Ethnic cleansing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial and/or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, often with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. The forces applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), intimidation, as well as genocide and genocidal rape.

 

Ethnic cleansing is usually accompanied with efforts to remove physical and cultural evidence of the targeted group in the territory through the destruction of homes, social centers, farms, and infrastructure, and by the desecration of monuments, cemeteries, and places of worship.

Ethnic cleansing by the Turks in Bulgaria during the Batak massacre.

 

Although ethnic cleansing has occurred long through history, the term was initially used by the perpetrators during the Yugoslav Wars and cited in this context as a euphemism akin to that of Nazi Germany's "Final Solution", by the 1990s, and gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media's heightened use of the term in its generic meaning.

Etymology

An antecedent to the term is the Greek word andrapodismos (Greek: ανδραποδισμός; lit. "enslavement"), which was used in ancient texts to describe atrocities that accompanied Alexander the Great's conquest of Thebes in 335 BC. In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs (očista), the Poles (czystki etniczne), the French (épuration) and the Germans (Säuberung). A 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups.

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943. Most Poles of Volhynia (now in Ukraine) had either been murdered or had fled the area.

 

During World War II, the euphemism čišćenje terena ("cleansing the terrain") was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes. Viktor Gutić, a senior Ustaše leader, was one of the first Croatian nationalists on record to use the term as a euphemism for committing atrocities against Serbs. The term was later used in the internal memorandums of Serbian Chetniks in reference to a number of retaliatory massacres they committed against Bosniaks and Croats between 1941 and 1945. The Russian phrase очистка границ (ochistka granits; lit. "cleansing of borders") was used in Soviet documents of the early 1930s to refer to the forced resettlement of Polish people from the 22-kilometre (14 mi) border zone in the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. This process was repeated on an even larger scale in 1939–41, involving many other groups suspected of disloyalty towards the Soviet Union. During The Holocaust, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was "cleansed of Jews" (Judenrein). After the Allies' victory, transferrals "to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary", were undertaken to create ethnically homogeneous nations with shifted borders that often included areas where previously Germans had constituted a majority. 

In its complete form, the term appeared for the first time in the Romanian language (purificare etnică) in an address by Vice Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu to cabinet members in July 1941. After the beginning of the invasion of the USSR, he concluded: “I do not know when the Romanians will have such chance for ethnic cleansing." In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the inter-ethnic violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. At around the same time, the Yugoslav media used it to describe what they alleged was an Albanian nationalist plot to force all Serbs to leave Kosovo. It was widely popularized by the Western media during the Bosnian War (1992–95). The first recorded mention of its use in the Western media can be traced back to an article in The New York Times dated 15 April 1992, in a quote by an anonymous Western diplomat.

Synonyms include ethnic purification.

Definitions

Rwandan Genocide Murambi bodies

 

The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as "a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas". In its previous, first interim report it noted, "[b]ased on the many reports describing the policy and practices conducted in the former Yugoslavia, [that] 'ethnic cleansing' has been carried out by means of murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention."

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group".

As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies. In the words of Andrew Bell-Fialkoff:

[E]thnic cleansing [...] defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory.

Terry Martin has defined ethnic cleansing as "the forcible removal of an ethnically defined population from a given territory" and as "occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end".

In reviewing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Bosnian Genocide Case in the judgement of Jorgic v. Germany on July 12, 2007 the European Court of Human Rights quoted from the ICJ ruling on the Bosnian Genocide Case to draw a distinction between ethnic cleansing and genocide:

The term 'ethnic cleansing' has frequently been employed to refer to the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina which are the subject of this case ... [UN] General Assembly resolution 47/121 referred in its Preamble to 'the abhorrent policy of "ethnic cleansing", which is a form of genocide', as being carried on in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ... It [i.e., ethnic cleansing] can only be a form of genocide within the meaning of the [Genocide] Convention, if it corresponds to or falls within one of the categories of acts prohibited by Article II of the Convention. Neither the intent, as a matter of policy, to render an area "ethnically homogeneous", nor the operations that may be carried out to implement such policy, can as such be designated as genocide: the intent that characterizes genocide is "to destroy, in whole or in part" a particular group, and deportation or displacement of the members of a group, even if effected by force, is not necessarily equivalent to destruction of that group, nor is such destruction an automatic consequence of the displacement. This is not to say that acts described as 'ethnic cleansing' may never constitute genocide, if they are such as to be characterized as, for example, 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part', contrary to Article II, paragraph (c), of the Convention, provided such action is carried out with the necessary specific intent (dolus specialis), that is to say with a view to the destruction of the group, as distinct from its removal from the region. As the ICTY has observed, while 'there are obvious similarities between a genocidal policy and the policy commonly known as 'ethnic cleansing' (Krstić, IT-98-33-T, Trial Chamber Judgment, 2 August 2001, para. 562), yet '[a] clear distinction must be drawn between physical destruction and mere dissolution of a group. The expulsion of a group or part of a group does not in itself suffice for genocide.'

