Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 13th, 2017

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

What we have been calling upon is the fact that indeed, it's often a question of deficit in the rule of law, deficit in development, and deficit, as you rightly said, in the fair distribution of the dividends of the investment in a country. From an economic point of view, from a social point of view, and from a cultural point of view, we really have to look at all those issues.

That's why we had hope in 2011 with the creation of the South Sudan state. There was a major investment on the part of the United Nations, on the part of development actors, and on the part of NGOs. We have to be careful and mindful of the fact that there is a historical divide within society, because the partition of the natural resources has not been done in a fair and equitable manner. We have tried to address those issues at the political level, with a president and a vice-president coming from different ethnic groups and different political alliances, but what has been really difficult in a country like South Sudan is that the resources available are so limited. It's difficult to divide when there is very little to be divided. That's one of the issues.

I think the second thing is really—and I will come back to the point I was making earlier—that we don't look enough at the issues of reconciliation, transitional justice, and holding people accountable for what they have done. A number of people who are in power now are the same people who, prior to 2011, were actually the ones waging the war. You need to make some compromises for the sake of moving the country away, but there's also a limit to that, because you also ingrain the political divide in the political structure.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I don't mean to cut you off, but my time is limited.

You mentioned something at the outset of your answer, the fact that South Sudan is a very new country. It's unfair to you because it's a question that would require more time, but it still should be asked.

In such a new country, the institutions are just emerging. Think back, quite apart from the experience in South Sudan, or in Africa, for that matter. Think about the French experience. The French Revolution happens; there's a period of democracy and hope, and then all of a sudden, France falls into a period of outright dictatorship and enormous bloodshed. Then it reverts to democracy, and back to dictatorship, and so on and so forth. You don't have real democracy there until the mid-20th century.

Can you speak about the importance of institutions and those institutions coming into being, crystallizing, and really, the way that serves as a prerequisite for peace in the long term?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

It's having the right institutions, but also having the right leaders in those institutions. That is far more complicated, because it cannot be imposed by the United Nations or by external panels. The leaders have to be chosen by the people. When it's a nascent democracy, I think it's also a challenge to make sure that the population participate in the democratic process and choose the leaders that they want to be represented by.

There is one thing I would like to return to. You said that the Canadian public or the media will look at the report and will not necessarily feel engaged on the issue.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Canadians are a politically engaged population, certainly, but it's a worry that I have that it simply—

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

I want to back that up by a quote from our high commissioner at the last executive committee. For the Syria situation, we get 60% of our funding. For any sub-Saharan African country, we get only 20%. That's unacceptable because the needs of an African child to go to school or, say, a Syrian refugee child in Lebanon to go to school are exactly the same. The cost of bringing the child to school may be entirely different, but actually, in a lot of instances, the costs in Africa are much less than what our operation in the Syrian situation costs.

That's a political decision. Where does the international community want to put their money, and who do they want to help? From my point of view, and I'm sure you have your own objective with this report, if one thing can be achieved with this report, it's to caution you to be careful. We are in a situation where there are 1.9 million IDPs, 1.7 million refugees. It's 2,000 people a day crossing into Uganda. It's people we can barely provide with access to potable water. Draw your own conclusions, Canadian public, on where our values as Canadians stand with not supporting the South Sudanese. I can also make the case for other African crises, while we are putting a lot of effort into another crisis.

It's not to take away from Syria. That's not my point because we were together in Lebanon, and I know, having lived there for four years, that the needs are incredible. But I think it really is an ethical question for this committee to consider. Human dignity is the same for all of us, whether we are in Winnipeg, Yei, Juba, or wherever, and the support that we give is not the same to realize the human rights of those people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you.

We'll move to MP Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

We're going to a shorter question and answer period, unfortunately, five minutes instead of seven. Let me just ask this question, and depending how you answer it, this may take up our entire time.

The Ugandans you've singled out as having a particularly effective way of allowing people to come into the country, to go into, I think, refugee camps, but these cannot be camps in the traditional sense. They're much more spread out. I wonder if you could describe how this is dealt with. Uganda is not one of these vast, empty countries with lots of land that's available. They must be taking land that is either privately owned or communally owned. Also, could you explain, somewhere in your response, whether this is a model that could be used in other places or is it unique to Uganda's culture and land ownership patterns, etc.?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

It's not unique to Uganda and we are trying very much to replicate it, but indeed taking into account housing, land, and property rights issues. In Uganda, the land is owned one of three ways: by the state, public land; privately owned; or by the tribes. Northern Uganda has—I don't remember now anymore—a large number of different tribes and subdivides. The privately owned land is actually very limited in the northern part of the country. It's more land owned by tribes or public land.

What happened in the first instance was the government offered the land and people had plots of land attributed to them. When that became unavailable because there were too many people, the host tribes decided to lend the land to the newcomers. It's based on some arrangement where they cultivate the land, and some of the harvest is given back to the community. It's an arrangement that benefits—and that's really, in a way, the beauty of it—both the refugees and the host Ugandans who were underprivileged because, as you may know, the northern part of the country was where the LRA, with Joseph Kony, was established for quite a long time. That area was underdeveloped. That has allowed for development actors to step in, rebuild roads, and develop agricultural projects.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right. In a sense, what has happened is there actually is space for people to settle down and make useful contributions to the economy. They're essentially acting as tenant farmers.

