Conflict-induced
displacement, which might be the result of an armed conflict, a civil war or an
internal uprising against a regime, may last years and even sometimes more than
a decade. Displacement is an arduous process itself but what comes after? When
the armed conflict is over and the warring parties get what they have been
pursuing for, do all the sufferings of the displaced communities end
simultaneously? Do displaced persons need to go back to their original places
of residence for their displacement to finish? Or even a better question would
be “when does the displacement end?” Does it end when people go back home? What
if there is no home to go back?
Having
been discussed for long years, the displacement and its categories are now
defined in official or semi-official documents. In the matter of returns,
though, while “UNHCR has guidelines in determining when it is safe for refugees
to return home” (Cohen & Deng 1998, Pg.35), there is no general consensus
on when internal displacement actually ends. According to Guiding Principles,
internal displacement finishes in two conditions: first, when people return
their homes and second, when they re-settle in another place.
It
is very common that when IDPs return home “they sometimes find that during
their absence they have been deprived of their property” (Phuong 2006, Pg.40).
Their houses might now be occupied by other displaced families or there might
not even be a house after heavy artilleries or intentional burning. It is the
responsibility of the governments to provide shelter in such situations
according to the Guiding Principles. Governments must accept the assistance of,
and work in coordination with civil society groups, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and international aid agencies to ensure peoples’ safe
return. In this regard, the return process of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the
bloody civil war has been successful by the agency of “international involvement
which may have reflected Western guilt at the lack of political will to address
the conflict in the early 1990s” (Phuong 2006, Pg.205).
Some
people may prefer to keep living in urban areas or they may prefer to stay
wherever they have been living during their displacement. According to surveys
conducted by the government of Sudan in 1992, “80 per cent of the displaced in
Khartoum wanted to stay there, while only 12 per cent of the southerners wanted
to return to the place of their birth” (Vincent & Sorensen 2001, Pg.85). Hereof,
Guiding Principles suggest that return or re-settlement must be on a voluntary
basis. Besides, returning does not always offer the best option as how it is “in
Azerbaijan, where displaced populations may risk becoming hostages of politics
if they insist that return to Nagorno Karabakh is their only option” (Cohen
& Deng 1998, Pg.286).
At
this point, we can emphasize that the reasons of scantiness in return after
internal displacement must be investigated deeply by the governments and the
necessary measures should be taken to remove those reasons. For this, an
important role goes to the civil society organizations, NGOs and international
aid agencies because the governments are generally inclined to deny and ignore
most of those reasons. Obstacles in front of the return must be frequently
indicated by these organizations.
But,
what are those barriers that make displaced people stay where they are, instead
of going back to their original living areas? There is a variety of them but
the most important of which is the lack of security. People may rightly believe
that whatever the reason scared them away still continues. They will not go
back to their original places until their safety is guaranteed. Right here, humanitarian
agencies need to get involved and monitor the whole process of return. In
Tajikistan, for example, “UNHCR closely monitored conditions in areas of return
and worked with local authorities to increase physical security for the
displaced, reconstruct houses, and help returnees reclaim their homes” (Cohen
& Deng 1998, Pg.166).
Land
mines constitute a big part of the security concerns unfortunately. They are
not only used at the state borders but also used as a way of fight during the
conflicts by the security forces or the insurgent groups. “Countries that are
party to the Ottawa Convention are obliged to destroy their stockpiles of
anti-personnel landmines within four years after the convention enters into
force and to clear the deployed landmines within ten years after that date”
(Kurban, Celik, Unalan and Aker 2007, Pg.88).
In
addition to the security concerns, problems with properties, poverty,
unsatisfactory infrastructure, lack of social security, lack of healthcare
services and the far distances to schools can be given as other barriers for
the people who wish to return. In Iraq, for instance, “one of the principal
barriers to return was the secondary occupation of houses, often by families
that had been displaced themselves” (Birkeland 2009). This matter only itself
needs specific attention. Returnees must be provided with legal assistance
regarding their property claims. This whole process must be done afflicting
neither the returnees nor the occupiers. In most of the cases, displaced people
lose considerable amount of their properties. In such situations, their loss
must be compensated with a fair deal.