— ECHR quoting the ICJ.

As a crime under international law

There is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing. However, ethnic cleansing in the broad sense—the forcible deportation of a population—is defined as a crime against humanity under the statutes of both International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The gross human-rights violations integral to stricter definitions of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes falling under public international law of crimes against humanity and in certain circumstances genocide.

There are however situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, where ethnic cleansing has taken place without legal redress. Timothy V. Waters argues therefore that similar ethnic cleansing could go unpunished in the future.

Genocide

Armenian Genocide victims

 

Academic discourse considers both genocide and ethnic cleansing to exist in a spectrum of assaults on nations or religio-ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced deportation or population transfer whereas genocide is the intentional murder of part or all of a particular ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. While ethnic cleansing and genocide may share the same goal and the acts used to perpetrate both crimes may often resemble each other, ethnic cleansing is intended to displace a persecuted population from a given territory, while genocide is intended to destroy a population.

Some academics consider genocide as a subset of "murderous ethnic cleansing". Thus, these concepts are different, but related, as Norman Naimark writes: "literally and figuratively, ethnic cleansing bleeds into genocide, as mass murder is committed in order to rid the land of a people". William Schabas adds, "Ethnic cleansing is also a warning sign of genocide to come. Genocide is the last resort of the frustrated ethnic cleanser."

As a military, political and economic tactic

As a tactic, ethnic cleansing has a number of systemic impacts. It enables a force to eliminate civilian support for resistance by eliminating the civilians—recognizing Mao Zedong's dictum that guerrillas among a civilian population are fish in water, it removes the fish by draining the water. When enforced as part of a political settlement, as happened with the forced resettlement of ethnic Germans to the new Germany after 1945, it can contribute to long-term stability. Some individuals of the large German population in Czechoslovakia and prewar Poland had encouraged Nazi jingoism before the Second World War, but this was forcibly resolved. It thus establishes "facts on the ground"—radical demographic changes which can be very hard to reverse.

Silent ethnic cleansing

The term silent ethnic cleansing was coined in the mid-1990s by some observers of the Yugoslav Wars. Apparently concerned with Western media representations of atrocities committed in the conflict—which generally focused on those perpetrated by the Serbs—atrocities committed against Serbs were dubbed "silent" on the grounds that they did not receive adequate coverage.

Instances

In many cases where accusations of ethnic cleansing have circulated, partisans have fiercely disputed such an interpretation and the details of the events which have been described as ethnic cleansing by academic or legal experts. This often leads to the promotion of vastly different versions of the event in question. 

Armenia, 1914-1923

During the beginning of World War I in 1914, following defeats by the Russian army due to a lack of proper leadership and preparation, the government of the Ottoman Empire banished all Armenian soldiers in desperation based on the belief that they were the ones to blame for the defeats. What began as a military tactic, eventually, lead to a brutal genocide of the ethnic Armenian population that was living in Turkey beginning with the execution of male Armenians and eventually ending with the forced deportation of Armenian women and children. It is estimated that around 800,000 to 1 million ethnic Armenians living in Turkey were either executed or forcibly deported during World War 1. The Armenian Genocide has been recognized as a genocide by most scholars and nations due to its deliberate targeting of ethnic Armenians and the brutal fashion in which it was implemented and it has also been viewed as an act of Ethnic Cleansing due to the Ottoman government's desire to remove a specific ethnicity from its territory.

Germany, 1933-1945

Recognized as one of the most extreme cases of ethnic cleansing in history, the Holocaust was the Nazi Regime's mass murder of about 6 million Jews during World War II. Accomplished in stages, the Holocaust began with legislation to remove Jews from German society before World War II. Concentration and extermination camps were then created to incarcerate and execute the millions of Jews who were living in Germany and most of them were either shot, killed in gas chambers, or worked to death. Killing approximately 90 percent of the Jews who were living in Poland and 87 percent of the Jews who were living in Germany and Austria, the Nazi Regime's motives, the horrific ways in which its victims were executed, and the number of ethnic Jews who were murdered make the Holocaust one of the clearest and least disputed cases of ethnic cleansing in history.

Eastern Europe, 1944-1949

A ceremony marking the 16th anniversary of Operation Storm, which resulted in the expulsion of more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs from Croatia.

 

The 12th anniversary exhibition of ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia, which was held in Tbilisi in 2005.

