Starting Points: refugees

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Jun 27, 2010

“Welcome to Kenya” | Human Rights Watch

Police Abuse of Somali Refugees

June 17, 2010

Based on interviews with over 100 refugees, this 99-page report documents widespread police extortion of asylum seekers trying to reach three camps near the Kenyan town of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee settlement. Police use violence, arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention in inhuman and degrading conditions, threats of deportation, and wrongful prosecution for "unlawful presence" to extort money from the new arrivals - men, women, and children alike. In some cases, police also rape women. In early 2010 alone, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Somalis unable to pay extortion demands were sent back to Somalia, in flagrant violation of Kenyan and international law.

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ISBN: 1-56432-641-1

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Jun 19, 2010

In Eritrea, the Young Dream of Leaving

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

AMMAN, Jordan — Long before he learned to dunk on warped wooden backboards, Awet Eyob nursed a dream: to play basketball in America.

He is 6-foot-8, built like an oak tree, and seems to have mastered a behind-the-back dribble and crisp passes from the corner of his eye.

But one big problem stood between him and his dream: his homeland, Eritrea, an isolated, secretive nation in the Horn of Africa that is refusing to let its young people leave.

Eritrea, which fought its way to independence nearly 20 years ago, is ruled by hard-as-nails former guerrilla fighters who have held firm to their revolutionary Marxist policies and who demand that all young people work for the government, sometimes until their 40s. Anyone who tries to buck this national program, according to human rights groups, is subject to cruelly inventive tortures.

So this January, in great secrecy, Mr. Awet gathered four pairs of boxers, two pairs of socks, his high school transcript, his Air Jordans and some cash to pay a gang of human traffickers (or coyotes, as he calls them).

“I remember that first call,” he said. “The coyote said: ‘Hello, this is Sunshine.’ I answered, ‘This is Thunder.’ ”

Mr. Awet, 20, who is now living in Amman, Jordan, is the embodiment of Eritrea’s lost generation. This tiny country is spawning more refugees per capita than just about anywhere else in the world, according to United Nations statistics, and most of them are young men, and often the country’s most promising ones at that.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that hundreds of thousands of people have fled Eritrea in recent years — the total population is less than five million — and nearly every day, 100 new Eritreans risk their lives to cross into Sudan.

The New York Times

Hundreds of thousands have fled Eritrea in recent years.

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Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

Many young Eritreans complain of being chained to government jobs in Asmara.

Enlarge This Image

Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

Mr. Awet, 20, fled Eritrea and is now staying in an American family’s home in Amman, below. He hopes to get into an American college or prep school.

Some of these defections have been hard to miss. In December, more than 10 players from the Eritrean national soccer team absconded to Kenya during a tournament. In 2004, some Eritrean refugees being sent home from Libya were so desperate not to return that they hijacked the plane.

Many never make it out. One of Mr. Awet’s friends recently won a four-year, $200,000 scholarship to a prestigious American university. “He should have been sent out with a garland of flowers,” said the boy’s father, with tears in his eyes.

Instead, the boy was arrested trying to defect in time to register for classes. He was drafted into the military and deployed near Eritrea’s southern border, one of the hottest places on earth.

Mr. Awet was lucky. Dressed in an extra, extra large gallebeyah (a long flowing gown common in the Muslim world), he sneaked through Sudan and then on to Kenya and Dubai. He is now camped out in the basement of an American family’s home here, doing push-ups, working on his jump shot, playing on a Wii set with the family’s children and trying to get into an American college or prep school.

A big reason why he has gotten this far is Matthew Smith, a gregarious, athletic American diplomat who befriended Mr. Awet a couple years ago on a basketball court in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, where Mr. Smith was working. Mr. Smith was impressed by the young man’s game, but more than that, he was moved by Mr. Awet’s burning ambition to break out of his hermetically sealed world.

“He wanted more, and I could relate to that,” said Mr. Smith, whose father was a taxi driver in Brooklyn. “Who would’ve ever thought the kid of a cabbie and nanny could be a diplomat?”

Mr. Smith matched up Mr. Awet with an American basketball coach in Amman who is now training him.

“His skills were better than I expected,” said the coach, Robert Taylor, who was sitting next to Mr. Awet on a stack of exercise mats in a high school gym. “No offense, Awet, but Eritrea isn’t exactly known for its basketball.”

If Eritrea is especially well-known for anything these days, it is for being a troublemaker in a very volatile neighborhood. The nation has been accused of invading Djibouti in 2008 and fueling chaos in Somalia by arming insurgent groups, prompting sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.

But Eritrea has a proud history, fighting a grueling 30-year guerrilla war to break away from Ethiopia.

Mr. Awet’s name, in fact, means victory. He was born at home, by candlelight, in February 1990, on the eve of independence, right after a legendary battle.

He was always big. He was selected to play for the national basketball team when he was 15, and earned the nickname King A. By Eritrean standards, he had an enviable life, with a wealthy merchant father, good grades and a touch of fame.

But Dan Franch, his high school literature teacher, could tell he was not happy.

“I knew he wanted to leave, and I didn’t blame him,” Mr. Franch said. “This place is becoming inert. You encourage students to apply to college overseas but their chances of going are one in a gazillion.”

On the surface, life for young Eritreans does not look so bad. Asmara is littered with chrome-lined Art Deco cafes where young people sip cappuccinos and munch on pizza. But many young people complain (quietly) of being chained to dead-end government jobs. By law, mandatory national service is supposed to last 18 months. In reality, it is often indefinite, and few can get permits to exit the country until they are done serving. The government justifies this because of a highly militarized, unresolved border dispute with its neighbor, Ethiopia, nearly 20 times its size.

