Wednesday 14 December 2011

Charles Ingabire, let down fatally by Uganda & UNHCR

Charles Ingabire, let down fatally by Uganda & UNHCR
By Kiflu Hussain

December 14, 2011


Recalling a panel discussion by way of introduction

In July, I was invited to make a presentation to a panel at the 13th International Association for the Study of Migration (IASFM) Conference held in Kampala. East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP), sponsored my participation in the conference. Hence, I presented a paper titled “The double jeopardy Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in exile suffer.”
As I have been a human rights defender in exile since 2007; and since I hold a refugee ID card that contains fancy words such as “issued by the Republic of Uganda in line with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the status of refugees as well as the OAU convention,” the staff at EHAHRDP from top to bottom encouraged me to use the platform by highlighting real issues HRDs in exile endure day in and day out. Thus, overcoming the cynicism that has gripped me ever since I came to know how the “international community” extends international “protection” to the likes of me, I decided to come out from my gloom and hand in the paper that conveyed my cynicism in no uncertain terms. During the presentation of my paper which I sub-titled in five parts and which indicted UNHCR (the UN agency for refugees), I expected to be challenged on factual grounds by one of its highly paid staff. It not only did not happen. During the week long conference, I haven’t heard a single word uttered by the UNHCR that is supposed to be concerned directly with issues of migration.
Doubting whether the agency had any idea that such a conference is taking place or even cared, I asked a fellow refugee whom I thought was Congolese as to whether he had seen any representative of UNHCR that he knows. He pointed out one to me. Incidentally; the fellow who answered my question was from Rwanda. Unless informed beforehand, the common features that Congolese and Rwandese refugees share have always led me to assume that any refugee I meet from the Great Lakes region is from that hapless country called DR Congo. Until I saw the photograph of Charles Ingabire who was shot last week and whom I met on different occasions in places where refugees congregate, I assumed that he too was Congolese. Making mistaken assumption on identity is not only confined on refugees from the Great Lakes region. I myself encountered countless times erroneous assumptions that dubbed me as a refugee from Eritrea while some of my compatriots have been assumed to be Somalis. Unfortunately, this sweet similarity of identity from which we Africans failed to benefit ignominiously, has also been used as a tool to violate the sanctity of asylum. Promising to elaborate on this, provided it won’t boringly lengthen my theme; let me now complete recapping the panel discussion.Countinued

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