Somalia, Abyssinia, Sudan, Kenya, and the Rights of the IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons)

As humanitarian disasters are looming in the wider Horn of Africa region, the IDPs have become a matter of greater concern, due to their increased number. I find it as my responsibility to inform many among you, who contacted me in moments of despair due precisely to your need to move far from your homes.

An IDP is not only a human victim of cruel tyrants; an IDP is also a citizen of the world, having rights that cannot be overlooked. As these days, a high level conference takes place in Oslo – Norway to assess the Guiding Principles for Internal Displacement, the progress made over the past ten years, and the possibilities for an improvement of the IDPs’ conditions in the future, I want to shed more light on the subject.

I therefore republish two reports from IRIN; the first is an update concerning the rights the IDPs and the international activism on the subject, whereas the second focuses on the dramatic situation that currently characterizes Kenya, a most problematic country whereby the Guiding Principles for Internal Displacement have been severely violated. I then add the chapter History from the website of the International Organization for Migration, the world’s leading organization mandated to identify resettlement countries and to study and debate the international implications of the phenomenon of migration.

Global: Defining the Rights of the Internally Displaced
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80942

Geneva, 16 October 2008 (IRIN) - At least 26 million people across the world are displaced within their own countries because of armed conflict. Another 50 million have been made homeless by natural disasters and experts predict that the effects of climate change, population growth and poverty could increase that number to 200 million by 2050.

The plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) often takes centre stage in humanitarian operations and the first universal guidelines detailing the rights of uprooted populations, known as the Guiding Principles for Internal Displacement, were drawn up in 1998.

This week, a high level conference in Oslo, Norway on 16 and 17 October will assess their first 10 years and evaluate the future.

In contrast to international humanitarian legislation, the 30 articles that constitute the Guiding Principles are ‘soft law’, meaning they have no legal standing of their own. Instead they refer to a broad range of already existing international human rights and humanitarian laws.

Rights and obligations

A key point of the Principles is that IDPs have equal rights and obligations. The fact that a person has been made homeless should not necessarily reduce his or her rights as a citizen. The Principles also hold that national governments are directly responsible for protecting their own populations, and that when they cannot do this, or choose not to, the international community has an obligation to guarantee the IDPs’ protection.

Walter Kälin, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Human Rights of IDPs, said that before the Guiding Principles, the displaced were frequently overlooked in humanitarian operations. "They were totally neglected," Kälin said. "They were not refugees [they had not crossed a national border], and often they were not included in humanitarian programmes."

Kälin said it was eventually realised that IDPs had special needs requiring specific attention. "If you are not displaced, you don’t need to find shelter," he said. "You don’t have to worry about not speaking the language or how you are going to earn your next day’s living, or getting your property back."

The Guiding Principles have set a common set of standards that national governments, UN agencies and international relief organisations can refer to in displacement situations.

"Ten years ago they weren’t seen as something that you would use every day," said Lea Matheson, IDP advisor for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). "Now my operational colleagues use them to guide projects they are developing. For me, they have gone from a legal framework to a very tangible operational document."

Influencing national legislation

Kate Halff, who heads the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), a project backed by the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the the centre uses the guidelines as a reference for its monitoring of displacement in roughly 50 countries. "The major achievement is that we have a common set of principles, which are the basis for all actors interacting with displaced persons, and for the displaced persons themselves, who now have a clear articulation of their rights."

Acceptance of the Guiding Principles by international forums has enhanced their status as a universal point of reference. The most important development, however, may be the integration of aspects of the Principles into national law.

"We’ve used the Principles at key points to make significant inroads to influence national legislation," said Ramesh Rajasingham, who heads the Displacement and Protection Support Section of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva.

Kälin points out that one of the strong messages to be delivered in Oslo is the need to incorporate the Principles into domestic law and policies, but he adds that this can be a tricky proposition when a law protecting IDPs is contradicted by others already on the statue books.

Oslo meeting

"We are pushing the idea that governments have to look carefully at their existing legislation," he said.

To facilitate that, a handbook on the legal aspects of the Guiding Principles has been prepared for the Oslo meeting.

Another helpful document is an annotated version of the Guiding Principles prepared by Kälin’s office. This provides the links between the principles and international law.

"At the end of the day, you need to make the link between ‘soft law’ and ‘hard law’, said Anne Zeidan, who heads the IDP project for the International Committee for the Red Cross. "You can’t just go with the Guiding Principles. It is important to remember that behind them there is a whole body of human rights and humanitarian law."

Another major topic for discussion in Oslo is the growing population displacement resulting from natural disasters and climate change. "We expect that the number of people displaced by natural disasters will increase exponentially as climate change begins to take hold on disasters," said OCHA’s Rajasingham.

The major emphasis, Kälin said, will be on consensus building, and climate change. "What I also hope to see emerge," says Kälin, "is a kind of consensus on the displacement effect caused by natural disasters."

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Kenya: Guiding Principles Violated in IDP Resettlement - Activists
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80948

Nairobi, 16 October 2008 (IRIN) - Kenyan officials "violated with impunity" the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement during an operation to resettle people displaced by post-election violence early this year, human rights activists have said.

"Kenya has no specific policy on internal displacement; it has no domestic law on protection and resettlement of IDPs [internally displaced persons]," Ndungu Wainaina, executive director for the International Centre for Conflict and Policy, a Kenyan non-governmental think-tank "committed to transitional justice", told IRIN.