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

Yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

There's room where someone like that can be seen as—I'm trying to think what the right word is—a helpful contributor to the economy.

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

Sure, but they are also sharing the school. They are also sharing access to the potable water. So, if the host communities do not feel that they are equally helped, they will simply see the newcomers as a burden with no benefit whatsoever.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

There must be some kind of decentralized decision-making. This is not the Ugandan government responding monolithically. This is the individual tribal groups with whatever decision-making mechanism they have indicating that they're willing to accept this. I'm assuming that's part of the success, a willingness of the central government to allow decentralized decision-making.

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

It's both ways, because actually there's a strong ministerial coordination group in Kampala to which UNHCR has added some staff to help them to actually put in place the policies. That dates back, really, to what we were doing with the IDPs 10 years ago, developing an IDP policy for the government to then coordinate. You are entirely right that it's also because of the decentralization. It's organized by—I don't remember the name; it's not governorate—where the local authorities are very much represented along tribal lines and can make those decisions. But that's not unique in sub-Saharan Africa. This is something we are trying to easily replicate. If you think of West Africa, for example, you have the same model of society and of delegation of power.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right. Essentially, what would have been the pre-European intervention proto-states are essentially captured and maintained.

You said the kids from the refugee communities will then go to school. Do they go to existing schools?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

They go to existing schools. There's a question of absorption capacity in terms of space, but also in terms of teachers, because one teacher, instead of teaching 40 kids, which is the ratio in that part of the world, suddenly ends up with 80 kids. We need also to support, for example, the teachers, to have more teachers or to shift morning and afternoon.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I know I'm at my time limit here, but I have just one last question.

I'm guessing that this is happening in part because the children speak the same language as the children in the host communities.

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

That is correct.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

We'll go to MP Khalid for a very short last question.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your very compelling testimony today.

I do have a very short question. It's just to follow up with what you described as a situation in Uganda, and how they are incorporating refugees into their country.A refugee family comes into Uganda, starts farming and spends 10 years there. Then the conflict in the family's home nation ends. What happens? Are they obligated to get up and leave and go back to their nation?

Also, you had mentioned that this model of intake of refugees is not unique to Uganda. Can you list a few other examples of countries that are using the same method of integration?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

Yes. There is what we call in international law the cessation clause, which is, you have the status of refugee as long as you cannot avail yourself of the protection of your home country, the country of origin, nationality or habitual residence. Indeed, at some point the United Nations and UNHCR, our agency, may declare that it's safe for people to return because there's been a radical change in the political scene, or peace has been achieved. In that case, people who were refugees will be encouraged and supported by UNHCR to return to that country through a voluntary repatriation program.

It is important to say that it's voluntary because you will always have people who will refuse to go back because they have a certain profile, an ethnic profile, or they were journalists and still would face some reprisals if they were to go back. It's not an automatic blanket thing. We still look at individuals to see, and it has to be a free and informed choice for people to return. But, yes indeed, people will return.

The second best solution is when people can locally integrate. That happens in quite a number of countries, in Canada, for example, where you claim asylum, are recognized as a refugee, and within five years you become a citizen. That happens in quite a number of countries. It all depends on the economic situation, the ethnic and linguistic ties, and so on.

On your second question, let's take an example from this part of the world, the internal displacement in Colombia. People have been displaced for many years, and have been able to reintegrate as internally displaced, to shift away from refugees, in new communities, in new parts of the country. They are still displaced in the sense that they're not in their place of origin, but they're completely integrated in another part of their country. This is, of course, much easier when you are a national of your own country, because we all have the freedom of movement within the boundaries of our own country.

It does happen in a number of places. There is, for example, the whole Kenya issue and the Dadaab and Kakuma camps. It's all about that. How can we transform those huge camps into actual urban centres, which will integrate the population and contribute to the economy of the region, and even of the country? That's what is at stake now in the discussions that UNHCR is having with the Kenyan government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Before we wrap up, I want to ask one more short question.

Interestingly, we're doing a one-day study on the Dadaab camp in May, which MP Anderson and MP Tabbara have brought to the committee. We will actually be looking at that, I think, right before it goes to close.

One of the things that we've heard repeatedly from multiple witnesses is the regional influence on the conflict. We've heard that Uganda supports the government while, for example, Sudan supports the opposition. Meanwhile, we have different refugee flows.

You mentioned the thousands of refugees flowing into Uganda. Why is Uganda so involved in the insurgency, given the impact it's having on sending refugees spiralling across borders? Can you give us a very short—I want to be fair to everybody—answer on that? It is something that's come up a lot.

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

It's going to be very short because I'm going to avoid responding to the question. I'm an impartial and neutral humanitarian worker, and I cannot comment on those political aspects. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Okay, that's fair enough.

With that, gentlemen, thank you very much. It was a very insightful way to conclude the testimony and our study. We greatly appreciate your being here and illuminating us.

To all members of this committee, staff, and everybody else here, I wish to those who celebrate it a very happy Easter. We will see you in a couple of weeks.

Thank you very much.