Pressing Issues

Another issue that has arisen in this recent period is security both for the refugees and for the humanitarian workers.

Very much so.

How has that complicated your agenda, and what have you done about it?

We have tried to make security issues of our own staff very high in the priorities of getting resources, as well as training the staff. We have increased the number of field security officers so that at least in every dangerous situation there will be a security specialist who can advise our colleagues. All the people who are going to the field are trained for security consciousness. Their supervisors also are to be trained and informed. We have given them equipment. We insist on giving them holidays because a worn-out, distressed worker is already risking his or her own life. So these security measures we have done, but in spite of that I cannot say that it is perfect or that we are totally risk free. We cannot say that because the situation that they are exposed to is a very volatile one.

You have also had to confront the demilitarization of the refugees themselves. Some of these people are not legitimate refugees but participants in the war who may even be war criminals.

War criminals are very hard to indict; that we cannot do. But at least [in the case of] militarized or armed people, we will have to insist that the security responsibility lies theoretically on the country of asylum. But many of these countries do not have the capacity to patrol the refugee camps, to monitor the situation, and so on. So either we have tried to bring in security teams or we have tried to strengthen the law-and-order maintenance capacity of local policeman and so on. These are things we have tried to do; it is not a perfect answer. But we do have to continue to do a little bit better.

In the end, these refugee situations require a comprehensive settlement and a comprehensive solution. What can your office and your colleagues do to further that reality, even though it is not something that you can do on your own?

Whenever there are comprehensive settlements, whether it is the Cambodian under UNCTAF (the UN had a very comprehensive transition team) or whether it was the Bosnian Dayton peace agreement, we are usually invited to make comments on the terms, which we do. We try to make sure the settlement does reflect the important principles and process for the return of refugees to a more normal life.

How does the return and reintegration of the refugees affect the broader process of building peace and securing justice in some of these places?

On peace, I always feel that a country that has large numbers of their population still outside their country is not at peace. Return of refugees is a very important ingredient of reestablishing peace of a country. Justice is a very complicated issue because if you insist on justice -- what do you do with people who were caught and fled? Or who evaded draft? There has to be a balance between amnesty and justice. For these problems, South Africa used its way, Cambodia is looking for its way, Rwanda is looking for its way. And Dayton is looking for its way. In every post-conflict situation, in the process of achieving reconciliation and reconstruction, the issues of amnesty and justice are very important.

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