Mr. Awet says he probably will not see his parents for years because now that he has escaped, it will be dangerous to go back home.

At night, when he cannot sleep, he takes out a tiny prayer book his mother gave him — the cover is literally the size of a postage stamp — and thinks of her. Or he stretches out on a single bed with his feet nearly dangling off, listening to rap songs on his MP3 player and nurturing his dream.

“I used to dream about the money and the cars and the girls,” he sings. “But now I see, because I’m sitting on top of the world.”

Jun 18, 2010

U.N. doubles estimate of Uzbek refugees as crisis grows in Kyrgyzstan

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By Philip P. Pan
Friday, June 18, 2010; A18

OSH, KYRGYZSTAN -- The United Nations said Thursday that some 400,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan, doubling its estimate of the number of refugees here and acknowledging that it was having trouble delivering aid because of continuing violence.

The new U.N. assessment highlighting the severity of the crisis came as the Kyrgyz military appeared to run into difficulties in its effort to restore order to the region, where more than 2 million people live. At least 180 have been killed in clashes between Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks over the past week.

For a third straight day, conditions seemed to improve, with more residents feeling safe enough to venture out of their homes. But witnesses reported sporadic gunfire as troops patrolled the streets, including shots fired by unidentified gunmen at aid workers attempting to distribute food.

A children's home was reported to have been looted and set on fire, and in the afternoon, a dark plume of smoke could be seen rising from a village outside Osh, the country's second-largest city, where several Uzbek districts have been burned to the ground.

In another incident that suggested the volatility of the situation, a motorist stopped in Osh at what appeared to be a military checkpoint was asked his ethnicity, and when he said he was Uzbek, one of the uniformed men allegedly drew a knife and threatened to slit his throat. The driver tried to escape but was shot, according to his niece, Zebeil Hamrayava, 32, who said he had been hospitalized in serious condition.

Hamrayava said it was unclear whether the men at the checkpoint were Kyrgyz soldiers or impostors. But her account of the shooting dovetailed with other reports of Kyrgyz men in military uniforms targeting ethnic Uzbeks who leave their enclaves.

The behavior of the army and police during the past week's violence is a major grievance among Uzbeks, who accuse the security forces of letting Kyrgyz mobs run wild for several days, and in many cases, of taking part in the mayhem and slaughter themselves. While Uzbeks make up nearly half the region's population, almost all soldiers and police here are ethnic Kyrgyz.

Bakytbek Alymbekov, a deputy interior minister and the top police official in the Osh region, acknowledged that Uzbeks were wary of the troops that have been dispatched across the city.

But he said investigators had not identified any soldiers or police involved in the violence and suggested that those who organized the riots had distributed uniforms and weapons to the mobs. He added that the crowds managed to seize control of military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, in the first few days of the chaos.

Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch researcher investigating the clashes in Osh, said the testimony he has collected thus far indicates that Kyrgyz troops at the very least ignored the attacks on Uzbek neighborhoods.

"It seems to be an extreme failure on the part of the government to intervene and protect these people," he said.

Kyrgyzstan's shaky interim government has accused the deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and his family of triggering the riots by paying gunmen to attack Kyrgyz and Uzbek neighborhoods. In recent days, the government has also begun to shift the blame toward ethnic Uzbek politicians, many of whom had been strong allies in opposing Bakiyev and his base of ethnic Kyrgyz supporters in the south.

By turning against the Uzbek leaders and accusing them of provoking the riots with radical political demands, the new government appears to be trying to win support by tapping into Kyrgyz nationalism, including anger over foreign news media reports showing that Uzbeks bore the brunt of the violence.

Speaking to reporters in Bishkek, the capital, a deputy prime minister, Azimbek Beknazarov, suggested that the government was planning to detain Kadyrzhan Batyrov, a leading Uzbek nationalist, and had already taken two of his followers into custody.

Any attempt to arrest Batyrov and other Uzbek community leaders is likely to further alienate Uzbek residents, who are furious at the government and its security forces and have used buses, trucks and trees to set up makeshift barricades meant to keep Kyrgyz out.

The barricades have made it difficult to deliver relief aid to the Uzbek villages and neighborhoods where it is needed most, and Kyrgyz officials have debated trying to use force to reach some of the Uzbek refugee settlements -- a move that human rights activists say could cause further bloodshed.

According to a new estimate by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, about 260,000 people displaced from their homes have been taken in by relatives or others, and 40,000 have been left without any shelter.

"No U.N. agency is on the ground at the moment," said Andrej Mahecic, a U.N. spokesman. "For the humanitarians to go, there must be a minimum of a security environment so they can do their work."

Another 100,000 refugees have crossed the border into Uzbekistan, where aid is getting through and conditions in the camps are generally better, he said.

In his remarks, Beknazarov also said the government was trying to extradite Bakiyev's son, Maxim, from Britain, where he reportedly sought political asylum this week.

Beknazarov accused him of playing a key role in provoking the riots and linked the disposition of his case to the future of a U.S. air base in northern Kyrgyzstan that supplies NATO operations in Afghanistan.

"If the U.K. does not extradite Maxim Bakiyev to Kyrgyzstan, then the interim government has no other choice but to expel the Americans from the air base," he said, according to the local AKI-Press news agency.

Apr 17, 2010

For Somalis caught between Islamists and weak government, fleeing is only option

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By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 17, 2010; A01

IFO, KENYA -- Two Islamist militants delivered an ultimatum to Zahra Allawi's daughters: marry them or die. The men were from al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda that is fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government. The two girls were 14 and 16.