Displacement
commonly occurs from the rural areas to the direction of urban areas. So, younger
generation and women are mostly the ones who do not wish to return. Young
people who go to school, work or who find themselves a place in the urban life
want to stay. For them, what going back means is being deprived of education,
employment or other entertaining parts of urban life. Again, for women, urban
life represents easiness in the house works, escaping from their traditional
life styles in which the men are the sole decision makers, and also
opportunities of working. On the other hand, men struggle with the new form of life
where other members of the family act freer from the householders’ will. They
cannot easily find jobs while women get more chances of employment. If they
have properties back in their original places, they wish to go back and take
over them.
It
should not be forgotten that returning does not end displacement by itself. Problems
of infrastructure, such as the need for clean water, electricity, telephone
lines or proper roads, may or may not be the result of conflicts that took
place for long years, will eventually make returnees yearn for the easiness of
the urban life. Additionally, governments and other interest groups have to
consider the necessity of education for especially young generations and
provide convenience of access to schools. Health services must be organized
building or restoring hospitals and centres proportional to the number of
residents including the returnees. Considering that protracted conflicts most
probably ruined all these systems, governments must apply for or permit the
assistance of NGOs and civil society groups.
To
be able to guide governments and set examples for future instances,
international agencies must analyse successful return processes. In Peru, for
instance, “following the 20-year long civil war between state forces and the
Maoist Shining Path along with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (“MRTA”),
it is believed that out of a total of 600,000 IDPs, 540,000 have returned and
the return process has been largely successful. The most important reason
behind this success is the formation of a national coordination group where
IDPs were represented” (Kurban, Celik, Unalan and Aker 2007, Pg.55). Moreover,
further lessons can be learned watching patterns of different types of returns.
For example, “in most cases victims of natural disasters are able to return
home sooner than other categories of displaced people. Data gathered from four
South Asian countries suggested that 80 per cent of those displaced by natural
disasters had been displaced for one year or less, while 57 per cent of those
displaced by armed conflict and 66 per cent of those displaced by development
project construction and land acquisition had been displaced for more than five
years” (McDowell & Morrell 2010, Pg.161).
As
a conclusion, it can be said that all the protection and assistance must carry
on until the end of displacement. But, same question again, when does the
displacement end? Returning home is not enough and is not always the only
option. In most of the cases, people get integrated into their new locations.
They might be happier there and moving them one more time to their original
places by force might engender irreparable traumatic incidents. Sometimes
displaced people might wish to live neither in their previous nor new places
but they might wish to live in a third place for mostly security reasons. It is
very important to learn the intentions of internally displaced persons. They
must be included in the process of deciding about their future. In all kind of
decisions, voluntariness must be the core point. Monitoring all the return and
resettlement process is very important and for this, cooperation among actors
such as government officials, civil society groups, NGOs and international
humanitarian agencies is vital.
REFERENCES
Chatty D. and Finlayson
B. (2010) “Dispossession and Displacement: Forced Migration in the Middle East
and North Africa” Oxford University Press
Cohen Roberta & Deng Francis M. (1998) “Masses
in Flight” The Brookings Institution
Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998)
Kurban D., Yükseker D.,
Çelik A.B., Ünalan T., Aker A.T. (2007) “Coming to Terms with Forced
Migration:Post-Displacement Restitution of Citizenship Rights in Turkey (TESEV
Publications)
McDowell Christopher & Morrell Gareth (2010)
“Displacement Beyond Conflict” Berghahn Books
Nina M. Birkeland (September 2009) “Internal
displacement: global trends in conflict-induced displacement” International
Review of the Red Cross,
Phuong
Catherine (2006) “The International Protection of Internally Displaced Persons”
Cambridge University Press
Vincent Marc & Sorensen Birgitte R. (2001) “Caught
Between Borders” Pluto Press
