By Ruth Gidley
AlertnetFebruary 21, 2003
NGOs must question their role in maintaining the existing world order before they can objectively analyse ways to protect refugees, Professor B.S. Chimni of Jawaharlal Nehru University told a conference of the International Council for Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) in Geneva.
"Unless we get an appropriate understanding of NGOs' role altogether, it's difficult to get a feel for their specific role with refugees," Chimni said in a challenging address to the conference titled "NGOs in a Changing World Order: Dilemmas and Challenges".
Representatives of human rights, humanitarian and development NGOs from around the world discussed changes in the protection of displaced people and migrants, the increasing engagement of the military in humanitarian work, and the strategic value of so-called "forgotten crises" that receive little international attention.
"Humanitarian NGOs are assigned by Northern states the role of ensuring globalisation doesn't cause a crisis," argued Chimni. When a crisis did manifest itself, he said, NGOs addressed the worst consequences, and later helped to stitch together a post-conflict democracy.
Chimni said he was well aware that NGO staff were not conscious agents of Northern governments or intending to manipulate their recipients. "They save hundreds and hundreds of lives, often in conditions that involve the ultimate sacrifice."
However, he said: "The structural role of NGOs is to legitimise a dominant world order that holds no promise for most people."The fact that they are so effective means that they can be used as instruments by Northern states."
He said that when Northern financial institutions told Southern governments to withdraw from certain activities as part of structural adjustment plans, they could leave NGOs to provide services.
P.M. Tripathi of the Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development, based in New Delhi, argued: "Many NGOs are as change-focused as anybody else. There is diversity in the NGO sector. Voluntary action is the manifestation of the human quest for freedom."
Chimni acknowledged: "There are NGOs and NGOs." He said that NGOs should be responsible for questioning iniquities in the global world order, reduce their dependence on government funding and criticise treatment of refugees and migrants.
NGOs needed to understand the responsibilities that came with knowledge production pointing out that reports by Human Rights Watch about Saddam Hussein's government were being used to justify a U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
"They can't then just step back and say they have no more interest in the subject," he said. The conference heard that hostility to asylum seekers and migrants was high before the September 2001 attacks that killed 3,000 people in the United States.
REFUGEE RESTRICTIONS NOT NEW
Monette Zard, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC, said that the threat of terrorism was used to justify restrictions on immigration and refugee entry.
"The attacks fuelled the perception that refugees were criminals, even though none of the attackers were refugees or asylum seekers," she said Chimni said: "Nothing dramatic has happened that wasn't happening already. Most of it was in place. It's just got worse -- the space is more restricted.
Chris Lamb of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, observed that xenophobia had grown long before September 2001. "The attacks fuelled the perception that refugees were criminals" He reminded the ICVA conference that the Australian government had denied entry to the Norwegian freighter the Tampa -- carrying asylum seekers it had rescued -- in August 2001, a month before suicide attacks in New York and Washington.
Chimni said measures had already been in place to keep people out of the North, and he accused high-income governments of burden-shifting, rather than burden-sharing.
ICVA Coordinator Ed Schenkenberg said that refugee protection should be about "responsibility-sharing" rather than "burden-sharing". Chimni dismissed policies proposed by governments such as the United Kingdom, to remove the asylum-seeking process to supposed safe areas in regions of origin. "That's apartheid," he said. Furthermore, he said wealthy governments were unlikely to come up with the funding.
Christina Jespersen, the Danish Refugee Council's programme coordinator for the North Caucasus, said that she had not noted much change since Chechen separatists were labelled terrorists in the post-September 11 international climate.
However, Keshav Gautam of Action Aid said that in his country -- Nepal -- Maoist insurgents had been labelled terrorists and become the primary occupation of the state, which had then neglected other important areas.
For example, he said, the government had abandoned the needs of freed bonded labourers, and failed to respond when they were evicted from their homes by landowners. According to Gautam, it was a good sign when the government in January lifted the terrorist label and the rebels were once again perceived as an ideological movement.
Chimni said there was a need for an independent Refugee Rights Committee, separate from the existing office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He said that UNHCR was very dependent on donor governments. "Its autonomy is considerably limited," he said.
NGO representatives asked what could be done in Northern countries to challenge public and media hostility to refugees and migrants. Chimni said that the blame should not be put on the public. "People simply respond to governments," he said.
INCREASING LEGAL MIGRATION
Jeff Crisp of UNHCR challenged NGOs, asking if they would support deportations if an individual's claim for asylum was legally determined to be unfounded.
Several NGO delegates said they knew it was legally correct, but their gut reaction was opposed, and they would not in practice participate in anyone's removal.
Mamadou Ndyaye of the Senegal-based Office Africain pour le Developpement et la Coopération (African Office for Development and Cooperation) said there was a growing trend for Northern governments to have bilateral agreements to deport individuals of undetermined origin. For example, he said that the Swiss government had signed an agreement with the government of Senegal to receive asylum seekers, even when it appeared that some of them might not be Senegalese.
Chimni said NGOs had a duty to call for increased legal migration. "The official channels are closed. That's why there is more illegal migration," he said.
More Information on NGOs
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