 

Following World War II, from 1944 to 1949, approximately 14 million Germans were forcibly removed from Central and Eastern Europe, from areas where Germans had been a minority since the Middle Ages, as well as from specific regions, particularly, from present-day Czechia, present-day western and north-eastern Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast where Germans constituted the vast majority of the population. Although the removal primarily consisted of a forced migration, approximately 2 million Germans were killed during the migration either by starvation, poor weather conditions, or beatings and murder at the hands of troops and mobs that consisted of Russians, Poles, Czechs or other locals. The ethnic cleansing of Germans in Eastern and Central Europe was an outpouring of the hatred and negative sentiment towards Germans that was a result of the inhumane acts which the Nazi regime committed during the course of World War II and it was also justified by the desire of European governments to turn their countries into more ethnically homogenous nation-states,  and to this end, the post-war borders of Poland comprised close to a quarter of Germany's pre-war territory.

Bosnia & Herzegovina, 1990-1993

During the Bosnian War which lasted from 1992-1995, many civilians fell victim to the ethnic cleansing that was committed by Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. All three ethnic groups sought to create their own ethnically homogenous territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina and as a result of the conflict, about 2,700,000 people within the country were displaced. The methods which were used during the Bosnian ethnic cleansing campaigns included "murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, the confinement of civilian populations in ghetto areas, the forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian populations, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and the wanton destruction of property". Creating the largest flow of internally displaced citizens since World War II, the ethnic cleansing that occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s is still apparent in the ethnically homogeneous regions of Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims that exist in modern day Bosnia with politicians attempting to obstruct the undoing of the ethnic cleansing that took place during the war.

Georgia, 1992-1993

From 1992 through 1993, during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, the armed Abkhaz separatist insurgency implemented a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the large population of ethnic Georgians. This was actually a case in which a minority was trying to drive out a majority, rather than a case in which a majority was trying to drive out a minority, because Georgians were the single largest ethnic group in pre-war Abkhazia, with a 45.7% plurality as of 1989. As a result of this deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Abkhaz separatists, more than 250,000 ethnic Georgians were forced to flee, and approximately 30,000 people were killed in incidents that involved massacres and expulsions. This was recognized as ethnic cleansing by Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe conventions, and was also mentioned in UN General Assembly Resolution GA/10708.

Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, March 2017

Myanmar, 2016-Present

Since 2016, Myanmar's military-dominated government has forced over 620,000 ethnic Rohingya who live in the Rakhine state of northwest Myanmar to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. The Rohingya are a group of about 1 million Muslims who live in the Rakhine state but they are denied citizenship and considered illegal immigrants and as a result, they have been subjected to persecution and discrimination by the government of Myanmar and Buddhist nationalists. Myanmar's government has cracked down on the Rohingya people and forced them to migrate to Bangladesh through violent actions, with rape, arson, and murder being reported. UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has stated that “The situation seems to be a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” while governments across the world have called on Myanmar's government to take control of the situation and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.

Criticism of the term

Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, has criticised the rise of the term and its use for events that he feels should be called "genocide": because "ethnic cleansing" has no legal definition, its media use can detract attention from events that should be prosecuted as genocide. Because of widespread acceptance after media influence, it has become a word used legally, but carries no legal repercussions. 

In 1992, the German equivalent of "ethnic cleansing" (German: Ethnische Säuberung) was named German Un-Word of the Year by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache due to its euphemistic, inappropriate nature.

Forced displacement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Displaced persons in 2017

Total population
65.6 million
Regions with significant populations
Refugees	17.187 million
IDPs	36.627 million
Asylum seekers	2.826 million
People in refugee-like situation	803,134

Deportees to Siberia by Kazimierz Alchimowicz (1894), National Museum in Warsaw, illustrating the torment of Polish Siberian deportees, patriots from the Russian zone of partitioned Poland in the period following the collapse of the January Uprising.

 

General deportation currents of the dekulakization 1930–1931

 

The Amam refugee camp is named after its first native is born in 2009. Its name, Amam, means peace

 

Forced displacement or forced immigration is the coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region and it often connotes violent coercion. Someone who has experienced forced displacement is a "forced immigrant", a "displaced person" (DP), rarely also a "displacee", or if it is within the same country, an internally displaced person (IDP). In some cases the forced immigrant can also become a refugee, as that term has a specific legal definition. A specific form of forced displacement is population transfer, which is a coherent policy to move unwanted groups, for example, as an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Another form is deportation.

Forced displacement has accompanied persecution, as well as war, throughout human history but has only become a topic of serious study and discussion relatively recently. This increased attention is the result of greater ease of travel, allowing displaced people to flee to nations far removed from their homes, the creation of an international legal structure of human rights, and the realizations that the destabilizing effects of forced immigration, especially in parts of Africa, the Middle East, south and central Asia, ripple out well beyond the immediate region.

Definition

The concept of forced displacement envelopes demographic movements like flight, evacuation, displacement, and resettlement. The International Organization for Migration defines a forced migrant as any person who migrates to "escape persecution, conflict, repression, natural and human-made disasters, ecological degradation, or other situations that endanger their lives, freedom or livelihood".

