in a
world between nation-states, and at another level a
highly opinionated discourse on what has been wrong with
the UNHCR and how amends can be made to make it more
responsive and effective to its constituency of nearly
20 million refugees and other people of concern.
Loescher, a 20-year veteran of refugee studies
who has worked in the corridors of UNHCR, has a
prolegomenon-cum-justification for authoring this book:
Lack of cogent institutional memory is a serious lacuna
in the organization, and Loescher hopes that this
journey down memory lane will help instill a sense of
the policy evolution and direction, and political
constraints that have governed the Office in the last 50
years. Being an intergovernmental organization, UNHCR
maintains a "perilous balance between the protection of
refugees and the sovereign prerogatives and interests of
states", by projecting refugee rights norms into a
system dominated by concerns of national interest and
security. The extent to which powerful states dictate to
UNHCR and the extent to which successive high
commissioners have skillfully manuevered to maintain
independence within limits is the leitmotif of the book.
Cold War origins under Goedhart
(1951-56)
UNHCR's early freedom was circumscribed
by Cold War politics. The USSR accused the organization
of acting as a cover for the Western bloc to engineer
defections and plant spies in Eastern Europe, and
subsequently boycotted it. The deliberation and drafting
of the 1951 Refugees Convention were conducted solely by
Western powers and non-communist member states of the
UN. The convention "was intended to be used by the
Western states in dealing with arrivals from the East,
and largely reflected the international politics of the
period". (p 45)
Ironically, the US government
remained opposed to the UNHCR in its first few years,
beginning with the defeat of the American candidate for
the post of high commissioner. Washington funded rival
organizations and treated UNHCR as a "sideshow and a
mostly irrelevant organization".
The tide turned
by 1955, with the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to UNHCR and
American representatives assuming active roles in
UNHCR's executive committee. Soviet attempts at
"re-defection" of refugees in Austria also raised US
funding for UNHCR's local integration solution.
Independence and expansion under Lindt and
Schnyder (1956-65)
Under Swiss diplomat Auguste
Lindt, "UNHCR's orientation became clearly
pro-American". (p 81) US government financial and
diplomatic backing of UNHCR operations rose to great
heights during the Soviet invasion of Hungary, when the
international community specifically designated UNHCR as
the "lead agency" to oversee a large-scale humanitarian
emergency. Simultaneously, Lindt displayed independent
action by persuading Western states that the
repatriation of Hungarian minors in the interests of
family unity must take precedence over Cold War
calculations; this action earned the respect of the
socialist governments of Yugoslavia and Hungary.
At the turn of the decade, the US identified
some refugee programs outside Europe as affecting its
strategic interests by being sources of possible
communist subversion and "encouraged the High
Commissioner's office to get involved in these
situations". (p 91) UNHCR "good offices" were used to
mount big operations for Chinese refugees in Hong Kong
and Tibetans in India, setting precedents for UNHCR
intervention in refugee assistance throughout the
developing world.
In the 1960s, UNHCR increased
its range of services in Africa, gaining the trust and
dependence of newly independent countries on the
continent. Under Felix Schnyder (another Swiss
diplomat), UNHCR changed the approach of assistance by
providing reintegration and reconstruction assistance to
returnees in Algeria. Lindt favored material assistance
over legal protection in terms of UNHCR priorities,
leading some protection advisers in the organization to
complain that "most African countries sought UNHCR
involvement only for the money". (p 119)
More
visionary than the previous two high commissioners,
Schnyder expanded the "good offices" concept with
missionary zeal, taking the plunge into uncharted waters
like non-mandate Laotian refugees in Cambodia, rural
resettlement programs in southern Africa, and acting as
a "drop of oil" that would attract other specialized UN
agencies to refugee development.
He also allowed
UNHCR to be used as "the perfect cover for US
policymakers" in the Sudan, where Washington was mindful
of not upsetting the government by aiding refugees
emerging from the south of the country. Likewise, "well
aware of its limited resources and mindful of following
a policy that would put it in conflict with a major
power", Schnyder took no action in the Cuban asylum
crisis. (p 133)
The golden era under Aga Khan
(1965-77)
Under the Iranian Sadruddin Aga Khan,
UNHCR "shed its image of being a tool of the United
States and gained credibility as an independent global
actor". (p 141) His election was opposed by the
Americans on grounds that he was "Afro-Asian oriented"
and would neglect the Cold War escapees in Europe. True
to prediction, Sadruddin creatively extended UNHCR's
mandate to Sudanese in "refugee-like situations", ie,
returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), while
staying away from sensitive IDP cases like Indonesia and
Nigeria.
From a lead agency, UNHCR moved to
becoming the "focal point" in the gargantuan Bangladesh
operation, coordinating the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the
World Food Program (WFP) and a bevy of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs). When Idi Amin expelled Asians from
Uganda in 1972 or when Pinochet's terror machine created
Brazilian and Argentinian refugees, Sadruddin was
careful to maintain good working relations with the
governments and at no time did he publicly condemn their
inhuman actions, again drawing protests that legal
protection and human rights were being sidelined by
UNHCR. "Reluctance to criticize governments for their
human rights policies remained a cornerstone of UNHCR
policy until the 1990s." (p 175)
Problems
galore under Hartling (1977-85)
Danish politician
Poul Hartling, the new high commissioner, "did not
maintain a healthy independence from the United States,
unlike Sadruddin". (p 202) The bargain for losing
freedom was a quintupling of the UNHCR's budget from
Western states, and thanks to ample donor funding, even
greater priority was given to material aid and physical
care rather than protection.