Allawi said her neighbor in southeastern Somalia received the same command. But he swiftly married off his daughter to someone else. The next day, the fighters returned with a butcher's knife.

"They slaughtered him like a goat," she recalled.

Three hours later, she and her 10 children fled. After handing their life savings of $300 to a smuggler, they crossed into northeastern Kenya last month, joining tens of thousands of Somalis in this sprawling refugee settlement. They are the human fallout from Africa's most notorious failed state, haunted by unending conflict and a quiet U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

About 2 million Somalis, roughly one-fifth of the population, have sought refuge in other parts of their country or in neighboring countries, most of them since 2007, when the fighting intensified. Nearly 170,000 have fled this year alone, according to U.N. officials, arriving in desolate camps inside and outside Somalia with barely anything except the clothes on their backs.

Many are running from al-Shabab's radical dictates and increasing savagery, as well as fears of a major government offensive.

This article is based on more than 60 interviews conducted in Somali refugee communities in Kenya and Yemen. The refugees' stories of life under al-Shabab could not be independently verified, but community leaders, refugee officials and human rights groups as well as al-Shabab spokesmen gave similar accounts of recent events in Somalia.

Allawi had plenty of reasons to flee. Al-Shabab fighters, she said, once whipped her for not attending midday prayers at the mosque. Last month, she was forced to prove that the man she was walking with was her husband.

An al-Shabab commander also sought to recruit two of Allawi's sons, ages 10 and 13. Allawi begged him not to take them. In exchange, he forced her to buy three weapons for his force.

"If they could all afford to come, not a single person would remain in Somalia," said Allawi, 37, seated with her children on the reddish, sunbaked earth a day after they arrived. "There is no freedom in Somalia, only death."

Instability since 1991

War has gripped Somalia since 1991, when the collapse of President Mohamed Siad Barre's regime plunged the country into lawlessness and clan fighting. Two years later, mobs dragged the bodies of U.S. soldiers through Mogadishu, the capital, during a U.N. peacekeeping mission, an event later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

The country has vexed U.S. policymakers, who fear that Somalia could become the next Afghanistan. In December 2006, the George W. Bush administration indirectly backed an Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamists, who had risen up against Somalia's secular warlords.

But within two years, the Islamists returned, more radicalized and led by al-Shabab, which in Arabic means "The Youth." The Obama administration and European nations are backing the Somali government with arms, training, logistics and intelligence.

Yet al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization, now controls large swaths of Somalia. It has imposed Taliban-like Islamic codes in a region where moderate Islam was once widely practiced. Urged on by Osama bin Laden, the group has steadily pushed into Mogadishu, importing foreign fighters and triggering U.S. concerns that the movement could spread to Yemen, across East Africa and beyond. Somalia's government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu and has little legitimacy elsewhere.

Many Somalis say they believe the United States is guiding the war.

"We expect American helicopters to strike Mogadishu at any moment," said Aslia Hassan, 40, who arrived at this refugee settlement three days ago with two small plastic bags of possessions. "This is why we are running."

Al-Shabab's dictates

The refugees say they are also escaping al-Shabab's puritanical dictates. Western and Somali music is outlawed in the areas the group controls in southern and central Somalia. Movie theaters have been shuttered, and the watching of films on DVDs is prohibited. In some areas, the refugees say, playing soccer -- and even watching it on television -- is banned. So is storing pictures on cellphones and using Western-sounding ringtones. Only Koranic music is allowed.

Al-Shabab's religious police, often led by children, order people to put out cigarettes and give haircuts at gunpoint to anyone with modern hairstyles or longish hair, the refugees say. As a warning to those who defy their dictates, al-Shabab fighters have displayed severed heads on steel poles.

Women must sheath themselves from head to toe in abayas made of thick cloth and are not allowed to wear bras. In Mogadishu, buses are segregated, with women sitting in the back.

"Even if a pregnant woman asks to sit in the front of the bus, where it is less bumpy, she will be refused," said Dahaba Duko Ali, 35.

She arrived here last month with her seven children, evading al-Shabab checkpoints. Fearing the police -- Kenya has closed its border with Somalia -- the smugglers drove along back roads and dropped the family just over the border. Under cover of night, Ali and her children walked 30 miles to Ifo.

Ali Mohamud Raghe, an al-Shabab spokesman, said that "our Islamic religion tells us" to separate men from women and for women to wear thick abayas. The militia forbids all "the evil things that infidels aim to spread" among young Muslim Somalis.

"So music is among the evil actions," he said in a telephone interview.

Even donkeys are not beyond al-Shabab's dictates. The militia has decreed that donkeys cannot wear harnesses, nor can they carry more than six sacks. They are also segregated: Women can use only female donkeys; men must use male ones. "How can I feed my children?" lamented Hassan Ali Ibrahim, 40, a gaunt donkey-cart driver who arrived in Yemen with his eight children.

Savage methods

On a Friday in October, the Ibrahim brothers -- Sayeed and Osman -- were taken from their prison cell in the coastal Somali town of Kismaayo. An al-Shabab court had convicted them of robbery, they said, adding that their imprisonment was politically motivated.

The brothers and a third inmate were driven in a minibus to a field in front of a police station. A crowd of 4,000 had gathered. Ten masked men stood in the field; one held a microphone and another clutched a knife, the brothers recalled.

The third inmate, in his early 20s, was taken out of the van. Several of the masked men held him down and his foot was chopped off above the ankle, the brothers recalled.

