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5 January| Kenneth Bacon
President’s Corner: Celebrating 30 Years of Life Saving Advocacy

One of my favorite statements is by Margaret Mead:  “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

That statement captures how Refugees International was founded 30 years ago, and why RI has such impact since.
In 1979, Sue Morton, the wife of a Pepsico executive in Tokyo, went to Thailand to witness the plight of refugees escaping the genocide in Cambodia.  While there, she watched in horror as Thai troops forced 40,000 Cambodians back across the border.

“Overburdened by refugees and with resettlement to third countries down to a trickle, Thailand had closed its borders to refugees,” she wrote 15 years later.  “The living skeletons of men, women and children who had escaped were forced back into Cambodia.  Soon Malaysia followed suit, as Vietnamese boat people were pushed back out to sea, many never to see land again.  The world no longer cared.”
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29 December| Kenneth Bacon
President’s Corner: Refugee Problems Facing Obama

Barack Obama may not know it, but soon he will have refugees on his mind.

In a recent interview with TIME Magazine, the president-elect talked about the foreign policy priorities that will occupy him and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

"There’s no doubt that managing the transition in Iraq is going to be a top priority," he said.  "Managing a more effective strategy in Afghanistan will be a top priority.  Recognizing that it is not simply an Afghanistan problem but it’s an Afghanistan-Pakistan-India-Kashmir-Iran problem is going to be a priority."  He also said that “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a priority."

All of these crises are characterized by displacement problems.  Here is a rundown:
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Afghanistan, Internal Displacement, Iraq, Neglected Crises, Palestinians, Peacekeeping, Return and Reintegration, U.S. Administration
22 December| Kenneth Bacon
President’s Corner: The Risk of Radicalized Refugees

President-elect Barack Obama believes that displacement poses both humanitarian and security problems.  A recent article in The New York Times illustrates this point by describing problems caused by angry youths in Sudanese refugee camps.

Some 2.7 million people in the Darfur region of Sudan have been displaced by five years of civil war, and many of them live in vast camps.  “Increasingly angry and outspoken about their uncertain fate, the generation that came of age in the camps is challenging the traditional sheiks, upending the age-old authority structure of their tribal society and complicating efforts to achieve peace,” The Times reported over the weekend.

The story caught my eye because it highlights a serious problem:  long stays in camps—either as refugees out of their countries or displaced within their own countries—can radicalize youth.  We have seen this over the years with Palestinians and with Afghan refugees, and we could well see it with displaced Iraqi youths who are living in increasingly desperate conditions.
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Congress, Internal Displacement, Iraq, Return and Reintegration, Syria, U.S. Administration
19 December| Limnyuy Konglim
Central African Republic: Traffic Takes on New Meaning

While riding down the roads in the northwestern region of the Central African Republic (CAR), I felt like a celebrity. Children repeatedly rushed out of their homes when they heard our pickup truck rumbling through the dusty, bumpy roads and drowned us in a chorus of “Bonjours” and “Baraallahs” (the local greetings in CAR), while waving fervently.
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Central African Republic, Internal Displacement
17 December| Sean Garcia
Burma: Rohingya Stranded in Malaysia
In late November, just before Thanksgiving, we visited a group of 30 Rohingya men in Penang, Malaysia.  We were anxious to visit areas outside of Kuala Lumpur, where civil society is slowly improving services for Burmese refugees.  We wanted to see whether refugees nationwide were receiving more attention.
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Burma, Malaysia, Statelessness