At the time I worked in the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, a clear fact was often mentioned: the vast majority of displaced people around the world host the world’s poorest countries. Today, 85% of refugees live in developing countries, while the richest nations accept only 15%.
Although Rwanda can develop economically, it is still among the 25 poorest countries in the world. The United Kingdom is among the 10 richest countries in the world. Recognizing the wealth gap between the two nations and deciding that Rwanda is better able to shelter people trying to make the treacherous journey across the English Channel requires a huge leap of the imagination. The deal, announced by Interior Minister Priti Patel in Kigali on Thursday, demonstrates the government’s tenacious commitment to positioning Britain as a country closed to the world and those most in need of asylum.
After the announcement of the policy, there was a great political debate and condemnation, and the government arranged for the arrival in Rwanda of the British media, which it considered most appropriate, to help it trumpet this maneuver in time for the local elections. But there are still questions we need to ask to determine if this is a cynical trick or a deliberate policy.
Is it because Rwanda has more geographical capacity, perhaps? More vacant land or housing infrastructure? Does Britain really care about seams? Rwanda’s population density is almost twice that of Britain. This is a country almost twice as crowded as ours. Yet there are already five times as many refugees per capita as in the United Kingdom. In addition to hosting Congolese and Burundian refugees, Rwanda has recently offered itself as a host country for the emergency evacuation of refugees trapped in difficult conditions in Libya.
In the introduction to the Interior Ministry’s memorandum of understanding with Rwanda, the United Kingdom boasts of accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees as a way to demonstrate its “long and proud history of providing protection to those in need.” This statement is ridiculous. More than 6 million Syrians have fled their country in the 11 years since the war began. Lebanon has hosted 2 million Syrians for most of the crisis – a third of Lebanon’s 6 million people. Bangladesh, one of the world’s most populous countries, is home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Poland currently hosts 2.7 million Ukrainians. These figures put in context what it really means to protect those in need.
The memorandum speaks of “burden-sharing” during refugee crises. Rwanda, a country that has experienced its fair share of crises, is already taking its share of the burden. The United Kingdom has a comfortable capacity to accommodate people crossing the English Channel. She neglected her share of the burden, while persuading Rwanda to bear more.
How the interior minister managed to persuade the Rwandan government to accept the agreement may become clear over time. When Australia used the small island nation of Nauru for such a purpose, it provided aid in return. Australia, a highly privileged country, is effectively paying a less economically fortunate country to take desperate people out of its hands, in some cases for years. The British government recklessly copied the Australian book while its PR agents trumpeted the coup as a triumph.
“Rwanda plans to break up Channel gangs,” reads the front page of the Daily Mail. “A bold plan to send migrants by boat to Rwanda,” the Daily Express said, as if the prime minister had witnessed a selfless display of reason, humanity and courage – striking for compassion, saving England from the scourge of people simply trying to escape death. poverty. When Boris Johnson referred in his speech Thursday to people who “enter the country illegally”, he used the worst kind of semantics. Refugees fleeing conflict or persecution do not have the luxury of entering the UK legally. If they had the time and opportunity to apply for a visa for the United Kingdom, they would not be essentially refugees. Asylum search routinely involves entering the territory without prior permission.
When UNHCR Director for Asia and the Pacific, Indrika Ratouat, visited Nauru in 2018, he said he was shocked by the huge consequences that long-term detention has had on people’s mental health – more than 80% have been diagnosed with PTSD, trauma and depression. “The feeling of hopelessness and despair was extremely palpable,” he told the press. In Greece in 2020, asylum seekers living in the Moria reception center on the island of Lesbos burned it down in what many saw as a protest against poor conditions and dangerous levels of overcrowding.
We should not automatically assume that Rwanda’s model of receiving asylum seekers will follow that of Lesbos or Nauru. Indeed, there is some good news about the integration of refugees. But Rwanda, which Johnson describes as one of the safest countries in the world, is also a country that violates the rights of its own citizens. What guarantees can we have that non-citizens will be well received?
Rwanda has internal transit centers where people considered “undesirable” – including beggars – are sent to keep the streets attractive to tourists attracted by the country’s international marketing campaigns. Rwandans who oppose or criticize the government may be informed by neighbors who are under surveillance, blackmailed, tortured, sent to rehab camps or even killed.
Many Rwandans have been forcibly returned to refugee camps in neighboring countries in the years since the 1994 genocide. Many continue to risk their lives or their freedom to roam the remote jungles to escape and flee to Uganda as refugees. When was the last time someone fled the United Kingdom seeking asylum abroad?
In a report on Patel and Johnson’s plan, the Daily Telegraph said “migrants will be encouraged to settle” in Rwanda. The agreement does not seem to give them much choice. Their capabilities, if Rwanda does not prove to be a safe or sustainable place for them, will be somewhat limited.
“Rwanda will ensure that it treats every displaced person and processes his or her asylum application in accordance with the Refugee Convention,” the memorandum said. But what about the UK’s obligation to abide by the convention it signed? How about this long and proud history of defense?
UNHCR, the organization set up to support the convention, said it would postpone its decision on the legality of Patel’s deal until legal teams in Geneva analyze the details. However, his position is clear. “UNHCR does not support assigning responsibilities to asylum states,” the statement said.
There are long-term solutions to the current global refugee crises, such as tackling the root causes that threaten people’s lives and livelihoods. But a fundamental principle of any morally functioning government is to protect people’s human rights to seek safety, not to transfer that responsibility to countries with less developed asylum systems.
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