It took five minutes.

"God is great," chanted the fighters, drowning out the screams.

Minutes later, the brothers were taken out of the van. Sayeed looked away as his brother's leg was sliced off.

"I felt powerless," Sayeed said. "I wanted a miracle to happen."

A voice over the loudspeaker announced that Sayeed's right hand and left leg were to be amputated. By the time his limbs were hacked off, he had passed out. He woke up in a hospital. After 10 days, the brothers fled Kismaayo. In February, relatives hid them inside a crowded minibus and smuggled them into Kenya.

"What they did to us has nothing to do with Islam," said Osman, as he struggled to get up from a chair with his crutches.

But Mohammed Muse Gouled, 70, said al-Shabab had helped bring stability. For years, he said, warlords contested for power and territory, and chaos and insecurity grew. "No one can harm you under the Shabab," said Gouled, adding that he fled shelling by the regional African Union peacekeeping force.

One woman's journey

Habiba Abdi, 19, was five months pregnant and unmarried. Under the dictates of al-Shabab, she would have faced death by stoning. Fighters entered her neighborhood in Kismaayo, searching for the woman with the "illegal child."

She hid with relatives. Four days later, she begged a smuggler to take her to Kenya. A few months later, she had a baby girl. She named her Sabreen, which means "tolerance."

They live here with a cousin. Other refugees taunt her as the "one who broke the law of Islam." Some call her dhilo, or whore.

But she is more worried about al-Shabab. Last year, fighters from the militia crossed into Kenya and abducted three aid workers and a Somali cleric; last week, the group raided a Kenyan border town.

"Sometimes, I prefer to die," said Abdi, as she cradled Sabreen in her arms.

Jan 18, 2010

Refugees try to flee Port-au-Prince as security situation in Haiti deteriorates

Image by U.S. Coast Guard via Flickr

By William Booth, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 18, 2010; 1:05 PM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The number of refugees fleeing the Haitian capital surged Monday, as thousands fought to get on buses leaving for the countryside. Prices for tickets doubled as the buses jostled in long lines at gas stations.

The city's gas stations have fuel, but station owners refused to open because there was no security. At the United Nations compound by the airport, hundreds of trucks and soldiers from the international peacekeeping force sat idle.

Rumors circulated that the Haitian government was providing free transportation to anyone who wanted to leave Port-au-Prince and go to the provinces, but reporters driving around the city could find no free rides.

Instead, a trip to Les Cayes that would have cost $5 now costs $10, and many families were stranded with luggage beside the buses, without the money to pay for the journey of more than 100 miles.

"The numbers are growing every day for people who want to leave," said Michel Pierre Andre, a bus driver who makes the run to Jeremie, about 140 miles away. His bus was crammed to the roof with passengers but the driver had no gas. Drivers and passengers were screaming at the gas station manager to start pumping some fuel, but he refused.

"I go to Jeremie with a full load but I come back empty. Nobody wants to come to Port-au-Prince. There is nothing here. No food to buy. No work. No nothing," Pierre Andre said.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

In the capital center, at the sprawling tent cities by the destroyed National Palace, residents said they have not seen a single international aid group distribute food in five days. "I have been here every day. I heard they gave away some food but there was a riot. If you tell me they have been giving out food I will believe you, but we have been on this spot since the day of the earthquake and we have not seen anyone give away anything but water," said Jean Marie Magarette, who was camping with her mother, sister and four children.

Desperate Haitians continue to struggle to find food and water while guarding their meager possessions against the advance of looters as the United States and other nations struggled to jump-start a sluggish relief effort.

Even as Navy and Coast Guard ships arrived offshore, a round-the-clock airlift intensified and additional dignitaries appeared, the frantic victims of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake were growing more fearful as they pleaded for help and security in a lawless city.

With massive amounts of aid promised but not yet delivered because of the difficulty of operating in the crippled country, amid what U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called "one of the most serious crises in decades," the living banded together outdoors without shelter, sustenance or protection.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

There was widespread apprehension that, unless the pace of aid distribution quickens, there could be mass violence as hundreds of thousands of people suddenly lacking food, water and electricity begin to compete for scarce resources.

"We worry," said Laurence Acluche, a Haitian National Police officer. "We are all concerned about food."

There has already been scattered looting in recent days, but so far it has been primarily confined to damaged buildings. Still, Haiti has long lacked a robust security presence, and the earthquake has further eroded what little there had been, meaning violence could quickly escalate once it starts.

On Sunday, many merchants were afraid to open their stores for fear that they would be overrun by hungry, desperate quake victims. Even pharmacies remained shuttered.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

"We need the Haitian forces to protect us," said Cledanor Sully, owner of a small Port-au-Prince hotel called the Seven Stars. Sully sleeps in a park across the street from his damaged -- but still standing -- hotel, fearful that looters will make off with mattresses and dressers. "We're all scared. We need the United Nations and we need the United States Marines."

Indeed, all over Port-au-Prince, signs begging for help from the Marines have been sprouting. In front of one crushed office building, a typical sign read: "Welcome the U.S. Marine. We need some help. Dead bodies inside." Another read: "U.S. Marines SOS. We need help."

At this point, though, it's unlikely that there will be a dramatic expansion of the U.S. military presence in Port-au-Prince. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this weekend that there will be up to 10,000 U.S. forces in Haiti and off its coast by Monday, but only a fraction of them will be on the ground.

"The bulk of them will be on ships," he said.

