>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:23 >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Good afternoon, everyone and thank you all for coming. I'm Mary-Jane Deeb. And I'm very happy to see you all in the African - Middle East Division. I'm addressing you here in the division but I'm also addressing all those who will be watching this program -- not only in the United States but also across the globe. And as you know, our programs are webcast. And so, thank you for our team that's webcasting this program. And we are, today, looking -- we're going to be looking at a program -- at a subject which is impacting many, many regions of the world. The issue of refugees. And our speaker -- and I'm -- Dr. Yacob-Haliso -- is going to be addressing one particular group of refugees. But what she says has implications for -- not only Liberia but for regions across the globe. And this is why it is such an important program. And we're bringing her here -- she has just flown from Lagos to be with us and to share her thoughts, her work, and her research with us. But let me make a little commercial for our division as I always do. The African - Middle East Division is one of the divisions of the Library of Congress that is responsible for the collections from Africa, from the Middle East, from Central Asia, from the Hebraic world, from 78 countries around the globe. And though these countries have different languages, different cultures, different scripts, they are all united by a wide range of issues -- problems. One of which is the issue of refugees. ^M00:03:00 They also are -- we collect from these countries materials -- not only in English or French, but the materials in the languages in which those -- that research and those books are written. In other words, this division is responsible for at least 35 different languages from the countries -- from the 78 countries that we represent. These materials appear in various scripts and the collections that we have focus on the books, the journals, the serials, and also ephemera. Other collections on the 78 countries can be found across the library. For example, raw [phonetic] materials, let's say on Liberia, will be found in the raw library. Maps would be found in the geography and map division. Music could be found in the music division. Recordings -- oral recordings would be in the American Folk Life Center. Photographs and prints and posters would be found in the Prints and Photographs division. We also have a very large directorate for cataloguing all of these materials because were we not to catalogue them, they would not be found. We have -- not only a large cataloguing division and many of our specialists, expert cataloguers are present here. But they're also scholars and specialists in the languages and the cultures that we represent. So, now, we are very much looking forward to hear Dr. Yacob-Haliso, but it would be one of our scholars -- one of the scholars of the African - Middle East Division, librarian and scholar, professor, and wide range was published in wide range fields, Dr. Angel Batiste, who is responsible for West Africa. And she will be introducing the speaker today. So, Dr. Batiste. ^M00:05:31 ^M00:05:34 [ Applause ] ^M00:05:37 ^M00:05:40 >> Angel Batiste: Good afternoon. On behalf of the African section, on behalf of my colleagues in the African section, it's a great pleasure to welcome today's speaker. We're always extremely pleased when we can have scholars from Africa join us here at the Library of Congress. And our guest today, she's just come in from Lagos. I know she's probably still a little tired -- jet lagged. But she has agreed to be with us today. So, we thank you. ^M00:06:16 ^M00:06:19 To introduce our speaker, Dr. Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso. And I've been practicing your name all morning. So, forgive me if I mispronounce. But Dr. Yacob-Haliso is a senior lecturer in political science at Babcock University in Ogun State, Nigeria. She is a current post-doctoral fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies - African Humanities Program. She has also completed Post-doctoral research as a Global South Scholar and Resident at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Yacob-Haliso research has centered on African women in post-conflict situations, refugees and forced migration, gender and politics, and democracy in Nigeria. She has been the recipient of research grants from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Canadian International Development Research Center, the International Development Research Council, the University for Peace, Africa Program; and the African Association of Political Science. ^M00:07:50 ^M00:07:53 Dr. Yacob-Haliso has authored numerous articles in various international journals. And she is the current editor of the Journal of International Politics and Development. ^M00:08:06 ^M00:08:10 She is a member of the West Africa Political Science Association, The Liberian Studies Society for Peace Studies and Practice, the Council for the Development of Social Sciences Research in Africa, the West African Political Science Association, and the Global South Caucus of the International Studies Association. Dr. Haliso, we welcome you. ^M00:08:36 ^M00:08:37 [ Applause ] ^M00:08:41 ^M00:08:44 >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: Thank you, Dr. Batiste, for the kind introduction. And I want to also thank the head of African and Middle Eastern division of the Library of Congress, Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb for granting me the opportunity to speak at this noon time symposium series. ^M00:09:00 And thank you all for coming out this