there was a global surge in refugee numbers. Vast camps were set up in Africa and Asia, later to prove hard to dismantle. “Refugee warriors,” operating from camps across borders, became players in regional struggles for power. During the 1980s, the number of refugees worldwide rose from 10 million to 17 million; contributions from reluctant donors failed to keep up with their needs.
Something else was also happening. As more and more refugees, driven by violence and human rights violations, left their homes in the developing world, they began to travel farther afield, arriving in ever greater numbers in European countries to claim asylum. Until now, requests for asylum had been few and confined to dissident scientists and ballet dancers from the Eastern Bloc whose defections made headlines in national newspapers. The political upheavals across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East produced a surge of arrivals by plane, truck, and boat, people who bypassed normal channels, often with the help of newcomers on the refugee scene: traffickers and smugglers of illegal travelers. The refugees came from Ethiopia, from what was then Rhodesia, from Sri Lanka, Iran, Iraq, and then Somalia. In 1976, 20,000 people had asked for asylum in western Europe; by 1981 the figure had reached 158,500, and UNHCR was beginning to struggle to keep its position as main arbiter over asylum policy.
Right through the 1970s and early 1980s, European bureaucracy coped well with immigration. In the face of the immense numbers of unexpected arrivals, the system crumbled. Waiting times for decisions became longer, and appeals backed up. There were growing doubts about the nature of the asylum claims, questions about the extent to which the newcomers were valid refugees under the 1951 Convention. The idea emerged of the “bad” refugee, a person not so much in flight from persecution but actively in search of work and a better life, using the asylum route as his way into Europe. The phrase “economic migrant” entered the jargon of refugee affairs. UNHCR in Geneva kept urging European governments to be generous, arguing that even if some of the claimants were not, strictly speaking, Convention refugees, there was still too much danger at home for them to risk returning; states responded by drafting ever tighter restrictions. By the mid-1980s, most European countries, agreeing that the best way to stem the flow was to prevent people from arriving in the first place, were drawing up measures to deter them. Soon, with the advent of the European Union, an outer European perimeter was defined and barricaded against newcomers. Financialsupport was withdrawn from asylum seekers who were deemed not to meet the criteria; detentions and deportations began. When UNHCR complained, Western governments paid no attention and concentrated on their own refugee policies. No one listened when Harding pleaded that those who sought asylum should be seen as victims, not abusers.
By the late 1980s, UNHCR had reached a low point, excluded from many of the main worldwide refugee debates. In any case, donors seeing the political upheavals and natural disasters of the day wanted to fund relief operations, not refugee protection, particularly when relief kept vast numbers of refugees from arriving at their doors. And, under the next High Commissioner, Jean-Pierre Hocke, they went some way to establish and fund these operations. Hocke had been head of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross at the time of the Biafra crisis, in 1967; he knew all about the logistics of relief. * He was decisive, even authoritarian, and he wanted to see an end to the long-term camps that had by now become endemic in the refugee world. These camps, said Hocké, with considerable reason but ahead of his time, crushed “human dignity” and reduced the “human capacity for hope and regeneration;” what the West should be doing was not keeping them afloat, but attacking the root
Something else was also happening. As more and more refugees, driven by violence and human rights violations, left their homes in the developing world, they began to travel farther afield, arriving in ever greater numbers in European countries to claim asylum. Until now, requests for asylum had been few and confined to dissident scientists and ballet dancers from the Eastern Bloc whose defections made headlines in national newspapers. The political upheavals across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East produced a surge of arrivals by plane, truck, and boat, people who bypassed normal channels, often with the help of newcomers on the refugee scene: traffickers and smugglers of illegal travelers. The refugees came from Ethiopia, from what was then Rhodesia, from Sri Lanka, Iran, Iraq, and then Somalia. In 1976, 20,000 people had asked for asylum in western Europe; by 1981 the figure had reached 158,500, and UNHCR was beginning to struggle to keep its position as main arbiter over asylum policy.
Right through the 1970s and early 1980s, European bureaucracy coped well with immigration. In the face of the immense numbers of unexpected arrivals, the system crumbled. Waiting times for decisions became longer, and appeals backed up. There were growing doubts about the nature of the asylum claims, questions about the extent to which the newcomers were valid refugees under the 1951 Convention. The idea emerged of the “bad” refugee, a person not so much in flight from persecution but actively in search of work and a better life, using the asylum route as his way into Europe. The phrase “economic migrant” entered the jargon of refugee affairs. UNHCR in Geneva kept urging European governments to be generous, arguing that even if some of the claimants were not, strictly speaking, Convention refugees, there was still too much danger at home for them to risk returning; states responded by drafting ever tighter restrictions. By the mid-1980s, most European countries, agreeing that the best way to stem the flow was to prevent people from arriving in the first place, were drawing up measures to deter them. Soon, with the advent of the European Union, an outer European perimeter was defined and barricaded against newcomers. Financialsupport was withdrawn from asylum seekers who were deemed not to meet the criteria; detentions and deportations began. When UNHCR complained, Western governments paid no attention and concentrated on their own refugee policies. No one listened when Harding pleaded that those who sought asylum should be seen as victims, not abusers.
By the late 1980s, UNHCR had reached a low point, excluded from many of the main worldwide refugee debates. In any case, donors seeing the political upheavals and natural disasters of the day wanted to fund relief operations, not refugee protection, particularly when relief kept vast numbers of refugees from arriving at their doors. And, under the next High Commissioner, Jean-Pierre Hocke, they went some way to establish and fund these operations. Hocke had been head of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross at the time of the Biafra crisis, in 1967; he knew all about the logistics of relief. * He was decisive, even authoritarian, and he wanted to see an end to the long-term camps that had by now become endemic in the refugee world. These camps, said Hocké, with considerable reason but ahead of his time, crushed “human dignity” and reduced the “human capacity for hope and regeneration;” what the West should be doing was not keeping them afloat, but attacking the root
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