In the case of Kenya, the burden of hosting Somali refugees seem to have weighed heaviest since 2011, the year that marked two decades of hosting Somali refugees who fled the war-ravaged Somalia after the ousting of President Siad Barre in 1991. The year 2011 was not only the 20th anniversary of hosting Somali refugees in Kenya, but it also
130Presidential Press Service ‗Uhuru: security key to relocation of refugees‘ in The Sunday Nation ,7th May 2013.This was part of President Uhuru Kenyatta‘s comments during The Somali Conference in London on 7 May, 2013.Available at https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Uhuru-Security-key-to-relocation-of-
refugees/1056-1845230-jkqs41/index.html[Accessed 7th May, 2018]
56 marked the beginning of a war between Kenya and Al Shabaab militants inside Somalia.
Announcing the war on Al Shabaab, the Government of Kenya maintained that it was not at war with Somalia but were simply in hot pursuit of the militant group that had infiltrated across the Kenyan border.131 The Kenyan military engagement inside Somalia led to several reprisal attacks in Dadaab refugee camps, targeting Kenyan government security agents, namely the police and the military132. While it is difficult to identify the actual perpetrators of these attacks in the refugee camps, the government of Kenya maintained that Somali refugees were supporting armed militias within and outside Kenya and consequently started calls for refugees to repatriate to their home country.
Even though Kenya would want Somali refugees repatriated as soon as possible, it has an international obligation in terms of the Somali refugees. Kenya is signatory to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol as well as to the 1969 OAU Convention Governing Specific Aspects of the Refugee Problem in Africa.133This in essence means that Kenya is obliged to conform to the provisions of these refugee instruments, even as it seeks that the voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees be sooner rather than later.
131 Presidential Press Service ‗Kenya not at war with Somalia‘ Daily Nation Newspaper, Friday October 28, 2011. p1. Available at https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Kenya-not-at-war-with-Somalia/1056-1263672- o8m60dz/index.html[Accessed 7th May, 2018] This were comments made by Kenya‘s then president Mwai Kibaki while attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government in Perth, Australia. Kenya declared war on militant group Al Shabaab on 16th October 2011.
132‗Explosion kills Policeman in Dadaab Refugee camp‘ The Standard Newspaper, Monday, December 5th, 2011.The militant group Al Shabaab have since mid-October 2011 used guerilla tactics to kill tens of police and military officers in Kenya especially in Northeastern and Coastal parts of Kenya.
133Kenya ratified the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol in 1981 and the 1968 OAU Convention in 1972.
57 Kenya‘s claim that Somali refugees contribute to insecurity in Kenya seems to resonate with Crisp‘s assertion that Somali men and adolescents are sometimes obliged to leave the camps in Dadaab to fight134 on behalf of a particular clan or faction within their country of origin. This notwithstanding, various state and non-state actors have called on Kenya to avoid the general condemnation of Somali refugees as violent, but to seek to weed out criminal elements among the refugees in the Dadaab camps. Kenyan Somalis have also called on the Government of Kenya to stop the blanket condemnation of Somali refugees arguing that they have suffered from the stigma too. This is because according to Prestholdt, Muslims in Kenya (including Somali refugees) are unfairly targeted135by anti- terrorism initiatives largely supported by the United States of America (USA).The Muslim community complains of victimization by security apparatus. According to Prestholdt,
Most notably, the Kenyan government has pursued the domestic war on terrorism by means that are often heavy handed and ineffective. Instead of addressing the ease with which terrorists enter Kenya or the limitations of Kenya‘s intelligence apparatus, authorities have often articulated the problem of terrorism narrowly, as one nurtured by Kenya‘s Muslim minority.136
134J. Crisp, ‗A State Of Insecurity: The Political Economy Of Violence In Kenya's Refugee Camps‘ vol.99, no.
397, p. 603
135Muslims, especially of Arab descent, like the Somali, seem to have been victimized. This may have been informed by the wrong perception that Muslim Arabs were ‗likely‘ to be terrorists. The largely publicized photo of late leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, who was Arab, seem to have entrenched this negative perception. See alsoJ. Prestholdt, ‗ Kenya, the United States, and Counterterrorism‘, Africa Today, Vol. 57, No. 4, 2011.p.5
136J. Prestholdt, ‗Kenya, the United States, and Counterterrorism‘, Africa Today, Vol. 57, No. 4, 2011.p.5
58 While a few armed refugees could be a threat to the stability of both the hosting and the home countries, the physical security of refugees themselves is also crucial. The fact that refugee protection and security lies in the hands of the host government brings the level of that protection into question, when the government that is expected to provide the protection is demanding that refugees should repatriate. The need to reconcile the interests of each side, in the best long term interests of the refugees and the host state is essential in order to avoid potential conflict.
The perception of refugees as a political problem is not a novel phenomenon. Gil Loescher stresses the need to not only see refugees as a humanitarian problem but also as a political security problem. He argues that:
Too often refugees are perceived as a matter for international charity organizations, and not as a political and security problem, yet refugee problems are in fact intensely political. The presence of refugees accelerates existing internal conflicts in the host countries. During the 1980s, for example, the proliferation of arms following the influx of three million Afghans contributed to a resurgence of Pathan conquest in Pakistan. Elsewhere, Palestinian refugees upset delicate domestic balances in Lebanon and Jordan137.
