Question for the Record Submitted to the Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger Q: RESTORING DEMOCRACY IN HAITI: If the current OAS efforts fail, will you take the embargo issue to the Security Council, as the French and German ambassadors suggest? A: o The large majority of OAS member states have honored the embargo against Haiti. While the European Community suspended aid to Haiti and indicated support of OAS efforts, they have not honored the OAS embargo, explaining that they feel they are prevented from doing so under the Lome convention. We support the OAS efforts in Haiti and remain hopeful that OAS Secretary General Baena Soares will be able to broker negotiations between the de facto regime in Haiti and President Aristide's negotiating commission. Once the OAS Secretary General has returned from Haiti, we will assess the results of his mission and confer with other OAS member states, as well as other UN Security Council members, on what further steps should be considered. 60-250 - 93 - 6 Question for the Record submitted to Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs July 23, 1992 We are Q2. The Shape of Post-Cold War Refugee Resettlement. seeing changes in the world refugee profile following the Cold War. Cold War refugees, by and large, are going home, and those needing resettlement will be resettled within 2-3 years. But these refugees are being replaced by those fleeing nationalist and ethnic violence and civil war. We are to be commended for our achievements in resettling so many refugees over the years. However, we need to look ahead. I believe we need to retool our resettlement program to be more responsive to global needs. Instead of concentrating on two or three major refugee groups, as we have in recent years, we should work more closely with UNHCR, the Red Cross, and our embassies around the world to do our part to resettle refugees at risk, wherever they might be. In addition, in legislation which Sen. Simpson has joined me in sponsoring, we would give State Department officers the authority to make refugee determinations where INS officers are not readily available. The idea is to be able to act promptly anywhere in the world to rescue refugees at risk. a) What are your thoughts about changes we might need to make to the program, in light of the end of the Cold War? b) According to UNHCR, there are many refugees requiring resettlement who we miss. For the past couple of years, I have raised the need for the United States to be more responsive to cases identified by the UN, and some progress has been made. UNHCR is also improving its screening procedures to identify only the truly needy cases. And you are doing a better job on these cases, too. Yet, there are still a significant number of UNHCR cases that we could help. For example, in Africa, as of May, we have resettled only 167 Liberians. UNHCR has identified 1000 in need of resettlement. We had taken 46 Ugandans. UNHCR says there are 660. And we took one Rwandan and no Burundis, when UNHCR says 265 Rwandans and 115 Burundis need resettlement. Can we expect further progress on this in the coming year? Answer -2 a) Changes in Our Resettlement Program. As stated in my testimony, if current trends continue we foresee a decline in refugee admissions from the former Soviet Union and Vietnam by the mid-90's. The conclusion of refugee resettlement for these two large groups may well allow us to increase our resettlement programs in other regions. There are two tools which we use to channel applications into our refugee resettlement program. One is designated nationalities and the other is the priority system. As called for in the Refugee Act, each year certain nationalities are designated as being of special humanitarian concern to the U.S. While we do not envision eliminating this system, which nationalities are to be designated will change from year to year depending on conditions worldwide and after consultation with Congress. In addition, refugees from non-designated nationalities will continue to have access to our program through referrals from UNHCR. Likewise regarding the existing priority system, it has become apparent that some adjustments may need to be made in order for this management tool to best serve the needs of current and/or future processing situations. -3 b) Refugees Requiring Resettlement Whom We Miss. We agree that there are significant numbers of UNHCR cases that we can help. We meet with UNHCR on a regular basis to review projected program levels and needy populations. We also work closely with UNHCR when new applicant groups emerge, was the case this year with Iraqi refugees in Saudi Arabia. as The UNHCR recommendations you mentioned for certain African nationalities represent projections for 1992 that were made in August 1991, not an exact number of individuals in actual case files. With regard to the 1000 Liberians projected by UNHCR to be in need of resettlement, we had resettled 167 in the United States as of May 30, 1992. Five hundred eighty-six who were approved by INS in May are being readied for departure before the end of the fiscal year, and another 400 will be interviewed by INS in September. As we are the only country resettling Liberians, we are very conscious of being responsive to UNHCR referrals. Regarding Ugandans, of the 660 estimated by UNHCR to be in need of resettlement, the United States has 341 pending interview or departure as of May 30, 1992, in addition to the 46 who had already arrived in the U.S. For the non-designated nationalities of Rwandans and Burundis, our program is open to refugees from those countries on a case-by-case basis after -4 referral from UNHCR. Only three Rwandans have been referred to our program, and no Burundis. We have the resources to be responsive to UNHCR requests in this area but defer to their decision on which refugees to present to which resettlement countries. Although we are a major resettlement country, we are not the only one. We continue to work with UNHCR in an effort to be more responsive to the needs of those refugees identified by that organization as needing resettlement but not designated for our program. We are consulting with UNHCR to provide resettlement guidance and training to protection officers, who are more numerous and "on the front lines," so to speak, than UNHCR resettlement officers. We feel confident that progress will continue to be made in our cooperative relationship with UNHCR. |