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CHAPTER 2

Refugees and Security

If citizenship is the enduring people issue, refugees and their security will be an acute one in secessions. Even with goodwill on both sides, it will be hard to avoid the perception of drop-dead dates, touching of mass movements of people. Almost any secession will leave some people in limbo. A critical part of that limbo can be citizenship, the issue discussed in the previous chapter.

More immediately, though, secessions are likely to produce refugees, for those who identify with the original state and those who back the breakaway region will not be neatly separated. Indeed, in the 1990s, the world learned anew the horror of “ethnic cleansing” as the former Yugoslavia split apart. Even in less bloody cases, people will often have moved for military service or government employment, or they may have fled from fighting. If the last, they would become internally displaced persons (IDPs) if they remained in the original state. When secession occurs, however, they become refugees if they are not located in the state with which they identify.

After secession, the two states can negotiate separately with third countries into which their citizens may have fled. But Sudan, for instance, had to deal with perhaps two million southerners who lived in the North at the time of secession. Those who seek to move to their country of identity will face security risks, and while they may be welcome in principle in the state with which they identify, that state may be ill prepared to integrate them.

This chapter outlines the major issues related to refugees and secession and makes suggestions based, in particular, on four cases involving breakaway states—India and Pakistan after the partition of British India; Russia and the breakup of the Soviet Union; Bosnia-Herzegovina after the disintegration of Yugoslavia; and Georgia and Abkhazia after Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union.

Policy Suggestions

Start Early in Improving Public Understanding

It is important to educate the most affected local communities about the implications of a secession well before it happens, and also to give them ample time to digest the new borders. In the India-Pakistan case, in the haste to achieve independence, none of this occurred. In fact, the Radcliffe Line was announced only two days after the two countries declared their independence. This may have added to the uncertainty, fear, and panic in local communities, particularly among religious minorities. In contrast, Sudan had the advantage that division long had been on the agenda, and had occurred de facto to a considerable extent even before the formal secession of South Sudan.

Assess Refugees’ Intentions

An assessment of the refugees’ intentions can help countries forge more coherent and long-term strategies to quickly integrate them if they so wish. Both Indian and Pakistani leaders simply assumed initially that most of the refugees were there only temporarily. Thus, these governments did not start thinking about integrating refugees until the overcrowding of refugee camps was becoming a problem.

The lessons of Bosnia may be less immediately relevant to a country like Sudan; after all, the returnees to South Sudan were not, in general, returning to places where they were not wanted. In Bosnia, where ethnic conflict was the direct cause of displacement, it was naïve to view returning displaced persons to their homes as undoing the ethnic divides created by war. While multiethnic communities may be desired in principle by national (and international) entities, the rights of displaced persons, including the right not to return to their place of origin, should be paramount.

Make Sure Formal Agreements Are Rooted in Real Agreement

While formal agreements can be valuable for outlining the principles of returning IDPs to their homes, they will prove woefully inadequate if both parties are not committed to the process. The language of such agreements is typically broad enough that either party can stall the process without violating the letter of law. Such was the case between Georgia and Abkhazia; the latter, having achieved an Abhaz ethnic majority in Abkhazia, had little interest in seeing displaced Georgians return.

Prepare for the Returnees

When a nation breaks up, mass population movements of ethnic minorities toward their ethnic home can ensue even in the absence of ethnic persecution and violence. The migrant-receiving country must therefore have adequate institutions and support for potential returnees from the onset. Russia was not well prepared for the migrants when the Soviet Union came apart, and thus many of them wound up feeling disillusioned at best.

Transparency in resettlement benefits is also key, as the Pakistani case showed. Indeed, by favoring Punjabi refugees over Bengali ones, the Pakistani government fueled the tensions between these two groups. In particular, if tensions between different factions are high before partition, it is important to have key institutions like law enforcement functioning well, so as to be able to maintain order if tensions escalate. In India and Pakistan, these institutions were barely functional at partition. If they had been better, many deaths and displacements could have been avoided.

Protect the Returnees

In the event of a partition or secession, even when relations between the two states are acrimonious, it still may be possible to come up with joint solutions to facilitate the evacuation of refugee populations. The establishment of the Military Evacuation Organization by India and Pakistan is a good example. IDPs have frequently been used as political capital to establish or maintain a majority population in an area where political clout falls along ethnic lines—as they were in Bosnia. To combat this, durable solutions for the displaced should be viewed first in humanitarian terms.

Benefit from Third Parties

Third parties, especially UN organizations, can be very helpful both as providers of assistance and as guarantors of agreements. Especially in secessions like Sudan’s, where the countries are both poor and inexperienced in dealing with large population inflows, the international community can help the migration and settlement process. It can therefore be helpful for states to work with UN organizations, especially the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) both to establish needed institutions and to provide direct assistance to the returnees. That lesson emerges strongly in all the cases. In Russia, for instance, the UNHCR and the IOM, along with several NGOs, not only helped the Russian government set up the institutional and legislative framework for dealing with migration, but also provided direct assistance to the migrants themselves, in the forms of both financial support and capacity building, in order to facilitate their integration within Russia.

Those third parties must, however, be truly neutral. The UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), for instance, was composed entirely of Russian troops, and Russia had provided both arms and assistance to Abkhazia. In any case, given the lack of real agreement between Georgia and Abkhazia, UNOMIG has been able to sustain a ceasefire but hardly can guarantee the return of Georgian IDPs or refugees.

Avoid Letting Those Who Do Not Wish to Return Become Bargaining Chips

Georgia-Abkhazia in the mid-1990s was in some respects the mirror image of Sudan in 2010, for ethnic Georgians wished to return to their homes in Abkhazia but could not feel secure enough to do so. In the case of southern Sudanese in the North, that was not the case. The Georgian government was so focused on repatriating the IDPs that it took years to even begin to seriously try to integrate them in Georgia; they became a bargaining chip. Negotiations should aim to make sure that southern Sudanese or other IDPs who wish to return to the state they identify with do not become a bargaining chip.

Protect Those Who Do Not Wish to Return

A key strategy for migrant-receiving countries in avoiding a sudden flood of migrants is negotiating and advocating for the protection of ethnic minorities in the states where they reside, as Russia did with many of the other newly independent states (NIS). In general, protecting displaced persons’ right to return should not be construed by policy makers as a mandate to enforce their return. The freedom of movement—and therefore local integration in a new area—should simultaneously be respected.