afternoon -- at your lunch time -- to listen to this presentation. ^M00:09:05 ^M00:09:07 This afternoon, I want to turn our minds towards home. I have not -- your own homes, I guess. Although, I bet you probably just thought of your own homes just now. But I want us to contemplate instead how the powerful idea of home drives the artificial forging of a post-conflict context that encourages refugee return with implications for their reintegration. And so, this afternoon, we'll be looking at the reintegration of refugees in post-conflict Liberia specifically, but I will focus my talk on the local and global intersections in the ways these refugees forage home in the Liberian context. ^M00:09:53 ^M00:09:57 My paper is based on qualitative research that I carried in and on Liberia between 2006 and 2012, in which I employed a triangulation of methods, in-depth interviews were conducted with 100 refugee women, government officials, staff of international and local agencies, community leaders, and other members of civil society. And these were supplemented with non-participant observation and documentary review. I visited five of Liberia's 15 counties to collect data for my research and four of these five counties I visited were the areas of highest return of refugees. Participants were located through snowballing and they came from various backgrounds and various experiences. I collected documents not just from Liberia but also from Geneva during my post-doctoral time there. And I was able to also do some intersubjective validation of my data by speaking with refugee expats, not just in Liberia and outside Liberia but in Geneva. The UN [inaudible] -- at the headquarters of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Office there. ^M00:11:20 So, this is the basis for some of the statements I'll be making this afternoon. Let me also quickly say that my analysis is informed by a constructivist view of international politics relying on Alexander Wendt's critique of the so called structure agents problem in international relations by which international anarchy and structure are deemed to be the major determinants of international politics instead, of course, Wendt posits that this system is one in which various actors -- which we will call agents here -- play significant roles in determining structure and are themselves in turn, modified by structure. ^M00:12:01 ^M00:12:04 This is important for my own analysis here because it helps me recognize that there are various -- there is in existence various actors -- from the local to the global operator within the domain of post-conflict reintegration. And this makes it possible for also -- acknowledge also, the roles of women in their reintegration because their narratives are often buried in the masculinist interpretation of international processes such as this one. This framework also makes it possible to admit the constraining conditions which international structure places on the activities of the various agents we'll be mentioning in this paper. But at the same time, it brings to relief the ways in which these agents and actors contracts or forge their desired outcomes. In this case, the idea of home in Liberia -- whether consciously or unconsciously. I will not bore you with definitions because we know who refugees are. They're eligible basically for international protection under international law. And this is because national protection has failed them. And one of the responsibilities of the international community to refugees is to find durable solutions to their problems. And the three solutions that have been applied over the decades that the international refugee has evolved, of course, are repatriation -- that is return of refugees to the country of origin; integration which involves helping them to acquire a new citizenship in the country of asylum; and resettlement with a third country. My focus is on repatriation and voluntary repatriation has become -- in quotes -- "The most desirable solution for refugee problems" and has been promoted vigorously by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees -- UNHCR. And, in fact, the 1990s were described as the decade of repatriation. The 2000s were referred to the new era of return. And so, repatriation -- in fact, repatriation has become the buzz word in the last two, three decades in refugee and states practice. Reintegration is supposed to proceed concomitantly or after repatriation and it is a process that is expected to result in the disappearance of differences in legal rights and duties between returnees and their compatriots. ^M00:14:45 ^M00:14:48 In this paper, I am not -- ^M00:14:50 ^M00:14:53 I am going to focus on the idea of home, like I said earlier, because it's been noted that one of the chief incentives for refugees return to the country of origin is to recover a sense of feeling at home. I have taken the task of home to task because of the home to task in one of my previous papers where I argued that the illusion of home leads to a partial illusion of peace among returnee women. And, therefore, because of that return may not be sustainable in certain instances. Today, the questions that I will be looking at relate to how do Liberian refugees returning from exile from various west African countries encounter the country they return to. In what ways do these returnees -- as members of various communities and localities -- invent, shape, and forage a home for themselves to enable sustainable reintegration? What complimentary rules do local and international agencies bear in either particularistic of global mandates play in these processes with what outcomes? And I'm going to argue that refugees and returnees