causes for the exoduses. Hocké also longed to revise the 1951 Convention, to bring its definition of a refugee into line with that of the Organization for African Unity, in order to take in all those affected by the wars and civil conflicts now chronic in many places. But Hocké was too dictatorial and his style of leadership offended people. In any case, Cold War politics continued to dominate the regional conflicts of Africa and Asia. Shortly into his second term, in 1989, he resigned, after a bruising scandal over his expenses. Few were sad to see him go.
Hocké’s departure coincided with another event that transformedthe refugee world. With the coming down of the Berlin Wall, the very nature of the refugee question altered. Gone were all the old Cold War certainties about the “good” refugees fleeing communism. In their place came a decade of unprecedented violence, ethnic conflict, environmental disaster, and spreading poverty. The 1990s saw war in Iraq and Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, genocide in Rwanda, the collapse of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the disintegration of Somalia, the transformation of the Great Lakes of Africa into an area of barbarity and anarchy, and the targeting of civilians and later of aid workers. In Rwanda, almost all girls past puberty were raped, and many were then murdered. Of twenty-seven major conflicts in 1992, only two were actually between states. By now, around 90 percent of the casualties of war were civilians. Hocké’s successor, Thorvald Stoltenberg, a Norwegian former minister of defense, stayed in office just a year. He was replaced by Sadako Ogata, a small, determined, elderly Japanese professor of international relations, the first woman and the first Asian to hold the post. Japan was recognized as an important funder and Ogata’s American education and academic background were seen as useful. She was also hardworking, politically astute, and keen to avoid confrontations, arguing that over such prickly matters as asylum policy it was better to be tactful than morally superior. “The real problem,” she announced, “is saving lives. We can’t protect dead people.”
Faced with the killings in Rwanda, Somalia, and the Balkans, watching refugees flowing in rivers across borders, or trapped in desolate no-man’s-lands, hungry, desperate, and confused, Ogata turned to relief operations. Relief, she announced,
is
protection. Bosnia, in 1992, transformed UNHCR into the world’s largest emergency relief agency, at its peak delivering food, tents, and medicines to more than a million and a half “war-affected” people— almost the entire population, along with returnees, the internally displaced, and refugees. Repatriation, long considered a sensitive subject, became another of Ogata’s goals. During her time in office tens of thousands of people went home to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, and Namibia.
Building on Hocké’s logistical skills, Ogata now made the agency into a more broadly based humanitarian organization, helping not only the traditional Convention refugees, who had been able to cross borders, but the internally displaced, who had remained within their own countries. Donors liked Ogata. Giving money to relief was preferable to being forced to address the root causes of the emergencies that drove people into becoming refugees, or to consider too closely the ethics of their increasingly restrictive asylum policies. The media liked her, too. They welcomed her open manner and her obvious desire to attract their attention. Within the UN, UNHCR became the most admired of all the agencies, and, at the height of the Yugoslav refugee crisis, the one with the biggest budget.
Ogata’s interests matched the mood of the times. In 1992, the Secretary General of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, announced that the “time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty” was over, and that intervention against repressive regimes was a necessary
Hocké’s departure coincided with another event that transformedthe refugee world. With the coming down of the Berlin Wall, the very nature of the refugee question altered. Gone were all the old Cold War certainties about the “good” refugees fleeing communism. In their place came a decade of unprecedented violence, ethnic conflict, environmental disaster, and spreading poverty. The 1990s saw war in Iraq and Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, genocide in Rwanda, the collapse of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the disintegration of Somalia, the transformation of the Great Lakes of Africa into an area of barbarity and anarchy, and the targeting of civilians and later of aid workers. In Rwanda, almost all girls past puberty were raped, and many were then murdered. Of twenty-seven major conflicts in 1992, only two were actually between states. By now, around 90 percent of the casualties of war were civilians. Hocké’s successor, Thorvald Stoltenberg, a Norwegian former minister of defense, stayed in office just a year. He was replaced by Sadako Ogata, a small, determined, elderly Japanese professor of international relations, the first woman and the first Asian to hold the post. Japan was recognized as an important funder and Ogata’s American education and academic background were seen as useful. She was also hardworking, politically astute, and keen to avoid confrontations, arguing that over such prickly matters as asylum policy it was better to be tactful than morally superior. “The real problem,” she announced, “is saving lives. We can’t protect dead people.”
Faced with the killings in Rwanda, Somalia, and the Balkans, watching refugees flowing in rivers across borders, or trapped in desolate no-man’s-lands, hungry, desperate, and confused, Ogata turned to relief operations. Relief, she announced,
is
protection. Bosnia, in 1992, transformed UNHCR into the world’s largest emergency relief agency, at its peak delivering food, tents, and medicines to more than a million and a half “war-affected” people— almost the entire population, along with returnees, the internally displaced, and refugees. Repatriation, long considered a sensitive subject, became another of Ogata’s goals. During her time in office tens of thousands of people went home to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, and Namibia.
Building on Hocké’s logistical skills, Ogata now made the agency into a more broadly based humanitarian organization, helping not only the traditional Convention refugees, who had been able to cross borders, but the internally displaced, who had remained within their own countries. Donors liked Ogata. Giving money to relief was preferable to being forced to address the root causes of the emergencies that drove people into becoming refugees, or to consider too closely the ethics of their increasingly restrictive asylum policies. The media liked her, too. They welcomed her open manner and her obvious desire to attract their attention. Within the UN, UNHCR became the most admired of all the agencies, and, at the height of the Yugoslav refugee crisis, the one with the biggest budget.
Ogata’s interests matched the mood of the times. In 1992, the Secretary General of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, announced that the “time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty” was over, and that intervention against repressive regimes was a necessary
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