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The African Refugee Problem
No full textThis study deals with the African refugee problem; It is a study of the major refugee problems in Africa. It is primarily concerned with the factors that gave rise to the occurrence of the problem, the issues faced by refugees in their places of asylum and efforts at solving the problems.
This study is based on primary and secondary methods of data collection. The primary method entails interviews with former African refugees now living in Minneapolis, while the secondary method comprised the use of newspapers, magazines and books.The African Refugee Problem Alpha Khaldi
Prof. Ron Christenson
Senior Thesis
Spring, 1995.
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Chapter One
The African Refugee Problem
Introduction
The refugee phenomenon is an ancient concept. Refugees have
existed long before the days of Moses in Egypt, and long after. 1 In
Genesis, we read that Jacob and his sons went to sojourn in Egypt,
for the famine was severe in the land of Canaan.2 In the book of
Matthew, we are told that Joseph took Mary and Jesus and fled to
Egypt because he had wanted to kill the newborn King. 3
The refugee phenomenon is also world wide. There are
refugees in five continents, namely Asia, Latin America, Europe, the
Middle East and Africa. According to the World Food Program (WFP),
the number of the world's refugee population has increased from
fifteen million in 1990 to seventeen million in 1991.
In Africa, the refugee problem is most acute. At the end of
1950's, there were not more than two hundred thousand refugees in
Africa. In 1960, there were three hundred thousand refugees and by
1964 there were four hundred thousand. The number doubled in 1967
and reached one million in 1970.
Between 1971 and in 1986 the refugee population more than
quadrupled. In 1989 alone there were nearly five million African
refugees but recent figures show that the African refugee population
1 "The Courier" May-June 1990. p 65.
2 Genesis chp. 47:4
3 Matthew chp. 2:13 and 14
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has skyrocketed to over six million. One refugee out of every two is
an African.4 According to the International Movement for Brotherly
Union between Races and People (MIUFRP), there is a danger that
before the end of this century, the African refugee population figure
will be between fifteen and twenty million.5
Involuntary population movements have accounted for more
than half of all international migrations since the early decades of
this century and constitutes an increasing share of current flows. In
Africa, three distinct periods of involuntary migration movements
can be identified: Pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial. 6
Pre-Colonial Movements
Primordially involuntary population movements were caused by
socio-historical dynamics internal to societies, originating and
located within the continent. Recurrent natural disasters also
played a significant role in mass displacement in several regions of
Africa.
An external factor, European mercantilism, nourished itself on
slave trade and trade in tropical products produced by slave labor.
Much of the tropical products for the European markets were then
produced in the colonies , in the Americas and the Caribbean.
Millions of Africans were hunted down and forcibly transported to
those colonies. The slave trade caused not only involuntary
4 "The Courier" op cit p.3
5 Cimade, Inodep and Mink - Africa's Refugee Crises p. 3
6 Bulcha M. - Flight and Integration p.18
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movements to other continents, but also spurred flight within the
African continent itself.
Colonial Period
Mercantilism was replaced by colonialism as a major factor in
population displacement. Colonialism caused refugee flows of
varying sizes at various phases in history.
First, the conquest and the partition of Africa among the
colonial powers in itself led to population displacements, as well as
to the fragmentation of social and ethnic structures. A perfect
example illustrating this fragmentation is Ghana. Ghana, a former
Bristish colony, is composed of different tribes that were once
enemies. These include the Asante, the Ewe and the Fra-Fra's in the
north. The tribal tensions, still existant in this nation have
transcended int the political and social realms. In the early period,
conflicts between the colonial armies and the Africans caused
refugee flows in many parts of the continent.
Once their control over the subjects were consolidated, the
European settlers also utilized forced labor for the production of
commercial crops, goods and minerals. In addition, heavy taxation
was levied on the Africans as a means of enforcing the recruitment
of labor to the mines and plantations. Resistance to forced labor and
heavy taxation was often expressed by flight into the remote regions
within the colonies, or from one territory to another. Resistance to
forced labor and taxation in the form of uprising was met with
brutality by the colonial establishments causing internal
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displacement as well as flight across colonial borders7 (A perfect
example illustrating this would be the conflict between the colonial
Spanish powers and the Western Saharans that is explained further
on in this book).
Post-Colonial Era
New states which were created at the end of the colonial rule
are entangled in the process of "nation" building, and in many cases
the process has not been free of conflicts.8 De colonization brought
new and often powerful political conflicts into play and released
older hostilities, thus creating mass displacements.
Moreover, many African leaders in their insecurity have closed
the safety valve of public expression; they have turned the media
into their own vehicles of propaganda and have killed, jailed or sent
into exile dissident and creative thinkers. Hence many African
leaders are not free of blame to the problem. A perfect example
illustrating this would be Enyadema of Togo.
