As the bombing continues in the urban centers of the country, people will flee their homes, becoming either internally displaced or leaving the country altogether, creating a refugee crisis along the borders of Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Assuming an American victory, the occupying power or new postwar government will be obligated to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqis who remain, as well as those who have escaped and want to return.
In a Human Rights Watch report released last month, Alison Parker, who follows refugee policy for the nonprofit group, argues that there is an urgent need for the international community to prepare for the humanitarian crisis that will result from the American invasion of Iraq. Of particular concern to her is the fact that Turkey and Syria are likely to keep their borders closed, despite being legally bound to allow entry to refugees. NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker spoke with Parker about the likely course of a humanitarian crisis in Iraq and what to expect in light of the last gulf war.
NEWSWEEK: What’s your first concern on a humanitarian level now that the bombing has begun?
Alison Parker: Our first concern with the inception of the attack is the humanitarian concern for people living in many of the cities in Iraq. Iraq is much more of an urban-based population than, for example, what was experienced in Afghanistan, and they’re very dependent on centralized distribution of water and food–and those things in turn are very dependent on the electrical grid and centralized sanitation. So in the first hours of the attack we are concerned by any destruction to the electrical grid, to water services or destruction that basically interferes with what for a long time in Iraq has been a very systematic distribution system so that people can get the rations they need. We do know people have been stockpiling rations for several days now and even for several weeks. And there are people who will suffer very much if those distributions are interrupted by bombing from week one of the bombing.
That’s the first thing to worry about. When do refugees become a concern?
The population will likely try to stay put simply because they are so dependent on those services. So we may not see very, very large numbers in the first few days in the sense that people may try to hunker down, use the stockpiles they already have. Of course if bombing comes too near where they are living, they are going to flee. So in the second stage of the conflict we certainly would expect to see both internal displacement as well as people trying to get out of the country. We have already had reports that people are trying to get out of the country but not in very large numbers yet.
Where are they going to go?
Well, that’s the problem. Our first concern is that most of the countries bordering Iraq have not agreed to open their borders. It’s not only that the borders are closed. For example, in Turkey the border authorities already have a history of shooting and killing people trying to cross their border. So it’s not only that we fear that people will not be able to get out of harm’s way, but also that they will literally be attacked by the armed forces by the government of Turkey. We’re also hearing reports now that Syria is not allowing people to cross the border.
But isn’t Turkey party to the 1951 Refugee Convention?
Right, Turkey is party to that. Although there’s a slight complexity in the sense that Turkey has what’s called a geographical limitation in its obligations under that treaty, which means that it only recognizes refugees coming from Europe. The Refugee Convention was written in the aftermath of the Second World War, and at the time the governments who wrote the treaty were thinking about refugees fleeing that war and defined a refugee as somebody being from Europe.
What did we learn from the first gulf war that is making you especially nervous today?
Well of course in the gulf war we experienced Turkey insisting that its borders stay closed, just as they’re doing now, and the establishment of a safe haven in northern Iraq. There were reports that the Red Cross was going into northern Iraq to try to set up tents and distributions, but the reports we have seen at Human Rights Watch are that those preparations have been insufficient. We may see a repeat of people trapped in a quote-unquote “safe haven” with inadequate humanitarian relief. Srebenica was a notorious safe haven in the former Yugoslavia where not only did people have problems getting the food and medicine that they needed, but they also became sitting ducks for an armed attack. From a human-rights perspective, the point is people need to be able to move out of harm’s way.
What are we talking about numberswise when we’re talking about refugees?
It’s very difficult to know. The [United Nations] agencies have done their contingency planning and have estimated that there could be as many as 1.1 million internally displaced people in Iraq. I hasten to add that’s on top of those who are already displaced in Iraq. People have been internally displaced for many years. In fact, this is the strategy of the Hussein government, particularly in the area around Kirkuk, where families have been displaced out of oil-rich regions, particularly people coming from ethnic minority groups.
This is 1.1 million on top of how many already internally displaced?
From 700,000 to 1 million. And then in terms of people fleeing outside of the country, there is contingency planning for 900,000 to 1 million refugees. And again that’s on top of Iraqi refugees who are already living in camps in Iran and in other neighboring countries.
What measures are being taken by governments or nongovernmental organizations to help them to the extent that they can?
This has been a difficult question to answer for many weeks because for such a long time, U.N. agencies and NGOs that work closely with them–the [U.N.] High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF, the kinds of groups who act in emergency situations–they didn’t want to plan. They didn’t want appear to support a conflict that wasn’t supported by the United Nations, hasn’t been endorsed by the Security Council. It took quite a long time before any of those agencies were willing to come out publicly and talk about whether or not they were planning and in fact what their plans were. In the last two to three weeks they have come forward and given much more information, which is crucial, because that information has to be shared with NGOs, coordination has to happen. The most recent reports we have coming out of Iran, which is certainly a country where we expect to see significant numbers of refugees, indicate that there still are some camps that do not have water. Some of those camps are located where there were previous wars.
So there are already refugees out there, what are they out there from?
Well there are already Afghan and Iraqi refugees living in Iran, and the Iraqi refugees are there for a series of reasons. Some came during the 1991 gulf war. Some came from the Hussein government’s repressive policies, particularly against various ethnic minorities. And they basically come in waves over the last 20 years or so to Iran. The new camps are mostly along the southeast border and the old refugee caseload is in a different set of camps a little bit further north. But a lot of the old refugee caseload is also now mixed in with Iranian society so that people are living in cities and towns and not living in a camp situation anymore.
How would Human Rights Watch get Saddam to ease up on his people in a way that wouldn’t exacerbate the refugee problem?
We don’t take a position on the legality of this war and whether or not it’s appropriate. And we do that so we can actually now speak out about the serious obligations of the Hussein government as a warring party and of the United States and its allies as warring parties. We’re very concerned that both sides must adhere to international humanitarian law, which, when it comes to refugees and displaced persons, the bottom line is that people need to be able to move out of harm’s way. That’s an obligation that we expect the United States and their allies to take very seriously. But with regard to Hussein, the issue is that this is a government that has been displacing particularly ethnic minorities for many years. We are very concerned that there may be a move to continue that displacement during the chaos of war. The underlying strategy that he was using was basically to get the Kurdish population and some of the other ethnic minorities out of oil-rich areas and replace them with Arab groups. The whole policy was called an Arabization policy and would allow him to control some of these oil-rich areas.
This sounds eerily like ethnic cleansing.
It does. But ethnic groups could even try to take revenge for the past mistreatment that they’ve suffered or we can see a continuation of this Arabization policy in the chaos of war. The bottom line is whether or not there is any potential for an increase in this kind of ethnic forced displacement.
What happens after the war?
We certainly expect these kinds of issues to be enormous stumbling blocks in the postconflict phase. If there are violations of the laws of war we would expect anyone responsible to be held accountable–and that would include the United States and its allies. The very specific thing that we’re worried about is that there needs to be very careful thinking about property disputes and about people who will want to return to their homes and property, and they’re going to find new families living in those places, and any occupying power and any government in power is going to have to think about how to deal with those kinds of disputes.