The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) defines it as "the movements of refugees and internally displaced people (those displaced by conflicts) as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects."

According to Alden Speare, "in the strictest sense migration can be considered to be involuntary only when a person is physically transported from a country and has no opportunity to escape from those transporting him." Movement under threat, even the immediate threat to life, contains a voluntary element, as long as there is an option to escape to another part of the country, go into hiding or to remain and hope to avoid persecution." However this thought has been questioned, especially by Marxians, who argue that in most cases migrants have little or no choice.

Causes

Causes for forced displacement can include:

• Natural disaster: Occurrence of a disaster – such as floods, tsunamis, landslides, earthquakes or volcanoes – leads to temporary or permanent displacement of population from that area. In such a scenario, migration becomes more of a survival strategy, as natural disasters often cause the loss of money, homes, and jobs. For example, Hurricane Katrina resulted in displacement of almost the entire population of New Orleans, leaving the community and government with several economic and social challenges.
• Environmental problems: The term environmental refugee has been in use recently representing people who are forced to leave their traditional habitat because of environmental factors which negatively impact their livelihood, or even environmental disruption i.e. biological, physical or chemical change in ecosystem. Migration can also occur as a result of slow-onset climate change, such as desertification or sea-level rise, of deforestation or land degradation.
• Man-made disasters: Examples are industrial accidents and especially accidents that involve chemicals or radioactivity, such as in Chernobyl, Bhopal or Fukushima.
• War, civil war, political repression or religious conflicts: Some migrants are impelled to cross national borders by war or persecution, due to political, social, ethnic, religious reasons. These immigrants may be considered refugees if they apply for asylum in the receiving country.
• Development-induced displacement: Such displacement or population transfer is the forcing of communities and individuals out of their homes, often also their homelands, for the purposes of economic development. It has been historically associated with the construction of dams for hydroelectric power and irrigation purposes but also appears due to many other activities, such as mining and transport (roads, ports, airports). The best-known recent example of such development-induced displacement may be that resulting from the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China. This type of forced migration disproportionately affects low income earners and ethnic minorities. According to estimates, between 90 and 100 million people were forced to leave their homes due to development projects in the 1990s.
• Human trafficking and human smuggling: Migrants displaced through deception or coercion with purpose of their exploitation fall under this category. The data on such forced migration are limited since the activities involved are clandestine in nature. While migration of this nature is well covered for male migrants (working in agriculture, construction etc.), same cannot be said for their female counterparts as the market situation for them might be unscrupulous (sex work or domestic service). The International Labour Organization considers trafficking an offence against labor protection and denies them the opportunity of utilizing their resources for their country. ILO’s Multilateral Framework includes principle no. 11 that recommends, "Governments should formulate and implement, in consultation with the social partners, measures to prevent abusive practices, migrant smuggling and people trafficking; they should also work towards preventing irregular labor migration.
• Slavery: History's greatest forced migration was the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade during the 15th through the 19th centuries. Of the 20 million Africans captured for the trade, half died in their forced march to the African coast, and another ten to twenty percent died on slave ships carrying them from Africa to the Americas.
• Ethnic cleansing: The systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. For example, during counter-Reformation the Catholics removed of Protestants during the 16th through 19th centuries in Europe (e.g. Salzburg Protestants).

Conditions

In the majority of cases forced migration across borders takes place without the required documentation. It may even involve human smugglers and traffickers. Displaced persons are often forced to place their lives at risk, are obliged to travel in inhumane conditions and may be exposed to exploitation and abuse. The states where they seek protection may regard them as a threat to their security. Displaced persons face risks of becoming poorer than before displacement, of being financially vulnerable, and socially disintegrated. The impacts of forced displacement vary according to the displaced person's ability to recover from the shock of displacement. Individuals are displaced by conflict and then depleted of their assets upon arrival to a new country where they can also face cultural, social, and economic discontinuity.

Responses to Forced Displacement

Responses for forcibly displaced persons vary across multiple levels. Response at the global stage is done by participating international agencies (e.g. the UNHCR) and by members of international conventions. The rights and protections of the different categories of forcibly displaced persons have been addressed by, e.g., the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1967 Protocol, the Kampala Convention, or the 1998 Guiding Principles. These protections, however, are not always respected or met.

World organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank, as well as individual countries have also directly responded to the challenges faced by displaced people by providing humanitarian assistance or forcibly intervening in the country of conflict. The absence of neutrality and limited resources has affected the capabilities of international humanitarian action to mitigate the forces causing mass displacement. These broad forms of assistance can also not fully address the multidimensional needs of displaced persons.

