AFRICAN PANORAMA
In mid February 2008, a large group of Liberian refugee women calling itself Liberian Refugee Women for Refugee Concerns (LRWRC) started a sit-in-demonstration on an open recreation field at the main entrance of the Buduburam Refugee Camp near Accra . Some of the placards they were carrying read: “No repatriation and re-integration. Human beings have rights, and refugees are human beings.”
The demonstration was apparently the women’s last resort at sensitizing the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNCHR) and other relevant agencies to their suffering in Ghana . They wanted the UN authorities to stop what they called predators who, taking advantage of their predicament, exploit them. Thus, they were registering their reservations about plans to integrate Liberian refugees into the “intolerant Ghanaian society”.
According to Ms. Decontee Tarlor, spokesperson of the LRWRC, the advocacy group had initially communicated the concerns of Liberian refugees to the UNHCR and the irreverent Ghana Refugee Board (GRB) – putting forward some recommendations. She said neither the UNHCR nor the GRB had responded to their communication, thereby leaving her with no other alternative but the peaceful demonstration.
The concerns of the women as contained in their communication to the refugee authorities are serious. They range from rampant resettlement fraud, ritualistic killings of Liberian refugee children, economic neglect of the refugee camp to outright discrimination against Liberians in the marketplace as well as in places of employment and learning.
Resettlement Fraud
One concern noted in the communication is the existence of fraud in the resettlement process. This ill had earlier been revealed in a verification exercise conducted under the auspices of the UNHCR. According to the exercise, refugees listed as comfortably “resettled” abroad continued to languish on refugee camps across Ghana . Particular cases of verified refugees whose resettlement programs were unceremoniously closed without a letter of denial or acceptance have been published in refugees-owned newspapers. The cases of Elizabeth Glay, Felicia Z. Dorbor, Florence T. Jackson and Hawa Christiana Moirés with UNHCR numbers 2369301, 1748101, 2220701 and 4521601 are just a few of several resettlement cases which have been closed under dubious circumstances.
Ritualistic Killings of Refugee Children
Another issue of concern raised by the women is the recurring disappearances of children amidst rising insecurity on the Buduburam camp. The women have documented cases of missing Liberian refugee children whose bodies have been found mutilated. There are also cited instances of fatal piercing of ordinary Liberian refugees with pointed objects when asleep at night. According to the women’s letter of communication, these somewhat ritualistic practices have been more prevalent during election years in Ghana . It describes a particular scene in which a Ghanaian was caught red-handed piercing a refugee on the camp at night. He was handed over to the Ghanaian police who let him go free.
Xenophobia
The women also allege institutional discrimination against Liberian refugees in the Ghanaian society. They say Ghanaians systematically deny Liberians employment and learning opportunities as well as opportunities to do business in Ghana . They cite instances of Liberians who have been snubbed on the Ghanaian job market and those of women who have been denied spaces to sell in the market place simply because of their Liberian nationality; and yet young Liberian refugees who seek admission into institutions of learning in Ghana have had to encounter stumbling blocks which are placed in their way by Ghanaian authorities.
Economic Neglect of the Camps
The concerned women say the current plight of the refugees evokes that of Liberian immigrants in Ghana in the 1980s who were deported by Ghanaian authorities on grounds that they were “unproductive”. They say camps like Buduburam are virtually neglected - with neither economic activities nor learning opportunities to empower or equip refugees with income generating skills for the future. Young people on the camps are thereby rendered idle and destitute, consequently giving rise to organized crime including pervasive teen prostitution. The concerned women also pointed out that under the prevailing situation of sexual exploitation of girls on the refugee camps there has been violence against women.
Demands
With these concerns, the women have serious reservations about a plan to have Liberian refugees integrated into the Ghanaian society. They especially recognize xenophobia as a potential barrier to integration. As an alternative to integration, they were asking to be resettled in “third countries of asylum”, or be repatriated to Liberia .
For the latter option, the women were demanding a comprehensive repatriation package which should include a financial aid of $1000.00 for each registered refugee. In addition to this amount, they were also requesting for pots, tubs, blankets, mats, lamps, cooking and eating utensils. Also demanded were a 6-month feeding package to sustain each in Liberia as well as scholarship grants for high school and tertiary education for refugees returning to rural and urban areas.
To stamp out the resettlement fraud, the concerned women were also calling for an inquest into cases of aggrieved victims of the fraud - strongly recommending screening of refugees with non-fraudulent resettlement cases until the present case- load was completely exhausted.
Indeed, having lost homes and livelihood in Liberia during the civil war, Liberian refugee women here are deeply concerned about returning home empty-handed. Faced with threats of arbitrary repatriation, they will once again loss everything they may have acquired over the past fifteen years in Ghana , where many of them have built homes through their own efforts.
