Speech #970023837

Mr. Speaker. I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues. an article written in the Christian Science Monitor. dated April 8. 1981. describing the conditions and plight of the refugees in Africa. Outside assistance is desperately needed in order to enable these people the basic necessities of life. There is a serious problem in Africa today which must be recognized by people throughout the world. ONE IN EVERY Two REFUGEES is AFRICAN (By Poul Hartling) A few weeks ago I was in the Sudan. an African country which in recent years has had to confront massive refugee influxes from a number of its neighbors. When I was there. Ugandans were crossing the White Nile into southern Sudan in canoes. They were in desperate condition. especially the emaciated children. A government official told me. "You see we have our boat people too." The tragedy of the boat people in Southeast Asia dramatized a major problem of our time: the mass exodus of refugees. victims of events beyond their control. fleeing their homes to seek asylum in another country. The Sudanese official was trying to tell me that his country and his continent have a serious refugee problem as well. about which the world should know. The world has taken notice. On April 9 and 10 the International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa (ICARA) will be held in Geneva. The goal is not only to focus public attention on the problem of African refugees but also to mobilize assistance for a continent which suffers the worlds largest refugee problem. With 12 percent of the worlds population. Africa has almost 50 percent of the worlds refugees. which means that one in every two refugees in the world today is an African. The burden of Africas five million refugees is not equally spread over this vast continent. The Sudan alone has accepted over the last years from neighboring countries as many refugees as those who have landed on the shores of Southeast Asia. In Somalia. which had a population of four million. the authorities report more than 1.5 million refugees in camps in the country. For the United States it would be as though in a few months the entire populations of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland showed up on the East Coast bringing with them only the clothes on their backs and half of them sick. The dislocation. even with Americas great resources. would be enormous. priorities would have to be reordered. and resources allocated for economic growth and social welfare would have to be directed to the refugees to assure their survival. What makes the refugee problem in Africa particularly difficult is the fact that 80 percent of the refugees are in the least developed countries of the world. Caught in the vicious circle of poverty. these nations are struggling to give their own people a decent standard of living. Development prospects have been dimmed by such outside factors as mounting energy costs. food deficits. severe drought. debt repayment burdens. and world recession. It is not difficult to imagine the impact on such fragile economies of tens of thousands of hungry and sick refugees. Tribute must be paid to those countries that have acted so generously. a generosity rooted in traditional African hospitality. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. my first concern is that the refugee who is seeking asylum because of a wellfounded fear of persecution is not turned back at the border. Unless this basic right is respected by the states of the world. any assistance to refugees is meaningless. There still are too many cases around the world where refugees are not accepted but sent back to an uncertain fate. African governments have not only generally met their responsibilities to asylum seekers. but they have recognized that the solution to the problem of African refugees is in Africa. They have not asked that their refugees be settled on another continent. The problem is that their hospitality is being offered from an empty table. Help from outside is crucial. The conference in Geneva will look beyond immediate emergency needs toward durable solutions. In the context of the third world. outside assistance is sorely needed to enable refugees to become productive citizens integrated into society. In Africas rural setting the inputs required are relatively modest: seeds. agricultural tools. sufficient food to see farmers through a first harvest. and infrastructure support such as roads. water supply. hospitals. schools. ICARA will seek to obtain international assistance for projects aimed at strengthening the ability of asylum countries to carry the extra burden placed on their services and facilities.