937
Refugees:
[ 27 FEBRUARY 1985]
Government put the figure at 2,900,000; in the Sudan which has 700,000 refugees, mostly from Ethiopia; in Somalia which again has 700,000, also from Ethiopia; in Central America and Mexico which have 341,000 refugees; in Southern Africa, which has 240,000; in Tanzania which has 180,000; and in South-East Asia, which has 160,000. That gives a total of 51⁄2 to 6 million / refugees.
The remaining 4 million are people who are still called refugees; but they have found their own way in the world, and many of them live in Britain and elsewhere. In addition, we have some 4 million Palestinian refugees; 1,925,000 are living in the camps surrounding Israel and Palestine, in Syria, the Lebanon, and so on; and there are 2 million who once more are fending for themselves. I shall have a little to say about them later on. They are looked after, not by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, but by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestinian Refugees.
I must now turn from figures to faces and consider the situation of the third world refugees, particularly those who, in the words of the Bible, are,
"going through the vale of misery".
One must accept that a great many of them have come from areas where terror and torture, senseless slaughter, degradation and despair have formed the permanent backdrop to their lives. Of course, although they are happy to have asylum in the countries where they now live, their deprivations weigh very heavily on them. Of these, I think that the most serious, quite apart even from the meagre diet, the cramped living conditions, and so on, are the lack of beauty and the lack of hope. It was Plato who said:
"Let our youth live in a beautiful land”.
One of the most terrible things that strikes one today going through these refugee camps, is the monochrome monotony of their conditions, enlivened perhaps by a little piece of Palestinian embroidery, or the tiny tinkle of brilliance from the lips of a wise old
man.
Then there is hope. It was Bacon who said, "Hope is a good breakfast", and indeed it is. It makes a splendid breakfast. It sustains us throughout the day, like bacon and eggs. Although I would not say that hope is entirely extinguished, there are areas, particu- larly among the Palestinians-people who have been in refugee camps now for a great many years since 1948, and they are still there now 20, 30 and 40 years on, or thereabouts-where one sometimes feels that almost every spark of hope has been extinguished from those sighing, suffering, sorrowing thousands.
However, my Lords, sighing and suffering ill- become your Lordships' House, and we must examine now what is being done for all these refugees through- out the world. The short answer is a great deal. The Commission, to which I referred earlier, is now looking after 5 million refugees in 82 third world countries. Their activities are chronicled in this superb volume which I have with me. It does not make good bedtime reading certainly, but it helps to while away the tedium of a snowy Saturday afternoon.
It shows above all that the commission value the individual as highly as the group. If I have a theme to my speech today it is just that concern for the
Third World
938
individual. Indeed one gets the impression that the commission are just as much concerned about the 2,300,000 refugees in Pakistan as they are about the 14 million elsewhere, and only 14 in fact in Niger.
They concern themselves greatly with emergencies, and that is one of their most important tasks. In addition to that of course they are working with great energy and application on continuing projects- agricultural projects, well-drilling, counselling services, and so on-but their main object is to secure what they call durable solutions. They may take three forms: either repatriation to the country of origin; settlement in the country of asylum; or resettlement in countries like Great Britain, Canada, and so on.
There are in this country altogether something like 140,000 refugees. They are being looked after extremely well by the British Refugee Commission which co-ordinates the work of the two bodies mainly concerned, the Ockenden Venture and Refugee Action. I have limitless praise for the Ockenden Venture. I wish I could tell your Lordships more about their work. It is magnificent. They take these children who are bewildered, perplexed and disorientated. However, within a few days they are running around, speaking English, and so on. It is a labour of limitless love if ever there was one.
Refugee Action started in 1981 and is also doing splendid work. The Vietnamese Children's Centre is going along the same lines, too. Then there are many other charities. There is the British Red Cross, which was the first in the field, and is now concerned with protection, relief and development. There is the Save the Children Fund which have projects all over the third world. There is Oxfam which are concerned with well-drilling, and so on. Then there are the French groups such as Médicins sans frontières; the German Brot für die Welt; and the American group World Vision-brash and brassy perhaps but no less effective. There is a splendid infrastructure, my Lords.
What of finance? The Commission's expenditure in the current year is likely to be about 500 million dollars. Of that sum the United States contribute about 122 million dollars. Although this may seem a large sum it pales into insignificance compared with the fact that the United States defence budget is 285 billion (I repeat "billion") dollars.
What of Her Majesty's Government's performance? It is pretty good I think on the whole. We could give it, I think, beta plus. It ranks roughly on a level with Federal Germany, very much better than France, very much better than Italy, but not as good as the Scandinavian countries, of which Norway is outstandingly the best. Nevertheless, despite this good achievement I have four questions which I should like to put to the noble Lord the Minister, and I have given him notice of these.
First, can he assure the House that Her Majesty's Government will continue to support the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and organisations like Oxfam which are concerned with refugee problems? Secondly, could the Minister tell the House whether the Home Office is prepared to adopt a rather more flexible policy in regard to the admission of refugees? I think there particularly of the importance of reuniting families and of the terrible