Sometimes, even activities to ensure the protection of human rights can be construed as political. The UNHCR provided protection to Bosnian Muslims fleeing their homes in the 1990s and was later accused of being an accomplice to ethnic cleansing. Later, when the UNHCR protected ethnic communities that remained in their place of residence, it was criticized for sparing neighboring countries from receiving floods of refugees. Table 2.1 summarizes the policy suggestions.

Partition of British India

Issue and Outcome

At independence, British India was partitioned into two countries: on August 14 and August 15, 1947, respectively, the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India came into being. The former was composed of the two nonadjacent regions of East Pakistan (which is now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated by one thousand miles of Indian territory. The partition derived from a deep religious divide between Muslims and Hindus dating back to the early 1900s, as well as between Muslims and Sikhs, and from the desire of some Muslims to set up a separate state made up of the provinces with Muslim-majority populations. They felt the predominantly Hindu leadership in India would not adequately represent their interests.¹

Table 2.1. Policy Suggestions for Refugee Issues

Issue	Policy suggestion	Relevant cases
When to start public education?	Start early—indeed Sudan had the advantage of already having de facto separation.	India-Pakistan as starkest negative example of failure to prepare.
How to understand refugee intentions?	Carefully assess intentions, perhaps in surveys.	Both India and Pakistan thought refugees created by division would be temporary. In Bosnia, too, it was assumed that return would undo ethnic cleansing.
What is the role of formal agreements?	They are important but need to be based on real agreement between the parties; almost all formal agreements can be stalled or evaded.	Formal agreement between Georgia and Abkhazia meant little because there was no real agreement that the IDPs should return to Abkhazia.
How to prepare for the returnees?	This is very important, in terms of not only housing and jobs, but also legal institutions. Transparency is also key.	Russia did little to prepare, and thus returnees were disillusioned. Neither India nor Pakistan was prepared; worse, Pakistan favored Punjabi over Bengali refugees.
How to protect the returnees?	Even given tension between the two states, it is possible to fashion arrangements to protect refugees and returnees.	India-Pakistan Military Evacuation Organization is an example.
What role for third parties?	The strong lesson all the cases is that third parties—especially UN organizations but also NGOs—can be invaluable as honest brokers and as providers of assistance.	Caution: third parties must be impartial. The UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) was composed entirely of Russian troops and thus seen as pro-Abkhazia.
How to avoid refugees as bargaining chips?	This is a key aim for negotiations, so that the right of return for those who wish to return does not become a bargaining chip.	Georgians displaced from Abkhazia became, in effect, hostages to Georgia’s determination that they return, and suffered as a result.
How to deal with those who don’t wish to return?	Right to return can’t become the obligation to do so. Thus, it is critical to protect the rights of those IDPs who want to stay.	Russia was very active in seeking protections for those Russians who wished to remain in other states of the former Soviet Union.

The run-up to the partition and the immediate aftermath were marked by riots and violence resulting from religious persecution of minorities on both sides. An estimated half million people were killed, and mass displacements of religious minorities in turn touched off mass population movements between the new borders and a major refugee crisis in the border provinces.² An estimated seven million Muslims fled India for Pakistan, while some eight million Hindus and Sikhs fled Pakistan for India.³

The extent of the violence and the ensuing exodus took both governments by surprise. At independence neither had put in place mechanisms and institutions either to protect minorities or to facilitate their evacuation. Furthermore, the two countries received very little help from the international community, as Western governments did not view the two countries as geopolitically important and the UNHCR did not at the time have any provision for dealing with “partition” refugees. As a result, the massive population movements caused appalling loss of life, rocked both newly established countries, and nearly collapsed state infrastructures.⁴

Nevertheless, after the initial months of chaos, particularly in the western part of the subcontinent, the authorities in the two countries were able to organize the evacuations of religious minorities as well as to provide some security during the migration process through the creation of two joint institutions, the Military Evacuation Organization (MEO) and the Joint Refugee Council. Yet both countries assumed that the refugees were temporary and would go back to their original homes once the violence had died down. As such, the formidable challenge of resettling refugees took center stage only starting in 1948.

Course of the Dispute

While religious tensions had existed in India since at least the early 1900s, the violence began shortly after the British government decided in 1945 to grant India its independence. On August 16, 1946, the All India Muslim League (AIML), a party created in 1906 to promote Muslim interests, called on Muslims to participate in the “Direct Action Day” to pressure the government to accept the two-nation concept at independence. This however led to riots in Calcutta, in which over four thousand people died. Over the next couple of weeks, the unrest spread into other areas, with communal riots in several other provinces including Bihar and Punjab.⁵ These events convinced the British government that the partition of India was unavoidable, and London’s plan for partition was announced on June 3, 1947.

The borders between the two countries, known as the Radcliffe Line, were announced on August 17 and were determined on the basis of the religious distribution of the population: provinces with a majority Hindu population became India and those with a majority Muslim population became Pakistan.⁶ This meant that Pakistan was made up of two nonadjacent enclaves. In the west, Punjab province was separated into East Punjab, located in India, and West Punjab, located in Pakistan, and likewise in the east, Bengal province was divided into West Bengal and East Pakistan, located respectively in India and Pakistan.⁷

Partition immediately touched off riots and unrest in many cities (Lahore in Pakistan, Amritsar, Delhi, and Calcutta in India). In the western part of the former British India, this translated into the persecution of religious minorities. Many of them fled their homes by foot or by train under very perilous conditions, risking attacks by opponents who killed and tortured on a large scale, and raped and abducted women in the migrating convoys. In sum, within three months of the partition—between August and November 1947—an estimated half million people were killed as 4.5 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan into India and 5.5 million Muslims went the opposite direction.⁸

In the eastern part of the subcontinent, reactions immediately after independence were calmer. Indeed, while Calcutta experienced some unrest, the two-way population movements were relatively minor and more voluntary, with people moving for socioeconomic reasons rather than fleeing religious persecution. However, in late 1949, riots in East Pakistan led masses of Hindus to migrate from East Pakistan into India. Similarly, communal riots in West Bengal led more than one million Muslim refugees to flee to Pakistan.