Sources of action can occur at more local levels such as the individual's place of relocation. Lived in experiences of displaced persons will vary according to the state and local policies of their country of relocation. Policies reflecting national exclusion of displaced persons may be undone by inclusive urban policies. Sanctuary cities are an example of spaces that regulate their cooperation or participation with immigration law enforcement. The practice of urban membership upon residence allows displaced persons to have access to city services and benefits, regardless of their legal status. Sanctuary cities have been able to provide migrants with greater mobility and participation in activities limiting the collection of personal information, issuing identification cards to all residents, and providing access to crucial services such as health care. Access to these services can ease the hardships of displaced people by allowing them to healthily adjust to life after displacement.

Overview and distinctions between the terms

• The term 'Refugee Studies' denotes an academic discipline or field of study which covers the study of refugees, often their experiences in seeking refuge. There are several categories of individuals who are included in this study, with labels that include: 'Refugee’; ‘expellees’; ‘exile’; ‘displaced person’; ‘internally displaced person (IDP)’; ‘economic refugees’; ‘humanitarian refugee’; ‘stateless person’; ‘tsunami refugee’; ‘development refugee’; ‘environmental refugee’; ‘government assisted refugee (GAR)’ etc.

• The term displaced person (DP) was first widely used during World War II and the resulting refugee outflows from Eastern Europe, when it was used to specifically refer to one removed from their native country as a refugee, prisoner or a slave laborer. Most of the victims of war, political refugees and DPs of the immediate post-Second World War period were Ukrainians, Poles, other Slavs, as well as citizens of the Baltic states – Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians, who refused to return to Soviet-dominated eastern Europe. A.J. Jaffe claimed that the term was originally coined by Eugene M. Kulischer. The meaning has significantly broadened in the past half-century.

• If the displaced person has crossed an international border and falls under one of the relevant international legal instruments, they may become a refugee. The term "refugee" is also commonly used as a synonym for displaced person, causing confusion between the general descriptive class of anyone who has left their home and the subgroup of legally defined refugees who enjoy specified international legal protection. However, forced migrants may not apply for asylum in the country they fled to, so they may not be classed as asylum seekers or – if application would be successful – refugees. The terms refugee and asylum seeker always have a legal framework or system as context. If forced migrants do not access this legal system or it does not exist in the country they have fled to, they cannot be categorised as such.

• Forced migrants are always either IDPs or displaced people, as both of these terms do not require a legal framework and the fact that they left their homes is sufficient. The distinction between the terms displaced person and forced migrant is minor, however, the term displaced person has an important historic context (e.g. World War II).

• A displaced person who crosses an international border without permission from the country they are entering, and without applying for asylum, may be considered an illegal immigrant.

• A displaced person who left their home because of political persecution or violence, but did not cross an international border, is commonly considered to be the less well-defined category of internally displaced person (IDP), and is subject to more tenuous international protection. In 1998, the UN Commission of Human Rights published the Guiding Principles which defined internally displaced people as "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights, or natural or human-made disasters and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border." Bogumil Terminski distinguishes two general categories of internal displacement: displacement of risk (mostly conflict-induced displacement, deportations and disaster-induced displacement) and displacement of adaptation (associated with voluntary resettlement, development-induced displacement and environmentally-induced displacement).

• If the displaced person was forced out their home because of economically driven projects like that of the Three Gorges Dam in China and various Indian dams, it is called development-induced displacement. People are also often displaced due to natural or man-made disasters. Displacement can also occur as a result of slow-onset climate change, such as desertification or sea-level rise. A person who is displaced due to environmental factors which negatively impact their livelihood is generally known as an environmental migrant. Such displacement can be cross-border in nature but is frequently internal. No specific international legal instrument applies to such individuals. Foreign nations often offer disaster relief to mitigate the effects of such disaster displacement.

• Displaced person generally refers to one who is forced to migrate for reasons other than economic conditions, such as war or persecution. A migrant who fled because of economic hardship is an economic migrant.

Criminal prosecution

Forced displacement has been subjected to several trials before local and international courts. One of the requirements that need to be met for an offence as a war crime is that the victim is a "protected person" under international humanitarian law. The expression "protected person" originally referred only to the categories of individuals explicitly protected under one of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, but was later accepted as defining a civilian or police force who do not participate directly in a conflict. Following the end of World War II, the Krupp trial was held with a specific charge to the forced displacement of civilian populations for the purpose of forced labour. The US Military Tribunal concluded that " [t]here is no international law that permits the deportation or the use of civilians against their will for other than on reasonable requisitions for the need of the army, either within the area of the army or after deportation to rear areas or to the homeland of the occupying power". At the Nuremberg trials, Hans Frank, chief jurist in occupied Poland, was found guilty, among others for forced displacement of the civilian population.