are not merely victims of circumstances nor mere wards of the national and international system. Rather they are veritable agents in constructing or forging the home they return to. We further contain here that the returnees' perception of the country of origin as home, as well as their steady progress towards the touted ideal of home, is significantly shaped by the intersecting activities of various local, national, and international agencies and [inaudible]. ^M00:16:40 ^M00:16:43 And so, I am going to -- ^M00:16:45 ^M00:16:47 In this presentation, look at these -- I will begin by provided international and specific Liberian context and then look at the actuals that are involved in this process of forging or shaping home, as well as the points of intersection between the local and the international agencies and actors in the Liberian case. And then conclude with the statements on what these means for the process of forging home. Within the global context between 1991 and 1996, repatriation numbers increased globally. Over one million refugees returned to Ethiopia and Eritrea. About 1.7 million Mozambican refugees returned from several neighboring countries. More than 2.7 million Afghans returned from Pakistan and Iraq and so on and so forth. However, the trend turned by the mid-2000s. official figures from country of asylum and origin data indicate that there has been a decline in repatriation worldwide by 2014. Repatriation was reported to be at a 30-year low. ^M00:17:57 ^M00:18:01 The lowest since 1983 was recorded at just 126,800 refugees. Which was, again, significantly lower than the year before that. These figures are from the UNHCR. Significantly, however, of the eight countries accounted for 95% of returns in 2015. Six of these countries are African countries. And so, the fate of these refugees returning to sometimes unstable transitional context is an important subject of study. Liberia is a country that's had what we'll call relative peace for 133 years until the so-called rice riots of 1980 [inaudible] in the governments of Samuel Doe -- the military governments of Samuel Doe. Which led to a decade of crisis in that country. And then, an insurgency that started in 1989, of which the reports of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission says -- and I quote -- "Quickly degenerated into a rebellion without a cause. At one point, a seven cornered fight as represented by seven distinct warring factions, engaged in a full blown fratricidal civil war." ^M00:19:17 At the height of the 14-year civil war in Liberia, several hundred thousand Liberians fled to neighboring countries in a single year. It is estimated that in the cause of the war, between 1989 and 2003, three quarters of the 3 million strong Liberian population became either refugees or internally displaced. And that's a very big number. It's also estimated by the government of Liberia that an approximate 10% of the population died in the cause of that war. By the end of the civil war in 2003, the country was in ruins. All critical infrastructures were destroyed. The economy was in shambles with productive capacity almost entirely depleted. Unemployment was estimated to be over 80%. These are figures from the Government of Liberia. And this was the dire situation to which refugees began to return at the end of the war in 2003. It took from about 2003 to 2012 -- thereabout -- for the majority of refugees from neighboring countries to make their way back to Liberia as returnees to their country of origin. ^M00:20:34 Now, the comprehensive peace accords that ended that war says something -- specifies that the national -- and I'm quoting from the Accra Comprehensive Peace Accord. It's ethical [inaudible] Sections 1a to c. That the National Transitional Government of Liberia, with the assistance of the International Community, shall design and implement a plan for the voluntary return and reintegration of Liberian refugees and internally displaced persons, including non-combatants, in accordance with international conventions, norms, and practices. And I highlight this to show that post-conflict order that was designed for Liberia, intimately embraced the rule of international community, working with the government of Liberia to construct a society that would be conducive to the restoration of livelihood and dignity for displaced persons and returning refugees. How the returnees have come to Liberia as home. And whenever I used home in this presentation, there is -- a double quotation mark around it to indicate that it remains a concept that I personally struggle with and that many of our respondents also struggle with. And do not agree on how the returnees encounter Liberia as home. Majority of my respondents in interviews indicated that they fled Liberia because of fear -- fear for their lives, for their families, for their safety. And, of course, the most cited reason for returning to the country was the end of the war and the opportunity to participate in elections. Many of them indicated that they also wanted to return to Liberia for what we call "push" reasons. In other words, they felt pushed out of the countries of exile for various reasons including suffering or unbearable conditions. People being cruel to them. These are their own words. Idleness and lack of work in the camps or because United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said they should return. Or because they lost family members in exile. Or because the options for resettlement was not working for them. ^M00:22:54 Apparently, the search for home was partly occasioned by the returnees' experiences in exile which were antithetical to their place of comfort thereby