Scientific life. Congresses, conferences, and symposia

On May 14, 2003, the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences held a "round table" on this topic. The meeting was opened by the head of the Department. Center for Sociological and Political Studies of the Yu. V. Potemkin Institute. The problem of refugees, he noted, is one of the most acute global problems of our time. Refugees in Africa are a complex socio-demographic phenomenon that has a huge, mostly destructive, impact on the social development of many countries. Large flows of rogue refugees are primarily caused by political and ethno-religious reasons. Just mention the civil wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Great Lakes region, Somalia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Eritrea, etc. In the last decade, when Africa has become an arena of armed conflict, a socially and politically unstable continent, and an ecological disaster zone, the scale of refugees on the continent has increased dramatically. If in the early 1990s there were 5 million refugees, then by the turn of the century their number was estimated to be more than 7 million. The refugee army creates serious political, economic and social problems. They worsen the economic situation of a number of countries, deepen the food crisis, hypertrophy urban processes and lumpen cities, lead to increased unemployment, increase overall social tensions, and threaten national, sub-regional and continental security.

V. I. Gusarov (Institute of Africa), in his report based on concrete material, emphasized that the problem of refugees is a tragedy of modern Africa.

The speaker considered the following issues:: who are refugees, what is their status, and how do they differ from migrants and other displaced persons? The 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees defines refugees as "persons who, because of a well-founded fear of becoming victims of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, belonging to a particular social group or political opinion, are outside the country of their nationality". It sets out minimum standards for the treatment of refugees and introduces the fundamental principle of "non-refoulement", which protects them from being removed to a country where their life or liberty would be at risk. In 1967, a Protocol was drawn up to extend the Convention's scope to refugees whose emergence was the result of later developments in other parts of the world. By the end of the 1980s, the Convention and Protocol had been ratified by approximately 100 States worldwide. However, many countries have refused to sign these documents, and those that have signed them, such as Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, do not comply with them. In addition to the Convention, the Protocol and 30 other international agreements on refugees, about 20 regional documents have been developed on this issue.

When considering and analyzing refugee problems, the speaker noted, it should be borne in mind that they are primarily political in nature and should be addressed as political ones. The UN system has an important role to play in this process. In practice, it is often very difficult to make a clear distinction between the concepts of "refugee" and "immigrant". Therefore, there are peculiar clarifying terms. Many countries now classify asylum seekers as "de facto refugees", "political and economic immigrants"," displaced persons abroad"," mandated refugees"," shuttle refugees "and"nomadic refugees". This confusing list of terms is mainly due to the imperfection of the terminology contained in the 1951 UN Convention and the 1967 Protocol. The origins of different interpretations of the motives of refugees and displaced persons in general are rooted in the fact that international law recognizes the right of a person to receive asylum, but it does not oblige States to grant asylum. The granting of asylum is considered to be a matter within the competence of a sovereign State.

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) Refugee Convention of 1969 comes closest to recognizing such a right. It states, in particular, that the OAU, within the framework of its relevant legislation, makes every possible effort to provide:

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asylum seekers. It is the OAU Convention that provides, as many experts in international law believe, the most realistic definition of the concept of "refugee". If a person's life, liberty or security is threatened, it does not matter whether the threat is the result of persecution or some other form of danger, such as armed conflict. However, in real life, many of the provisions of the convention are applied either to a very limited extent or not at all, primarily due to the lack of economic opportunities for the vast majority of African States.

At the same time, the assignment of refugee status to a particular person causes a negative reaction from the country of origin, as it indicates that persecution is being carried out in this country. This partly explains the reason for the inclusion in the OAU Convention of the provision that "granting asylum to refugees is considered a peaceful humanitarian action and should not be considered an unfriendly act on the part of any State Party".

In recent years, the speaker stressed, there has been a clear trend of non-compliance with the provisions of the Convention and the Protocol by African signatories. Some of them pursue a policy of so-called humanitarian deterrence, when refugees are deliberately placed in conditions that degrade their human dignity: detention, restriction of freedom of movement, separation of families, use in forced physical labor, etc. Many refugees receive some form of humanitarian assistance from various international organizations. However, most of them are left to their own devices.

Most of the Africans who have left their native places, the speaker noted, do not cross national borders and formally cannot be counted as refugees, but remain in their country. There are many reasons for this. Others consciously want to stay on their territory, hoping for relatives, friends and tribesmen, hoping to return home after the situation has stabilized. Such migrants formally fall under the category of "displaced persons". They are hardly accounted for by national or international statistics, so their numbers can only be estimated very roughly. In addition, it is very difficult to separate "displaced persons "from such categories as" nomads " and from other economic migrants. Internally displaced persons often find themselves in a more difficult situation than refugees. They are often subjected to physical violence and deprivation. The authorities do not allow them to leave the area where they have lost their homes or found shelter. Moreover, they may be sent back against their will.

According to V. I. Gusarov, the best solution to the problem of refugees both now and in the future could be to ensure their return to their country or to be accepted by other countries for permanent residence. This requires an appropriate international mechanism to regulate the cooperation of States in addressing the issue of refugee return and readaptation. Existing international organizations, especially the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), are expected to play a major role in its preparation and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

O. B. Gromova and I. G. Rybalkina (both at the Institute of Africa) took part in the discussion that unfolded after V. I. Gusarov's report.

O. B. Gromova devoted her speech to the social consequences of refugee status in Africa and its specific features. In particular, she noted that refugees in Africa represent a serious factor in the disintegration of social ties. Refugee status weakens and breaks internal - economic, family, ethnic and other social ties, links between segments of society that are necessary for stable sustainable development. It accelerates the prospect of disintegration of the social fabric and, as a result, the degradation of society. People leave their native places, their native country for the sake of saving their own lives or alone, more often as families or communities, or as ethnic groups. They move away from the usual environment of a permanent place of residence to a foreign environment, break away from the usual way of life.