The presence of refugees in many third world host states is further compounded by armed groups of exiles actively engaged in warfare with political objectives. Loescher contends that refugee warriors invite military retaliation, complicate relations with other
137G. Loescher, Refugee Movements and International Security, Adelphi Paper 268, London, Brassey‘s for IISS, 1992, p14.
59 states and threaten the host states and the security of their citizens138. As a result, host countries have often been unwillingly drawn into conflicts with their neighbours.
According to him, the dilemma for the African states, therefore, is a dilemma between a humanitarian concern for refugees, and a realization that refugees can be a source of tension between the African states. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention on refugees also recognized the political aspects of refugees (OAU, 1969). In addition, refugee flows present a challenge to one of the key principles of state sovereignty: the control of borders and of non-citizens in the country. According to Jacobsen, ‗the most serious of these problems is cross-border raids and the import of conflict from the sending country‘139.
Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania are also stigmatized for being highly militarized and for harbouring rebel movements, including Centre for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD)140, Party of the Liberation of the Hutu People (Palipehutu)141, and Front for National Liberation (Frolina)142. This accusation is partly a result of a well waged
138 G. Loescher, Refugee Movements and International Security, Adelphi Paper 268, London, Brassey‘s for IISS, 1992, p14.
139 K, Jacobsen, ‗Can Refugees Benefit the State? Refugee Resources and African State building‘, The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol.40, no.4, 2002, p. 586.
140 CNDD: Centre for the Defense of Democracy, with its splinter group CNDD-FDD (Forces for the Defense of Democracy), W. Nindorera, The CNDD-FDD in Burundi: The path from armed to political struggle, Berlin, Berghof Foundation, Transition Series No.10, 2012.
141Palipehutu: Party of the Liberation of the Hutu People. It launched cross-border incursions against Burundi beginning in the 1980s.It recruited from refugee camps and settlements, and carried out active training and small scale cross-border attacks from the bush not far from their Tanzanian encampments. See www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ad4c74.html (accessed 1 December 2017)
142Frolina: Front for National Liberation. It launched cross-border incursions against Burundi beginning in the 1980s.It recruited from refugee camps and settlements, and carried out active training and small scale
60 propaganda campaign by the Buyoya Government in Burundi143.Tanzania‘s experience of the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire between 1994 and 1996, which included perpetrators of the genocide144 raised security concerns.
Oroub El-Abed, argue that refugees can be of benefit145 to the host governments if they are allowed to work unhindered and become productive members of the society.She admits that most governments, however, have been reluctant to incorporate refugees in their national systems146.
A good example in support of Oroub-El-Abed‘s argument is that of Palestinian refugees who have been integrated with Egyptian communities to such an extent that they are virtually undistinguishable from one another147. On the contrary, proponents of repatriation maintain that ‗to be rooted is perhaps the most important and least cross-border attacks from the bush not far from their Tanzanian encampments. See also The AU and the Research for Peace and Reconciliation in Burundi and Comoros, Centre for Human Dialogue, 2011.
143Major Pierre Buyoya led a military coup d‘état in September 1987 against the second Republic of Burundi, lead by Jean-Babtiste Bagaza and installed himself as the first president of the Third Republic.
Although he had proclaimed an agenda of liberalization and mending relations between Hutu and Tutsi, he presided over an oppressive regime consisting primarily of Tutsi people. Hutu people led uprising in 1988 that claimed approximately 20,000 lives. After the assassination of president Melchior Ndadaye on October 1993(only 4 months after winning election), Buyoya intensified military campaigns against interim president Ntibantunganya and toppled him in July 1996.
144 When genocide occurred in Rwanda in 1994, nearly two million refugees fled into Eastern Zaire. Those refugees included the ex-Far and Interahamwe, and former Rwandan officials involved in the genocide. See also International Crisis Group Report, Nairobi, 25 November 1999, ‗Burundi Refugees in Tanzania: The Key Factor to the Burundi Peace Process‘.
145Oroub El-Abed, Unprotected Palestinians in Egypt since 1948. Ontario: Co-Published by Institute for Palestinian Studies, Washington DC and International Development Research Centre Ottawa, 2009, p.170.
146O. El-Abed, Unprotected Palestinians in Egypt since 1948. Ontario: Co-Published by Institute for Palestinian Studies, Washington DC and International Development Research Centre Ottawa, 2009, p.170.
147 L. Brand, ‗Nassir‘s Egypt and the Re-emergence of the Palestinian National Movement‘, Journal of Palestinian Studies, vol.17, no. 2 , 1988, p.85.
61 recognized need of the human soul148‘.While this quotation may apply to integration, it is assumed that a sense of belonging seems to be more real and natural in repatriation as compared, relatively, to integration. Ignatieff also argues that, ‗belonging…is first and foremost protection from violence149‘. The Co-ordinator of the Mozambique Repatriation Operation observed, ‗…people have this strong, compelling urge to go home. The yearning to return is not reduced by the time they spend away150‘.
It is clear therefore that while Oroub El-Abed‘s idea of integrating refugees into the host state is worthwhile, it works on the assumption that all refugees embrace integration to the host state which may not be the case. This was revealed by Rwandan and Burundian refugees in Tanzania, where some rejected the offer151. Because of the concept of ―home‖
and belonging, therefore, repatriation may be easily embraced by many refugees if prevailing circumstances in home countries allow for such repatriation.