While forcefully
arguing on behalf of Vietnamese boat people fleeing the
communist regime, Hartling was non-vocal about the
genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and
the massive rejection of Cambodians by Thailand and
Rohingyas by Burma in 1978-79 (both Cambodia and
Thailand were US allies at the time).
Civil wars
fought under the banner of the "Second Cold War" in
Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, etc, led to the new
problem of refugee camp militarization, with internal
UNHCR reports lamenting that "humanitarian aid actually
contributed to prolonging conflict", but no action was
taken to remedy this dilemma that would continue into
the 1990s. Widespread proscription and rights abuses
that took place in Afghan camps in Pakistan were ignored
and left to the excesses of fundamentalist Islam and
Western interests.
Touching rock bottom under
Hocke and Stoltenberg (1986-91)
Upset that UNHCR
might be veering towards a "legalistic" approach, the US
campaigned for a new "operational" high commissioner,
Jean-Pierre Hocke, the Swiss ICRC official. However,
Hocke's term "tore apart the UNHCR, drastically lowered
morale, and subjected the Office to international
humiliation". (p 249)
Downgrading of the UNHCR's
legal culture reached its nadir, leading NGOs and many
UNHCR personnel to complain that the new-look
organization had "lost its soul". Hocke's promotion of
repatriation as the "only viable solution" even in
conflict zones, using subtle coercion and misinformation
on refugees, was widely resented within and outside. The
only significant achievement of Hocke was to anticipate
the end of the Cold War and negotiate the entry of
countries from the Eastern bloc to sign on to the 1951
Convention and join UNHCR.
Several financial
crises overtook Hocke's last years, muddled by
allegations of personal corruption and declining Western
contributions. His pro tempore replacement, Norwegian
Thorvald Stoltenberg, improved the Office's relations
with donors in the executive committee, and during his
short tenure he also suggested policy shifts toward
helping governments transport non-refugees back home and
preventing future migration flows.
New
challenges under Ogata (1991-2000)
Sadako Ogata,
the Japanese professor and diplomat, "proved to be an
enterprising entrepreneur and showed a sophisticated
awareness of the political opportunity structures within
which the UNHCR operated". (p 273) As the ultimate
"practical HC", she did not believe in lecturing
governments or directly accusing them of improper
behavior. The end of the Cold War pushed her to assume
the role of "teacher of refugee norms" in Russia and the
former Soviet states, furthering the reach of the
international refugee regime.
Voluntary
repatriations were successfully carried out to Cambodia
and Mozambique, even though the law was diluted to read
that UNHCR would encourage returns if conditions in home
countries improved "appreciably", not the original
"substantially". A structure of emergency response teams
was introduced in UNHCR to pre-position for imminent
displacement crises, and public information and
visibility of the organization in visual and print media
was sharpened (Time magazine, for example, invented the
phrase "Ogata's Angels" for UNHCR staff working in
difficult conditions).
Ogata also opened
internal and UN-wide debates on preemptive action, such
as not waiting for refugees to cross borders before
taking action. "Preventive protection" failed in Bosnia
and barely succeeded in southern Somalia. As one writes,
clarity and predictability of UNHCR response to IDP
flows are still prisoner to state stipulations and
inter-agency politics.
The post-genocide refugee
explosion from Rwanda and militarization of camps were
colossal failures that "constituted a dereliction of
responsibility and moral negligence" of the Office. (p
313) UNHCR advocacy for asylum-seekers in "Fortress
Europe" was also minimal, with Ogata not keen on losing
regained confidence of donors by upsetting them.
American and Australian detention centers for asylum
applicants also went unaddressed by UNHCR.
The
subservience of protection to operations received a coup
de grace with the internal restructuring of Project
Delphi. Close cooperation between the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and UNHCR in Albania and Macedonia
after the Kosovo war also attracted widespread
condemnation as compromising the impartiality and
independence of the Office. Russian policies in Chechnya
were not criticized although they caused immense
hardships and displacement. African refugees also passed
below the radar of UNHCR attention.
Conclusion
Loescher's main deduction
from the evolutionary history of UNHCR is that the
imbalance between protection and material operations
threatens the raison d'etre of the Office and should be
promptly redressed. Though the Office is a "highly
political actor clearly shaped by the interests of major
governments", it must show "courage and a willingness to
confront governments when necessary". (p 367)
UNHCR's "culture of defensiveness" that impedes
learning, debate and innovation are also areas for
change. Loescher alleges that UNHCR is unaccountable to
its constituency, refugees, as is evident in numerous
contrived repatriation policies. Bureaucratic mentality
is blamed for this undemocratic trait, though Loescher
has no concrete suggestions on how refugees can be made
more participative in policymaking. He also dwells upon
the financial crunch but lacks recommendations on
broadening private sector partnerships or other
innovative methods to ensure a steady flow of income to
the organization.
Last but not least, Loescher
advises UNHCR to practice "listening and taking in the
views of others and not just pronouncing its own
positions and opinions". (p 376) From this author's
recent stint at UNHCR, it is evident that openness to
scholarly and external views is slowly gaining ground,
though it is difficult to predict whether any "Lessons
Learned" are being imbibed in the process.
A
complete book in many senses, Loescher could have
renamed it A US-UNHCR Saga, a la Boutros Ghali's
controversial memoir. For an intimate account of
American stewardship, influence and leverage on a UN
body, read this book.
The UNHCR and World
Politics: A Perilous Path, by Gil Loescher.
Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-924691-2. Price
US$21.95. 431 Pages)
(©2002 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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