EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN FOR WORLD REFUGEES (Hansard, 18 October 1966)

§ Mr. Harry Randall (Gateshead, West)
I am very grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, and the House for my good fortune in being called to discuss what I regard as one of the worst social and human problems of our age. It is the problem of the refugees who, because they feared persecution if they exercised their basic rights and freedoms of race, religion, nationality, and political opinion—because they exercised those rights or feared persecution if they did exercise them—fled from their own countries, choosing the way of the fugitive, without rights of citizenship in the countries to which they have fled, and going often without money or belongings, in most cases retaining only what they could carry in their arms—and in their minds; perhaps a few clothes, children, perhaps their faith: nothing except perhaps their names and memories.
It has been estimated that there have been something like 55 million refugees during the last 30 years—equal to the population of this country. Of this astronomical figure, 10 million still await an adequate basis of life, but tonight I want to refer to the 2¼ million refugees, the European, the Cuban, the African and the Asian refugees, who are under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Mainly as a result of the successful activities of World Refugee Year during 1959 and 1960 the situation in Europe has largely been resolved. We are apt, however, to assume and accept that the problem now no longer exists. It is certainly true that the camps have gone. I have just recently paid a visit to certain countries in Europe to investigate the present refugee problem. I found that there have been many changes since the visit which I paid in 1959 when on a similar mission. There were then, in 1959, in the camps—the many camps—the third generation of refugees; there were the grandparents, the parents and the children. I shall never forget how in one of the camps I visited in 1959 a little girl looked up at me, a little girl who had been born in the camps, and, in a 176 language which I did not understand, but which was translated to me, asked, "Who are these people who live in houses?" She had been born in the camps.
There have been great changes since then. I saw this on my recent visit, but there are still thousands, mostly aged, infirm, incurably sick, waiting a solution to their problems. They need homes, care, and sufficient to keep body and soul together. In addition, in Europe, there are something like 10,000 new refugees arriving each year and requiring resettlement. In Latin America we have European refugees who went there in the earlier years. They are now old, infirm, and some are mentally sick. Years of camp life and hardship prior to resettlement have taken their toll. They are no longer able to earn their livings. They are far away from their own country, their homeland. Old people's homes and care are pressing needs. Removing them from Europe and the camps does not rid us, the international community, of the responsibility of doing what we can for these refugees in Latin America.
Then in Asia, the main problems are the Tibetan refugees, something like 56,000 of them, and the Chinese refugees in Macao, where there are 80,000.
The main problem, the nerve centre, the really crushing burden of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the area which again and again calls for emergency action by frequent use of the emergency funds, where the first need is to keep the refugees alive lest they the in their thousands, is Africa south of the Sahara. In this vast continent there are 700,000 refugees, 80,000 more than at this time last year. This number of fugitives seeking sanctuary and shelter would present any modern developed community and society with a superhuman task, but Africa also has all the perilous hazards facing the building of new communities.
Africa is a developing continent which is only just emerging. Few of her countries have large stocks of food or solid economies and structures. There are vast distances, with a lack of communications—roads, rail and airstrips. There are hazards of travel, heat and storms, droughts and famine, and a merciless scarcity of water, together with lack of medical supplies, pitifully few doctors, and pitifully few hospitals.
177 The immensity and complexity of the problems thrown up by the African refugee situation have to be experienced to be fully appreciated. I had the privilege of this experience when I saw for myself the problem in Tanzania, which has 28,000 refugees, Uganda, which has 145,000, and Burundi, which has 79,000. I have seen them arriving, hungry, ill and weak. There are few resources, and yet the refugees start to build for themselves their simple primitive little homes and carve out roads. They also tackle airstrips. I have seen their delight when a precious supply of water begins to pour out of a borehole in the bush. I have seen them disappointed when food does not arrive because of the wretchedness of communications. I have seen them toil by hand trying to grow food on many hundreds of acres in the scrub and the bush and I have been told of the refugees' bitter disappointment when the seeds have been sown and the drought has meant that there has been no harvest to be gathered.
The first need in the refugee situation in Africa is to keep the refugees alive. Host countries that have been generous in accepting refugees are often desperately in need themselves of comprehensive economic assistance. They are, therefore, the least able to bear the burden of these tens of thousands of homeless, helpless fugitives and to cope with the emergency measures needed to keep the refugees alive, including the provision of food, clothing, shelter and medical supplies.
The second task is to plan and organise for the resettlement of the refugees, and here the programmes and projects of settlement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are carried out in full consultation with the Governments of the host countries, with voluntary organisations and with other United Nations agencies. The aim is to integrate the refugees into the local economy and ensure that they are included in the overall plan of zonal development. In the meantime, being refugees, they must first be brought up to the economic level of the local population, low as it is in most of the host countries. This second task of settlement and integration is longer term, depending on a number of factors, not least the growing of their own food and becoming self-supporting.