In Article 49, the Fourth Geneva Convention, adopted on 12 August 1949, specifically forbids forced displacement: 

“

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected people from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

”

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines forced displacement as a crime within the jurisdiction of the court:

“

"Deportation or forcible transfer of population" means forced displacement of the people concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law.

”

Several people were tried and convicted by the ICTY for connection to forced displacement during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. On 11 April 2018, the Appeals Chamber sentenced Vojislav Šešelj 10 years in prison under Counts 1, 10, and 11 of the indictment for instigating deportation, persecution (forcible displacement), and other inhumane acts (forcible transfer) as crimes against humanity due to his speech in Hrtkovci on 6 May 1992, in which he called for the expulsion of Croats from Vojvodina. Other convictions for forced displacement included ex-Bosnian Serb politician Momčilo Krajišnik, ex-Croatian Serb leader Milan Martić, former Bosnian Croat paramilitary commander Mladen Naletilić, and Bosnian Serb politician Radoslav Brđanin.

Internally displaced person

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IDPs in 2015

Total population
37.494 million
Regions with significant populations
Middle East and North Africa	13.933 million
Africa	10.762 million
Americas	7.113 million
Asia and the Pacific	2.879 million
Europe	2.804 million

An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.

Villagers fleeing gunfire in a camp for internally displaced persons during the 2008 Nord-Kivu war

 

Tailor in Labuje IDP camp in Uganda.

 

At the end of 2014, it was estimated there were 38.2 million IDPs worldwide, the highest level since 1989, the first year for which global statistics on IDPs are available. The countries with the largest IDP populations were Syria (7.6 million), Colombia (6 million), Iraq (3.6 million), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2.8 million), Sudan (2.2 million), South Sudan (1.9 million), Pakistan (1.4 million), Nigeria (1.2 million) and Somalia (1.1 million).

The United Nations and UNHCR support monitoring and analysis of worldwide IDPs through the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Definition

Whereas 'refugee' has an authoritative definition under the 1951 Refugee Convention, there is no universal legal definition of internally displaced persons (IDP); only a regional treaty for African countries. However, a United Nations report, Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement uses the definition of:

"persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border."

While the above stresses two important elements of internal displacement (coercion and the domestic/internal movement), it is important to note that, rather than a strict definition, the Guiding Principles offer "a descriptive identification of the category of persons whose needs are the concern of the Guiding Principles". In this way, the document "intentionally steers toward flexibility rather than legal precision" as the words "in particular" indicate that the list of reasons for displacement is not exhaustive. However, as Erin Mooney has pointed out, "global statistics on internal displacement generally count only IDPs uprooted by conflict and human rights violations. Moreover, a recent study has recommended that the IDP concept should be defined even more narrowly, to be limited to persons displaced by violence." Thus, despite the non-exhaustive reasons of internal displacement, many consider IDPs as those who would be defined as refugees if they were to cross an international border, hence, the term refugees in all but name is often applied to IDPs.

IDP populations

It is very difficult to get accurate figures for internally displaced persons because populations aren't constant. IDPs may be returning home while others are fleeing, others may periodically return to IDP camps to take advantage of humanitarian aid. While the case of IDPs in large camps such as those in Darfur, western Sudan, are relatively well-reported, it is very difficult to assess those IDPs who flee to larger towns and cities. It is necessary in many instances to supplement official figures with additional information obtained from operational humanitarian organizations on the ground. Thus, the 24.5 million figure must be treated as an estimate. Additionally, most official figures only include those displaced by conflict or natural disasters. Development-induced IDPs often are not included in assessments. It has been estimated that between 70 and 80% of all IDPs are women and children.

50% of internally displaced people and refugees were thought to be in urban areas in 2010, many of them in protracted displacement with little likelihood of ever returning home. A 2013 study found that these protracted urban displacements had not been given due weight by international aid and governance as historically they had focused on rural cam displacement responses. The study argues that this protracted urban displacement needs a fundamental change in the approach to those who are displaced and their host societies. They note that re-framing responses to urban displacement will also involve human rights and development actors and local and national governments. They call for a change in the narrative around the issue is needed to reflect ingenuity and fortitude displayed by displaced populations, the opportunities for self-sufficiency and safety represented by urban areas, and that the displaced can make a contribution to their host societies. An updated country by country breakdown can be found online.

Official opening of MONUSCO’s photo exhibition organized in the framework of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. In the photo are the Head of MONUSCO, Martin Kobler (1st left), Lambert Mende (middle), and the Director of MONUSCO Public Information Division, Charles Antoine Bambara, commenting on a picture showing an internally displaced person.

 

Serbian and other non-Albanian refugees during Kosovo War. Serbia is home to highest number of refugees and IDPs in Europe.

Notable IDP camps

• There are many IDP camps in Nigeria and especially many IDP camps in Borno State.
• Until recently there were many IDP camps in Sri Lanka.

