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*UAREGTISZANIE ODUR
have their roots. Often a neighboring country shares a Coinmon geography, language, and ethnic or cultural character which can ease the acceptance of refugees and help them achieve longer term residence. At the first African refugee conference in Tanzania, in 1979, Julius Nyerere as the host president said: "as Africans, we welcome the refugees, we give them our space, we share our food." Outside help was needed, he added, but for the care of refugees in
Africa, not for resettlement outside of Africa.
Since 1981 nearly all of the U.S. contributions to assist refugees in the regions of their homelands have been channelled through the international organizations. Those organizations in turn work through "operational partners," who often are the same private voluntary agencies that assist us in refugee resettlement. As refugees find refuge in Africa, in the Near East, in Asia, in Latin America, in Western Europe, the traditional terminology of "donor" countries blurs, for it is the first asylum countries offering their "space" in President Nyerere's words who are the greatest: donors of all.
Resettlement Often Not the Solution
The relatively small role played by international resettlement as a solution can be seen in the sheer magnitude of the refugee populations. There are currently five million Afghan refugees. The United States resettles at most 3,000 a year - less than one-tenth of one percent. There are almost three million refugees in Africa, with similarly limited resettlement requirements. Refugee leaders themselves acknowledge the uncertain value of resettlement in such situations, seeing it as potentially divisive, and in some cases as а form of resented leadership drain.
The humanitarian commitment to aid refugees in the regions of their homelands puts great pressure on the resources available for our total refugee assistance programs. In fiscal year 1986
as the committee knows all parts of the federal government have had to make program reductions to conform to the Gramm Rudman-Hollings legislation. As a result of these across-the board funding reductions, the department, with congressional concurrence, was forced this year to shift over nine million dollars from the admissions program to meet critical refugee assistance requirements in Africa and Southeast Asia. In other words, instead of reallocating admissions numbers and funds to meet other regional admissions needs, we were compelled to cover high-priority relief requirements. Thus, the need to reprogram is the primary reason for actual admissions in fiscal year 1986 Falling some 4,500 below the ceiling.
The assistance requirements for refugees in Africa, for Afghans in Pakistan, for Cambodians on the Thai-Cambodian border, and for other groups in Southeast Asia and elsewhere remain substantial. Just a few weeks ago the Red Cross informed us they were running out of money for their life-sustaining food and medical programs in Africa. President Reagan authorized a withdrawal from the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund to help meet the deficit, but that is a resource we can draw on only in exceptional cases, and within a tightly delineated congressional authorization.
In order to be able to meet these ongoing assistance requirements without impairing our admissions programs, it is absolutely essential that we be provided with adequate resources to do the job. We are talking here about the lives of literally millions of human beings.
I was pleased that the House Appropriations Committee supported the full amount of the president's fiscal year 1987 request for the refugee program. I urge you and your colleagues to do the same.
Foreign Affairs Budget
But this is only part of a much larger foreign policy issue now facing us. It is in our national interest to work together with other nations to reduce political instabilities throughout the world. But to address these instabilities, often at the root of the world's refugee problem, requires that American diplomacy have the proper tools including healthy foreign assistance programs and energetic diplomatic representation.
Unfortunately, these tools are being drastically restricted under current congressionally-imposed cuts in our overall foreign affairs
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