178 That is a very brief sketch of what is happening in the vast Continent of Africa. This work of the Good Samaritan to the world's outcasts is costly and has to be paid for. All who know the problem are well aware that the U.N.H.C.R.'s programme and projects are minimal. They have to be, and it is on the conscience of many of us that they are by no means enough. The administrative costs of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees are borne on the U.N. budget, but a grant-in-aid from voluntary funds is paid to the U.N. in recompense for implementing the material assistance programmes.
For the material assistance programmes for refugees, the High Commissioner relies on voluntary contributions from two sources. Governments contribute about £1 million a year. Our own Government have a very good record. Our contribution is the second largest in the world, and that of the U.S.A. is number one. There are also contributions from private sources. They are from a very large number of voluntary organisations, private donors and special efforts, such as the International Piano Festival sales of records. Contributions from this amounted in 1965 to about £280,000.
How does this income match the need? I can tell the House that it does not. It is unlikely to do so in 1966, and in 1967 the High Commissioner's programme will require at least £1,500,000 with the prospect that this will not be enough if there are any further emergencies in Africa or Asia. The House should know that the Commissioner does not give the entire financing of any project. He provides the initial funds in order to attract others. He prods, he stimulates and acts as an intermediary of good will so that far larger sums may come from other sources.
Here is a sombre story. So far only £1 million is expected to be contributed by Governments. The International Piano Festival sales are at an end. Unless the gap can be filled even the minimum programme which is contemplated will not be financed.
Shortly we shall be celebrating United Nations Day. This year it is dedicated by 117 countries to the cause of the refugees. United Nations Day, 24th October, will mark the commencement of the European campaign, called "Refugees, '66". 179 Sixteen countries of Europe, Britain among them, for one week will mount an intensive campaign on behalf or refugees. Her Majesty the Queen has graciously accepted the invitation to become the patron of the Committee set up to organise the campaign in this country. The vice-patrons are my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Leader of the Liberal Party. We are all in; we all want to help. Twenty-one major British voluntary organisations directly concerned with refugees are represented on the National Committee in this country and 40 other large national voluntary organisations are giving their active support.
This imaginative attempt to invite the other Western European countries to fill the gap and ensure that the minimum needs of refugees are met in 1967 was the inspiration of His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of Holland. His Royal Highness has done an even greater service. This great campaign during the Week through the Press, radio, television and the work and activity of many voluntary bodies will serve to increase public awareness and awaken public consciousness to the plight of refugees. To increase public awareness and awaken the public conscience could easily lead to anger about the world's shameful neglect of refugees and then to nothing being done about it.
By our good intentions through the travail and carnage of war we carved for ourselves the United Nations. We placed upon it the heavy responsibility of composing differences between states and so avoiding armed conflict. The last six years have revealed the intensely difficult peacekeeping rôle of the United Nations, and one of the baleful consequences of disorder and fighting has been the creation of the refugee problem. The United Nations has painfully and painstakingly composed the difference between the States, but there remains the implied moral duty of dealing with the social consequences of disorder, mainly the refugee problem. That is the task of the High Commissioner.
We have, by our good intentions, created the necessary machinery, but the money, the wherewithal, the funds, have been held back, and so the machinery is not as effective as it should be. The 180 European campaign—Refugees 66—gives us the opportunity to respond to the human need and for each one of us to shoulder our moral duty.
Before resuming my seat I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State sincerly for the pamphlet which has been issued. It sets out the problem of the refugees and the work of the European Campaign. It is an excellent pamphlet but one thing is missing. There is a sentence at the very end which says that this is an opportunity to respond to the human need by making a donation to the central fund of the campaign.
The omission—and I should like to put this right—is that the pamphlet does not give the address of the central fund. There may be very good reasons for this. Some effort has been made to imprint an address after the pamphlet had been released from the printer, but some people might not see it. Therefore may I put it on record that the address to which money should be sent is: "Refugees 66, 26 Bedford Square, London, W.C.1."
In conclusion may I leave with the House the words that I passed on to 2,000 London senior schoolchildren at a teach-in in the Royal Festival Hall, because they sum up my own philosophy which has activated my own work for refugees over a number of years. I said: Remember, we do not live in a world all on our own. Our brothers live here, too

§ The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mrs. Eirene White)
I greatly wish that there were time for other hon. Members to take part in this debate, because I know there are some who would like to contribute. Unfortunately, time will not permit. I should like, first, to say how very glad we are that my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall) has been fortunate enough to have the Adjournment tonight and to have it so conveniently and appropriately, because next Monday is United Nations Day and the beginning of Refugee Week.
I want to stress how much my hon. Friend has himself done. He has been too modest to mention it. He is not only a member of the Standing Conference of British Organisations for Aid to Refugees. He is also the United Kingdom Government's representative at Geneva on the Executive Committee of 181 the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and it is in that capacity that he has undertaken the work to which he has referred and has travelled and seen for himself the conditions of refugees and the aid that has been offered to them.
