Speech #860058375

Morocco. Jordan. Hong Kong. and elsewhere. are holding onnot so much to life butto existence midst all the hardship. hunger. loneliness. and heartbreak of being refugees. Among the millions of their number are the very young. the very aged. and those whose faces are older than their years. I wish that you and I knew. at least. some of their names. I wish that we knew them as persons. as friends. instead of simply numbers and statistics. But. even statistically. anyone who is not completely calloused to human suffering will be humbled by the tragedy and enormity of their number. I am undistinguished but was among the delegates present at this White House conference concerned with the refugee. The Assistant Secretary of State. John W. Hanes. said that "according to the most reliable estimates"-and surely it is an absolutely minimal estimate-"there are presently about 2.350.000 unassimilated refugees who may be considered to need some form of international assistance." Can we succeed in personalizing. humanizing such statistics? Mathematics was never my best subject but I have enreavored to work out what it would mean if each of these 2.350.000 persons were to take 2 minutes each. to tell us their names and to say what desolate camp or refugee center they are existing in. How long would you and I need to remain where we are if each of this number of refugees spoke to us for just 2 minutes? The answer is that we would remain here for more than 9 years listening to their story. Even so. these figures do not include the 12 million East Germans who have found refuge in free Germany and who still are arriving at the incredible rate of 2.000 per week. It also does not include the 15 million persons in Pakistan and India who. though faced with hunger and homelessness. are nonetheless not technically regarded as refugees because they happen to be citizens of the country in which they are struggling to maintain their desperate existence. You may be tempted. on hearing of such additional numbers of persons in circumstances of need. to respond: "The problem is so vast and depressing as to be unmanageable." Clearly. the problem of the refugee is a worldwide affliction for which there is no total or final cure. Nor will there ever be a total cure so long as tyranny and selfishness and pride is manifest in the policies of national governments. There is. however. much that can be done by persons like you and me and by government which will effectivly bring help and hope to millions of persons who are so desperately in need of both. One of the things we can do is to become acquainted with some of the basic facts about the problems and needs of the refugee. Such facts may prevent us from being ignorant of the reality of human suffering and at the same time enable us to think more clearly and to act more intelligently In relieving their suffering. Let us listen. thennot for 9 years but for 5 minutes--to some facts concerning the hungry. homeless persons who do have names. Persons who. if they could speak to us. might well begin by reminding us of our common humanity. saying in a paraphrase of the words which Shapespeare put in the speech of Shylock the Jew: "I am a refugee. But does not a refugee have eyes? Does he not have senses. affections. passions. a name as dear to God as yours? Am I not fed with the same food. hurt with the same loneliness. warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as you. who live comfortably. eat well. and sleep warmly? If you prick us. do we not bleed. if you tickle us. do we not laugh? If we do not have food to eat. do we not die? I am a refugee." There are nearly 1 million PalestineArab refugees. They have been living since the Palestine war in 1948 in the Arab land bordering Israel. but the Arab countries have refused to accept responsibility for them as permanent residents and have continued to insist on their right to return to Israel. There is little likelihood that Israel. which in recent years has taken in a million refugees. will admit thousands of hostile Arabs. The United Nations maintains a relief and education program of some $30 million annuallyan average of $30 assistance per person per yearbut it has had to curtail part of its program for lack of funds. In Hong Kong there are a million homeless persons. One of every three persons there is a refugee. Having fled from Red China some 700.000 persons live in abject poverty. forming squatter communities of hillside shacks patched together from old pieces of tin. plaited bamboo. and bits of wood. Tens of thousands sleep on top of buildings or in .doorways or set up housekeeping beneath stairways. Tuberculosis and dysentery are commonplace in these surroundings and onethird of the children die of some form of tuberculosis. Much of the help that reaches the refugees comes from the United States. which sends $5 million annually in food alone from surplus stocks. Hopes for a solution to the problem lie mainly in expanding the economy. since there is no possibility of mass immigration either to Taiwan or southeast Asian countries. A total of $100 million would be necessary to cover the elementary needs of the poor. but it is recognized that there is little chance of obtaining this amount. The United Nations is involved in a special appeal on behalf of these refugees. During the last few years 180.000 Algerians have fled their strifetorn homes and sought refuge in Morocco and Tunisia. Eightyfive percent of these were women and children. They have been living in desperate need. Most live in caves or gourbis. the native hut made of mud and cow dung with straw roofs. The refugees receive international aid from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner and the International Red Cross. as well as direct assistance from other governments that is channeled through Tunisian authorities. A gift of 7.000 tons of U.S. wheat helped keep the refugees alive during the last 3 months. This has now been consumed and many of the refugees get less than 1.600 calories.dally. There are no schools for refugee children. except those improvised by adult refugees. There are 100.000 escapees from behind the Iron Curtain still in Europe. Some 35.000 of this group are in one of the 120 European refugee camps. The remainder. although living outside camps. in many cases live under conditions as bad or worse than those of the incamp refugees. Of the 35.000 living in camps. 18.000 have spent at least 10 years there. Virtually all are refugees from Communist countries. but some older ones were among those taken from their homes in the days of Hitlers mass deportations. Dr. Lindt. the Swiss who serves as High Commissioner for the United Nations. regards the camp refugees as a top priority group for help. He is seeking an additional $3.500.000 for his clearthecamps program. If available. funds would go for housing and to train the refugees for new jobs. Small business loans also would be granted to help them make a new start. Additional medical help and institutional care would be given to the aged and infirm. The latest dramatic refugeeproducing development is the brutal Chinese Communist subjugation of Tibet. The flight of the ]?alai Lama and the savage fighting has resulted in the exile of at least 12.000 refugees into the border areas of northern India. American voluntary agencies have offered and are proA4158 viding valuable assistance to those refugees. and the Indian authorities have been assured of American sympathy and readiness to provide further help as required. These are some of the basic facts concerning only some of the more than 3 million of our fellow human beings. But for the grace of God. and geography. their circumstance might be yours or mine.