The troops that have been deployed to Haiti have been slow in arriving. Military officials blame delays in getting troops to Port-au-Prince in part on the city's small, overburdened airport. "It's a huge traffic issue," said Capt. John Kirby, spokesman for the military joint task force. He also said the task force's commander wants to ensure that flights with soldiers are not preempting the arrival of aid supplies.

"We're not the only country flying in here," Kirby said.

After the French group Doctors Without Borders issued a public call that its planes be allowed to land to treat the wounded, its hospital plane received clearance at about 3 p.m. Sunday. An Air Force official said the U.S. military turned away only three of the 67 civilian flights trying to arrive Saturday.

But the dearth of security forces on the ground in Port-au-Prince is actually delaying the provision of food and medical aid, some aid workers say. For instance, the Colombian Red Cross has a mobile clinic on the ground, but it can't set it up until security is arranged.

"We're negotiating with" the U.N., a Colombian government official said.

The UN Security Council on Monday endorsed a proposal by Secretary General Ban to send 3,500 peacekeepers -- 2,500 troops and 1,000 police -- to help maintain order to secure humanitarian relief operations. The Security Council is expected to hold a formal vote on that proposal Tuesday morning. The U.S. has also drafted a resolution that would authorize an expansion of the more than 9,000 strong peacekeeping force to more than 12,500 troops.

A senior U.S. official here said the U.S. would consider any requests for contributions, but underscored the fact that there was already has a substantial American military presence in Haiti. The draft resolution expresses "deepest sympathy and solidarity" with those affected by the Jan 12 earthquake. It "endorse the recommendation by the Secretary General to increase the overall force levels of MINUSTAH to support the immediate recovery and stability efforts."

The U.S. 18th Airborne has already set up a headquarters at the airport, and the 82nd Airborne was establishing small posts around the city to protect food and water drops. The 82nd Airborne had 500 troops here as of Sunday night, and 750 more were expected Monday.

But there was almost no Haitian law enforcement presence on the streets of Port-au-Prince on Sunday. For years, blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeeping forces have patrolled with city in armored personnel carriers and trucks. But the U.N. force is deeply unpopular, and its ability to respond to the crisis has been hampered by leadership problems. The force's acting commissioner died during the earthquake, and his replacement did not arrive for several days.

"The blue helmets, they don't do anything," said Gregoire Sancerre, a computer technology student, echoing a frequent refrain here. "If you have trouble and call them, they won't come. They are afraid of gangsters. What use are they?"

Haiti's small national police force suffered losses when a police station and prison collapsed during the quake, killing at least eight officers and eight inmates. Dozens of police uniforms were destroyed in the collapse, adding to the general sense of confusion in the streets because there are not enough uniforms for surviving officers.

The loss of the prison, in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, leaves police with fewer options to detain suspected criminals.

Even under normal circumstances, the national police are sorely outmatched. Port-au-Prince has long been plagued by violent gangs that control huge swaths of the city, including much of the notorious Cite Soleil slum.

The signs of growing strain were evident Sunday as U.N. police in riot gear pushed back crowds of Haitians massing around one of the main gates to Port-au-Prince's airport. Residents know that food supplies are being warehoused at the airport, and some have gone there, hoping for provisions -- even though no food is being distributed at the airport.

David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said his group expected to distribute high-energy biscuits to 67,000 people on Sunday after passing out 40,000 on Saturday, 25,000 on Friday and 10,000 on Thursday. Despite the increased distribution, the food situation is so dire that residents were picking through a trash bin in Port-au-Prince. Local suppliers have been sharply raising their prices, sometimes doubling the cost of items such as juice, water and rice.

Seven field hospitals have been set up in Port-au-Prince by international organizations, and three more were supposed to open Sunday, said Nicholas Reader, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian relief effort.

Port-au-Prince's overwhelmed city hospitals were dealing with a new problem on Sunday: patients who had been treated and were well enough to be released but were refusing to leave.

"They have nowhere to go," Reader said. "Their homes have been destroyed. So they are staying. So the hospitals are literally overflowing with people."

Ban, the U.N. secretary general, made his first visit to Haiti since the earthquake and spoke briefly and emotionally to U.N. staff members coping with their own losses from the collapse of their headquarters. Patrick Hein, an injured U.N. staffer whose wife is still missing, pressed Ban "to take care of my wife." Later, in an interview, Hein criticized the organization for not doing more to find his wife and others in the rubble of a collapsed U.N. building.

Jan 12, 2010

Somalis fleeing to Yemen prompt new worries in fight against al-Qaeda

Image by Remolacha.net pics via Flickr

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 12, 2010; A01

KHARAZ, YEMEN -- Thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials who have long welcomed Somali refugees now worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaeda fighters.

As the United States deepens its counterterrorism operations in Yemen, officials are concerned that extremists could find growing Somali refugee camps fertile ground for recruiting. U.S. and Yemeni authorities also fear that Islamist fighters from Somalia could slip into the country among the throngs of refugees, deepening ties between al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and the particularly hard-line militants of Somalia.

Fleeing a failed state for a failing one, the Somali youths arrive daily in this refugee outpost, which is filled with rickety tents and tales of misery, in the vast desert of southern Yemen. They bring stories of brutality and forced conscription by al-Shabab, an Islamist force battling Somalia's U.S.-backed transitional government.

"They ordered us to fight the nonbelievers," said Abdul Khadr Salot, 19, a burly ex-fighter with a thin scar across his cheek who escaped from a militant training camp. "Even if your father tells you to leave the Shabab, you must kill him."

