Refugees Magazine Issue 125 (September Terror) – Cover Story: After The Terror ... The Fallout

Refugees and asylum seekers worldwide feel the effects of the September attacks in the United States

By Ray Wilkinson

Afghanistan was, of course, the epicenter. In the maelstrom of fear and war that followed history's worst single act of terrorism in the United States, millions of civilians a half a world away became unintentional victims in the inevitable fallout, their misfortune being to live near the headquarters of 'World Terrorism, Inc.'

Untold numbers of Afghans abandoned their villages in search of greater safety in other parts of the country, joining an estimated one million people who had already been uprooted from their homes by years of civil war and famine. Others, too old, fragile, afraid or poor, cowered in their houses with dwindling supplies of food and heat at the height of a U.S.-led bombing campaign.

Although the borders of neighboring countries were officially closed, tens of thousands of people trekked across mountains and ill-defined tracks, crossing porous frontiers where an estimated 3.5 million Afghans had been in exile for as long as two decades.

Despite a dramatic turnabout on the battlefield, continued widespread insecurity and the onrushing winter, when one of the most inhospitable and harsh landscapes in the world is buried by impenetrable oceans of snow, threatened to prolong the human suffering for many more months.

Overnight, Afghanistan became the focus of global attention (following story). But there was a dreadful irony at work; for years the impoverished state deep in the heart of Central Asia had been the center of the world's largest humanitarian crisis. But the international community, disillusioned with a seemingly insoluble problem in a region, which had once hosted 'The Great Game' between imperial superpowers, had increasingly chosen to ignore it.

Now, rich nations were offering to piece Afghanistan together again, albeit after terrorism was blasted out of its mountain retreat and some unavoidable further collateral damage – a military euphemism for innocent victims – was visited on the civilian population.

GLOBAL TREMORS

A veritable media armada recorded Afghanistan's suffering with around-the-clock coverage, but tremors from the September attacks in New York and Washington were felt among refugees and asylum seekers in every corner of the globe.

Governments and politicians from America to Albania to Australia urgently debated anti-terrorism legislation which could affect refugees and asylum seekers. Some beefed up border controls and strengthened checks on all arrivals, including Afghans and others sometimes fleeing the kind of terror the western world now appeared determined to stamp out. The United States 'temporarily' slowed the granting of visas to able-bodied men from 26 Arab and Muslim nations.

NEWSWEEK magazine ran a cover story entitled "Will America lock its gates?" and editorialized: "Foreigners... from students and technical workers to bedraggled refugees find themselves asking the question that never would have occurred to them before September 11 – is the United States closing its gates?"

Neighboring Canada introduced tougher measures for front-end security screening of all asylum seekers immediately upon their arrival at land borders and airports. Previously, they had been allowed to enter the country and report for processing at a later date.

Australia had leaped into the world headlines even before the attacks in the United States by refusing to allow more than 430 people, including many Afghans, who had been rescued from a sinking ship to land in the country and ask for asylum. They were eventually shunted to the improbable destination of Nauru, a tiny spec in the South Pacific, for processing. Canberra asked other countries spread right across the South Pacific to accept future boatloads of claimants.

One reputed destination was Tuvalu – a nation which fears it is sinking beneath a rising Pacific Ocean. One suggested location on Tuvalu was so desolate the country's former president said, "The place can never sustain a population, even coconuts die there."

The government introduced legislative amendments to restrict the scope for judicial interpretation of the provisions of the 1951 Convention, authorized interdiction at sea and withdrew remote areas on its own territory – Christmas, Cocos and Ashmore islands – from a so-called 'immigration zone' thus denying foreigners arriving there the right to make asylum claims in liberal courts.

Australia directly linked the attacks in the United States with its position vis-à-vis asylum seekers. "You've got to be able to control that (the right to refuse entry to boat people), otherwise it can be a pipeline for terrorists to come in and use your country as a staging post for terrorist activities," Defense Minister Peter Reith told one radio interviewer.

Neighboring New Zealand agreed to accept 145 people refused by Australia and at virtually the same time as Reith was making his remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton responded to a question in Parliament: "It is reprehensible to link the terrorists attacks in the U.S. to refugees in New Zealand, let alone the Muslim community."

In a later, separate, interview High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said he had sympathy with the dilemma faced by countries such as Australia. "At the same time, the answer cannot simply be 'Keep them out,'" he said. "You need to organize it in a way that we go for the law and not for the law of the jungle. That's a challenge, not only for Australia, but for governments together."