propelling the refugees to desire a better place. A place where they could recover a sense of belong, of worth, and of dignity. ^M00:23:16 ^M00:23:18 All the returnees I interviewed refer to Liberia as home. At least once in the conversation. And some, several times over and over again. However, the political, social, and economic situations of the country in the post-conflict period are the challenges of reintegration were daunting for these newly returned refugees. I will examine now the way in which reintegration is forged or constructed by various actors. ^M00:23:45 ^M00:23:50 Many returnees, as I said earlier, returned because wants the feeling of home. And whenever that sense of home is absent or expected socio-economic dividends are not attained, ^M00:24:00 reintegration becomes uncertain. Laura Hammond, who worked with Ethiopian returnees opined that home is associated with community and circumstance rather than with a fixed geographical space. Liisa Malkki who studied Hutu refugees in Tanzania posited that refugees identify themselves based on certain socio-personal identities such as gender, ethnicity, and age. And these are the factors that eventually determines one's connection to a place and eventually, one's reintegration in the country of origin. What this authors affirm -- and by which I confirm -- some of my observations is that return to a geographical location of memory and nostalgia is an insufficient condition for the reintegration of returnees. Other realities of existence play key roles in determining the ability of former refugees to settle down and thrive. ^M00:24:57 ^M00:24:59 In the Liberian case on this study from interviews with agency staff and from review of documents, we identified a plethora of actors that were involved in the reintegration of refugees and has shift the process in significant ways. I group these into four: the national - the governmental actors or agencies; international actors; community based actors; and individuals. The most prominent of these was the Liberian government itself. The chief government agency with the responsibility for Liberian returnees was the Liberian Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission -- LRRRC. We call it the L-triple R-C, and it had offices in all the returnee areas and was created by an act of parliament in 1993. Its mandate covers refugees from all over Liberia, as well as returnees to Liberia, as well as internally displaced persons. Their main goal is to ensure repatriation is safety and dignity. And so, they partner with UNHCR and other agencies that work with bringing refugees back to the country. And role of this government agency, according to the program officer for repatriation, is to create a conducive atmosphere free from harassment and other problems and to ensure repatriation in safety and dignity. And they perform various tasks towards this end. ^M00:26:23 Now, we know that the majority of refugees -- we know this for a fact, women and children -- and so we were interested in finding the role of -- looking for what aspect of government is responsible for attending to their needs as returnees. Now the Minister of Gender and Development, we found, was playing an active role in charting the post-war position of Liberian women. They convened a national gender based violence task force that was a platform for interagency coordination for all the agencies that work with Liberian women, including women returnees. And this task force, we found -- I did attend some of the meetings of the task force -- had expended a lot of efforts to produce, for example, a simplified version of Liberia's ground breaking rape law. And they also had created a monthly reports and form for documenting cases of gender based violence -- GBV -- across the country. In other -- now the accents of implementation of these kinds of policy instruments is a separate matter by itself. The Ministry of Gender also officially celebrates the United Nation's declared 16 days of activism against violence, against women. That's between November 25 and December 10, thereby linking Liberian women's struggles with global women's struggles. We found this GBV task force replicated in other countries that I visited. I attended a meeting again in Lofa County. I found that the efforts that were being promoted in the capital were also being promoted and replicated in the counties which was indeed had need. ^M00:28:14 Another agency that I find relevant to our discussion of the post-conflict context for Liberian returnees is Liberia Agency for Community Empowerment. L-A-C-E. LACE. And this organization was specifically born out of the need for funds for post-war rehabilitation of infrastructure. In spite of the constraints of external indebtedness that made this initially difficult for the Liberian Government to benefit from the World Bank's programs. According to government records, the Liberian Government defaulted on its debts in the mid-1980s. And by 2006, external debts had soared to 4.5 billion U.S. dollars. Which was equivalent of 800% of the country's GDP. And the equivalent of 3000% of exports. ^M00:29:05 ^M00:29:08 It was because of this that the LACE was established in 2004 by an act of parliament to administer a $6-billion grant from the World Bank. And the agencies mandates, in the words of the program manager, was community driven development through community empowerment. And because these are the communities that refugees return to, I was interested in the activities of LACE. And one final government agency I just mention, is the truth -- I would say was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, the TRC, which the Chairperson said to me was created