We are also pleased that Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan was appointed last December as High Commissioner for Refugees. He came to this country last June on an official visit, and many of us had the opportunity to discuss with him some of the problems to which my hon. Friend so vividly and movingly referred.
I am sure we would all like to give our very warm support to the voluntary organisations in this country and in the other countries of Europe which are making this great effort next week. It is not comparable with the stupendous effort that was made in 1959–60. That was for a whole year: it was all over the world. We were all very proud that in that great effort the United Kingdom raised over one-quarter of the total funds that were contributed, more than £9 million out of the £33 million collected in that year. I hope that next week, although the scale will be smaller proportionately, we shall be able to say at the end of the week that the United Kingdom has again contributed because I know that our people in this country feel very deeply about this matter of refugees and would like to make certain that we do all that is possible.
I am glad that my hon. Friend mentioned the contributions that Her Majesty's Government make to the High Commissioner's Fund. The effort next week is an effort primarily by voluntary organisations, of course. The Government have been very glad to do what they can to assist with publicity, and we have printed at public expense this very striking leaflet which I hold in my hand, of which copies are available in the Library for hon. Members who would like to make use of them possibly in their own constituencies. There is an address printed on the leaflet—the address of the United Nations Association—and I am sure that if contributions are sent there they will reach their destination.
Three hundred thousand copies of this leaflet have been printed. Nearly 80,000 posters have been printed and these are 182 being distributed through the Central Office of Information, by the Department of Education and Science and by voluntary organisations, and we therefore hope that there will be few people in the country who will not be aware that next week is Refugee Week. My noble Friend Lord Caradon will be recording an interview to be broadcast on the B.B.C., and representatives of the Government will be taking part in the opening ceremony next Monday. I am also glad to remind the House that last year for the first time on United Nations Day we flew the United Nations flag, and this will be done again this year.
As my hon. Friend has said, although much has been attempted, so very much remains to be done. There are at least 10 million people in the world who, whether or not they are technically refugees, are at any rate persons who have had to leave their homes and try to find places elsewhere in the world to live. Not all of these come under the High Commissioner directly. More than 3 million are, in fact, under his surveillance, and of these about 2¼ million are directly associated with the activities that have been sponsored and stimulated by the High Commissioner. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the High Commissioner's Office is not itself an operational office. Its job is to stimulate and co-ordinate other people, other organisations within the United Nations family of organisations—the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the Childrens Fund and so on, Governmental organisations and the voluntary bodies themselves.
It is most interesting—in some ways depressing and in other ways encouraging—to read the Report of the High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the United Nations. I would urge my hon. Friends who are concerned with these matters to obtain a copy of this Report because it sets out in great detail and with vivid interest the functions of the High Commissioner, his function of protection to ensure that refugees are accorded the right of asylum. This means individual advice, legal advice, administrative help and so on. It also means in the African countries, where the most difficult problems arise, seeing that their own systems of law take note of the needs of refugees. This is one of the activities of the High Commissioner. As 183 one turns these pages one sees the different parts of the world in which man's inhumanity to man has led families to leave their homes, parents to be parted from their children, old people to be left in their old age without succour. One sees here the Sudanese refugees in the Central African Republic and Sudanese refugees in the Republic of the Congo. One sees refugees from the Congo in other parts of Africa. And so it goes on, this really quite shocking displacement of population throughout that continent, and I am afraid that it has not yet come to an end.
Time does not allow me to say more at this stage than to assure the House, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, West, who has raised this matter, that Her Majesty's Government are fully seized of the importance of this work. We are making our contribution—as my hon. Friend has said, our record in Britain is not a bad one—but we do not for one moment pretend that it is sufficient. Therefore, we rely upon the private conscience and benevolence of all our citizens next week to make a really outstanding contribution, so that at the end of the week we can feel that something at least has been done towards solving these problems in all parts of the world.

§ Mr. Ernest Armstrong (Durham, North West)
In the remaining two minutes, I would like to associate myself with all that has been said on this humanitarian subject. When we think of the refugees, 184 who include, of course, young and old, upon whom all the horrors of violence, persecution, fear and suffering have left their mark, it is a sad commentary, despite the generosity of the British people, that we spend so much of our resources as a nation on things that are mediocre and, indeed, trivial. The need here is overwhelmingly a humanitarian one, and what we sow, as it were, in these years we will certainly reap in years to come.
We acknowledge the need, and I hope that this great appeal that will go out next week to the whole nation will stir our folk. They are generous. I am much impressed by the way our young folk are responding to the challenge of those whose need is so desperate. Every day I am heartened by the response of our young folk.
I hope that next week, once again, our people will demonstrate how generous they are, because tonight we have been reminded that we are not talking about statistics. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall), in a very moving way, translated the soulless statistics into men, women and children who call for our sympathy and, indeed, our positive action next week to make sure that more of them are given the opportunity of the life which we enjoy day by day and sometimes take so much for granted, so that eventually, we hope, they can be permanently resettled with full rights of citizenship in the countries where they settle.