New talks to solve refugee crises

Date: 07/03/1996

By Rory Watson

PARLIAMENTARIANS from 85 countries will consider a new strategy later this month to help millions of refugees and displaced people return to their homes.

Demands for governments and international organisations to devote more resources to effective repatriation and rehabilitation measures will be tabled at the joint assembly meeting between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) parliamentarians and their European Parliament counterparts opening in the Namibian capital of Windhoek on 18 March.

With 15 million people in Africa alone forced by war, disease or famine to move from their homes, the search for ways to end their plight will be a central feature of the five-day meeting.

After a recent fact-finding visit to the Horn of Africa to examine the situation on the ground, Italian Socialist MEP Luciano Vecchi has prepared a report highlighting areas of possible improvement. It stresses the need for effective follow-up rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts once refugees return home.

“What is evident is the new dimension of the phenomenon. What we require are mechanisms that give greater coherence, stretching from preventive measures to political intervention on the ground. Even if there is now greater liaison between different Commission departments, for instance, improvements can still be made,” Vecchi points out.

His draft resolution to the joint assembly calls on governments to organise “a full-scale policy review” of support for refugees and displaced people. Supporters of a new approach warn that half of Africa's refugee population in settlements is aged under 15 and that the countries in sub-Saharan Africa which have to cope with the heaviest influx of migrants are among the poorest in the world.

The joint assembly, the only democratically-based north/south forum, will be a focus for investigating the future relationship between the 70 ACP countries and the Union at a time when the latter is targeting more of its attention and financial resources towards Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

Clifford Mamba, chairman of the ACP's committee of ambassadors, recently accused the Union of appearing to be “geared primarily to a global order in which vulnerable partners, namely the ACP group, are ignored at best, or even marginalised”.

Lord Plumb, a British Conservative MEP and co-president of the ACP-EU joint assembly, accepts the changing political climate, but is optimistic about the future when the current aid and trade provisions of the Lomé Convention run out in 1999.

“Certainly there is a fear expressed on the ACP side, but this is more about what will happen in four years time rather than now. We need to plan the next Lomé, which will be very different from this one as it will have to fit into the pattern of world trade liberalisation,” he acknowledges.

Lord Plumb discerns a positive change in the nature of investment now being made in the developing world as greater importance is attached to basic essentials, such as water supply and the cultivation of food, rather than relying on food aid to feed the domestic population.

“We have a commitment under the Lomé Convention and under our humanitarian aid and human rights commitments. If you look at what is being done in the world, 40&percent; of development aid is coming from the Union and its member states and, for instance, just 16&percent; from the United States,” he says in defence of the EU's overseas aid record.

Glenys Kinnock, the British Socialist vice-president of the joint assembly, will use the annual meeting to establish the exact nature of the Union's future links with South Africa, following the recent unexpected obstacles to the proposed free trade agreement and the danger that this could delay technical assistance under the Lomé Convention.

She will also draw participants' attention to allegations of human rights abuse in the Sudan and will press for tougher condemnation of Nigeria after the execution of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other human rights activists.

“It is important to go back to this and urge very strong action, especially as 19 other men are on trial on the very same grounds,” says Kinnock.

Non-governmental organisations, with their extensive experience of the difficulties involved in implementing development and humanitarian aid on the ground, will also be represented in Windhoek. They are keen to use their expertise to focus on developing health care facilities and measures to fight AIDS in the ACP countries.