The Turbulent Decade: Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s

By Sadako Ogata

W.W. Norton and Company of New York and London, 2005
ISBN-13:  978-0393929225

Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

Sadako Ogata was United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) between 1991 and 2000. Her book should be read by all politicians and officials involved with issues of international peace. It is a searing account of a series of humanitarian disasters which sadly show that man's inhumanity to man has not altered despite the tragedies and slaughter of two World Wars.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General in his foreword, paying tribute to the efforts of Sadako Ogata to relieve suffering, noted that she left no stone unturned in her efforts to protect the World's disposed.

While the end of the cold war brought to an end long-standing conflicts it was followed by a proliferation of ethnic, tribal and religious conflicts "in which population displacement was no longer a mere consequence of war, but often its very purpose. The result was massive disorder, from the disintegration of Yugoslavia to the genocide in Rwanda."

Mrs Ogata in her ten years as High Commissioner saw more tragedies and suffering than can be imagined by us who live comfortable lives in developed countries. Rightly she does not pull her punches in her criticisms of governments and their leaders for their failures to prevent the tragic consequences of their action or inaction and the often inadequate responses of the leading powers represented on the UN Security Council to the crises and tragedies brought to their attention.

Her book concentrates on four main crises although she was involved in many more. She starts with the Kurdish refugee crisis in Northern Iraq following the first Gulf War. She goes on to discuss the problems encountered in protecting refugees in the Balkan Wars where the situation was complicated by ethnic and religious aspirations and prejudices and where the international community failed to prevent massacres such as that at Srebenica.

A major section of the book is devoted to the crises in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa where the international community failed to prevent genocide. Her final section deals with Afghanistan where the conflicts there led to huge numbers of refugees.

Mrs Ogata stresses that while refugees had hitherto been defined as people who had fled from their own countries because of war and persecution the definition was inadequate in the 1990s when the main problems were often those of internally displaced persons.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees was not supposed to take sides in conflict situations or to be involved in political and security issues, but these limitations often could not be adhered to for practical reasons, not least that of the safety of UN personnel. Fortunately Mrs Ogata is a pragmatist with common sense and sound judgement. She also has a strongly developed sense of compassion for others.

The sights and sufferings which she saw with her own eyes aroused her just anger and her determination not to be browbeaten by anyone from Presidents downwards. The term "ethnic cleansing" was to her "an aberration." In her heart she knew that it was obscene and a perversion of the words.

She had, however, to accept that "the international response to humanitarian crisis situations is largely determined by the degree of strategic interests held by the major states." This meant that she faced the greatest difficulties in Central Africa where the interest of the major powers was limited although "The spreading conflict over Congo, if not a war between France and the United States, had the character of a proxy rivalry, which adversely affected the settlement of peace in the Great Lakes region with prolonged humanitarian consequences." None of the major powers were prepared to provide the military back-up needed to prevent genocide.

Among Mrs Ogata's biggest problems was how to protect refugees and internally displaced persons as well as her own staff and those of NGOs. In the Great Lakes area, she also had to try to deal with the militarisation of refugee camps and their involvement in local civil wars. Soldiers from the Rwandan Hutu regime intimidated the refugees, preventing them from returning home, harassed international relief workers and even confiscated their vehicles and equipment.

In Bosnia the UN Security Council failed to deal with the Serb offensive over Srebenica. "It pronounced the designation of safe areas without providing adequate deterrent strength to the peacekeepers to protect the areas. Then it prolonged decisions on resorting to the use of air power."

"Watching the bombs dropping from fifteen thousand feet while humanitarian agencies waited in vain to come to the rescue of the people under bombardment, I began to question the effectiveness of high technology warfare." As she also points out, "The problems of refugees could not be settled without resolving the conflicts that drove people to flee."

"The donor countries were generally sympathetic to UNHCR's needs…" but "they would not overstep the boundaries of their geopolitical or domestic interests in determining their position in the Security Council or in resorting to bilateral action."

Mrs Ogata stresses that "The Administration of international criminal justice was crucial to correcting the gross violations of human rights and enforced displacements," but she deplores the slowness of the system.

The failures of the international community in the final decade of the twentieth century were overshadowed by the terrorist attacks on the twin towers and a series of other terrorist incidents. None of these were justified by the failures of the previous decade, but the world powers should at least have learnt the limits of armed force in solving the problems arising from instability, tyranny and extremism whether inspired by religion or ethnic jealousy.

Saddam Hussein in Iraq was a threat to peace, but his removal was so mishandled that it may well have created more problems than it solved. The war in Iraq also sadly diverted attention from what many believe was genocide in Darfur where huge numbers of people have been killed, persecuted and forced to flee. The international community has once again failed to ensure the safety of the refugees and to punish the Sudanese perpetrators of the persecution. The situation in other parts of Africa remains dire and we tend to overlook the problems caused by civil strife in countries such as Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Mrs Ogata, following her retirement from her post of UNHCR and writing her book, was persuaded by Prime Minister Koizumi to take on the task of President of JICA and thus given responsibility for the administration of Japanese aid. Sadly Japanese aid has been cut back and finance officials seem determined to cut it back further. The fiscal problems of the Japanese government are well known, but Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world and the Japanese people can hardly be proud of the fact that whereas in the past Japan was the biggest donor of aid, her government is being increasingly stingy.

Mrs Ogata must find the situation very galling especially after she has devoted ten years of her life to the gruelling tasks which she faced as UNHCR.