Image by Monica's Dad via Flickr

But this longtime haven is becoming increasingly inhospitable since the United States bolstered its operations here, largely in response to the Yemeni al-Qaeda connections of the Nigerian man who allegedly tried to bomb a U.S. airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, and to the links of an extremist Yemeni American cleric to the Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Tex.

Yemen's fragile government fears that Somali fighters from al-Shabab will swell the ranks of Yemen's Islamist militants at a time when links between the Somali group and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are growing, according to Yemeni officials and analysts.

As it quietly wages war against extremists in the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Africa, the Obama administration could find itself confronting a unified, regional al-Qaeda on two continents. This would further stretch U.S. resources as Washington fights major conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It could also push Yemen -- beset by mounting internal strife, poor governance, extreme poverty and dwindling resources -- even deeper into a downward spiral.

"Somalia for Yemen is becoming like what Pakistan is for Afghanistan," said Saeed Obaid, a Yemeni terrorism expert who wrote a book on al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate.

Leaders of al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda's central body, said last week that they will send fighters to help al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That prompted Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi to issue a stern warning through the state-run Saba news agency that Yemen will not allow "any terrorist elements from any country to operate in its territory."

In recent days, Yemeni security forces have staged raids on Somali refugee communities, detaining suspected loyalists of al-Shabab, which means "The Youth." Overnight, an atmosphere of fear has gripped the community, which numbers more than 1 million.

"The climate has changed, and it is heating up," Mohammed Ali, a top leader of the Somali community in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, lamented over a glass of Somali coffee.

An estimated 74,000 African refugees, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, arrived in Yemen last year, 50 percent more than in 2008, according to statistics from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR officials say 309 either drowned in capsized boats or were killed by smugglers.

Forced recruitment

In September, a gang of al-Shabab fighters grabbed 14-year-old Saber Ahmed at his father's shop in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

They blindfolded him and took him to a nearby militia base, he said. There, they brought out recruits he knew from his neighborhood, who urged him to join. The peer pressure didn't work. Then, an al-Shabab commander gave him an ultimatum.

"He said, 'We will kill you if you don't join us,' " recalled Ahmed, tall and lanky with a soft voice and chiseled face.

After 20 days of training, he was sent to the front lines. Within hours, he said, a battle erupted; Ahmed was shot in the leg. He managed to crawl to his house. His father took him to a hospital. When Ahmed regained consciousness, his father gave him $100 and ordered him to flee to Yemen.

In the Somali port of Bossaso, he handed the money to a smuggler, who placed him on a crowded boat headed for a treacherous sea. As the boat neared Yemen, it flipped over. Ahmed swam nearly a mile to the shore. He later learned that seven passengers had drowned.

Ahmed's experience is a familiar one, according to Somali community leaders and officials at the UNHCR, which runs the camp here in Kharaz. Parents often say they bring their children to Yemen to prevent them from one day joining al-Shabab. "It's very easy to brainwash youth. They tell them, 'We'll give you money. We'll give you power,' " said Rocco Nuri, a UNHCR official in Aden.

When told that former al-Shabab fighters were in Kharaz, Nuri expressed concern but said it was "impossible to monitor this" in an open camp where residents come and go freely. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the camp is not a haven or recruiting hub for Somali militants.

In Yemen, Somalis are worse off than Yemenis. Jobs are scarce. Thousands of Somali youths eke out a living washing cars. They sleep under trees and bathe in public water tanks. Most Somali refugees view Yemen as a transit point to richer nations such as Saudi Arabia. But in recent months, a war between the Yemeni government and Shiite Hawthi rebels in the north has stemmed the migration.

Salafist schools, which teach a puritanical brand of Islam, have attracted several hundred young Somali refugees with offers of free food and lodging, said Somali community leaders. They fear some could join al-Shabab.

"Some boys did return back to Somalia," said Deka Muhamed, a Somali elder in Sanaa. "We've heard they've been killed, but we don't know how or why."

Yemeni officials, meanwhile, worry that al-Qaeda could lure Somali ex-fighters into their ranks with promises of money or aid. But so far, there has been no evidence of this, say Western diplomats and Yemeni officials.

In an audiotape last year, Osama bin Laden exhorted al-Shabab to overthrow the Somali government. Radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, whom the United States has linked to the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing and to the gunman charged in the massacre at Fort Hood, has also expressed support for al-Shabab.

Yemeni officials and analysts say there is regular communication between al-Qaeda militants in Yemen and al-Shabab. Last week, Somalia's state minister for defense declared that Yemeni militants had sent al-Shabab two boats filled with arms. They have also traveled to Somalia to fight.

"Some elements went to Somalia. Some were killed there," said Rashad al-Alimi, Yemen's deputy prime minister for security and defense.

Foreign Minister Qirbi, in an interview before the failed Christmas Day attack, urged Western nations to provide greater support for Yemen's coast guard to protect its shores from militants entering or leaving. "We also need better surveillance of refugees in the country," he said.

'All become suspects'

Many Somali refugees refuse to leave their houses at night, fearing they will be picked up in a security sweep. "Nobody carries a Shabab I.D. It's not written on our foreheads," said Ali, the community leader. "We have all become suspects."

Most Somalis, he noted, practice a moderate form of Islam that stresses tolerance.

At the Somali Refugee Council office in Sanaa, more than 20 refugees have reported losing their jobs in the past week, said Mohamed Abdi Gabobe, its chairman. The council, he said, is planning a demonstration to show solidarity with Yemen, in the hopes that this will lessen the pressure on the community.

But many refugees are worried about their futures. They say they have become the latest victims in the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

"When two elephants fight each other, it is always the grass that is destroyed," said Sadat Mohamed Yusuf, a Somali community leader. "We are the grass."

