Tanzania: Forcible Repatriation Threat for Burundian Refugees

allAfrica.com: Tanzania: Forcible Repatriation Threat for Burundian Refugees

Zachary Lomo

21 May 2009

opinion

Around 40,000 Burundian refugees face involuntary repatriation when Tanzania's Mtabila refugee camp is closed at the end of June, writes Zachary Lomo. Officials have told refugees that 'if they are still in the camp after 30 June, they will be beaten and forced to run empty-handed to Burundi'.

Although the camp schools have been closed and the markets destroyed, very few refugees have registered to return home. There is no longer fighting in Burundi but many refugees fear the reprisal killing of anyone suspected of supporting opposition groups, as well as disputes over property. Tanzanian field officers claim they have no plans to force the refugees to return to Burundi and will negotiate their integration and naturalisation of those unwilling or unable to go back with the Tanzanian government.

BREAKING NEWS

A source that does not want to be named confirmed that yesterday, 20 May 2009, several refugee homes were set on fire. Refugees were told that if they did not leave their homes as part of the camp consolidation process, their homes would be burnt. Apparently some lost all their possessions. This was done when NGO staff were out of the camp.

Mtabila refugee camp, home to some 40,000 Burundian refugees, is reportedly to be closed by the end of June and all of its inhabitants are threatened with involuntary repatriation.

On 8 May, I received the first telephone call of several here in Cambridge from a desperate refugee whom I had met last November in Mtabila. He said a Tanzanian official has told them that if they are still in the camp after 30 June, they will be beaten and forced to run empty-handed to Burundi. The official said that they had better heed the last and final call and register and get a 'dignified' chance to return to their country. Despite such threat, he said very few refugees had registered to return. Nevertheless, schools have been closed and the markets have been destroyed. He also said that security had been beefed up as more police were being brought into the camp. Another report says the army has been positioned outside. Although no refugee is allowed to leave the camp, according to my caller, some people are managing to escape, fleeing towards Uganda and Kenya.

Apparently the Burundian's fate was already sealed in 2007, when the UNHCR and the Tanzanian and Burundi governments signed a tripartite agreement under the Cessation Clause, a provision of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The Cessation Clause can (only legally) be evoked when conditions in the home country have dramatically changed for the better. Even then, repatriation is supposed to be entirely voluntary, with optional provisions made by the host government for those refugees who are unwilling to return.

When I was conducting research in Mtabila in November 2008, rumours of camp closure and forced repatriation were rife. In fact, this was the main concern of refugees I interviewed. They feared Tanzania would use the army as they did back in 1996. Refugees acknowledge there is no fighting in Burundi, but they still fear continuing reprisal killing that will affect anyone suspected of supporting any of the myriad opposition groups. They also fear the disputes that will arise over their property - disputes that are inevitable in an overcrowded country where all unoccupied houses or land get taken over by those there first. Those who have most to fear are the descendants of the 1972 expulsion from Burundi. Not having been born in Burundi, they have nothing to return to. One man who had made a brief visit to Burundi said he would never take his family of five children back because they might all die in one swoop of a grenade attack. He had seen his relatives who were killed and their houses destroyed by grenades.

Last November, I also met with the head of the field office in Kasula, Tanzania and he reassured me that they were not planning to force the Burundians to return. They would 'screen' those who were unwilling or unable to go back and negotiate with the Tanzanian government concerning their integration and naturalisation. Apparently such precautions have not been taken if the refugee who called me is an example.

Government officers were less accessible, but when I managed to meet one junior officer, he did admit that there were problems that arose because those involved in making tripartite agreements 'were not conversant with issues on the ground' and that 'for UNHCR repatriation was a priority'. He admitted that his office had been 'directed that no more new arrivals will be accepted because it undermines the current repatriation programme.'

Kasulu, Kibondo and Ngara districts - the location of most refugees in Tanzania - are too far away from the capital for any journalist to report on. I can only hope that this mobile phone call will be sufficient alert to this story.

* Zachary Lomo is currently reading for his doctorate in international law and refugees at the University of Cambridge.

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