Page 218 - Encyclopedia Of World History

568 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

reason was the return of some 2 million Afghan refugees The most illuminating typology usable within the
from Pakistan and Iran. The total refugee returns dur- amorphous IDP category is, again, the one based on
ing 2002 reached about 2.4 million people (UNHCR causes, with its five causes enumerated above, but in this
2004). case applied only to those who relocate internally.Thus,
Consistent with the definitions mentioned above, these IDPs include people forced to flee violence, war, perse-
numbers do not include the large displaced populations cutions, etc., but unable to cross a frontier, and people
resulting from causes listed under “b,” “d,” and “e” in the compelled to move by environmental disasters; and most
section on causal types. The UNHCR evaluated the importantly, IDPs include the vast numbers of people dis-
decade 1992–2001 as a period when “the situation of placed, so to say, by “plans,” i.e., by public-sector and
refugees has generally improved. Since 1997 global private-sector development projects. Assistance to these
refugee figures have fallen; more refugees have repatriated internal displacees categories is not included in the for-
than were forced to leave their country and new refugee mal U.N. mandate to UNHCR, and no other global
outflow have diminished” (UNHCR 2002, 25–26). It is U.N. agency has been yet established for this purpose.
noteworthy, however, that the same armed conflicts, per- Analysts, public advocates, social scientists, and some
secutions, or violence which have caused the refugee institutions have initiated during the 1990s convergent
waves reflected in the massive numbers given above, efforts “to establish the internally-displaced people (IDPs)
have, in reality, displaced also an additional number of as a discrete humanitarian category” (UNHCR 1999).
people who, although forced to abandon their homes, These efforts are increasingly gaining recognition: the
have remained within the borders of their own country. U.N. appointed in 1992 a special Representative of the
They are defined as “internally displaced people” and are U.N. Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons
not included in the numbers of those labeled “refugees,” and scientific research on this category has much ex-
but their total number is also big, although statistics are panded.
not usually available. For them too, as for those recog-
nized as refugees, providing human security, assistance, Agent-Cased Typology
relief, and reestablishment remains essential and demands and the Role of the State
humanitarian action. Another modality to typologize population displace-
ments is by the agent of displacement. The purpose of
Types of Internal this classification is not to list all historically possible
Population Displacement agents, but rather to conceptualize and distinguish the
The world’s recent history registers an important, and broadest categories of agency primarily relevant to con-
growing, new type of displacement. During the last three temporary processes. By that criterion, it is helpful to dis-
or four decades of the twentieth century and the first tinguish between (a) displacements triggered and
years of the twenty-first century the most massive dis- executed by the state and (b) displacements triggered by
placement process has been the cumulative increase in nonstate agents. This typology is heuristically fertile
displaced-by-development people, swelling the overall because, in the case of category a, it focuses the lens
number of internally displaced persons (IDPs).This spec- directly upon the state’s own policy, responsibilities, and
tacular overall growth has been termed “the global crisis accountability. Conversely, in the case of category b, this
of internal displacement” (Cohen & Deng 1998, 1).The criterion helps illuminate what the state can do when cer-
sheer number of IDPs now exceeds the number of cross- tain nonstate agents (or other states) displace some of the
border refugees. Regular statistics are missing because state’s population. This criterion also helps highlight
governments do not supply such data; nor are IDPs what civil society expects from the state, in either case.
included in UNHCR statistics. State-centricity is one of the legitimate research perspec-