Protection and assistance

The problem of protecting and assisting IDPs is not a new issue. In international law it is the responsibility of the government concerned to provide assistance and protection for the IDPs in their country. However, as many of the displaced are a result of civil conflict and violence or where the authority of the central state is in doubt, there is no local authority willing to provide assistance and protection. It has been estimated that some 5 million IDPs in 11 countries are "without any significant humanitarian assistance from their governments." Under these circumstances rehabilitation policies on humanitarian grounds should be aimed at reducing inequality of opportunity among these vulnerable groups by integrating them into local social services and allowing them access to jobs, education, and healthcare opportunities; otherwise new conflicts might break out.

Unlike the case of refugees, there is no international humanitarian institution which has the overall responsibility of protecting and assisting the refugees as well as the internally displaced. A number of organizations have stepped into the breach in specific circumstances.

UNHCR

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was mandated by General Assembly Resolution 428 (V) of 14 December 1950 to "lead and coordinate international action for the worldwide protection of refugees and the resolution of refugee problems....guided by the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol." The UNHCR has traditionally argued that it does not have a "general competence for IDPs" even though at least since 1972 it had relief and rehabillatation programs for those displaced within a country. However, in cases where there is a specific request by the UN Secretary General and with the consent of the State concerned it has been willing to respond by assisting IDPs in a given instance. In 2005 it was helping some 5.6 million IDPs (out of over 25 million), but only about 1.1 million in Africa. In 2005, the UNHCR signed an agreement with other humanitarian agencies. "Under this agreement, UNHCR will assume the lead responsibility for protection, emergency shelter and camp management for internally displaced people."

ICRC

The International Committee of the Red Cross has a mandate of ensuring the application of International Humanitarian Law as it affects civilians in the midst of armed conflict. They have traditionally not distinguished between civilians who are internally displaced and those who remain in their homes. In a 2006 policy statement, the ICRC stated:

The ICRC's overall objective is to alleviate the suffering of people who are caught up in armed conflict and other situations of violence. To that end, the organization strives to provide effective and efficient assistance and protection for such persons, be they displaced or not, while taking into consideration the action of other humanitarian organizations. On the basis of its long experience in different parts of the world, the ICRC has defined an operational approach towards the civilian population as a whole that is designed to meet the most urgent humanitarian needs of both displaced persons and local and host communities.

However, its Director of Operations has earlier recognized that IDPs "deprived of shelter and their habitual sources of food, water, medicine and money, they have different, and often more urgent, material needs."

Collaborative approach

The previous system set up internationally to address the needs of IDPs was referred to as the collaborative approach as the responsibility for protecting and assisting IDPs was shared among the UN agencies, i.e. UNHCR, Unicef, WFP, UNDP, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Organization for Migration IOM, the ICRC and International NGOs. Coordination is the responsibility of the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Humanitarian Coordinator in the country concerned. They are assisted by the Inter-Agency Displacement Division, which was created in 2004 and is housed in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The original collaborative approach has come under increasing criticism. Roberta Cohen reports:

Nearly every UN and independent evaluation has found the collaborative approach deficient when it comes to IDPs. To begin with, there is no real focus of responsibility in the field for assisting and protecting...There is also no predictability of action, as the different agencies are free to pick and choose the situations in which they wish to become involved on the basis of their respective mandates, resources, and interests. In every new emergency, no one knows for sure which agency or combination thereof will become involved.

In 2005 there was an attempt to fix the problem by giving sectoral responsibilities to different humanitarian agencies, most notably with the UNHCR taking on the responsibility for protection and the management of camps and emergency shelters. The Forced Migration Review" stated that the "abnegation of responsibility is possible because there is no formal responsibility apportioned to agencies under the Collaborative Response, and thus no accountability when agencies renege on their promises."

Cluster approach

The cluster approach designates individual agencies as ‘sector leaders’ to coordinate operations in specific areas to try to plug those newly identified gaps. The cluster approach was conceived amid concerns about coordination and capacity that arose from the weak operational response to the crisis in Darfur in 2004 and 2005, and the critical findings of the Humanitarian Response Review (HRR) commissioned by the then ERC, Jan Egeland. Egeland called for strengthening leadership of the sectors, and introduced the concept of "clusters" at different levels (headquarters, regional, country and operational)’. 