specifically to promote national healing and national empathy. Because Truth, according to him, is the [inaudible] of reconciliation. We know that return to post-conflict context includes the capacity of citizens to live together in peace once again. And so, the work of the TRC was one of those that we explored. International agencies, of course, the most important was the UNHCR. Everywhere I went in Liberia, the UNHCR was visible. And their activities could be seen. As a matter of fact, the UNHCR seemed to be the most authoritative structure of governance on the ground in many of the counties that I visited. Even before organized repatriation, before the government came to some of these places, the UNHCR was there preparing those counties for the return of refugees from neighboring countries. So, the agency was engaged in several -- not just reintegration activities or repatriation activities, but some governance functions too. Providing health, education, agriculture, shelter, and several other functions. The United Nations Mission in Liberia was another agency that we engaged with and saw the activities. And I want to mention here, just one of the many NGOs that we found acting also on the ground, the International Rescue Committee, which specifically had extensive programs for women. Established women's centers, women's department programs, women's resources [inaudible] and did psycho-social counselling with women which was a very, very rare activity amongst other NGOs. At the committee level, we interviewed committee and religious leaders, youth leaders, women leaders, but specifically, I'll mention one here. One group here. The District Development Committees which were created by the United Nations Development Program, the UNDP, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to bring power, in quotes, to the grassroots. And their job was to monitor projects carried out by various agencies, evaluate and report on these projects to ensure accountability, as well as receive information from the people in the communities about their needs and channel these to the UNDP. Ultimately, however, reintegration, however conceived, is personal. In other words, it is the returnee refugee's participation in his or her own reintegration that determines the outcome for each person. While local and international agencies may expend efforts towards creating conducive conditions in the resource, most exercise the prerogative to return voluntarily to access reintegration program and to achieve the full exercise of the rights and dignities lost to them as exiles of war. ^M00:32:49 Now I'll quickly look at the global -- how the global and the local meet in this process of forging home before I conclude. I have tried to skip a lot of talks so that we can have time to still discuss. ^M00:33:05 ^M00:33:10 Refugee experience has shown that home cannot, and does not have exactly the same dictionary meaning to returning refugees. One, nostalgia may invoke the traditional expectation of home, reintegration experiences are potent for shifting these expectations and act towards or further away from the ideal. Here, in this section, I'm going to [inaudible] process of shaping. Perhaps the process of invasion or imitation of the institutional, material, and ideational reference of home in post-conflict Liberia by both local actors and international agencies. The first point here is that the very discourse on return, on home, reintegration, rights of refugees, and the desirability of repatriation, that very discourse is shift by international norms, processes, actors, and regimes that leave little or no room for initiative of the individual. And I give -- I explained this -- when the human security framework was popularized by the UNDP in the early 1990s, the UNHCR defined reintegration in terms of human security as the process by which returnees achieve, and I quote, "a progressively greater degree of physical, social, legal, and material security." ^M00:34:35 When the human security framework came under critique by said actors, the UNHCR redefined reintegration using human rights discourse as legisumation [phonetic]. And so, reintegration -- by 2004, came to be defined by the UNHCR as a process that should result in the disappearance of differences in legal rights and duties between returnees and their compatriots. And, of course, these frames are basically imposed on the discourse on refugee reintegration as refugees are rarely, if ever, involved in firm and durable solutions at the conceptualization level. The overbearing role of the UNHCR in this process of norming [phonetic] is worthy of [inaudible]. Many of our research participants stated categorically that, while in the refugee camps, the UNHCR was instrumental to painting the picture of a desirable home in Liberia in order to encourage them to repatriate. In a fated dance, state actors in post-conflict situations replicate this idea and insist on repatriation mainly for political reasons. Because the success of return and reintegration of refugees is deemed a powerful endorsement of the [inaudible] ^M00:35:48 regime. So, the governments of these newly post-conflict states then hand down this conception of the desirability of these norms. ^M00:35:58 ^M00:36:01 Especially here with reference to repatriation of refugees through their legislatures -- meaning that they make relevant laws and thereby create institutions through the implementing agencies of government, through local governance structures which are questioningly perpetuated these constructs of home. Together, these global and local forces then weave the ideational context for return and [inaudible] to take place forging what is sometimes