Since the end of the 1950's, the African refugees problem has
increased dramatically. The major concentration of African
refugees are found in the least developed countries of the continent.
Some of the African countries that accommodate refugee
populations have the refugee population constituting a significant
proportion of the citizenry.
7 Polhemus J. - "The Refugee Factor in Botswana" - Vol. IV no.1 p.31
8 Holborn Loiuse W. "Refugees: A Problem of Our Time."
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The economies of these countries have deteriorated drastically
over the last two decades and are today characterized by rapidly
declining agricultural production, compounded by natural disasters,
increased costs of essential goods, serious problems in social
services, rising unemployment and widespread famine. In this
environment, refugee self-sufficiency is an illusion. Although there
are instances when international assistance has contributed to the
economic betterment of refugees, most of the organized settlements
have failed to promote self-sufficiency. The problem is worsened by
the decrease in African hospitality due to deteriorating economic
conditions, the rising rate of population growth with a doubling of
the labor force in about every twenty years and the relative scarcity
of land for cultivation. In light of the above mentioned issues, it is
quite obvious that refugees in Africa face diverse problems.
Objectives of the Study
From the problems identified in the preceding discussions, this
study will have as its main concerns, the following areas:
A ) The causes of refugee flows from Liberia, Western Sahara,
Mozambique, South Africa and Ethiopia.
B) The problems that the refugees encounter in their places of
asylum.
C) The attempts at finding solutions to the refugee problem and
the extent to which progress has been made.
Clarification of Concept
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Refugees
The word "refugee", can be said to mean a person who has been
forced to flee danger, for example, floods, war, political and
religious persecution among others. The United Nations Convention
relating to the status of refugees, defines "refugees" as people who "
as a result of events occurring before first January, 1951, and
owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,
religion, nationality and membership of a particular social group or
political opinion is outside of his nationality and is unable or, owing
to such fear, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that
country , or who not having nationality and being outside the country
of his former habitual residence as a result of such events is unable,
owing to such fear, or is unwilling to return to it."9
Due to above definitions, the following assumptions can be
ascertained:
A ) It refers to events that happened in Europe before Jan 1,
1951.
B) The refugees emerged mainly as a result of the Second World
War and the rise of Nazism.
C) The refugee must have crossed an international border and
must be residing defacto in a foreign country.
Developments in China and Hungary in the 1960's necessitated
the introduction of the 1967 protocol that extended the benefits of
9 Hanne Christenson "Refugee and Problems"p. 11
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the convention to cover refugees from later events in other parts of
the world. 1 o
On the whole, the United Nations definition may be described
as too technical. They prevent other people who are internally
displaced and whose plight might be equally serious, or even more
serious than those externally displaced from being viewed as true
refugees.
The massive influx of refugees in Africa as a result of the
process of de colonization lay bare the inadequacies of the U.N.'s
definition and perhaps prompted the organization of African Unity
(O.A.U) to adopt the 1969 OAU convention which provides that " the
term refugee shall apply to every person who, owing to external
aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously
disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of
origin or nationality is compelled to leave his place of habitual
residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his
country of origin.''11
The term refugee in this study, refers to people who are
nationals of Ethiopia, Western Sahara, Liberia, South Africa and
Mozambique who have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Hypothesis
This study will be guided by the assumption that the refugee
problem of the above mentioned countries are caused by crises of
10 ICIHI "Refugee: Dynamics of Displacement" 1986 p.20
11 Hanne Christenson. p.11
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the state. There are three mutually reinforcing "crises of the state"
in the African continent namely; the crisis of production, the crisis
of democracy and the crises of national identity. In turn, each of
these, organically interconnected, leads to population displacement.
First, the crisis of production is a crises of the under
development of productive forces: weak social infrastructure,
external indebtedness, dwindling levels of food production, and so
on, all culminating in the unprecedented economic crises and overall
national poverty which many African countries have been
experiencing for some time now. This crises is of course related to
the growing dialectical division of the world into a minority, highly
industrialized section which maintains a clear monopoly over the
centers of industrial research, technology, production and a majority
under developed section which relying on the importation of
technical "know-how", technology and finance all controlled by the
former
'. The net effect of this lop-sided development of the world is
that the organic unity between the people in a majority of the
countries of the world with natural environment, is broken. As a
result, these people begin to lose the confidence necessary to
harness their recourses creatively and originally to their needs and
interest. 12 A example illustarting this would be the exportation of
raw materials tot he western world, who inturn produce the finished
products that the African nations purchase. If they had the
confidence to harness their own recources creatively, they would
12 Noli 0. "Ethnic Politics in Nigeria"
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produce products from their own raw materials and sell those
products to the western world at a profit.