RESETTLEMENT SUSPENDED

For several weeks Washington suspended a program which annually welcomed for resettlement as many as 80,000 refugees unable to return to their own countries as it undertook a comprehensive security review. An estimated 20,000 people who were waiting to travel to the U.S. were blocked until President George W. Bush signed a directive in late November effectively lifting the ban.

Though it was shortlived, the freeze brought additional heartache to refugees.

A seven-year-old Afghan boy who had already made it to America faced a very uncertain future after the attacks. He suffered from a rare blood condition and was awaiting the arrival of his sister, the perfect bone marrow match, to save his life. Her arrival, however, was put on hold.

One Afghan widow with five children who had already sold her last pieces of furniture to raise money for the trip now faced eviction from her temporary lodging. Seventeen Sierra Leoneans, mostly women with children, who had escaped the devastating civil war in that country were confronted with a continued stay in a refugee camp.

John Koor had counted himself among the lucky ones because after 14 years in a refugee camp, he had finally made it to the United States in August. But 'the events' even caught up with him in his new safe haven. The 21-year-old said finding work in the wake of the attacks was maybe the toughest obstacle he had ever faced. "If we do not find jobs soon, we are in trouble, I think," he told the local press. "We will be homeless. It is better to be in the refugee camp than sleeping on the streets of this country."

Iran, whose borders were closed to prevent any major influx of Afghans, forcibly deported several hundred people who had nevertheless successfully made it to the country.

Even the Caribbean's sleepy Cayman Islands, famed for its tourist resorts rather than terrorism, did not escape the fallout. Three Afghan asylum seekers who had arrived by ship from Turkey, were initially released and then put into protective custody following the attacks. In Mexico, around 100 Iraqi Chaldeans, most of whom were en route to America to seek asylum, were put into protective custody until their future could be sorted out.

Sporadic attacks against 'foreigners', their homes, businesses and mosques, were reported from many countries.

ALARM AND UNDERSTANDING

Humanitarian organizations, including UNHCR, were sympathetic to national security concerns, but extremely cautious and worried about some developments.

"Refugees and asylum seekers are already the objects of considerable mistrust and hostility in many countries, and they are particularly vulnerable in the current climate," High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said. "We should beware of those politicians who claim to pursue the public cause, but simply exploit racial instincts. Fighting against xenophobia must be a top priority."

Erika Feller, the agency's director of international protection, said it was 'reasonable' for states to examine new security safeguards which, among other things, might be built into procedures for determining refugee status.

UNHCR would examine the "best practices of states in this regard" she said, adding, "Our purpose in doing so is to avoid wrong answers being given to this inherently reasonable question. Put another way, our hope is to see any additional security-based procedural safeguards striking a proper balance with the refugee protection principles at stake."

UNHCR has consistently maintained that the 1951 Refugee Convention, the cornerstone of international protection for uprooted peoples (refugees magazine N° 123) already contains provisions to exclude terrorists from being granted asylum, the claims of some governments, politicians and media notwithstanding (see story page 11).

"It is crucial that states understand that the Convention does not provide a safe haven to terrorists, nor does it protect them from criminal prosecution," the agency said. "On the contrary, it is carefully framed to exclude persons who commit particularly serious crimes."

Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International weighed into the debate: "We are worried about the haste with which laws are being adopted" in the West, she said. "In the past, human rights were seen as a key to secure societies. Now human rights are seen as a key obstacle."

In the aftermath of the September attacks, UNHCR publicly listed 10 specific areas of 'most concern.' They included the threat of increased racism and xenophobia and the possibility of governments using proposed, recently approved or longstanding legislation and resolutions improperly against uprooted peoples because of their religion, ethnicity, national origin or political views.

There were two general areas of concern, the agency said: "That bona fide asylum seekers may be victimized as a result of public prejudice and unduly restrictive legislative or administrative measures, and that carefully built refugee protection standards may be eroded."

Specifically, the agency worried that vulnerable people might be penalized in several areas including tougher, unfair regulations on deportation, extradition, exclusion from protection instruments, the withdrawal of refugee status and the possible cancellation of resettlement programs.

It was ironic, UNHCR noted, that refugees themselves were often escaping violence, including terrorism, and were not the perpetrators of such acts, despite that public perception in some countries.

It suggested several ways that security could be tightened without threatening genuine asylum seekers. They included the establishment of specialized 'exclusion units' in countries which would have expertise in relevant areas of refugee and criminal law as well on terrorists themselves; closer cooperation between border guards, intelligence services and immigration authorities which could help identify terrorist suspects early and the use of fingerprinting.

WORLDWIDE REVIEW

A worldwide review of proposed legislation as refugees went to press underscored humanitarian concerns in many areas, but also some progress.