a false sense of security. It is obvious that these ideas need to be purveyed by certain agents which in their function and apply these norms and ideas and bring them to life. A And this is the second point here. The very determination of actors or agencies which eventually forge the reintegration context for refugees is also jointly achieved by international forces, national governments, and local actors. And I give a few examples. It is a vote of the United Nations Security Council that establishes a peace keeping mission such as United Nations mission in Liberia which became critical to reestablishing security in that country. And establishing stability and democratic governance. The UNHCR -- which occupies a unique position among UN agencies -- ^M00:37:15 ^M00:37:17 Is another important one. It is the executive committee of the UNHCR that determines the extent of the organizations involvement in specific areas during its scope and which, as politically and oppressionally [phonetic] expedient... one refugee scholar says, and I quote very clearly, well, very carefully, that successive high commissioners quickly realize that in order to have any impact on the world political arena, they have to use the power of their expertise, ideas, strategies, and legitimacy. To author -- the information and value context in which states made policy. The office of the UNHCR has tried to project refugee norms in to a world of politics dominated by states. For most of its history, the office has acted as a teacher of refugee norms. ^M00:38:11 UNHCR not only acted as the transmitter of refugee norms but also socialize new states to accept the promotion of refugee norms domestically as part of the common members of the international community. These decisions at that global level are then replicated at national, community, and local levels. In the Liberian case on the study, for example, the government set up its own refugee agency, the LRRRC to parallel and work with the UNHCR's objectives. When the UNDP required community structures to work, the government set up the District Development Committees. When the World Bank needed a credible agency outside the corrupt machineries of government to administer new loans, then the government also created the LACE -- the Liberian Agency for Community Empowerment. Those we see here -- a persistent, concurrent, and concomitant machine of global intentions and actors with local desires and agents to forge the reintegration context for returning refugees. The third instance I'm going to mention here -- that's the penultimate one -- is the conjoining of local and global agent in constructing reintegration concerns especially with respect to the determination of projects of importance to be implemented. The data we have shows that a lot of times, the local communities are invited to participate in the activities of these various international and government agencies by suggesting projects to be implemented. But we found that a lot of times -- in most cases -- the role of these local agents did not include envisioning and program design. ^M00:39:56 ^M00:40:00 The fourth and final dimension I just want to mention here of this local and global intersections in the reintegration context is a bit positive because we found, in almost every county that I visited, that -- we found specific instances of global level actors working through international benedictions and governments collaborator with local groups to provide reintegration services. So, whereas, it was difficult to include them in the selection of projects because those are -- [inaudible] driven and politically driven sometimes. ^M00:40:40 The global meets the local in the Liberian context most effectively and most positively in the implementation of projects. And we found several examples of certain projects. One of the most common that the UNHCR used, not just in Liberia but around the world, were the community empowerment projects. But I found one and I wanted to just mention here, the Voinjama District Women Organization for Peace and Development which was a program in the Lofa county area of Liberia founded by the UNHCR -- both managed by the women in that committee themselves. And it was free for all participants and they found this -- the assessed that it was useful for their reintegration. ^M00:41:27 I will conclude at this time... ^M00:41:30 ^M00:41:34 My paper has explored intersections between global and local agencies in constructing the [inaudible] ideal of home for returning refugees to Liberia. International norms are created and handed down. Various actors are created to participate in the application of these norms and deliberate action is taken by global and local actors who collaborate on the selection and implementation of reintegration projects. ^M00:42:00 The outcome of these processes for the reintegration of refugees is two-fold. Home becomes no more than a fabrication for some and for some, it remains a goal to be attained. If home is a fabrication, a product artificially constructed by the interflow of the various ideas, norms, and actors both originating and present in the country of return, that means that returnees must work for their reintegration by taking decided actions, decisions for creating the home that they desire. If home is destination, then it means that returnees themselves must strive for that ideal. That destination they refer to as home. Because the home they remember, usually, with time blunted nostalgia from the pre-conflict period no longer exists. And the home they fled from during the war, of course, was undesirable. And the home that they encounter when they return is not really perfect. And so, these