This explains the dangerous vulnerability of African countries
to drought, desert encroachment, floods and even locust so that the
slight negative ecological condition in Africa results in massive
famines, disaster and refugees. The critical thing to be borne in
mind is that rarely do these ecological conditions represent novel
events to parts of the continent that they affect. However, the
processes that generated the underdevelopment of Africa have not
only broken down the traditional strategies for coping with these
natural conditions, but more critically have not instituted viable
alternatives, as the Karamoja famines have shown us. 13
Also important in this regard is the artifacts-oriented
development strategy which many African countries have been
following since independence. Though not abnormal, the building of
large irrigation dams, highways, new cities, urban renewal projects,
etc., have meant uprooting whole districts, towns and villages which
must give way to "development." The fact that this path to
development has been a major factor in spreading misery in Africa
is very well known and documented.
However, the most germane to the growing population is the
untrammeled competition for the state power which has become the
hall mark of the African power blocks. These fractionalist and
exclusionist struggles in which the control of the state is reduced
to a zero-sum game, have accounted for the displacements of
13 Mmdani M. " Karamoja: Colonial Roots of Famine in North-East Uganda"-
no 25
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millions of Africans who opposed the government. Uganda has been a
classic case of this condition culminating in the eight year rule of
ldi Amin from 1971 to 1979, and the rapid turnover of regimes
between the time of his overthrow and President Yoweri Museveni's
assumption of power. By 1980, there were an estimated one hundred
and fifty thousand Ugandans in neighboring countries, while another
three hundred thousand were displaced within Uganda itself. This
crises of democracy has forced many Africans out of their country
into refugeehood.
The third crises of the state is the crises of national identity
This is a crises of the ideological instance of the state and is
related to the manner of intervention of the ideological in political
and economic instances. This is very well illustrated by a massive
scale of politicization of ethnicity that has taken place in Africa
since independence.
The spate of ethnic, racial and religious conflicts in Africa are
all symptomatic of this crises of national identity. Nigeria , Zaire,
Burundi, Sudan and even Somalia are some of the countries where the
crises of national identity has led to massive refugee situations. In
Nigeria, the civil war (1967-1970) over the attempted secession of
the predominantly Ibo eastern region, led to over a million people
becoming refugees. The Katangese impasse in Zaire, the continuing
war between northern and southern Sudan, and the situation in
Somalia are all well known manifestations of this crises of national
identity in Africa.
Literature Review
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Many writers have not accorded the African refugee problem
the attention it deserves. Nevertheless, this is not to say that the
field has not been explored. Various authors have made their
contributions on the refugee problem in Africa, prominent among
whom are Sven Hamrell, Cimade, lnodep and Mink (see bibliography).
Cimade, lnodep and Mink in their work, trace the history of
refugees from the antiquity, middle ages, and the era Europe
expanded its influence to the period after independence. They assert
that in many cases, the artificial nature of the colonial frontiers,
which have often divided homogeneous ethnic groups, made the flight
of the refugees easier.
They have also observed that the general causes and
responsibilities of the refugee problem in Africa are due to
American and French policies in Africa and the responsibilities of
the USSR and Britain in Africa- the after effects of de colonization,
the absence of democracy, religious tolerance, racial, tribal and
individual rivalries, the instability of political regimes, tensions
and conflicts between African states (especially tensions and
conflicts among borders and subversions kept alive by external
influences), and the functions of the Organization of African Unity
(OAU) and its contradictions.
Cimade, lnodep and Mink furthermore saw the specific causes
and responsibilities in the horn of Africa as due to war; in Southern
Africa as due to Apartheid and in east Africa as due to class
oppression that replaced imperialism.
1 1
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The above mentioned authors however did not address the
refugee problems in both Western and Northern Africa. They also did
not dwell on natural causes and attempts at solving these problems.
It is the intention of this study to examine the causes and problems
of the refugees as well as the attempts at solving these problems.
Sven Hamrell's Refugee problems in Africa also gave a
comprehensive picture of the refugee problem in Africa. In his
study, he pointed out that the emergence of refugee problems in
Africa is directly connected with political revolutions which swept
over the African continent after the second World War and resulted
in the creation of numerous independent African states. Other
refugee problems, to him, result from explosive internal, social and
political situations which existed long before the colonial period but
which came to a climax only after independence was attained and
when internal forces were no longer controlled by the strait jacket
of colonial domination.
Hamrell furthermore commented on the refugee problem in
Southern Africa and the problem of Rwandese and Sudanese refugees.