In the United States, under the "United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" wives and children of persons found inadmissible on terrorism grounds could also be detained because of their family relationship and not for their own individual actions. Another clause would raise the bars to asylum, possibly excluding persons deserving refugee status.

The aftermath of the September attacks also reverberated throughout America's northern neighbor, Canada, where immigration policy and security concerns along the world's longest unprotected frontier have been contentious issues for some time (refugees magazine n° 119).

A proposed Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which had been wending its way through Parliament since February rapidly received royal assent. Some advocates had viewed the bill as overly restrictive, but they fell silent on that issue to refocus their attention on questions of civil liberties and due process issues in the wake of the attacks.

In October, a 171-page anti-terrorism bill was introduced. Critics worried about the wide new powers the proposed law would give the police and courts. Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan announced a five point security strategy, including the fast-track preparation of tamper-proof permanent resident cards for new immigrants; tighter security screening of asylum claimants; increased detention and deportation capacities and the hiring of new staff at ports of entry.

The Department of Citizenship and Immigration immediately tightened entry procedures for asylum seekers by ordering their 'eligibility' processing at ports of entry rather than the old procedure of conducting them in-country at a later date. One U.S. based charity, Vive la Casa, immediately challenged the process by driving a convoy of cars and buses containing dozens of asylum seekers to one frontier post and demanding that they be allowed to enter Canada.

The next day, a temporary 30-day order was issued allowing immigration officials to 'direct-back' refugee claimants to the United States to await appointments to re-appear at the border.

Ottawa was particularly sensitive to charges by some American politicians that Canada serves as a staging point for terrorists, though no evidence surfaced that any of the September terrorists entered the U.S. through the northern border.

The buzz word in immigration circles at the end of the year was 'harmonization' of the two countries immigration and refugee policies, though there were fears that any such cooperation would tilt towards tougher U.S. policies rather than the more liberal Canadian approach.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, however, insisted to Parliament: "While there is a need to work together with the U.S. on immigration and refugee matters, this government is going to resist the temptation of hastily reforming the system to the detriment of the country's liberal traditions and its welcome to immigrants and refugees."

EUROPEAN MOVES

Across the Atlantic, the European Commission tabled its own legislative proposals to combat terrorism and streamline extradition procedures between member states. The refugee agency expressed some reservations on both.

The listing of such crimes as extortion, theft or robbery would not always be severe enough to warrant a person being 'excluded' from the provisions of the 1951 Convention, UNHCR said. The "vague and broadbrush approach in defining terrorist offences... may risk unjustifiably widening the applicability of the Convention's exclusion clauses through the interpretive 'back door.'"

The second proposal, while aiming to enforce the transfer of persons suspected of crimes between two states, should include safeguards to ensure that the protection of a refugee is not undermined by his extradition. Among other things, return arrangements to the country where a refugee is recognized should be put into place after prosecution or, at the very least, after serving a sentence.

The European Union is an influential player in the international standard-setting arena and its instruments are often used as models in other parts of the world. "The export value of instruments that do not contain explicit legal safeguards to other regions with less developed systems of human rights protection is worrisome," a UNHCR commentary said, "since it could have the potential of undermining existing human rights and refugee protection principles."

Individual European countries considered their own measures. British Home Secretary David Blunkett introduced a sweeping anti-terrorism bill which would suspend and could deny the right to seek asylum of persons detained under the proposed legislation.

Under existing law, a Special Immigration Appeals Commission examines cases of asylum seekers who are considered a threat to national security and their reasons for fleeing. The new proposals would bar the commission from considering the asylum content of appeals. It would also allow for the indefinite detention of suspects when they cannot be returned to their own countries.

"Existing refugee law protects asylum seekers while also ensuring the interests of states whose duty is to protect the public," Anne Dawson-Shepherd, UNHCR's Representative in the United Kingdom, said. "Any move to deny or suspend access to asylum procedures is therefore unnecessary and would be an erosion of the commitment" to the 1951 Refugee Convention.

WHITE PAPER

The government was also working on a 'White Paper' to set up reception centers for some asylum seekers, all of whom would be issued with new 'smart' identity cards.

Blunkett insisted the government would continue to support people in need of refuge. "I am determined that the government will maintain firm border controls," he said "but I am equally determined that that must not obstruct our obligations to provide protection to those who need it."

"Britain's shrunken political discourse, mixed with a residue of racism and xenophobia, has elevated the asylum question to a prominence it doesn't deserve," the economist weekly magazine opined. "A healthier attitude among politicians will make much of the problem go away."

