Refugee Camps and Some Thoughts on Africa

I was reading something recently about the decline in the number of refugees at the same time as the numbers of internally displaced people is rising. This got me thinking about whether the UN (or really the rich West as the greatest funders) is now essentially in the business of running concentration camps for unsavoury regimes in the name of humanitarianism.

My thinking is like this. The groups of IDPs have been forced out of wherever they lived either by the government, or the de facto power in their area. People flee, and international organizations intervene to save people from the problems associated with their flight. The problem is that there seems to be little capacity or desire to resettle these IDPs. The local powers have achieved their goals. Those they sought to remove are gone, and there is little prospect of them returning. Even if the situation calms down enough that the IDPs feel safe returning to their former locales, what will remain there for them? How will they rebuild their lives? What of the people who have known no life other than in the camp? Because we can’t answer these questions, people languish, and those who forced their relocation continue to do whatever it is they wanted to do with the land.

If there is little prospect of returning, do we go on running these camps in perpetuity? What other options do we have? Neighbouring countries are unwilling to take in the flood of migrants, and their country of origin either has no desire, or insufficient resources to take them in. Do we in fact encourage greater displacement because refugees and IDPs are reasonably sure that someone will look after them if they flee, or they flee because they are aware of some UN sponsored safe zone? This leads me to wondering how developing countries will go about solving their own problems, instead of simply relying on the rest of the world to help them out.

If we got rid of refugee camps, would we simply witness additional suffering as those attempting to flee conflict would simply face starvation and the elements? Or would it force those who flee to instead fight for what is theirs? Why is no African country’s motto “Live Free or Die”. This would certainly result in a lot more of what would be viewed as brutal civil war, but to me it makes more sense for those involved to attempt to solve their problems instead of having the rich world aid and abet unsavoury regimes by running their concentration camps for them.

Much of the world seems to think that simply through economic development and more open societies there can be peace in the world. How quickly we forget how open and integrated Europe was before World War I. Sometimes the only way for people to realize they are better off working together than fighting each other is for them to live through a calamity. Instead we are letting conflicts simmer for decades, destroying hope for development and causing societies to bleed themselves dry over the years.

Civil war and the brutality that goes along with it is not something anyone in the West wants to see, but sometimes it may be the only way for those involved to realize what is truly important.