The flow of East Pakistani Hindus into West Bengal continued over the next five years as border quarrels between Pakistan and India in the west (in Kashmir) intensified. Uncertainty over proposals to make Urdu the official language of Pakistan (to the detriment of Bengali) and to adopt an Islamic constitution led to increased unease among Hindus living in East Pakistan. This flow was stopped only briefly between 1959 and 1964 when the government of India decided to close all the refugee camps in West Bengal and not provide any assistance to refugees from East Pakistan. It had to reopen them in 1964 when tensions arose in East Pakistan, which eventually led to its secession from Pakistan in 1971, which again resulted in more refugees flocking into India.⁹

At independence, the governments of India and Pakistan did not expect the level of violence and the mass population exodus that the partition induced. As a result, they were ill prepared to deal with the crisis, especially in the western part of the subcontinent, where the bulk of the population movements happened in the first three months. And given that the pace of the movements was so different between the western part (i.e., between East Punjab in India and West Punjab in Pakistan) and the eastern part (i.e., West Bengal in India and East Pakistan), the arrangements that the two governments established to deal with the crises in the west and in the east differed substantially.

In the west, the pressure on the civil administration was such that the military had to take over the evacuation of the endangered religious minorities and to provide them with humanitarian aid. On August 1, 1947, the Boundary Force, an Indian military force of about twenty-five thousand men of “mixed class composition” under the British command, was created as a neutral entity to ensure civil order and protect the religious minorities. However, while the force supported some of the evacuation efforts, it largely failed to prevent the riots and the atrocities that followed. In the end, the Boundary Force was disbanded just a month after it was created.¹⁰

As the crisis intensified, the two countries formed ministries to handle refugee evacuation and rehabilitation. Both recognized the need to secure the paths of the refugees during their journey to the border and to protect them from attacks from opposing groups, so MEO was formed in September 1947 as a joint endeavor to organize the flow of migrants and secure evacuations by rail, road, and foot. For those traveling by foot, the MEO prepared a Joint Evacuation Movement Plan to schedule the movement of large convoys of refugees in order to avoid clashes. In addition, the MEO acted to secure trains and reduce attacks on them, and was able to organize sixty mass evacuations by rail in November 1947. The Joint Refugee Council was also set up by the two governments to provide emergency medical supplies and food at rest stops for the migrating refugees.¹¹

Very little by way of resettlement occurred in either country, as authorities in both expected the refugees to go back to their original homes once the situation stabilized. In India, refugees were accommodated in transit camps, which were run by provincial governments with financial help from the central government. In Pakistan, where the situation was more urgent (one in ten people was a refugee), the new administration had less state infrastructure and experience than its Indian counterpart to deal with the refugee crisis. The Pakistani government did not come up with a coherent strategy to deal with refugee settlement until late September 1947. At that point, refugee camps were set up in West Punjab and an Emergency Committee of the Cabinet was created to manage the distribution of food and emergency aid to refugees, in conjunction with the Joint Refugee Council.¹²

The rising number of refugees in transit and refugee camps signaled that the situation was unsustainable and that more needed to be done to rehabilitate and integrate refugee populations. In India, the Ministry for Relief and Rehabilitation was renamed the Ministry of Rehabilitation in 1948 and took on the mission of preparing the refugees to be resettled in newly constructed townships. Refugees were relocated to more permanent camps, where they were provided with vocational and technical training; some were given remunerative employment,¹³ and were then gradually dispersed into the new townships.

In its resettlement strategy, the Pakistani government was more draconian: in August 1948, it declared a state of emergency that gave it the right to resettle refugees from Punjab in other provinces. There, provisions were made to provide housing for urban refugees and loans for agricultural land and inputs for the rural refugees. However, Pakistan tended to be more generous to the relatively more prosperous—and thus influential—Punjabis than to the Bengalis, most of whom were poor farmers.

In the eastern part, given the lesser hostility between Hindus and Muslims, the two countries’ strategy was to prevent major population movements across the border through bilateral negotiations of rights for religious minorities. In the 1948 Inter-Dominion Conference, the two governments agreed that both would be responsible for protecting the religious minorities who resided in their respective states.

In 1950 the two countries negotiated to remove administrative burdens for those seeking citizenship, and provide guarantees for the rights of religious minorities in their chosen residence. These negotiations culminated in the Nehru-Liaquat Pact, which provided religious minorities in both India and Pakistan “with complete equality of citizenship irrespective of religion; a full sense of security in respect of life, culture, property and personal honor and also guaranteed fundamental human rights of the minorities, such as freedom of movement, speech, occupation and worship.”¹⁴ Both countries subsequently established minority commissions to implement the pact.¹⁵

However, these agreements and negotiations were not enough to prevent some sporadic migration, and the governments had to respond accordingly. For example, as the result of unrest in late 1949, the Indian government was forced to set up refugee camps in West Bengal. It used the same model applied in the Punjab, but because the refugees were mostly rural, the government arranged for loans or grants to enable them to purchase land. Yet the steady stream of refugees arriving from Pakistan was putting more pressure on land, and starting in 1955 the government of India actively sought, albeit unsuccessfully, gradually to close the camps in West Bengal.¹⁶

Assessment and Possible Lessons

Several important lessons emerge from the India-Pakistan partition:

The case underscores the importance of educating the most affected local communities about the implications of a partition or secession before it happens and giving them plenty of time to digest the new borders. Neither happened in this case, creating fear and panic.

When tensions between different groups are high before partition, it is important to have key institutions, especially law enforcement, in place and functioning well in order to be able to maintain order if tensions escalate. In India and Pakistan, these institutions were barely functional at partition; had they been, many deaths and displacements could have been avoided.

In a secession, the parties can fashion joint solutions to help evacuate refugee populations even if relations between the two states are acrimonious. The establishment of MEO is a good example.

An assessment of the refugees’ intentions can help countries carve more coherent and long-term strategies to quickly integrate them if they so wish. Both India and Pakistan simply assumed initially that most of the refugees were there only temporarily and so came late to the need for resettlement.

Transparency in resettlement benefits is key, as the Pakistani case showed. Indeed, by favoring Punjabi refugees over Bengali ones, the government fueled the tensions between these two groups.

