1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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and who is not a refugee is probably irrelevant, given not consider themselves to be part of-any country and
the ever-expanding number of groups worldwide who have no sense of belonging to an individual, extant
are just as persecuted and uprooted as official refu- country. That is the case whether we are talking about
gees. Georgia or Burma or Afghanistan.
The problem of accurate accounting of refugees goes
way beyond the definitional problem, however. Every Meeting Refugee Needs
day, we hear new figures about how many refugees are
here or there. Refugee statistics are fraught with In terms of who attends to refugees, it is quite telling
untruths and inaccuracies. Do not believe any of the to look at where the money comes from to support ref-
figures you hear; they are all made up. Most of these ugee aid. In absolute terms, the United States devotes
figures are from thirdhand or fourthhand sources, the most money, while the European Community as a
many of whom are unreliable. There are vested whole devotes the second-largest amount. I think a
groups-including the refugees themselves-who better way to look at this, however, is on a per capita
want those figures either inflated or deflated for their basis. North European countries-notably, Norway-
particular interests. The numbers only provide a rela- give a disproportionate amount of money to the care
tive approximation of how many are in one region vis- and treatment of refugees. Using this criteria, the
a-vis another, and they change dramatically over time. United States falls to about 10th or 11th place.
Today, official recognized bona fide refugees-those There are strings attached to all this money. When a
who register with the UN after crossing an interna- country donates money to the UN, it always attaches a
tional border-number over 17 million. Broken down string dictating where its aid can go. Aid from the
regionally, they include: United States and the European Community always
goes to countries and regions where strong trade alli-
- In Africa, 5.7 million. This is so far below the actual ances exist with the donor.
number; it is not even close. Africa is one of the
worst regions. In any case, the people with the power and the money
are in the United States and Europe; they do not give
- In Europe and North America, 3.4 million. Of money to Africa until conditions there get out of con-
course, this does not include what is going on in trol. And often, the humanitarian situation in Africa is
Georgia. muted because many of-those affected are not, by def-
inition, real refugees because they have not crossed
. In Latin America, 107,700, primarily in Central any international borders. As far as the displaced are
America. concerned, however, when they leave their tribal or
clan homeland, they have crossed a border; they do
e In East Asia and the Pacific, 399,000. not need to go any farther than that. (Indeed, many
Africans do not recognize international borders on
- In the Middle East, 5.5 million. their continent except as lines on the map.) As such,
money is not earmarked for most African areas until
- In South and Central Asia, 2.3 million. conditions flare up to the extent that they become of
international concern. This usually occurs only after
More important than these numbers, however, are the the situation has already spiraled out of control.
50 million internally displaced people who are not
recognized as refugees. These are the people who
have never had any form of internationally recognized
status and who are probably never going to attain
nationhood. They are not counted. They are the
majority of displaced peoples in the world. They do
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