Dec 29, 2009

Laos General in Charge of Hmong Repatriation Denies UN, Amnesty Reports of Attacks

Image via Wikipedia

"Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Lao Armed Forces, has also been in charge of denying all human rights violations regarding the Hmong, including denying all charges by Amnesty International and others," said Philip Smith of the Center for Public Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington, D.C., December 29, 2009 - The head of the Hmong effort to forcibly repatriate Lao Hmong refugees from Thailand to Laos is a senior Lao Peoples Army ( LPA ) general who has a track record of denying findings of war crimes and atrocities by Amnesty International, the United Nations and others. Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh ( AKA Bouaxieng Champaphanh ), chairman of the Lao-Thai general border sub-committee, is also the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Lao Armed Forces which has target the Hmong in Laos for military attacks and political and religious persecution. General Bouasieng Champaphanh has been put in charge of the Hmong repatriated from Thailand to Laos.

“Lao Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh, along with other senior Lao Peoples Army commanders and Politburo members, have engaged in efforts before the United Nations to cover-up atrocities and war crimes committed in recent years to exterminate Hmong dissidents and unarmed civilians in the jungles and mountains of Laos, including in Xieng Khouang Province Boulikhamxai and Vientiane Provinces,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis.

Smith continued: “This is the equivalent of putting SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in charge of the plan for the so-called ‘Jewish resettlement’ in Poland and Germany during World War II,” Smith continued.

http://www.universalhumanrightsindex.org/documents/824/960/document/en/pdf/text.pdf

In 2003, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination passed a resolution in Geneva condemning the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic ( LPDR ) for atrocities against the Hmong including the rape and murder of Hmong children by LPA forces. Thereafter, it again raised concerns about attacks against Hmong civilians and opposition groups in Laos.

http://www.universalhumanrightsindex.org/documents/824/1223/document/en/pdf/text.pdf

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGASA260022006〈=e

http://www.universalhumanrightsindex.org/documents/824/1223/document/en/pdf/text.pdf

Amnesty International has also repeatedly documented atrocities against the Hmong by the LPA against Hmong civilians which were also denied by Laos and General Bouasieng and other LPA Generals. The LPA controls the central committee of the LPDR politburo with a majority of senior military officers controlling the communist party in Laos.

http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/aidoc/ai.nsf/Index/ENGASA260042004

http://www.amnesty.org.au/hrs/comments/2421/

“Ironically, General Bouasieng Champaphanh, an officer in charge of military operations directed against the Hmong in Laos, placed LPA officers in charge of investigating the war crimes they were accused of committing in Xieng Khoang Province and elsewhere for the purpose of denying it to the United Nations after the passage of the resolution by the United Nations Committee in Geneva in 2004,” Smith said. “Earlier this year, Thailand’s Prime Minister and General Anupong Paochinda allowed General Bouasieng Champaphanh to visit the Hmong refugee camp at Ban Huay Nam Khao and speak to the refugees who repeatedly refused his demands to volunteer to return to Laos.”

“Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Lao Armed Forces, has also been in charge of denying all human rights violations regarding the Hmong, including denying all charges by Amnesty International and others,” Smith stated.

“The Chief of Staff of the Army and Deputy Chief of Staff, including the office of General Bouasieng Champaphanh, have authorized repeated ‘Einstatzgruppen’ ethnic cleansing operations, military operations and a campaign of mass starvation against many Lao Hmong civilians and dissident groups in recent months and years,” Smith said.

Laos does not have an independent judiciary. It is a one-party, authoritarian military regime.

In 2004, the U.S. Congress passed H. Res. 402 in response to the Hmong crisis in Laos and Thailand and attacks and human rights violations against Hmong and Laotian civilians and dissidents.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:hr402ih.txt.pdf

“Over the last three years, political analysts have painstakingly documented evidence that supports the ongoing persecution of Lao Hmong and Political Prisoners in secret detention centres throughout Laos. It is a broadly accepted view held by the International Community that the Lao Hmong Refugees will face similar persecution, arbitrary detention, torture, and possibly death, if forced back to Laos. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Foreign Prisoner Support Service have independently reported returnee abuse in Laos” says Kay Danes, advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service in Australia and a former political prisoner in Laos.

###

Contact: Maria Gomez
Telephone ( 202 ) 543-1444
Center for Public Policy Analysis
info@centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org

US lawmakers demand access to expelled Hmong

Image via Wikipedia

WASHINGTON — US lawmakers on Tuesday denounced Thailand for expelling more than 4,000 Hmong into Laos and demanded that the Vientiane government allow immediate international monitoring to ensure their safety.

The senators representing Minnesota and Wisconsin, states home to much of the Hmong community in the United States, said they "strongly condemn" Thailand for going ahead with Monday's mass expulsion despite US and UN pleas.

"This action violates humanitarian and refugee principles and could have serious repercussions," said the statement by Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

"We share the concern of many of our Hmong-American constituents whose loved ones have been forced to return, and we will be paying close attention as the Hmong are resettled in Laos," said the senators, all members of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party.

The senators urged Laos "to ensure the safety and well-being of these individuals and to allow immediate and ongoing monitoring by international observers at all stages of the resettlement and reintegration process."

In a separate joint statement, the top Democrat and Republican on the House Foreign Relations Committee said that the repatriation "marks a dangerous precedent" for refugees worldwide.

"The Lao government must ensure that they are treated humanely, guarantee access to the international community for independent monitoring, and let those who are eligible for resettlement be resettled promptly," wrote Representatives Howard Berman, the committee chair, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican.