The Breakup of the Soviet Union and the Russian Diaspora

Issue and Outcome

When the Soviet Union (hereafter referred to as “former Soviet Union,” or FSU) was disbanded in 1991,¹⁷ fifteen new republics were formed and, consequently, an estimated 43.4 million people living outside of their “ethnic homelands” instantly became foreigners in their countries of residence.¹⁸ Russians constituted the majority of this group, with 25.3 million of them living outside the Russian Federation. In the years that followed the disbanding of the FSU, many in this new Russian diaspora immigrated back to Russia: 3.3 million Russians who had previously lived in a different FSU state moved to Russia between 1989 and 2002.¹⁹

In general, Russians living in the other NIS were not the targets of violence, and thus were not forced to leave. Technically, then, they cannot be considered “forced migrants” or “refugees.” Nevertheless, because Russians had acquired dominant positions in the non-Russian states under the Soviet regime, at independence they were in some cases seen as “occupiers” and representatives of the “former colonial power,” and their positions were sometimes threatened by the new government policies implemented by the other NIS. Moreover, rising nationalism in some of the NIS made ethnic Russians feel less at home, particularly in the non-Slavic states.²⁰

In essence, the Russian migrants were “ethno-migrants,” who left their homes in the non-Russian states for various reasons, including anxiety about their future and economic well-being outside Russia. The context of this anxiety was rising violence, even if not directed at them, or of the new states trying to establish a national identity separate from that of the FSU or Russia.²¹ The pull of economics also attracted some of the migration: Russia’s economy was twice the size of those of all the FSU states combined and was more prosperous than any of them except that of Estonia. Probably for economic reasons, fewer Russians emigrated from the more nationalist (but richer) Baltic states than from other NIS that were formally more welcoming but poorer.

While the Russian federal government set up the Federal Migration Service (FMS), and a number of local governments followed suit with their respective regional organizations, very little state support was accorded to the settlers beyond a small emergency payment. As a result, many of the returnees were confronted with difficulties in finding housing and employment commensurate with their professional qualifications. This resulted in widespread dissatisfaction among them and a sense of instability, as well as a loss of confidence in the state institutions that were supposed to provide them with resettlement support.

The international community, through the UNHCR, IOM, and several NGOs, played a key role in the resettlement process by assisting Russia along two lines. First, the UNHCR and the IOM, in particular, helped the Russian government set up the institutional and legislative framework for dealing with migration. Second, they provided support to the migrants in integrating themselves in Russia, in the forms of both direct assistance and individual capacity building.²²

Course of the Dispute

Although Russian settlements in non-Russian states on the periphery date back to the sixteenth century, the migration accelerated under more systematic sponsorship of the Soviet region. In a number of these states, the Russian population increased rapidly; by 1989, Russians on average made up 18 percent of the population in non-Russian states and 27 percent in their urban areas. Moreover, a number of ethnically non-Russian Soviets, known as “Russophones,” identified themselves with Russia in terms of culture and language.²³ The Russian and Russophone population was not evenly distributed among the various states, ranging from 11 million in Ukraine to 52,000 in Armenia. Kazakhstan had the second largest population of Russians, with 6 million, while Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Latvia also had large Russian populations, between 900,000 and 1.6 million. In contrast, the rest of the republics had Russian populations of half a million or less.

Russians and Russophones also represented a large proportion of the population in some cases—30 percent in Estonia, 34 percent in Latvia, 22 percent in Ukraine, and 38 percent in Kazakhstan.²⁴ As a result, over four decades of Soviet rule, the proportion of the population from the titular nationality dropped from 90 to 60 percent in Estonia, and from 75 to 52 percent in Latvia. Russification was less of an issue in the other Baltic state, Lithuania, because the Russian population represented only 9 percent of the total population.²⁵

In general, the Russian populations residing in the non-Russian periphery were highly concentrated in urban areas, with the exception of Kazakhstan and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan.²⁶ On the whole, they were also relatively more educated than the titular nationalities, occupied higher-level posts, and had superior socioeconomic status. In some cases, this caused strong anti-Russian sentiment among the titular groups.²⁷ Partly as a result of this and partly because of strong cultural differences between some of the titular nationalities and ethnic Russians, there was little mixing between the two groups during the Soviet years.

The ethnic Russians formed “isolated ethnic enclaves,” except in the Slavic states, where Russians had closer cultural ties with the local populace.²⁸ Given that Russian was the official language within the Soviet Union, very few Russians learned the local language even if they had lived outside Russia for generations, a practice that further reinforced their isolation from the local populations.²⁹

The breakup of the Soviet Union launched a gradual emigration of ethnic Russians and Russophones to the Russian Federation. Net immigration to Russia from the non-Russian states increased from 105,000 in 1991 to a peak of 915,000 in 1994, then fell back to 124,000 in 2001. The extent of the emigration from the various NIS was not uniform. Indeed, the majority of Russians and Russophones residing in the Transcaucasus states and Tajikistan chose to leave, while far fewer of them emigrated from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan (25 percent) and Kazakhstan (22 percent). On the lower end of the spectrum, 10 to 13 percent of the Russians and Russophones residing in the Baltic states and Moldova chose to emigrate, while very few of them left Ukraine and Belarus.³⁰

Despite some anti-Russian sentiment, ethnic Russians were not persecuted, nor were they targeted for major ethnic violence. Rather, their decision to emigrate was driven by some combination of more subtle factors. For one, at independence, in order to build a separate identity from the Soviet Union, the other post-Soviet states changed the official language from Russian to the local one and elevated their ethnicity, for instance by ensuring positions in the government administration and greater political representation for local ethnicities.

Some states, notably Estonia and Latvia, took even more drastic steps by restricting citizenship to just titular nationalities. This not only made the Russian/Russophone population uncomfortable but also directly threatened their acquired social and economic status, prompting many of them to leave. So too the level of cultural connections between the Russian/Russophone diaspora and the titular nationalities played a role in determining the level of emigration: the extent of emigration from the other Slavic states was minimal, while in Turkmenistan, growing nationalism as well as the rise of Islam led to increased ethnic Russian emigration.³¹

In other states, emigration was driven by factors unrelated to ethnicity. In Georgia and Tajikistan, for example, instability and violence following independence, while not targeted at the Russian diaspora, led many of its members to leave. Finally, the pull of the Russian economy, twice as large as all the FSU economies combined, appeared to offer better employment opportunities and earning potential.³²

At the breakup of the Soviet Union, policies toward the Russian diaspora in the post-Soviet states ranged from hostile to accommodating. Some states devised exclusionary policies toward the Russians, while others shaped policies to dissuade them from emigrating, though none was prepared to give the political representation to the Russians on a scale commensurate with their share of the population. At one extreme, the Baltic states, with sizeable Russian populations, feared that the ethnic Russians would overshadow the titular groups and turn the latter into minorities within their own states. As a result, the new governments established very exclusionary citizenship and language laws. Estonia and Latvia denied automatic citizenship to Russian minorities, and in both countries ethnic Russians were considered in theory illegal immigrants, on the argument that the Soviet Union had occupied the two countries since 1940.³³