former exiles who are stripped of options in most cases, must continue to forge ahead steadily but surely towards that destination. A place of comfort called home. ^M00:43:21 If they must achieve their ideals again because as Bill Bryson puts it, "once you leave home, you can't go home again." And these implications for the many refugee and returnee repatriation context around the globe today. I want to thank everyone for listening. Thank you very much. ^M00:43:49 [ Applause ] ^M00:43:54 ^M00:43:57 >> Angel Batiste: Thank you so much for this rich, scholarly contribution. As was noted earlier, this is a topical issue facing several countries at this point in time. So, we thank you for your contribution to this topic. At this point, we will open up for question and answer. Before I -- ^M00:44:20 ^M00:44:22 Your questions [inaudible], I'd like to note that this program is being webcast. And in asking a question, you are giving permission to be webcast. At this point, let's open for questions. ^M00:44:36 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:46:17 >> Is there a situation in which committees or refugees are set up to determine what it is that they need and they want because very often someone coming from across the globe and who has been in another part of the world may not really understand what is needed to recreate a home or build a new home or to integrate [inaudible]. So, is there now -- are there committees [inaudible] in order to design projects for the reintegration of refugees? ^M00:46:58 ^M00:47:00 >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: Thank you very much for that question. Usually in the camps, there are committees, the refugee leadership and various groups of refugees are represented in consultations before there are mass repatriation movements like those to Liberia at the end of a war. And to a large extent, what we find is that while these refugees are consulted and included in the processes of repatriation, and eventually reintegration, there is not much initiative left to the refugees beyond the decision to repatriate. In fact, in many instances in Africa -- including the Liberian case -- there were camps in West Africa, and I will mention specifically in Ghana housing Liberian refugees for instance, why the refugees did not want to return at the end of the war, and the UNHCR cajoled, the government of Ghana cajoled, and eventually, had to view the [inaudible] stick, like the Kenyan Government is doing right now by closing the largest refugee camp in Ghana. So, all we find is that what -- rather, refugees might have their preferences, might have their own ideas of what they want, the fact is that the governments and the international agencies tend to have their way more often than the refugees have their way. And I think that's just what I've seen about that. [inaudible] what is the best approach to that perhaps would be that at the conceptualization level then, refugees need to be involved. And that way, their voices are entirely missing. They are not involved in the laws -- in making the policies that involves them. Or in the agencies -- in the government structures of the agencies that work with them. And so, they are simply included at the stage of implementation of those policies and that's where the problem lies. ^M00:49:00 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:49:01 Yes. Yes. ^M00:49:04 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:49:41 Thank you very much. If there's anything I'm saying, really, it is that the idea of home has nothing -- has -- I'm not saying nothing. Has little to do with geographical space. Meaning that refugees can find home even outside their countries of citizenship. They can find home like some have found in Ghana and refuse to go back to Liberia. And so, home then has to be defined by all of several other references that helps them -- like you rightly put -- and which is a phrase the UNHCR uses all the time. Define safety. Define dignity. And so, that's home. So, why do I need to go back to a post-conflict context where safety is not guaranteed, and dignity is not guaranteed. And that's something that some refugees grapple with. Thank you. ^M00:50:35 >> I'm interested actually in something I'm -- it's actually -- I have a follow up question on the first question. >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: Okay. >> I mean, sure, repatriation -- repatriazation [phonetic] is the idea course, I understand that. But refugees don't leave for simple reasons. I mean, it's always complex. >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: That's correct. ^M00:50:57 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:51:02 That's right. >> What guarantees are there when these people are crossed, I mean, return -- that their safety is guaranteed, for example. I mean, in the case of civil war, maybe they're discriminated against [inaudible] ethnicity, it could be political views. Now, you're voicing that the return and the UN is saying [inaudible] guaranteed that. But maybe the opposite side won. I mean, [inaudible]. How can you guarantee their safety? How can you guarantee their [inaudible]? I mean, what steps are taken in [inaudible] for example. The UN can only stay there for so long. >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: Thank you so much. You have just highlighted the other issues that I didn't bring into this paper but I have engaged with in other publications. The fact that there are no guarantees especially in the immediate return context. Over the years, certainly, the governments in the post-conflict country can acquire capacity, can become stronger, and its reach gradually extends to the various