Image via Wikipedia

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont had earlier held out the threat of scaling back military cooperation with Thailand, a long-standing US ally, if it went ahead with the expulsions.

Both Thailand and Laos said that the Hmong were illegal immigrants and not political refugees as they contended. Thailand said it had received assurances that Laos would treat them well.

But Hmong activists say that the ethnic group continues to face persecution in communist Laos stemming from the time of the Vietnam War, when the mountain people were recruited to fight alongside US forces.

Doctors Without Borders said earlier this year that Hmong who fled to Thailand recounted killings, gang-rape and malnutrition inflicted by Laotian forces.

Thailand and the US behave like traitors

Image by Adrian Whelan via Flickr

Published on December 29, 2009

On Sunday your paper reported that Thailand will begin using the Army to repatriate several thousand Hmong refugees back to Laos. The story deserves more coverage than you gave it.

It is a very sad situation that people are being forced at gunpoint back to a place they want to leave. In the midst of this sad story, however, a real tragedy is taking place - one that brings shame to both America and Thailand.

First, remember that the Hmong were the Lao mountain soldiers who fought on behalf of the USA and Thailand during the Vietnam War. They were highly regarded as fighters, and they played a major part in keeping Laos in the control of our allies until the end.

Image by eliodoro via Flickr

Among the present Hmong refugees is a small group known as the "Jungle Hmong" who will be going back to predictable brutality and likely death. They are a rebellious group that remained in the jungle after the communist victory and refused to assimilate or cooperate. They thought of themselves as patriots, and awaited the day when they might help free their country from their old enemy - likely with ongoing encouragement from some Hmong who escaped to other countries. Over the years, the Lao government, regarding them as criminals and traitors, has been systematically exterminating them. Many, maybe most, of them would now like to find a way to assimilate, but, with good reason, they believe they will be jailed and/or killed if they come under the control of Lao officials.

Image by jackol via Flickr

The Jungle Hmong in Thailand (mostly women, children, and old men) have been officially and properly designated as political refugees, and other governments have stated a willingness to accept them. Last April it appeared that common sense and compassion might prevail when the Thai foreign minister announced that Thailand would facilitate the resettlement of 158 of the Jungle Hmong held at Nong Khai. A month later, however, Laos insisted that they be sent back, and Thailand caved in. A couple of months ago, Laos became a party to an important UN human rights accord, but many observers believe that the communists' hatred for the Jungle Hmong is so deep and strong that, in spite of the now official policy, those Hmong will likely be brutally received if returned to Laos.

Image by Eric Bagchus via Flickr

Thailand and America have both paid some lip service to resettlement of the Jungle Hmong, but both governments have been fundamentally spineless. They know that the Jungle Hmong are legitimate political refugees, they know that they are terrified to return to Laos, they know that they have good reason to so feel, they know they are our former allies, and they know that most of the persons in Thailand pose no possible threat to anyone. Nevertheless they will not do what it takes to move them on. One wonders if the Afghans will notice this sense of ongoing commitment that America has for former military allies.

In a related story, the legendary old Hmong general, Vang Pao, announced a couple of weeks ago that he would like to travel back to Laos to see if he could ease the tensions between his followers and the present government. The Lao government, however, expressed contempt for the idea by saying he must serve his death sentence first.

LARRY FRASER

CHIANG MAI

Dec 25, 2009

Thailand may send Hmong back to Laos

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 25, 2009; A15

Image via Wikipedia

An estimated 4,200 ethnic Hmong, many of whom fought for the CIA during the Vietnam War or are related to soldiers who worked with the agency, are set to be expelled from Thailand back to Laos, where they could face political persecution.

The State Department said Thursday that it was deeply concerned about the fate of the Hmong, an ethnic minority that battled the communist government of Laos for years with U.S. support.

The Thai military had dispatched more than 30 trucks Thursday evening to a refugee camp in central Thailand containing about 4,000 Hmong and had shut off satellite and cellphone service from the camp, according to human rights officials. The Thai military was also thought to be preparing to expel an additional 158 Hmong from a camp near the border with Laos, even though members of that group have been granted refugee status by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The forced resettlement, which the Thai government had announced would take place before the end of this year, would mark the second such repatriation of refugees in Southeast Asia in a week. On Saturday, Cambodia sent 20 Uighur refugees back to China for certain punishment because of their links to violent protests over the summer in northwestern China.

Image by HKmPUA via Flickr

The Obama administration sent Eric Schwartz, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, to Thailand this week to present senior Thai officials, including military officers, with a letter committing the United States and other Western countries, such as the Netherlands and Australia, to resettle any Hmong who are deemed to be refugees. As a legacy of the Vietnam War, the United States has accepted 150,000 Hmong.

Despite Schwartz's entreaties, all indications were that Thailand had decided to go ahead with its operation.

"The tragedy of this issue is that this is a solvable problem," Schwartz said in an interview. "We've got the resources; we've got the commitment to get into those camps and work with the Thai to achieve the results the Thai want to achieve."

Thai officials say that if more Hmong are granted refugee status, then more will flood into Thailand. At the same time, Thailand is seeking warmer ties with Laos as it deals with a tense standoff with another neighbor, Cambodia.

Schwartz said the imminent expulsion of the Hmong, along with this week's repatriation of the Uighurs, highlighted concerns about Southeast Asia's commitment to protecting refugees.

"We're concerned about the entire regime of protection breaking down," Schwartz said.

Jun 27, 2010

Police Abuse of Somali Refugees

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