In contrast, in the central Asian countries—particularly Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and initially Turkmenistan—where the ethnic Russians constituted a large proportion of the educated labor force, the governments put in place polices to entice the Russians to stay—for instance, some political representation and dual citizenship in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. They feared an economic loss if the Russians were to leave en masse.³⁴

At independence, the Russian Federation did not have much of a legislative foundation for dealing with mass population movements, nor did it have the institutional experience. Therefore, in the immediate aftermath of the breakup, with the help of the UNHCR and the IOM, the Russian government took a number of steps toward adhering to international migration norms, abolishing the internal passport system and granting its citizens the freedom of movement, as well as acceding to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and Protocol. In February 1992, it also devised its first citizenship law, which was in theory supposed to be ethnically neutral: anyone who was a permanent resident of Russia or who felt “ethnically or emotionally connected to Russia” could apply for citizenship, which essentially meant that all citizens of the FSU were eligible to apply.³⁵

In addition, to avoid a mass return of ethnic Russians, the Russian government advocated forcefully for the protection of the rights of ethnic Russians and Russophones living in the other NIS. Moscow pursued a policy of dual citizenship, which was rejected by all but Tajikistan and Turkmenistan lest it weaken their nation-building efforts, and pushed for Russian to be the language of interethnic communication within the FSU.³⁶ In addition, it pursued a policy of open borders with the other NIS. For example, in October 1992 it signed the Bishkek Accord to allow for free movement among the signatories (Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova, in addition to Russia). Georgia joined the accord in 1995.³⁷ In 1997, Russia negotiated separate bilateral visa-free travel arrangements with Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

In terms of resettlement and integration policies in Russia, there was more rhetoric than concrete support for returnees, due in part to resource constraints. In 1994 a Russian presidential decree promulgated a “Basic Conception of a Programme to Help Compatriots” and an accompanying resolution on “Measures for the Support of Compatriots Abroad.” In these pieces of legislation, the Russian government designated the returnees as “forced migrants” or “refugees,” entitling them to resettlement and integration support. Institutionally, the FMS was set up in 1992 to manage the migrant resettlement process. It was supplemented by parallel regional organizations across the country—eighty-nine at the height of the in-migration—that were supposed to coordinate with the federal government to provide the needed support.³⁸

However, in practice, the level of support for and receptiveness to the returnees varied greatly across the regions, depending on the number of in-migrants to the region and the particular socioeconomic and political environment. In some areas, the returnees were seen as a benefit because they represented either a way to attract more federal resources or a source of labor amid dire demographic trends, high mortality, and low fertility. In others, they were seen as a threat to the socioeconomic stability of the region. In either case, the regional organizations determined their own policies, either encouraging or discouraging in-migration. Some of these policies, particularly those geared toward restricting in-migration, contravened federal directives and international law.³⁹

Whether they encouraged or discouraged migration, regions provided at most modest support to migrants. Many received only a small emergency payment but no support for key needs like housing and employment. As a result, a number of the migrants had to take jobs that were far below their qualifications and skills, in the process becoming highly disillusioned by the system.⁴⁰

To some extent, the IOM, the UNHCR, and some international NGOs, including the Danish Refugee Council and Opportunity International, stepped in to fill the void. In 1993, the IOM provided the first set of direct international assistance under its Direct Assistance Programme, which supplied migrant organizations with equipment to help them set up small-scale private enterprises.

Later, the UNHCR, in conjunction with the two NGOs, implemented regional micro-credit projects targeting the resettling migrants with the similar objective of spurring sustainable livelihoods for the settlers. It also organized capacity-building programs to help migrants set up and manage regional associations, which were then provided with grants to enable them to undertake large-scale projects geared toward resettlement and integration of returnees. In addition, to deal with the more immediate needs, the UNHCR provided small-scale loans to those deemed internally displaced to aid them with essential needs such as housing.⁴¹

Assessment and Possible Lessons

The emigration of the Russian diaspora back to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union presents lessons that may be relevant for other secessions:

Negotiating and advocating for the protection of ethnic minorities in the states where they reside can be key to a strategy for migrant-receiving countries in avoiding a sudden flood of migrants. Russia did just that with many of the other NIS.

When a nation breaks up, mass population movements of ethnic minorities toward their ethnic home can ensue even in the absence of ethnic persecution and violence. It is therefore important for the migrant-receiving country to at least plan institutions and support for potential returnees from the onset.

The international community can play a positive role in assisting with the migration and settlement process, especially when the secession involves poor and inexperienced states. States should work with UN organizations, especially UNHCR, and NGOs to establish the required institutions as well as to direct support the returnees.

In terms of resettlement in the context of a decentralized state, it is important to align the goals and incentives of federal and regional institutions in order to provide consistent support to the settlers. Otherwise, the resettlement process will be nonuniform across the country, increasing the opaqueness of the process.

Georgia and Abkhazia

Issue and Outcome

Following Georgia’s independence from the FSU, two regions demanded independence from Georgia, including Abkhazia in 1992.⁴² The fighting that followed displaced more than 250,000 people, mostly ethnic Georgians. In 1994 a four-way agreement for the voluntary return of IDPs and refugees was negotiated among Abkhazia, Georgia, the Russian Federation, and the UNHCR. Over the more than a decade and a half since the conflict began, the UNHCR, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and other international organizations have been involved in efforts to establish peace in the region and facilitate the safe return of IDPs to their homes in Abkhazia.

Despite the presence of these international organizations, armed conflicts and ethnic cleansing have continued to flare up periodically. Thus, in spite of official agreement to repatriate ethnic Georgians to Abkhazia and participation by multiple international aid organizations, the return of IDPs to Abkhazia has been stymied by the political issues that remain unresolved between Georgia and Abkhazia. Nearly two decades after the conflict began, the vast majority of those who fled Abkhazia remain displaced, too fearful of further targeted violence to return to their homes in Abkhazia.

Course of the Dispute

Abkhazia is small region in the northwest corner of Georgia, bordering the Black Sea and Russia. Its primary economic activities are agriculture and tourism. Of strategic importance, the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) oil pipeline traverses Abkhazia en route to Turkey. For decades Abkhazia has been a multiethnic society composed of people of Abkhaz, Georgian, Armenian, Jewish, and Greek descent, among others. During the Soviet era, Abkhazia was an autonomous republic within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Georgia declared its independence and included in its international borders the region of Abkhazia.