In Germany, government coalition parties agreed in principle on their own antiterrorism package. Features would include provisions to facilitate the removal of suspected political extremists and allow authorities easier access to information on asylum seekers who could then become 'a target group of suspicion.' Humanitarian officials expressed concern that future refugee debate would center more around who could be excluded from international protection rather than who should be "included under the umbrella of the Convention."

The Austrian government announced persons would no longer be able to file asylum applications in its embassies following a huge increase in claimants in Pakistan and Iran. Politicians debated changes in asylum practices including suggestions that non-European claimants should not be admitted to the country during asylum procedures. Persons without proper identity papers could also be barred from refugee status, a most worrying suggestion since many refugees must use either false papers or destroy their own legitimate identification, to successfully escape persecution.

The xenophobia feared by humanitarian leaders surfaced during elections in Denmark, normally one of the world's most enlightened countries toward refugees. Mogens Camre, a European Parliament member, insisted that "All western countries have been infiltrated by Muslims, some of whom are polite to us while waiting until there's enough of them to get rid of us."

In the first European election since 'the events' Danish voters then elected a rightwing government after a campaign which focused on pledges to curb immigration. The Balkan region has become a major transit point for an increasing number of economic migrants and refugees and countries there were under pressure from western nations even before the terrorist attacks, to tighten their borders and laws.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a new package of proposed legislative measures would include extradition language without any safeguards against the forcible return home of vulnerable civilians (refoulement), provisions for detention which do not take into account international refugee law principles and an amendment to deprive some naturalized citizens of their passports.

Albania said it would amend its Law on Foreigners and then expelled five persons of Arabic origin, raising concerns about the possible future treatment of asylum seekers of similar ethnic background.

Croatia and Bulgaria both tightened their border controls.

MIXED SIGNALS

According to some humanitarian legal analysts, the whole edifice of international protection, including the 1951 Convention itself, had been under pressure for years and the September attacks added another powerful jolt in this direction.

Particularly worrisome were concerns that legislation which might unfairly target refugees, once enacted, might take years, if ever, to undo. Also the widening perception, often fuelled by politicians and the media, of refugees and asylum seekers as automatic terrorist suspects. In some countries the words 'bogus' and 'refugees' have already become virtually synonymous.

"This form of propaganda is particularly insidious and extremely difficult to fight," one official said. "Civilians who suddenly find themselves under attack are only too ready to believe that a 'suspect' person without any papers, with a different colored skin and with a seemingly implausible tale could be the enemy. Best not to take a chance, whatever the truth, and refuse to allow them in."

A worldwide program to permanently resettle particularly vulnerable refugees, a project UNHCR termed 'imperative', faced an uncertain future.

Canadian Prime Minister Chrétien said his country would continue to fully participate and would "welcome people from the whole world" and continue to "offer refuge to the persecuted."

Washington lifted its own temporary suspension, but it did lower the numbers the country would receive in 2002 and the refugee agency worried that several other traditional resettlement countries were now also "disinclined to maintain their programs at the promised level, particularly for certain ethnic groups."

In the United States, UNHCR welcomed the inclusion of habeas corpus actions (challenging the constitutionality of a detention decision) which was included in the new anti-terrorism package. There were also proposed automatic six-month reviews for people detained but still awaiting deportation and the easing of detention restrictions in some individual cases.

While debating stronger security measures, the German government said it would introduce a new immigration law which would stipulate that persons subject to persecution by so-called 'non-state agents' such as rebels or militia would be considered as refugees within the framework of the Convention. The proposed change would bring Germany into line with virtually all other signatory countries and end an anomaly where civilians fleeing countries such as Taliban-held Afghanistan were routinely excluded from asylum consideration.

Turkey also said it would reinforce the protection of Afghan asylum seekers by suspending the deportation of rejected claimants and delaying the finalization of negative decisions.

Most ironic of all, the current carnage in Central Asia could eventually offer longer term hope to millions of people who have become new victims in a new kind of war and those who had effectively been abandoned for years to seemingly permanent exile in refugee camps.

But things will never be quite the same again, anywhere, and it is probably too soon to know the long term effects of September 11 for millions of people seeking a safer life.

The NEWSWEEK cover story on immigration intoned of America's new attitude: "Some deserving people may be kept out, but so might a few dangerous terrorists. It's the price visitors and Americans must pay for a safer country." That is a worry worldwide for refugees.

But Stephen Malet, another Sudanese Lost Boy, roommate of the unemployed John Koor in Chicago, was more philosophical: "In Sudan, we expected to die. Those people in the World Trade Center did not expect to die. This is why this country is good, even if we do not have a job."

Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 125: "The September Terror: A Global Impact" (January 2002). Download the complete issue (pdf, 1.2Mb) here