He said the Guiding Principles were mostly applied ad-hoc during Operation Rudi Nyumbani [Return Home], launched by the government in May to resettle hundreds of thousands of IDPs mainly in the Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza provinces.

Wainaina said Kenya was yet to apply the protocols it signed under the Great Lakes Process - a set of 10 agreed upon by countries in the Horn, East and Central Africa which, among other issues, provide for the protection and assistance to IDPs as well as the property rights of returning persons.

Rebuttal

However, Ali Mohamed, permanent secretary in the ministry charged with handling of IDP affairs, the Ministry of State for Special Programmes, said on 15 October that the government "applied every letter and spirit" of the Guiding Principles during the recent resettlement of IDPs in the country.

"The rights of the displaced are provided for in other laws in place, such as those on human rights," Mohamed said. "The Guiding Principles have been crucial in our activities; we have been practising and using them in areas such as the rights of IDPs to their property, to safe and voluntary return."

Contrary to claims by human rights activists that some IDPs were forced out of camps, Mohamed said the government ensured that the displaced left the camps voluntarily.

"The Guiding Principles emphasise the right to protection and shelter and this has been our stand; we want to celebrate Christmas this year with all the displaced having left the camps," he said.

"Up until now, the government has been fully cognisant of the UN's Guiding Principles and has circulated them among its human rights agencies, law enforcement agencies as well as other partners involved in the resettlement of IDPs… For instance, a copy of the Guiding Principles is available in every district commissioner’s office in Rift Valley Province."

Mohamed added that all district commissioners as well as senior government officials in the provincial authority had undergone training on the application of the Guiding Principles.

Swahili version

The government and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA-Kenya) launched on 15 October the Swahili version of the Guiding Principles.

The principles - first set out in 1998 - underscore the rights of IDPs as they are not protected under the Refugee Convention. Since their launch, several governments have developed laws and policies on internal displacement based on the Guiding Principles.

In 2007, the UN estimated the number of people displaced within their countries by armed conflicts and violence to be more than 26 million, with Africa hosting almost half of them - 12.7 million - and generating nearly half of the world’s newly displaced (1.6 million).

Mohamed said: "There are attempts, at the regional level, to domesticate the protocols of the Great Lakes Process. Once this is done, then Kenya will domesticate these protocols," Mohamed said.

Human rights commission

Fatma Ibrahim, a commissioner with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, said although the government had greatly helped the IDPs who fled their homes in January and February, "Operation Rudi Nyumbani" left a lot to be desired.

"In our own assessment, we do agree that, yes, the government has done some good work in providing food, medical aid and financial assistance to some of the displaced, but in terms of their resettlement, we feel that the poor involvement of the IDPs in a substantive way weakens the application of the UN's Guiding Principles."

She said gaps remained in the dissemination of information to IDPs on their rights, which the Guiding Principles specify.

"They IDPs feel they were not adequately consulted on the resettlement process; those remaining in camps are not clear about their entitlement; there seems to be insufficient information to the IDPs on what is available and what they are entitled to; our assessment found that there was little information-sharing in this regard."

Ibrahim said the government had used only public rallies, known as `barazas’, to inform the IDPs of their rights.

"This way of disseminating information is weak, the heavy-handedness from the provincial authorities in some instances, such as giving deadlines for the displaced to leave camps, and the lack of substantive participation of the IDPs in the process, were in violation of the Guiding Principles," she said.

She said the government should adhere to the standards provided for in the Guiding Principles and in international humanitarian law in the resettlement of IDPs.

When the government closes a camp yet some IDPs remain at the camp or gives a three-day deadline for the IDPs to leave the camp, the question is, why close the camps? Doesn't this mean the displaced are being forced out of these camps?" Ibrahim said.

UN humanitarian coordinator

Aeneas Chuma, the Kenya UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, said on 15 October that displacement does not end with the return home of the displaced. It ends "when particular needs and vulnerabilities linked to the displacement are resolved, and not always with return".

Chuma said: "For these people [IDPs] and for those who have not yet returned, continued assistance and support is required to find durable solutions."

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International Organization for Migration - History
http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/lang/en/pid/11

IOM, or as it was first known, the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME), was born in 1951 out of the chaos and displacement of Western Europe following the Second World War.

Mandated to help European governments to identify resettlement countries for the estimated 11 million people uprooted by the war, it arranged transport for nearly a million migrants during the 1950s.

A succession of name changes from PICMME to the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) in 1952, to the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration (ICM) in 1980 to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in 1989, reflects the organization's transition over half a century from logistics agency to migration agency.

While IOM's history tracks the man-made and natural disasters of the past half century - Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Chile 1973, the Vietnamese Boat People 1975, Kuwait 1990, Kosovo and Timor 1999, and the Asian tsunami and Pakistan earthquake of 2004/2005 - its credo that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society has steadily gained international acceptance.

From its roots as an operational logistics agency, it has broadened its scope to become the leading international agency working with governments and civil society to advance the understanding of migration issues, encourage social and economic development through migration, and uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants.

The broader scope of activities has been matched by rapid expansion from a relatively small agency into one with an annual operating budget of close to $1 billion and some 5,400 staff working in over 100 countries worldwide.

As "The Migration Agency" IOM has become the point of reference in the heated global debate on the social, economic and political implications of migration in the 21st century.

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Picture: The plight of the IDPs
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