Abkhazia declared its own independence from Georgia in the following year, sparking armed conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia, and “ethnic cleansing” between the Abkhaz and Georgian populations in Abkhazia.⁴³ Ethnic Georgians in particular were targeted because over the previous several decades the demographics of the Abkhazia region had shifted, leaving ethnic Georgians constituting 46 percent of the population, up from 39 percent in 1959.⁴⁴ The Abkhaz claim this was the result of deliberate demographic policy by Georgia in an effort to quell the ethnically driven call for Abkhaz independence. As a result of the fighting and persecution, most ethnic Georgians (approximately 250,000 to 280,000 people) fled Abkhazia as refugees.⁴⁵ Little is known about those who were internally displaced within Abkhazia.

In 1994 Abkhazia and Georgia reached an agreement to end the armed conflict and repatriate those who had been displaced. The four-way agreement was negotiated; it is formally the Quadripartite Agreement on Voluntary Return of Refugees and Displaced Persons. According to the agreement, the parties “agree to cooperate and to interact in planning and conducting the activities aimed to safeguard and guarantee the safe, secure and dignified return of people who have fled from areas of the conflict zone to the areas of their previous permanent residence.”⁴⁶ The four parties met periodically to address ongoing issues, but negotiations were often driven by other political issues among them.

In addition to the UNHCR, other international organizations—for instance, the Group of Friends, the OSCE, and the Commonwealth of Independent States Peace Keeping Force—became involved in efforts to restore peace and resettle returning IDPs in Abkhazia. In particular, UNOMIG sent a long-term peacekeeping force whose mission began in 1994. UNOMIG has helped to maintain the formal ceasefire for more than ten years but has not yet established a safe and secure environment to which IDPs might return. This stems largely from the fact that the fundamental disagreement between Abkhazia and Georgia regarding Abkhaz independence has not been resolved.

Demographics have played an important role in the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia. Since expelling the near-majority ethnic Georgians, the Abkhaz have become the largest ethnic group in Abkhazia. By blocking the return of ethnic Georgians, the Abkhaz hope to hold onto their ethnic majority, thereby solidifying a consensus vote for independence. Demographics have played a part on the Georgian side, too, albeit in a less extreme manner. From 1990 to the mid-2000s, Georgia lost nearly 20 percent of its population to emigration.⁴⁷ Thus the loss of Abkhazia would represent a further reduction of the Georgian population, as well as a substantial economic loss.

Given the circumstances, it is unsurprising that very few IDPs have returned to Abkhazia in the fifteen years since the ceasefire. The only notable exception is the Gali region, to which an estimated 45,000 ethnic Georgians have returned. However, those returnees were met by the Abkhaz militias’ attacks and efforts to intimidate, despite the presence of monitors from the UNHCR.⁴⁸ In contrast, the formal repatriation process to which all parties agreed has resulted in only 311 returnees. Moreover, most settlers fled a second time in 1998 due to recurrent ethnic cleansing.⁴⁹

Nor is it clear that the returnees to Gali are permanent since many ethnic Georgians return there temporarily during the hazelnut harvest out of economic necessity. In fact, what looks like a “success” from the perspective of the government’s repatriation agenda may in fact serve as a cautionary tale for ethnic Georgian who fled areas where Georgians were not in the majority. Given the extent to which returnees were terrorized in Gali, where they outnumbered the Abkhaz, there is little hope that smaller groups of returnees would fare better in areas where they were in the minority.

The inability of IDPs to return to Abkhazia means that Georgia has been faced with accommodating more than a quarter of a million IDPs. This represents more than an eighth of the nation’s population in a country already struggling with economic hardship. Of the refugees who fled to Georgia, 70 percent settled in urban areas. The region bordering Abkhazia, just across the Induri River, absorbed 38 percent of refugees, especially those who fled from the neighboring Gali region. Tbilisi drew roughly a third of the refugees. The displaced primarily live in private accommodations (typically with family members) or makeshift collective centers (e.g., hotels, schools, and factories that have been taken over by refugee families).

Most IDPs live in extremely precarious circumstances, suffering from poverty, poor health, unemployment, psychological stress, and social alienation. Most of the communal centers lack adequate basic accommodations and are in urgent need of repair.⁵⁰ IDPs are entitled to social support benefits similar to those provided to vulnerable Georgian residents, conditional on being registered with the Georgian Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation (MRA), which was established in 1996 to address the specific needs of IDPs in Georgia. Registered IDPs who live in private residences are entitled to US$8.00 per month, while those in collective centers receive US$6.50 plus free public utilities (e.g., water, electricity). The registry was updated in 2004, and the status of 210,000 IDPs from Abkhazia was verified ten years after the end of armed conflict.⁵¹ In 2006 the MRA launched a program that allows IDPs to register the titles to their land in Abkhazia in a state inventory to protect property and inheritance rights of ethnic Georgians.⁵² This could become a bargaining chip with Abkhazia should the parties restart negotiations over the rights of refugee to their property (as protected by international law).

In 2007 the Georgian government developed a new national strategy on IDPs. It again emphasized their right to return but made more explicit that integration into Georgian society need not hinder future return to their place of origin (including Abkhazia).⁵³ The reemergence of armed conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia (another breakaway region) highlights the need for the swift implementation of measures to address IDPs’ short- and long-term needs, whether through repatriation or resettlement and integration in Georgia proper.

Assessment and Possible Lessons

Abkhazia, while formally agreeing to repatriation, has hindered the return of refugees both officially and unofficially for more than fifteen years. In 1995 the de facto authorities of Abkhazia offered to accept two hundred returnees per week, which observers argued was too few given the number of IDPs in Georgia.⁵⁴ More recently Abkhaz officials claimed that resettlement to areas outside of Gali was “impossible now.”⁵⁵ Unofficially, Abkhaz militias continue to terrorize ethnic Georgians who do return, while others expropriate the property of those who do not. Their actions continue to deter any substantial resettlement of IDPs in their homeland. The authorities have little incentive to combat these activities since the longer Abkhazia can keep returnees at bay, the greater the opportunity to cultivate an Abkhaz-centric society to which Georgian refugees would not wish to return if permitted.

