Speech #970018438

Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of Senate Joint Resolution 61. which requests that the President designate April 9. 1981. as African Refugee Day. The purpose of this commemorative day is to highlight attention to the precarious plight of over 4 million refugees in Africa and to encourage public support for private relief agencies involved in assisting the refugeeswith food and medical supplies. In responding to the African refugee crisis. the United Nations General Assembly on November 25. 1980. called on the SecretaryGeneral to convene an international conference to mobilize assistance for refugees in Africa. This meeting. convened by the SecretaryGeneral in close consultation with the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. will be held in Geneva. Switzerland. on April 9 and 10. 1981. The Conference will be at the ministerial level and attended by governments. international organizations. and nongovernmental organizations all concerned with finding the ways and means to solve this major humanitarian problem. Accordingly. I would like to share with my colleagues the January 28. 1981. ICARA report entitled: "World To Focus Attention on African Refugees." WORLD To Focus ATOrmMON ON AIucAN REFUGzEs The International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa (ICARA)-to be held in Geneva. 910 Aprilwill be the first major world meeting of its kind to focus attention primarily on the plight and needs of the African refugees. Called for by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution of 25 November 1980. ICARAs objectives. as explained by the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations Dr. Kurt Waldheim are: To focus public attention on the plight of refugees in Africa. To mobilize additional resources for refugee programmes in Africa. To assist countries of asylum and strengthen their ability to cope better with the extra burden placed on their services and facilities. Participating in ICARA will be member states of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations. National liberation movements recognized by the OAU and the UN will participate in the Conference as will do several nongovernmental organizations (NGOS). intergovernmental organizations (IGOS) and the information media. all who have in the past been seized of the African refugee problem. and were engaged in various measures of solving it. Previous conferences dealing with the African refugee problem were held at the OAU and PanAfrican levelsone in Addis Ababa. 1967 and the other in Arusha. Tanzania. twelve years later. The salient achievements of these conferences were to define clearly the refugee problem in Africa. and to underline the will and determination of the African countries to assist refugees. Referred to as the Conference on the Legal. Economic and Social Aspects of the African Refugee Problem. the Addis Ababa OAU Conference in 1967 led to the drafting and subsequent adoption in 1969 of the OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. The OAU Convention incorporated the traditional definition of the term "refugee". as stated in the earlier 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. It went a step further. however. in clarifying that "the term refugee shall also apply to every person who. owing to external aggression. occupation. foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either or part or in 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 or nationality". The flux condition of Africa in the early seventiesthe intensification of the liberation struggle. especially in southern Africa. internal conflicts as well as interterritorial disputes in a number of other regions led to an unprecedented growth of refugee numbers on the continent. By the middle of the seventies decade. the refugee problem in Africa. had clearly assumed emergency proportions. One year alone. 1976. for instance. saw an increase of over 700.000 refugees in Africa. establishing that with every passing day. about 2.000 Africans turned refugees or displaced personsa rate of growth well over 2 times the world average of 800 refugees created per day.