Category: Iraqi refugees

Keep Iraqi refugees from becoming radicalized: help them go home

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ken Bacon, who last appeared on Refugee Resettlement Watch in November, ridiculously urging President-Elect Obama to bring in more than 100,000 Iraqi refugees in one year, seems to have come to his senses since then.  On December 22 he posted a good entry on his organization’s blog titled “The Risk of Radicalized Refugees.”  Bacon is the head of Refugees International, the lobbying arm of the refugee industry.

Bacon cites a New York Times article about angry youths in refugee camps in Darfur who have become more radical than their elders, the tribal sheikhs. They are bored, with nothing to do, uprooted from their lives and traditions, and receiving a little education — about enough to be dangerous, it seems.   

Education in the camps, which often stops at the eighth grade, has to a degree expanded the horizons of men like Mr. Ismael. English was not taught in their now-razed villages, for instance. But their heightened awareness has also stoked their outrage about the wrongs committed against them and about their lack of opportunity.

“You cannot call them a unified group with one political ideology, but they are all angry,” said Mr. Khater, the writer. “That is the factor unifying them.”

The article concludes:

“The government has created a powder keg that it doesn’t know how to defuse,” said a Western diplomat in Khartoum with wide experience in the camps.

Bacon relates this story to the Iraqi refugees:

The story caught my eye because it highlights a serious problem:  long stays in camps—either as refugees out of their countries or displaced within their own countries—can radicalize youth.  We have seen this over the years with Palestinians and with Afghan refugees, and we could well see it with displaced Iraqi youths who are living in increasingly desperate conditions.

Although most of the nearly five million displaced Iraqis don’t live in camps, they endure many of the same problems—economic hardship, limited educational opportunities, and long, boring days with little reason to hope that they will return home soon or have an opportunity to work.   While girls are often busy helping their mothers, young men have less to do, making them susceptible to recruitment by political or militia movements.

Heading off the potential radicalization of Iraqi youth should be a top priority for the government of Iraq and for the U.S.  This means resolving the displacement crisis—one out of every five Iraqis is either a refugee or internally displaced—as quickly as possible.

I think that’s right. And to his credit, Bacon doesn’t even bring up third-country resettlement. He goes straight to the point:

But neither Iraq nor the region will be safe and stable if five million Iraqis are still displaced, with 2.7 million in Iraq and the rest living as refugees in Jordan, Syria and other nearby countries.  The only sensible, durable solution is to create conditions for safe return, something that is going to require coordination by the U.S. and Iraq.  The government of Iraq has only started to deal with a host of complex legal and property issues necessary to encourage return.  But most important, Iraq will have to demonstrate that it can keep its cities safe and provide the services, including schools, that returning Iraqis need.

If the refugee agencies are really concentrating on helping to create the conditions for the safe return of the refugees, that would be welcome news indeed. I have a feeling it’s not that simple. But perhaps with Bush-hatred no longer clouding their minds, they can see more clearly what needs to be done, and work to help make it happen.

Hat tip: Matthew Hay Brown at the Baltimore Sun

Iraq proposing to give 3 percent of oil revenues to refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

MENAFN (Middle East North Africa Financial Network) reports:

Iraq’s foreign minister announced that the ministry is planning proposals to assign a portion of the country’s oil profit for Iraqi refugees in bordering countries, Iraq Directory reported.

He went on to say that millions of Iraqi citizens have left to neighboring countries, mainly to Syria and Jordan and are living in poor environments and that is the main reason for the current measures.

It is worth mentioning that the Iraqi parliament will vote on a proposal in which three percent of Iraqi oil profits will go to neighboring countries, particularly Syria and Jordan.

That’s the piece in its entirety. Someone should send the staff of this web site to journalism school. The headline reads: “Iraq to allocate 3% of oil profits for refugees.” The article says first that the ministry is planning proposals. Then it says the Iraqi parliament will vote on a proposal. Nothing has been decided. I can’t decide either: I can’t decide whether the writer is unfamiliar with how a democracy works, or just dumb.