“Liberia for us is a home”, their letter to the UNHCR and the Ghanaian authorities intones, “…”we need no indicator to point to us this fact” – further expressing their disappointment, “but taking into consideration the time we have spent in this country (Ghana), it is very disheartening to see ourselves going back home with UNHCR repatriation package of one bucket, one pot, one blanket, one tarpaulin, half bag of wheat and US$100” and wondering “How on mother earth can we restart life back home?”
However, the letter was simply ignored, and to have the ear of the authorities the concerned women had to pay recourse to a sit-in demonstration. The demonstration clearly bore the hallmarks of a peaceful group of anguished women and children who were simply invoking the sympathy of humanitarian organizations. But Mr. Kwamena Bartels, the interior of the Ghanaian saw it perceived it as constituting his country’s Public Order Act 491 and a public nuisance. Casting Ghana as an altruistic benefactor during a regular ministerial press briefing in Accra , he said his country would not tolerate people who have been received warmly to “undermine the security of the state”.
The Ghanaian Minister interior angrily went on:
“Our national security is supreme and shall not be compromised on any account. Besides refugees have a responsibility to respect our laws, as well as refrain from subversive activities against the state”.
Evading questions for corroborating evidence to his claims, he added that government would not sit “unconcerned while ex-combatants jeopardized the security of the state”. Immediately following the ministerial press briefing, Mr. Bartels ordered the brutal siege of Buduburam in stunning defiance of calls by civil society and rights organizations for restraints. A strong hybrid force of heavily armed Ghanaian military and police evaded Buduburam Camp, arbitrarily arresting helpless and vulnerable refugees, a many of whom were taken to detention centers while others were running helter-skelter for refuge in strange villages.
During the brutality, hundreds of children were separated from their parents in many different directions landing in unfriendly neighborhoods and jungles. The merciless security forces left in their trails raped refugee victims and ruins of vandalism to shelters. There are accounts of missing children whose whereabouts remain unknown up till now.
The heavy handedness of the Ghanaian security forces provoked an outrage from human rights organizations here. Indeed, various Ghanaian human rights groupings were all unanimous in condemning the actions of their own government. .
The refugees are disappointed and despondent here. They find the don’t-care of the Sirleaf Government all the more troubling. Indeed, the government’s delegation headed by foreign affairs minister Ms. Olubanke King-Akerele woefully did not persuade the Ghanaian authority to stop its brutal refugee crackdown. The delegation did not care to secure the release of those illegally detained elsewhere in Ghana . The delegation also displayed a colossal recklessness in policy as it was easily cajoled into signing to a tripartite committee set up to work out modalities for repatriation while at the same time pleading that Liberia was not prepared to host its own returnees.
This clumsy strategy has left Liberian refugees here in a limbo with the xenophobic Ghanaian authorities still threatening repatriation at all costs while their insensitive home government is unprepared to receive them back home. Liberians are therefore subjects of public ridicule in Ghana , leading many to question the credibility of the Sirleaf administration.
Does the current crisis signal hostilities between Africa ’s first two independent nations, founding members of OAU, AU and ECOWAS? Well, the saber-rattling may be muted for now but the language of tit for tat is quite unmistakable.
On a personal note, and for many a Liberian presently living in Ghana , the recent past weeks mark the most difficult and heartrending days of exile. My refugee trajectory has taken me to a few West African countries including Ivory Coast and Cameroon, etc. but none of those years of my wanderings has been more humiliating and frustrating than the past weeks of February and early March 2008 – the period of a brutal crackdown on innocent Liberian refugees, security harassment and abuse and public ridicule and mockery.
It is indeed true that nowhere is safer than the comfort of home. Ironically, Africa’s oldest republic Liberia continues to deprive tens of thousands of some of her citizens that comfort of home, following decades of political and economic corruptions, compounded by years of a bloody civil imbroglio that make her unfit now as a proud and safe home for many of her citizens.
Her woes are attributable to decades of autocratic, nepotistic and inept leadership. Political sycophancy and gross profligacy in the use of valuable national resources by her leaders are also culprits of Liberia ’s predicament. As a little elementary schoolboy I was sometimes corporally punished for failing to recite off head a long list of Liberia ’s past presidents starting from Joseph Jenkins Robert to William R. Tolbert.
But up till today I still find it difficult to enumerate their individual leadership legacies in terms of Liberia ’s social infrastructural and economic development. How I wish Ellen Sirleaf could make a difference!
Mr. Taryon can be reached at ejtaryon.wac@africanpanorama.org
THE TREATMENT OF LIBERIAN REFUGEES IN GHANA: THE STORY PRESIDENT SIRLEAF DID NOT CARE TO KNOW...
BY EMMANUEL JEH TARYON
AFRICAN PANORAMA WEST AFRICA CORRESPONDENT
