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From the President’s Desk Time for Action for Burmese, Bhutanese
and Iraqi Refugees Refugees shouldn’t have to be refugees for longer than five years. By that time, they should be afforded the opportunity for returning home if conditions allow, for integrating into their first host country, or for resettling in a third country. Unfortunately, most refugees wait longer. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants’ World Refugee Survey, in 2005, 7.89 million of the world’s 12 million refugees had been warehoused for five years or longer. 2007 can and should be a year of action for three groups of refugees: the Burmese, the Bhutanese and the Iraqis. The Burmese. In 2005 some 727,000 Burmese refugees lived in Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and India. Burma’s oppressive military regime has persistently persecuted ethnic and religious minorities and pro-democracy activists. The current Burmese refugee population includes Christian Chin, Karen and Karenni ethnic groups, and Muslim Rohingyas. The majority of the Burmese refugees have been “warehoused” for 10 years or more. In 2004 UNHCR, the United States and Thailand agreed that large-scale resettlement of Burmese refugees should begin. Three U.S. “material support” waivers remove a significant resettlement barrier for more than 100,000 Burmese refugees in Thailand, Malaysia and India, and U.S. arrivals should ramp up significantly over the next four years. LIRS has been actively involved with Burmese since 2001 when we resettled a group of Chin refugees who had fled to Guam. The Bhutanese. Some 105,000 refugees from Bhutan—one-seventh of the Bhutanese population—have lived in camps in southeastern Nepal for 16 years now. Predominantly Hindus of the Nepali ethnic minority, they are victims of the King of Bhutan’s efforts to “ethnically cleanse” his authoritarian mountain state. Since there is no realistic prospect of repatriation, UNHCR and the United States have urged Nepal to allow third-country resettlement and some local integration, which LIRS hopes might begin in 2007. The Lutheran World Federation has been the major nongovernmental provider of assistance to the Bhutanese since they first arrived in Nepal. LIRS is actively engaged in efforts to find durable solutions, including resettlement. The Iraqis. Following the 1991 Gulf War hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites fled to Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, there was no immediate mass exodus, but ongoing widespread violence in Iraq has prompted nearly 2 million Iraqis to seek refuge in neighboring countries, with thousands more leaving each day. The United States and UNHCR are just beginning to formulate a response to this humanitarian crisis, currently the world’s largest and fastest-growing refugee outflow. With our partners in the Refugee Council USA, LIRS is urging a generous response, beginning with family reunification for those with relatives in the United States. This is a chance for the world to ensure that Iraqi refugees don’t have to wait as long as the Burmese and Bhutanese—that the Iraqis won’t be “warehoused,” too.
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