Either way, it’s good news the Iraqi government is thinking about, proposing, or about to give some money to help their refugees.

Christians are “the roots of Iraq”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

At the risk of being repetitive, I want to share a Reuters article that mentions an important fact many are not aware of (hat tip: Dhimmi Watch):

Christians have no political ambitions and they don’t have militias to defend themselves. They are peaceful people,” Thaier al-Sheikh, the pastor of the Sacred Heart church, said as he sipped tea in his rectory.

“Christians have been here longer than Muslims, 600 years longer. We are the roots of Iraq,” he said.

“We want to live in this country; we don’t want anything else. But we want to live peacefully … Unfortunately, today we have the impression that Christians have no future in Iraq,” he said, standing before he donned his gold-trimmed clerical robes.

Here’s why many Christians have that impression:

Suspicions that religious minorities had no future in Shi’ite Muslim-led Iraq were aggravated in November by parliament’s decision to give minorities just six out of 440 local government seats in provincial elections next month.

Christians were set aside three seats nationally, with only one in Baghdad — too few in the eyes of many Christians.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had sought a greater share of seats for minorities, but many Christians felt slighted when it approved the law with a smaller number anyway.

Then there are the recent attacks in Mosul, the northern city where many Christians had fled from the violence elsewhere because it used to be safer. Liz Sly writes in the Chicago Tribune from Lebanon, where Christians who can afford the airfare flee because its population is 40 percent Christian, unlike Syria and Jordan where Christians are not really welcome at all. She gives some useful figures about Iraqi Christians:

…as many as 500,000 to 700,000 of the 1.4 million Christians in Iraq are believed to have fled in the past five years, according to a report last week by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent body appointed by Congress.

“Five years from now there won’t be any Christians left in Iraq. It’s happening quietly but also very quickly,” said retired Gen. Michel Kasdano, a researcher and spokesman at the Chaldean Archbishopric.

I don’t necessarily believe that last statement. Projections based on current trends are usually wrong.

In 2006 and 2007, most of the new arrivals were from Baghdad, he said. But since the attacks in late October against Christians in Mosul, which forced an estimated 2,000 Christian families to flee to nearby villages, Christians have been arriving from the north, which was previously considered relatively safe.

Then some more numbers:

Christians still represent a small minority of refugees, aid agencies point out. About 60 percent of all the Iraqis who fled are Sunni Muslims, even though they account for only 20 percent of Iraq’s population, said Sybella Wilkes of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Damascus, Syria.

But Christians, who accounted for 4 percent of Iraq’s population on the eve of the war, are also disproportionately represented, comprising 16 percent of the 1.1 million refugees in Syria and 25 percent of the 50,000 refugees in Lebanon, the UN says.

They also account for a disproportionate number of those being granted asylum overseas.

Of the 16,874 Iraqis resettled in the U.S. since 2006, 48 percent are Christians, according to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Others claim asylum in Western countries such as Sweden and Australia, though not all will be admitted, leaving their future uncertain.

I don’t think we’ve seen that 48 percent number before. Ann can tell me — she’s better at remembering things than I am. I know we were once told that the State Department doesn’t keep statistics on the religion of Iraqi refugees. Is that idiotic or what?

Okay, back to the original subject: The long history of Christians in Iraq. Here’s a very brief BBC piece that gives some facts:

Christians have inhabited what is modern day Iraq for about 2,000 years, tracing their ancestry to ancient Mesopotamia and surrounding lands.

….Most Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans, Eastern-rite Catholics who are autonomous from Rome but who recognise the Pope’s authority.

Chaldeans are an ancient people, some of whom still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

The other significant community are Assyrians, the descendants of the ancient empires of Assyria and Babylonia.

After their empires collapsed in the 6th and 7th Centuries BC, the Assyrians scattered across the Middle East.