For its part, Georgia has single-mindedly pursued the goal of resettling IDPs in Abkhazia. Critics claim that the needs of IDPs have been secondary to the issue of territorial control.⁵⁶ Georgia has drawn criticism for being so committed to the right of IDPs to return to their homes in Abkhazia that it effectively denied IDPs other rights, such as legal rights to vote, own property, or work. Georgia has also failed to provide adequate humanitarian assistance to those who return of their own accord and denied displaced persons the full rights of citizens in Georgia.

In more recent years Georgia has taken steps to integrate IDPs into political and economic life, while taking precautions that these do not preclude their right to return. For example, IDPs were granted the right to acquire property in Georgia while maintaining their IDP status (and thus the right to return to and reclaim their property in Abkhazia). As yet there is no change in Georgia’s official policy toward Abkhazia, which is of course the most significant determinant of IDPs’ prospects for return.

Russia’s role has continually been a complicating factor. Initially, Russia refused to recognize Abkhazia’s independence for fear that it would be used to legitimate Chechnya’s calls for independence. However, Russia supplied weapons to Abkhazia and passports and pensions to its citizens, and imposed economic sanctions on Georgia at various times since 1994.⁵⁷ Given that Russia had clearly taken sides in the conflict, it was an inappropriate choice to be the sole supplier of peacekeeping forces in the UNOMIG operation. This, no doubt, harmed relations between Georgia and Abkhazia.

So long as no political solution to the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia is in sight, there remains little hope for the peaceful return of many ethnic Georgian IDPs to their homes in Abkhazia. Moreover, in recent years the Georgian government has begun to recognize that many IDPs may prefer not to return to Abkhazia, given their safety concerns. Thus, a durable solution may take the form of resettlement in Georgia rather than repatriation, regardless of how the territorial dispute is resolved. The Gali region may be an exception, as both Georgia and Abkhazia benefit from reversing the decline in agricultural production, which would involve restoring ethnic Georgian farmers to their land. Outside of this one area, there are no immediate prospects for the return of the remaining 220,000 to 250,000 Georgians to Abkhazia.⁵⁸

Many national and international forces were marshaled to resolve the conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia in such a way that those who fled their homes could return without fear of recurrent violence. However, the best agreements and outside assistance could not overcome the discord between parties, both of which have used the IDPs for political gain. This case study provides a cautionary tale of the importance of addressing the root cause of the dispute. The following are several lessons from the experience of Georgia and Abkhazia that may have broader relevance:

While formal agreements can be valuable for outlining the principles of returning IDPs to their homes, they are woefully inadequate if both parties are not committed to the process. The language of such agreements is typically broad enough that either party can stall the process without violating the letter of the law. In short, formal agreements are a necessary condition for resettling IDPs but not a sufficient one.

Without peace, repatriation is infeasible. The ethnic divide that caused the conflict between neighbors in the first place will reemerge if efforts to resolve the underlying issues are not successful. This was made apparent when, in 1998, the homes, schools, and farms of Georgian returnees to Gali, which had been rebuilt with international donor assistance and under international monitoring, were decimated by partisan attacks once again. In a matter of days, 40,000 people fled the renewed violence.⁵⁹

Prolonged periods of displacement may make either eventual return or integration into the receiving country more difficult as IDPs’ lives remain fractured. Evidence collected from interviews with IDPs in communal centers in Georgia suggests that living as IDPs without integrating into Georgian society encourages many to relive the memory of the ethnic conflict in Abkhazia, thus hardening their outlook. They become less able to reconcile with the ethnic Abkhaz in their homeland and remain isolated from fellow ethnic Georgians in Georgia.⁶⁰

IDPs can be used as a political bargaining chip, thus slowing progress on repatriation or other forms of settlement. It is important to understand what stake each party to the negotiations has in the outcome. The commitment to returning displaced persons to their homes can inadvertently lead to further disadvantaging them in the meantime. Granting the legal rights to vote, purchase property, and make a living is vital to the well-being of IDPs, and this can be pursued without abandoning efforts to return them to their homes.

The details of the conflict are critical to determining what will and will not be feasible solutions. For example, it has been argued that the solution offered by Georgia, namely that Abkhazia become a largely autonomous region within the Republic of Georgia, is dismissed out of hand by Abkhaz leaders because it is likened to the “autonomy” former Soviet republics had under Soviet rule, which was a fig leaf.⁶¹ Thus, improving the communication and trust between parties is critical to overcoming such semantic debates and developing a resolution to the conflict.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Issue and Outcome

In 1992, after the collapse of Yugoslavia and declaration of independence by Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Bosnian Serb leaders, especially, embarked on armed conflict and ethnic cleansing.⁶² During the three-year conflict that ensued, more than one million people were driven out of the country and an equal number were internally displaced. In December 1995 the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) was signed, ending the conflict and establishing BiH as a federal republic made up of two “entities,” divided largely along ethnic lines. The DPA outlined a path to peace and provided for the return of displaced peoples, with involvement from NATO and the UNHCR. The Office of the High Representative was established to oversee the civilian implementation of the DPA.

In the decade following the DPA, refugees and IDPs have steadily returned to BiH, many under a registration program run by the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees to monitor and assist resettlement, including through reconstruction assistance. Although half of the displaced seem to have returned, the drive for ethnically “pure” areas that drove ethnic cleansing in the early 1990s continues to threaten the recovery of returnees and the long-term displaced alike.

Course of the Dispute

For three years immediately after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, BiH was plagued by the atrocities of ethnic cleansing, primarily carried out by Bosnian Serbs. By the time the war ended with the signing of the DPA in December 1995, more than half of the 4.4 million people of BiH had been hounded from their homes. Approximately 1.3 million people were internally displaced, and nearly the same number fled the country. In addition to calling a ceasefire, the DPA established the framework for the transition to peace and democracy. BiH was split into two “entities”—the mainly Serb Republika Srpska (RS) and the predominantly Croat and Muslim Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). Initially, each entity had its own government while progress toward national integration was being made.

The DPA outlined pivotal roles for NATO peacekeeping forces and for the Office of the High Representative (OHR), which was in charge of civilian affairs. The 1997 Bonn Conference conferred upon the OHR the power to guide the reconciliation process. The so-called Bonn powers included the authority to remove public officials and ban legislation that violated the DPA or otherwise hindered progress toward peace and reconciliation. Under this arrangement many roadblocks were eliminated, but the formation of a fully functioning, integrated political system is still to be accomplished.

