Forcible repatriation threat for Burundian refugees
cc Around 40,000 Burundian refugees face involuntary repatriation when Tanzania’s Mtabila refugee camp is closed at the end of June, writes Zachary Lomo. Officials have told refugees that ‘if they are still in the camp after 30 June, they will be beaten and forced to run empty-handed to Burundi’. Although the camp schools have been closed and the markets destroyed, very few refugees have registered to return home. There is no longer fighting in Burundi but many refugees fear the reprisal killing of anyone suspected of supporting opposition groups, as well as disputes over property. Tanzanian field officers claim they have no plans to force the refugees to return to Burundi and will negotiate the integration and naturalisation of those unwilling or unable to go back with the Tanzanian government.
Mtabila refugee camp, home to some 40,000 Burundian refugees, is reportedly to be closed by the end of June and all of inhabitants are threatened with involuntary repatriation.
On 8 May I received the first telephone call of several here in Cambridge from a desperate refugee whom I had met last November in Mtabila. He said a Tanzanian official has told them that if 30 June elapses and they are still in the camp, they will be beaten and forced to run, empty-handed to Burundi; they had better heed the last and final call and register and get a ‘dignified’ chance to return to their country. Despite such threat, he said very few had registered to return. Nevertheless, secondary schools have been closed and the markets have been destroyed. He also said that security had been beefed up as more police were being brought into the camp. Although no refugee is allowed to leave the camp, according to my caller, some people are managing to escape, fleeing towards Uganda and Kenya.
Apparently the Burundians’ fate was already sealed in 2007 when the UNHCR and the Tanzanian and Burundi governments signed a Tripartite Agreement under the Cessation Clause, a provision of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which stipulates six conditions when refugee status ceases. The Cessation clause can be invoked if any of the six conditions has occurred. Under the fifth condition (Article 1 C (5), often shortened to ‘ceased circumstances’ clause, and upon which the repatriation agreement was based, a person ceases to be a refugee if the causes of flight in the home country have dramatically changed for the better. Even then, the same provision of Article 1 C (5) stipulates that a refugee can ‘invoke compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution for refusing to avail him of the protection of the country of nationality…’ In other words, the cessation clause does not apply to automatically; a refugee who has reason to fear persecution – reprisals, revenge killings, including deprivation of his or her land – in his country of origin, cannot be forced to return to that country.
When I was conducting research in Mtabila in November 2008, rumours of camp closure and forced repatriation were rife. In fact, this was the main concern of refugees I interviewed. They feared Tanzania would use the army as they did back in 1996. Refugees acknowledge there is no fighting in Burundi, but they still fear continuing reprisal killing that will affect anyone suspected of supporting any of the myriad opposition groups. They also fear the disputes that will arise over their property; disputes that are inevitable in an overcrowded country where all unoccupied houses or land gets taken over by those who get there first. Those who have most to fear are the descendants of the 1972 expulsion from Burundi. Not having been born in Burundi, they have nothing to return to. One man who had made a brief visit to Burundi said he would never take his family of five children back because they might all die in one swoop of a grenade attack. He had seen his relatives who were killed and their houses destroyed by grenades.
Last November, I also met with the head of the Field Office in Kasula, Tanzania and he reassured me that they were not planning to force the Burundians to return. They would ‘screen’ those who were unwilling or unable to go back and negotiate with the Tanzanian government concerning their integration and naturalization. Apparently such precautions have not been taken if the refugee who called me is an example.
Government officers were less accessible, but when I managed to meet one junior officer, he did admit that there were problems that arose because those involved in making tripartite agreements ‘were not conversant with issues on the ground’ and that ‘for UNHCR repatriation was a priority’. He admitted that his office had been ‘directed that no more new arrivals will be accepted because it undermines the current repatriation programme.’
Kasulu, and the Kigoma region – the location of most refugees in Tanzania – are too far away from the capital for any journalist to report on. I can only hope that this mobile phone call will be sufficient alert.
* Zachary Lomo is currently reading for his doctorate in international law and refugees at the University of Cambridge.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.