parts of the country where it's [inaudible] have not been true. And then, there's also the problem you mentioned that sometimes, the "enemy" -- in quotes -- is still alive and well in the communities that these refugees return to. And nobody is doing anything about that. And that was one of the concerns of refugees either -- outside Liberia who were still refugees in Nigeria a while back. And sometimes, there's not much the government can do. In the case of Liberia, may of the so-called enemies were, and are, holding powerful positions in government, in their counties. And there's nothing these refugees can do about that. It's either they refuse to return or they just submit -- as some just said to me in Liberia, they are still afraid, but where else can they go? They lack choices. And many did mention that other solutions such as integrations -- local integration elsewhere -- or resettlement were not available to them. So, returning to Liberia was because they had no choice. So, in that context, the government -- as I said, usually, eventually develops capacity to deal with the harder psychosocial aspects of return, including safety and dignity. And the restoration of rights to people across the land. But in the immediate context, which I saw, it was extremely difficult. The international agencies, I would say, especially in the Liberian context, were doing a great job. The UN mission in Liberia was everywhere. The UNHCR, like I said, was everywhere. Where the government was absent, they were present. ^M00:53:48 But again, their mandates are quite specific which, again, means that there isn't much they can do but their presence seemed to -- in many instances, make the returnees feel a bit, like, they were home. And they also expressed exactly the same worry that you expressed. When the [inaudible] of the UN mission Liberia -- when it leaves, what's going to happen to us? Many of them said this to me. Really. And there's nothing anyone can say because the mission will leave. They will have to grapple with their own governments. ^M00:54:22 >> Another question over here. ^M00:54:25 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:54:52 >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: Absolutely. ^M00:54:53 >> For instance, if you left your country because of war, and you're a refugee in another country, and you're going back to -- ^M00:55:04 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:56:57 >> Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso: Thank you very much for that. I won't disagree with you. And one of the -- I think, I could say one basic fact is that when refugees return to a post-conflict context, this situation in the country of origin, at first, is usually worse than the situation in the refugee camps where they're coming from. At least, [inaudible] the country begins to recover. What I found in Liberia is not just because there were no economic and order opportunities, it was instead the expectations of the refugees were too high for a post-conflict context. And so, they returned and they were highly disappointed about the fact that there were no jobs, there were no -- even the queues the [inaudible]. There were not markets for those queues. And so many such problems. So, I do understand. I just see [inaudible] speaking about what -- I also think that beyond appealing to the international community, the individuals, like I said in my paper, as well as the communities -- where they came together, they were able to achieve some things. If there were more instances of their coming together to articulate and find solutions, there would have been better prospects of reintegration. But what we found instead was a predisposition, in some case, to what I would call "Aids dependence" and which has negative consequences too. Just to give you another side of that. Thank you. ^M00:58:43 [Inaudible comment] ^M00:59:13 Well, thank you very much. There are studies. But frankly speaking, one of the justifications for my research has been that there are very few in-depth case studies that show what's happening in a particular country over the years which is what, I think, I'm trying to do really. Following this particular case since I started following in 2006 until now. And for Liberia, for instance, I found just one other study. A 2011 study that tried to also look at some of the issues that I looked at. Not many. And I found for, maybe, Angola and a few other countries -- Columbia. A few other countries scattered there but while there is a lot of work on refugee issues by scholars around the world, I think we need more of an in-depth look at each country's context because in many instances, context is everything and not just the larger debates that other scholars engage with. So, I would join you in saying that we need to know more. The UNHCR itself, when I spoke with expats that [inaudible] with us, of course, through its own internal processes tries to track the results of what they are doing systematically. And because of that, I have actually come to believe that it's probably one of the most dynamic UN agency because it's more able to adapt and change quickly to emergent situations in its activities around the world. And, that's all. Thank you. ^M01:00:45 >> Angel Batiste: Thank you very much. ^M01:00:48 [ Applause ] ^M01:00:51 Again, thank you for joining us today. Thank you to our speaker. And I'd like to invite you to join the African Section on October 27th. We'll have the imminent historian, Dr. Toyin Falola, who is in the audience today -- speaking. So, we hope to see you on the 27th. Thank you. ^M01:01:15 [ Applause ] ^M01:01:19 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. ^E01:01:26