The cluster approach operates on the global and local levels. At the global level, the approach is meant to build up capacity in eleven key ‘gap’ areas by developing better surge capacity, ensuring consistent access to appropriately trained technical expertise and enhanced material stockpiles, and securing the increased engagement of all relevant humanitarian partners. At the field level, the cluster approach strengthens the coordination and response capacity by mobilizing clusters of humanitarian agencies (UN/Red Cross-Red Crescent/IOs/NGOs) to respond in particular sectors or areas of activity, each cluster having a clearly designated and accountable lead, as agreed by the HC and the Country Team. Designated lead agencies at the global level both participate directly in operations, but also coordinate with and oversee other organizations within their specific spheres, reporting the results up through a designated chain of command to the ERC at the summit. However, lead agencies are responsible as ‘providers of last resort’, which represents the commitment of cluster leads to do their utmost to ensure an adequate and appropriate response in their respective areas of responsibility. The cluster approach was part of a package of reforms accepted by the IASC in December 2005 and subsequently applied in eight chronic humanitarian crises and six sudden-onset emergencies. However, the reform was originally rolled out and evaluated in four countries: DRC, Liberia, Somalia and Uganda. 

The clusters were originally concentrated on nine areas:

1. Logistics (WFP)
2. Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (WFP)
3. Camp coordination and management (UNHCR for conflict-generated IDPs and IOM for natural disaster-generated IDPs)
4. Shelter (IFRC for natural disasters; UNHCR for conflict situations)
5. Health (WHO)
6. Nutrition (UNICEF)
7. Water, sanitation, and hygiene promotion (UNICEF)
8. Early recovery (UNDP); and
9. Protection (UNHCR for conflict-generated IDPs, UNHCR, UNICEF, and OHCHR for natural disaster generated IDPs).

IASC Principles deemed it unnecessary to apply the cluster approach to four sectors where no significant gaps were detected: a) food, led by WFP; b) refugees, led by UNHCR; c) education, led by UNICEF; and d) agriculture, led by FAO. 

The original nine clusters were later expanded to include agriculture and education.

International law

Unlike the case of refugees, there is no international universal treaty which applies specifically to IDPs. Only a regional treaty for African countries has been established. Some other countries have advocated re-thinking the definitions and protections for refugees to apply to IDPs, but so far no solid actions have come to fruition. Recognizing the gap, the UN Secretary-General, Boutros-Ghali appointed Francis Deng in 1992 as his representative for internally displaced persons. Besides acting as an advocate for IDPs, Deng set out in 1994, at the request of the UN General Assembly to examine and bring together existing international laws which relating to the protection of IDPs. The result of this work was the document, Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

The Guiding Principles lay out the responsibilities of states before displacement – that is, to prevent displacement – during and after displacement. They have been endorsed by the UN General Assembly, the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) and by the signatories to the 2006 Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region, which include Sudan, DRC and Uganda.

The Guiding Principles, however, are non-binding. As Bahame Tom Nyanduga, Special Rapporteur on Refugees, IDPs and Asylum Seekers in Africa for the ACHPR has stated, "the absence of a binding international legal regime on internal displacement is a grave lacuna in international law."

In September 2004 the Secretary-General of the UN showed the continuing concern of his office by appointing Walter Kälin as his Representative on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons. Part of his mandate includes the promoting of the Guiding Principles.

Right of return

In so-called "post-conflict" situations, there has traditionally been an emphasis in the international community to seek to return to the pre-war status-quo. However, opinions are gradually changing, because violent conflict destroys political, economic and social structures and new structures develop as a result, quite often irreversibly. Furthermore, returning to the pre-war status-quo may actually be undesirable if pre-war structures led to the conflict in the first place, or prevented its early resolution. IDPs' and refugees' right of return can represent one of the most complex aspects of this issue.

Normally, pressure is applied by the international community and humanitarian organization to ensure displaced people are able to return to their areas of origin and the same property. The UN Principles for Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and IDPs, otherwise known as the Pinheiro Principles, provides guidance on the management of the technical and legal aspects of housing, land and property (HLP) restitution. Restitution rights are of key importance to IDPs and refugees around the world, and important to try preventing aggressors benefiting from conflict. However, without a clear understanding of each local context, full restitution rights can be unworkable and fail to protect the people it is designed to protect for the following reasons, refugees and IDPs:

• may never have had property (e.g. in Afghanistan);
• cannot access what property they have (Colombia, Guatemala, South Africa and Sudan);
• ownership is unclear as families have expanded or split and division of the land becomes an issue;
• death of owner may leave dependents without clear claim to the land;
• people settled on the land know it is not theirs but have nowhere else to go (as in Colombia, Rwanda and Timor-Leste); and
• have competing claims with others, including the state and its foreign or local business partners (as in Aceh, Angola, Colombia, Liberia and Sudan)

Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute stress the need for humanitarian organization to develop a greater expertise in these issues, using experts who have a knowledge in both humanitarian and land and property issues and so provide better advice to state actors seeking to resolve these issues. The ODI calls on humanitarian agencies to develop an awareness of sustainable reintegration as part of their emphasis on returning IDPs and refugees home. Legal advice needs to be provided to all parties involved even if a framework is created in which to resolve these issues.