They embraced Christianity in the 1st Century AD, with their Ancient Church of the East believed to be the oldest in Iraq.

Assyrians also belong to the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Chaldean Church, and various Protestant denominations.

….Other ancient Churches include Syrian Catholics, Armenian Orthodox and Armenian Catholic Christians, who fled from massacres in Turkey in the early 20th Century.

There are also small Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities, as well as Anglicans and Evangelicals.

Muhammed, the founder of Islam, was born in 570 A.D. The Christian lands of the Middle East were conquered by force of arms, and Christianity was suppressed. Contrary to politically correct reports that Islam was tolerant and all religions lived in peace with each other, non-Muslims became dhimmis, second-class-citizens, and were subjected to special high taxes and other oppressive measures, so for many it was easier to convert to Islam than to continue as Christians.

There’s the history in brief, and that’s the reason for this quote at the end of the Reuters article:

Peter Maqdusi insisted that Christians’ millenarian history here means they have no choice but to await a more stable, peaceful Iraq.

“We have made sacrifices and our ancestors have made sacrifices. This is our land,” he said.

And that’s why the U.S. should be making heroic efforts to make sure Christians are treated properly in Iraq and are not forced to flee. Instead, we approved a constitution that enshrines Sharia law as the law of the land.

Advocacy group calls on Obama to appoint Iraqi refugee coordinator

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Matthew Hay Brown at the Baltimore Sun alerts us to a campaign on behalf of Iraqi refugees by Human Rights First, an advocacy organization that supports worthwhile causes and not-so-worthwhile ones. It calls oppressive governments to account, but seems to lump the U.S. government in with those of Sudan, Egypt, Zimbabwe, etc. in needing their oversight in order to preserve human rights. (I’ve just skimmed their website so I’m open to correction on this, but putting an amicus brief on behalf of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on a par with stopping arms to Sudan and Zimbabwe is just a bit unhinged, isn’t it?)

Some of their ideas on Iraqi refugees have merit; others are off. Their press release  calls on “President-elect Obama to fulfill his campaign’s commitment to confront the Iraqi refugee crisis by strengthening oversight and effectiveness of refugee assistance, ensuring that the Iraqi government refrains from pressuring refugees to return home before they can do so in safety, and placing a coordinator for Iraqi refuges in the White House.”

The coordinator would be “responsible for ensuring that appropriate policy toward Iraqi refugees is integrated into U.S. strategic and operational plans in Iraq. The position was first proposed by Senator Edward Kennedy and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden.”

That’s kind of a neutral recommendation. Its merit would depend on what the coordinator was supposed to do. Here’s some of it.

The blueprint also urges the U.S. government to set “refugee benchmarks” for the Iraqi government and for U.S. assistance to shift from the government to NGOs if those benchmarks are not met. The benchmarks would require the Iraqi government to acknowledge that return of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees should be voluntary and to discuss more flexible visa policies for refugees with its neighbors.

I wonder in what way the government of Iraq is forcing the return of IDPs and refugees. And here’s the part I really have questions about:

In the past year, the Iraqi government has started a media campaign promoting refugee return and has organized return flights for refugees. Amelia Templeton, refugee policy analyst for Human Rights First, discussed the implications of the campaign with refugee families in Syria on a recent trip to the region in October.

“Security has improved in Iraq today,” says Templeton “but many refugees fear what might happen tomorrow. They’re looking for some measure of political stability.”

Templeton also noted that many refugees view the current return campaign as propaganda. “The government of Iraq should focus on providing humanitarian aid and accurate information to refugees and the internally displaced,” says Templeton.

It sounds like Templeton has her own agenda. Of course refugees fear what will happen tomorrow — who wouldn’t? Refugees are weighing what to do: Would they do better back in Iraq or as refugees? Is it safe in the part of Iraq they came from? Will they have a job? An organization trying to help the refugees would help them answer or solve these questions, and perhaps help Iraq’s government come up with solutions to the problems of jobs and housing. But it doesn’t sound as if Human Rights First is too interested in helping the refugees return home. Or maybe I’m just cranky. But it does seem as if this group is of a piece with the entire left in not wanting to give the U.S. any credit for making things better in Iraq. If the refugees could return home that would be a sign of improvement.