Disintegration occurs at all levels - individuals, families, labor and professional collectives, clans, ethnic groups, and the state. Previous social interactions in the work and professional environment are being destroyed. Refugees lose their previous social status,

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becoming unemployed, making do with odd jobs, and facing a negative attitude of the local population as a competitive labor force. Most of the refugees lead a marginal existence, joining the lumpenized population of the country of refuge.

The biggest impact of refugee status is on the family. Family ties collapse, families break up. Some of their members stay in the same place and run later, others leave first, some are lost or die on the way. Men-in the army, in rebel detachments. Women, children, and parents are in refugee camps. Violence against women and children has reached enormous proportions. The problem of serious degradation of human values is connected with refugee status. Life in exile, prolonged stay in camps affects the socio-psychological state of people. The violence that has become the norm here has a severe psychological impact on refugees. Boredom, idleness of camp life quickly destroy the moral foundations of the individual, lead to its moral degradation and desocialization, generate uncertainty in the future, mental discomfort, despair, pessimism, depression (or aggression). Alienation, disunity, and antisociality are characteristic features of refugee personalities.

By the end of the 1990s, O. B. Gromova noted, there were several large centers of concentration of refugees on the continent: Central Africa - the Great Lakes region of Africa; West Africa; the Horn of Africa; and Angola. Until recently, they were (or continue to be) the "hot spots" of the continent. Among the largest refugee-supplying countries are Burundi, Rwanda, DRC, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and in recent years, Ivory Coast, Angola, and Mozambique. Some of them were also the "host" party at various times. Recipient countries: Tanzania, Kenya. Zimbabwe, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Zambia, South Africa.

Refugees in Africa are increasingly being politicized and militarized. Armed rebel groups use refugee camps as military bases, forcibly recruit teenagers and children into guerrilla groups, and involve them in active combat operations. These trends reinforce the political aspect of refugee status, its political significance as a destabilizing factor of social development, as a threat to the stability and security of the state, and as a serious source of intra-State and inter-State tension.

Currently, there are three main types of refugee flows and mass population movements in Africa. First, it is the forced displacement of people within the territory of the country of permanent residence affected by conflict or war. These are so-called "internal refugees", but more precisely - internally displaced persons, although they are"potential refugees". The total number of "internal refugees" in Africa reaches 13-16 million people and is often not only inferior in numbers to the actual refugees, but also exceeds them in a single country or sub - region (in Sudan - 4 million, Angola - 1.2 million, Burundi-up to 1 million, Sierra Leone - 800 thousand). Second, most African countries in recent decades have experienced massive cross-border population movements, exodus or influx of refugees. Their number sometimes reached a million people. Cross-country refugee migration to neighboring, nearby and distant countries of the continent took on a huge scale at various times, especially in the 1990s, for example, in the Great Lakes region of Africa, in the Horn of Africa and other places. Third, refugees are often forced to leave the first country of asylum and seek a safer place of residence in another African country or even outside the continent. The EU countries - traditionally France, Great Britain, as well as Germany, the Benelux countries, Southern European countries - Spain, Italy, Greece, Scandinavian countries - Finland and Sweden-became the centers of attraction for refugees from Africa. These and other developed countries are increasingly tightening their immigration policies. They introduce new immigration rules that involve the detention, deportation and expulsion of illegal refugees, providing them with "temporary protection" with the prospect of deportation, etc. The consistent tightening of refugee admission and asylum rules in the European Union, North America and other parts of the world weakens the international system of protection and humanitarian assistance for this category of people, but cannot yet stop the uncontrolled flow of global refugees.

I. G. Rybalkina considered the problems of integration and repatriation of refugees in the policy of African countries. In particular, she said that in order to find ways to solve these problems

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34 African countries signed the refugee treaty in 1969, which officially entered into force in 1974.

In 1998, at a seminar on refugee reintegration in Addis Ababa, OAU Under-Secretary-General Ahmed Haggak stated that at the end of the second millennium, almost all African countries faced the problem of refugee status. It was emphasized that ongoing wars and economic difficulties have turned 27 million people in Africa into refugees, migrants and displaced persons. Moreover, the economic situation in most countries does not allow them to be integrated into their own socio-economic system.

In August 1999, the Gabonese capital Libreville hosted a summit of seven Central African States on refugee issues. The Heads of State demanded that the conflicting parties, especially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, seek national reconciliation through political dialogue and negotiations and actively create conditions for the return of refugees to their homeland. The meeting participants supported the ceasefire agreement signed yesterday in Lusaka by the countries involved in the bloody conflict in the DRC. At the summit, Gabonese President O. Bongo proposed the creation of an African emergency humanitarian intervention structure to address humanitarian issues, including the refugee problem.

Positive examples of integration and successful repatriation of refugees can be seen in the domestic political and socio - economic activities of the Governments of Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa, Algeria and some other African States. This policy was made possible by the financial support of UN organizations and other international humanitarian associations and charitable societies. However, as the UNHCR High Commissioner has repeatedly stressed, the material and other assistance provided by the international community to Africa is extremely insufficient and completely disproportionate to the situation, especially in comparison with the financial and other assistance allocated to certain crisis regions of the world.

Other participants of the round table also took part in the discussion. Yu. V. Potemkin summed up the results of the discussion of refugee problems in Africa. In particular, he stressed that many of the problems discussed are now characteristic of the Russian reality. Therefore, the study of African refugees will help to solve similar problems in our country.

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