The DPA also made explicit provisions for the rights of displaced people to return to the areas from which they fled (Annex VII).⁶³ Underlying the emphasis on return was the “moral and political imperative to reverse ‘ethnic cleansing.’”⁶⁴ To accomplish the objective of a speedy return, the DPA designated the UNHCR as the lead international agency to oversee the return of refugees and IDPs. The Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees (MHRR) coordinated return efforts at the national level, while both “entities”—RS and FBiH—also maintained their own ministry for refugees.⁶⁵ A registry was established by the MHRR to monitor and assist resettlement, and to provide reconstruction assistance, when applicable.

As is the case in other instances of ethnically motivated displacements, the return of displaced persons to the communities they fled can be used to fan fresh ethnic tensions. Depending on their ethnicity, returnees will bolster a majority group or weaken its numbers. Thus, vested interests in who returns, where, can result in a patchwork of de facto local policies, a pattern that played out in BiH. Many displaced people returned before the ink was dry on the DPA. However, in the first two years returnees were predominantly “majority returns”—that is, displaced people who returned to areas in which they belonged to the ethnic majority. Minority returns followed later once additional guarantees were in place.

Not until the early 2000s did minority and other returns gather momentum again. Several factors are credited with this development, including improved security, reconstruction, and property restitution. With the coordinated efforts of the OSCE, UNHCR, and OHR, ethnic violence declined, and many felt comfortable returning to the areas they had fled. Massive housing projects rebuilt at least some of the housing that was destroyed during the war. Perhaps the most important factor in these later flows of returnees was the provisions to reclaim or receive compensation for property abandoned during the war.⁶⁶

The DPA affirmed that all refugees have the right to reclaim their homes or be compensated for lost or destroyed property. To accomplish this goal, the DPA created the Commission for Real Property Claims of Displaced Persons and Refugees (CRPC). The CRPC’s mandate called for the commission to “receive and decide any claims for real property in BiH, where the property has not voluntarily been sold or otherwise transferred since April 1, 1992, and where the claimant does not now enjoy possession of that property.”⁶⁷ Although the CRPC’s decisions were final, it was not vested with the power to directly enforce its decisions, and the domestic institutions that did have such power lacked the will to enforce the rulings.

The commission remained largely ineffective and was ultimately replaced by Property Law Implementation Plan (PLIP) in 1999. The PLIP was organized by the OHR, NATO, and the UNHCR to enforce new legislation governing the resolution of property claims. Compared to its predecessor, the PLIP was well funded and supported by the international community. It was also more flexible and capable of handling emerging needs, such as the claims to occupancy rights in socially owned apartment properties. It has been very effective. Of the 200,000 claims received, 93 percent had been resolved by mid-2005, making this the first successful case of large-scale property restitution in a postconflict setting.⁶⁸

As time has passed, the MHRR has come to recognize that return is not the universally appropriate solution to displacement. Many of those who remain as registered IDPs within BiH are vulnerable—the elderly, the mentally and physically handicapped, individuals traumatized by war, all of whom are unable or unwilling to return to the communities they fled. Thus, the MHRR and the international community have increased funding for efforts to support IDPs where they have now settled. In addition, the MHRR’s 2008 revision of the National Strategy for Implementation of Annex VII acknowledged the need to provide means for compensating the displaced for their lost property, in addition to enabling restitution for those who want to return to their homes.⁶⁹

Assessment and Possible Lessons

Perhaps the most obvious means of assessing the success of dealing with displaced people is by measuring the extent to which they have returned to the areas they fled. According to UNHCR and MHRR estimates, more than one million refugees and IDPs combined (slightly more IDPs than refugees) had returned to their prewar residence in BiH by June 2008. However, this estimate may undercount those who have returned to the area but not the residence in which they lived and overcount IDPs who returned only to leave again.⁷⁰

Returning has proven to be difficult for a number of reasons. Rural areas, in particular, have had high unemployment rates following the war. Thus, many young IDPs and refugees from the countryside have chosen to remain in larger cities and towns or indeed abroad, where they have greater access to education and jobs. Some return only to reclaim their property and subsequently sell or rent it while continuing to live elsewhere. Still others return with plans to resettle permanently but find it daunting to do so. There are fewer economic opportunities after the devastation. In addition, those who returned to their former communities as ethnic minorities have experienced discrimination in employment and access to health services and ethnocentric curricula in local schools.⁷¹ Thus, while significant progress has been made, the goal of returning the displaced to their homes amid safety, security, and dignity remains only partially fulfilled.

Officially the armed conflict between ethnic groups in BiH ended many years ago, and while a stable unified government has yet to be achieved, the government has held together. Yet ethnicity continues to cleave BiH society. So long as that is the case, the issue of displaced people cannot fully be put to rest, though many may have found a place to settle. The following are several lessons from the experience of BiH that may have broader relevance:

When ethnic conflict is the direct cause of displacement, it can be naïve to think that returning displaced persons to their homes undoes the ethnic divides created by war. While multiethnic communities may be desired in principle by national (and international) entities, the rights of displaced persons, including the right not to return to their place of origin, should be respected.

IDPs have frequently been used as political capital to establish or maintain a majority population in an area where political clout falls along ethnic lines. To combat this, durable solutions for the displaced must be viewed first in humanitarian terms.⁷²

The protection of displaced persons’ right to return should not be construed by policy makers as a mandate to enforce their return. The freedom of movement—and therefore local integration in a new area—must simultaneously be respected.

Even activities to ensure the protection of human rights will be construed as political. The UNHCR protected Bosnian Muslims fleeing their homes and so was later accused of being an accomplice to ethnic cleansing. When the UNHCR protected communities that remained in their place of residence, it was criticized for sparing neighboring countries from receiving floods of refugees.⁷³

Without peace and security, and without the establishment of power-sharing politics that defend the rights of minority communities, return is not a durable solution, regardless of the humanitarian aid that is provided. As one UNHCR report put it, “Providing material aid while ignoring the fact that the displaced are being beaten, raped or killed too often leads to the tragic description of the victims as the ‘well-fed dead.’”⁷⁴ Premature resettlement of the displaced in BiH and other conflict-affected areas has led to the reemergence of violence even after the ceasefire takes effect. Addressing the root cause of the conflict that caused displacement is essential.

The contrast with the Russian case underscores the point. While Russians in the other NIS were subject to various forms of discrimination and while Russian regions varied is their eagerness to host returnees, the ethnic tensions between Russians and other groups in the FSU were mild by comparison to tensions in Georgia and Bosnia. Politicians in many of the NIS sought to increase the weight of their titular nationality, but none resorted to violence and ethnic cleansing.