74 solution for refugees in cases of protracted conflicts. Given that repatriation remains the optimum solution to refugee problems, especially when dealing with large numbers of refugees, there is evidently a need to better understand past repatriation experiences and the problems that have been generated by repatriation processes180. Although repatriation has been termed as the optimum solution when dealing with large numbers, other researchers note that ‗what is being promoted as the most desirable solution to refugee crises is poorly understood social and spatial phenomena‘.181
75 there is little evidence to suggest that refugees have first been consulted, either on an international or on a local level. Arrangements to ensure that, before making a decision to repatriate, refugees have access to sources of information concerning conditions in their home country (which they can consider credible), have been unsatisfactory. In some cases, this right has even been denied184.
A more serious obstacle to the development of the study of forced migration is a disturbing tendency for many of those who have begun to publish on refugee issues to place an uncritical reliance on the statements, position papers and other literature produced by humanitarian agencies, despite the glaring absence of findings from independent field research which are needed to substantiate185 them. As a result, these have been incorporated into academic writing and publications, and researchers have given them credibility rather than questioning or examining the assumptions and articles of faith that dominate the refugee regime. The dissertation will contribute in highlighting repatriation processes and actors in Dadaab refugee camp. The voices of individual refugees are comprehensively discussed to allow a bottom-up approach to the refugee situation in Dadaab.
184B. Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p.
199.
185B. Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p.43
76 Perhaps the ideas of Harrel-Bond regarding the need to get views from individual refugees, UNHCR agency staff on the ground, local host community members and government officials manning the refugee camps could have been based on an assumption that there could be glaring differences of opinion between the situation in the refugee camps and the reports gathered by mainstream agencies purporting to represent refugees in those camps. More reliable information could be obtained through independent field research where information is obtained from refugee stakeholders on the ground. The repatriation debate, among other refugee issues, therefore, should not be left to states and other international bodies alone, but refugees and host communities, too, must be brought on board. This will ensure that the voices of the masses (refugees) are heard from among the elites (governments and international agencies) who, in most cases, make decisions on behalf of refugees. Refugees, in most cases, feel isolated in the Tripartite Agreements. Such feelings of isolation of refugees in the Tripartite Agreement were captured by one camp staff member at Kibondo in Tanzania:
Refugees are still fearful of refoulement. The initiation of the organised repatriation program occurred simultaneously when rations to the camps were cut due to transport problems. This caused many refugees to think that the repatriation was forced. The
77 refugees have told the camp staff that they do not understand why they were not included as participants in the Tripartite Agreement.186
The challenges of implementing the tripartite repatriation agreements call for a more refugee-centered initiative on repatriation characterized by sincere participation, consultation and inclusion. The study endeavours to not only fill this gap and contribute to this missing body of knowledge but to also suggest a more refugee centered approach to repatriation even when tripartite agreements do not exist.
Thus, a notable vacuum in the literature is the missing voice of refugees regarding their role in the tripartite agreements. Most tripartite agreements seem to be more reactive than proactive in having a more sustainable repatriation programme. Many protracted conflicts, for instance, lack a sustained programme of meaningful repatriation where the returnee is facilitated to integrate and participate in the daily process of rebuilding the nation.
Because of the missing link in the active repatriation process centered on the refugees themselves, most of the so called voluntary repatriation could be premature repatriation
186 International Crisis Group Report of 25 November 1999, ‗Burundi Refugees in Tanzania: The Key Factor to the Burundi Peace Process‘, p.10
78 with devastating results. Barry Stein187 argues that premature repatriation comes when both the country of origin and the refugees are not ready for it, and the conditions at home have not changed sufficiently to pull the refugees home. In this case, neither the refugees nor their homeland are reconciled or ready for the return. Consequently, premature returnees are pushed188 out by threats, attack, and expulsion rather than pulled home by peace and safety.
Besides the lack of refugee voices in the repatriation processes, literature challenging the refugee regimes are scarce. As this study suggests, it is time that focus shifted to reviewing the whole refugee regime that was drafted to address the post-World War II refugee crisis, then perceived as a temporary problem. The 21stCentury realities have changed as refugee situations continue to be more protracted and complex, and involving larger number of refugees. The fact that most literature seems to focus on the plight of refugees and not the reasons for their plight is also explored in the study.
While many tripartite agreements provide for the physical security of refugees upon return, and their access to previous property that they owned,189 the ability of the state to actually enforce these provisions is often more of an assumption rather than a reality.
187 B. Stein, ‗Refugee Repatriation, Return and Refoulement during conflict‘, Promoting Democracy, Human Rights and Reintegration in Post-conflict Societies, USAID 1997, p.4.
188 B. Stein, ‗Refugee Repatriation, Return and Refoulement during conflict‘, Promoting Democracy, Human Rights and Reintegration in Post-conflict Societies, USAID 1997, p.4.
189 See clause 6 of the Tripartite Agreement on the voluntary repatriation of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in the United Republic of Tanzania signed on 20th January,2005.
79 Most post-conflict governments are normally too weak to enforce such rights and in most cases the returnees soon realize that their lives and property could be in danger, a situation similar to, or worse than what necessitated the flight in the first place.