He also looked at the education and training of refugees and on an
African solution to the issue with assistance from the United
Nations and other voluntary organizations. However, like his
colleagues, Hamrell did not discuss the refugee problem in Western
and Northern Africa, nor did he dwell on the natural causes of
refugee flows.
In I.W. Zartman's Ripe for Resolution, the author tries to locate
the sources of conflict in Africa, especially in the Sahara, the Horn,
the Heartland and the South of Africa. He focuses on the nature of
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previous American responses and addresses the issue of how foreign
powers can productively contribute to the management and
resolution of such conflicts without resorting to the use of military
force (Somalia). He discusses such positive intervention in four
cases of local conflicts: in the Shaba province in Zaire where he
found that intervention was appropriate but too late; in Namibia,
where it was significant though flawed and incomplete, in the Horn
of Africa where it was impossible and in the Sahara, where it was
sadly lacking.
The literature review so far substantiates the assertion that
the refugee problem has been explored. The contributions of these
writers are enduring and useful in any attempt to learn about the
refugee problem in Africa. Nevertheless, considering the realities
of social change and modernization, it becomes obvious that these
works need to be updated.
Scope and Methodology
This study deals with the African refugee problem; It is a
study of the major refugee problems in Africa. It is primarily
concerned with the factors that gave rise to the occurrence of the
problem, the issues faced by refugees in their places of asylum and
efforts at solving the problems.
This study is based on primary and secondary methods of data
collection. The primary method entails interviews with former
African refugees now living in Minneapolis, while the secondary
method comprised the use of newspapers, magazines and books.
13
Gustavus Student Repository
Organization
The essay opens with chapter one; the general introduction to
the essay. This entails the statement of the problem, objectives of
the study, clarification of concepts, hypothesis, literature review,
scope and methodology of the study, relevance of the study and
organization of work.
The second chapter takes a closer look at the causes of the
refugee flows in the areas under study: Mozambique, Western Sahara,
South Africa, Liberia and Ethiopia. The problems encountered by the
refugees in these areas form the subject matter of the third chapter.
The fourth chapter focuses on the attempts made at solving the
refugee problem and the extent to which progress has been made.
Finally, chapter five contains the summary, conclusion and
recommendations.
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Chapter II
The causes of Refugee flows
Introduction
This chapter aims at finding the causes of refugee flows in the
various areas under study - Mozambique, Ethiopia, Liberia, Western
Sahara and South Africa. To appreciate the causes of the refugee
problem in the countries already mentioned, it will be important to
understand the historical background to these crises.
Liberia
Liberia which is situated on the West African coast previously
known as the "Grain Coast," 14 is the only African country besides
Ethiopia that was not colonized. It borders Guinea, La Cote D'Ivoire
and Sierra Leone. Following the settlement of freed slaves from the
United States of America in Liberia by the American Colonization
Society (ACS), the politics of the country were dominated by these
ex-slaves known in Liberia as America-Liberians. Even though they
met an indigenous population, the
Functional Characterisation of Alpha-Galactosidase A Mutations as a Basis for a New Classification System in Fabry Disease
No full textThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The study has been supported partially by an unrestricted scientific grant from Shire Human Genetic Therapies (Germany
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No full textTo answer the need for better tools for alpha radiation radiobiology and microdosimetry research, a novel irradiation setup based on a honeycomb collimator, in combination with Fluorescent Nuclear Track Detectors (FNTD) for alpha radiation dosimetry and spectroscopy, was introduced. FNTDs are a novel type of small, crystalline detector that can visualize individual alpha particles and simultaneously measure their location, velocity direction and energy with good accuracy. The performance of FNTDs for alpha radiation dosimetry was evaluated for the first time and the results were compared to extrapolation chamber measurements and simulations. The surface dose rate to water of the irradiation setup for two different honeycomb collimators, measured using FNTDs, agreed with the extrapolation chamber measurements within 6%. The simulations underestimated the surface dose rate to water for the first collimator and overestimated the dose for the second collimator, indicating the sensitivity to manufacturing errors in the collimators of this irradiation setup. The dose homogeneity in the setup was measured using radiochromic film and showed variations of less than 5%, making this setup, in combination with the rich information obtained regarding the spatial, angular and energy distributions of the alpha particles, obtained using the FNTDs, ideal for microdosimetry and radiobiology experiments. The accuracy and ease-of-use of FNTDs in addition to the surface or absorbed dose and fluence of the radiation field indicate that these detectors are prime candidates for research applications in the field of alpha radionuclide therapy.Accepted Author ManuscriptRST/Applied Radiation & IsotopesRST/Luminescence Material
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