Daily Star - Refugee Boss Calls For Policy Change

By Sebastien Malo
Daily Star staff

Interview

BEIRUT: Displaced populations may be invisible to most of us, but for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) regional head Stephane Jaquemet, putting names and faces to these vulnerable populations has been the task of a lifetime. The Daily Star met with Jaquemet to discuss some of the hurdles the agency faces in offering this protection to the refugees and internally displaced people in the Middle East.
Jaquemet, who is ending his tenure at the helm of the United Nations refugee agency’s regional office, will soon pass on the torch to his successor. Four years down the road, he told the paper that he hopes that his successor will fare better in convincing the Lebanese authorities that Lebanon should amend its policy of leniency toward its refugee population and instead implement firm laws that will regularize their status.
Jaquemet also spoke of the hardships and joys of working in the humanitarian field, and gave his views on the debate that has recently surrounded the return of Iraqi refugees from their exile.

Q. You first worked in Lebanon many years ago, when beginning your career. What brought you back to Lebanon?
A. I felt there was a bond. I was here during the Civil War and I wanted to come back working. I was here in 1985-86, and as you can easily imagine, Lebanon was almost my first humanitarian experience, because I was almost a beginner. I was working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, I was in my late twenties.
Working here during the Civil War was very special, because you see all the suffering, but also the incredible resilience of the people, incredible solidarity, and, of course, a lot of atrocities as well. It really creates a bond with the country, and with the people.

Q. Almost upon your arrival at the helm of UNHCR’s regional office, there was the 2006 war. Where you overwhelmed by the challenge that represented?
A. When I arrived in 2005, I was expecting to work with the non-Palestinian refugees, which is our mandate. But then of course, in 2006 we shifted. We completely changed the approach: we mounted a relatively big operation, we recruited a lot of staff to assist the Lebanese, which I think was also something very positive for me. UNHCR in general provides support to a certain category of foreigners, and never to Lebanese, but then because Lebanon was in the middle of serious problem we could finally show our gratitude to the Lebanese by assisting them. Of course we are taking about a war, but in that context, there were positive things.

Q. Lebanon and many countries in the Middle East could be more generous with their policies toward displaced populations. How much leverage do you have in convincing authorities to adopt more liberal policies?
A. What we have been able to achieve in Lebanon is on a daily basis to have a positive relationship with the authorities and to solve individual cases. So I think there is the willingness of authorities to be tolerant and flexible with refugees. Where we have so far not been successful is to turn this kind of day to day flexibility into policies.
Strictly speaking, most of the refugees in Lebanon are illegal. Authorities say they will be lenient; they will try not to arrest them. The problem is that there are still a number of people being arrested, and secondly, the people do not have legal status in the country. So everything is based on tolerance, and not on the policy of legalizing the people.
We have had a very positive dialogue with the authorities to have a climate of relative tolerance, but my own personal frustration after four years is that we have not been able to [make the government] budge on amending the law, and to turn illegal people … legal. This is what we would like to see, the ambition I would have for my successor.
I can assure you that for refugees it makes a difference, because if you have no document, you live in fear. You are asking yourself: I don’t want to go to that place because there might be a checkpoint … Any soldier has the right to arrest me.
If I look at the four years I have spent in Lebanon, unfortunately, the political climate was not conducive to major changes … Of course now it’s much better, we have a new Parliament and a new Government. So I hope for that my successor there will be an avenue for promoting some changes, for example in the legislation.
We need to be ambitious, but not over ambitious. To ask Lebanon to become a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention is probably too ambitious, because I don’t think Lebanon is ready politically, and psychologically, to become a full-fledged asylum country, with all the obligations associated with this. There would be a lot of resistance if we were to pursue that.
What I would like to do is to amend [the 1962 law on refugees] in order to temporarily legalize people pending their resettlement to a third country. But I don’t want this temporary period to be something semi-legal, semi-illegal. I want people to feel protected during that period of time, and not have all the anxiety of not knowing whether [they] will be arrested or not.

Q. How do you evaluate the policy toward refugees and internally displaced persons in the rest of the Middle-East ?
A. The debate around refugees is affected by the fact that for last 60 years there have been Palestinians refugees in the region. We have hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, but they arrive in countries where there were already hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Palestinian refugees.
So in any country … that will impact the way they respond to another to another refugee crisis. But, I must say, generally speaking, the response to the Iraqi crisis has been extremely generous. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis [have been accepted] in the region and have been able to stay temporarily. This reaction was probably much more generous than anything that would have happened in Europe.
I think we need to be mindful that in spite of existing problems in the region, countries have been rather generous. Look at countries in Europe. If they have 30,000-40,000 people, they are panicking, and here we are talking about millions.

Q. The government in Iraq is currently encouraging its displaced populations to return to their homes, even offering money to encourage their return. UNHCR’s position differs. Could you elaborate?
A. UNHCR is not opposed to return for those who want to return, but we are not promoting return.
It’s logical that the government encourages its citizens to return, I don’t think there is a syndrome about it. What we are saying to countries in the region is is ‘please don’t force these people back,’ because we believe it’s premature … let’s give ourselves a year or two to see how the situation evolves.
We first have to see how the elections will go, whether they take place, and if they do so, whether it will be a fully democratic process, without major security incidents.
Q. Another issue is that of the diminishing funds that donor countries give to UNHCR’s special appeal for Iraq. How does UNHCR deal with this trend?
A. We were quite happy with the funding for 2009, and we are relatively optimistic. There might be a drop for the funding in 2010, but nothing too drastic. In the long-run I am less optimistic. For 2011 I am less optimistic. It’s the normal donors’ fatigue. I think 2009 will be the sixth or seventh year of the special appeal for Iraq. The first five years of a special appeal are usually ok, but as time passes, [donations] drop.

Q. Does the visibility of a conflict play too much of a role in the attribution of funds?
A. It has to do with visibility, and it has to do with political interest, and let’s also face it, [funds can also be gained through] positive humanitarian interest. It’s a combination of the three.
It’s also true that when the political dimension diminishes, that the visibility diminishes; if you only have the humanitarian dimension, then it is very likely that some of the money will go somewhere else.

Q. Is the humanitarian field one which is hard to work in?
A. Humanitarian work is difficult because you are dealing with the suffering of people, at the same time you may have a possibility to help others, and this is incredibly rewarding.
To take a simple example: when we manage to find a resettlement country for a family of refugees in Lebanon, they may have fled from Iraq, come to Lebanon, most probably will not be able to regularize their stay here, and they will remain illegal, will be tolerated, but cannot build a future. If you can convince the United States, Sweden, or Canada to accept [them], what a difference!
You are changing the life of these people. In particular, the young generation …will have a completely new bright future. They will have schooling, a decent life, and maybe in 20 years they will be engineers or lawyers, instead of begging. So this is a strong motivation, when you think you can change the lives of the people.
Sometimes you fail, and that is very difficult. The problem in the humanitarian field is that failures are big failures, but successes are big successes. In the humanitarian field when you fail, it may mean that people are killed. And if you succeed, it means that the lives of the people can completely change, and you can save live. Of course, the failure is terrible.