Oh, wait. We’re getting a new president. As soon as Obama takes the reins the situation in Iraq will miraculously improve; just wait and see.

Media busy visiting Iraqi churches on Christmas

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I posted on an AP article about a Chaldean church in Baghdad. Christmas in Iraq proves to be a popular story line with the media.  I found two other stories about churches in Baghdad celebrating Christmas: one from McClatchy about a Greek Orthodox church and one from Time magazine about a “Catholic” church. The latter shows special ignorance. What kind of Catholic? Assyrian? Chaldean? Roman? Reporters learned to differentiate between Sunni and Shia Muslims, but since Catholics aren’t attacking each other I guess some of them can’t be bothered to figure out the different Iraqi churches.

At any rate, it’s nice to see attention paid to Christians in Iraq, and the human interest stories are good. But it would also be good if the reporters dug a little deeper. We get information about the government’s efforts (from  McClatchy):

The government of Iraq has tried to telegraph a message that the country is safe enough for Christian refugees to return this year.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki touted security improvements in a July meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. Iraq Interior Minister Jawad Bolani this week hosted a Christmas celebration in the city’s Karrada neighborhood where a man dressed up like Santa Claus mingled with children wearing traditional Iraqi clothing.

A banner at the outdoor party read, “Christians are part of the Iraqi people.”

And the obligatory “but” —

High profile attacks against Christians, particularly in the northern city of Mosul, test that message.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that as many 2,000 Christian families fled that city in October after a series of killings. Some began to return a month later with the help of $800 cash grants from the Iraqi government to help them resettle.

Haven’t we learned by now that Iraq isn’t a monolithic place, and that violence has been dealt with area by area? The situation in Mosul is not the same as that in Baghdad or other places. It doesn’t detract from the achievements in Baghdad that the entire county isn’t pacified yet. 

The Time article doesn’t bother with Mosul. It’s all warmhearted human interest with this tacked on at the end:

As the congregants headed home, a car bomb exploded in Shula, a predominantly Shi’ite neighborhood northwest of Mansur, the AP reported. The bomb appeared to have been targeted at the Iraqi police.

That’s just so we don’t think things are actually much better, I guess; I don’t know what other relevance it could have. But the parts that really need more background are those on the Christian refugees who have left Iraq.  From the McClatchy article:

Yacob said the exodus won’t reverse until Christians feel they can hold steady jobs in the Muslim country.

“They won’t listen if I say turn back and I don’t provide them with jobs and security,” he said.

A church member said it feels safe enough now, but he isn’t sure it will last.  The Time article points out what we’ve been saying:

“I’m asking all the Christian brothers to come back and rebuild the new Iraq,” [the priest] told his audience, adding that he had stayed through the worst years of the violence, during which he took on the leadership of two additional churches whose priests had fled. After the service, others in the congregation echoed his pride.

“My sister and her family are in America now as humanitarian refugees in Chicago. But they feel like strangers there, and they miss this atmosphere,” says Ghassan Khudher, a pediatrician who has attended Mar Yousif on Christmas for the past 10 years. “Here there is still fear for our families and our children,” he says to me. “But I don’t like being outside [Iraq], because your country is not like Iraq.”

Reporters are welcome to consult RRW for information on Iraqi refugees in the U.S. Just search “Iraqi” and “jobs”  or “Iraqi” and “unemploy” and you’ll find a lot of stories about how difficult it is for Iraqi refugees here, culturally and economically. A common thread has been that people who were professionals in Iraq can’t work in their fields here, though the refugee agencies promised them streets paved with gold. And of course many of the refugees miss their own culture and country.