The REFUGEE PROBLEM: Implications for International Security
Saumitra Mohan

In the post-Cold War era, security has acquired a new and more complex significance. To the traditional political-military issues at the intra-state level must be added many other concerns including ethnic conflicts, refugee and migration flows and population growth. Major new security threats are already arising from political and social instability in the Third World and Eastern Europe, either as a result of ethnic, inter-community or religious tensions, or because of economic upheaval. A consequence of this instability has been a rise in the number of refugee and migration movements.

The enormous changes and instability generated by the end of the Cold War have triggered and are triggering new mass movements of people across the globe. These refugee exoduses are commanding the attention of high-level policy makers not only for humanitarian reasons and because of the increasing numbers involved, but also because of the serious consequences that mass displacements have for national stability, international security and the emerging new world order.

Indeed, it was the flood of refugees from East to West Germany in 1989 that helped to bring down the Berlin Wall, expedited the unification of the two German states, and generated the most significant transformations in international relations since World War II. The Allied intervention in Kurdistan two years later to save the two or three million refugees who streamed into the mountainous borderlands of Iran and Turkey demonstrated that large-scale population movements across national frontiers can, in certain circumstances, especially if provoked by a combination of vicious repression and worldwide publicity, be perceived so destabilizing that they constitute a threat to international peace and security, and, therefore, warrant military intervention by external forces. In the Horn of Africa, Southern Africa and Liberia, former Yugoslavia and the former USSR, and most recently in Rwanda and Burundi, war and mass displacements of peoples are challenging the sanctity of borders and have contributed to the disintegration of nations.

The scale of refugee movement has expanded dramatically in recent years—from an estimated 9 million refugees in 1984 to the current estimate of 26 million[1]. A number of conditions in developing nations, including rapid population growth, economic stagnation, famine, unstable political conditions, ethnic conflicts, environmental deterioration, and ongoing civil war have led to the current high rate of relocation adding to the magnitude of the problem.

Today, large-scale movements of refugees and other forced migrants have become a recurrent and tragic feature of the contemporary world. Today, there are some 26 million people who are of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Violent conflicts and abuse of fundamental human rights, aggravated by poverty, social inequities and environmental degradation, have led to refugee flows in different parts of the world. Africa has the highest number, Asia ranking second with over 7.5 million refugees.
Prospects for solving refugee problems appear mixed; repatriation often occurs in difficult and dangerous situations, sometimes to conflict-torn societies. As refugees increase in numbers, the possibilities of their returning home remain limited with more and more doors being closed on them. Wealthier nations see them as a threat to their existing standards of living, while the poorer ones consider them a burden on their meagre resources.

This paper attempts to discuss the strategic roots and consequences of refugees movements, and suggest some possible policy framework for responding to these problems.

Who is Refugee?
The first problem one encounters in dealing with refugees is distinguishing between people who are commonly called refugees and those actually accorded such status. Loosely speaking, "refugees are people in flight, searching for improved security"[2]. For it is states, and not refugees, that determine which, among the many reasons for a person's flight, are the most valid to support. And support invariably depends less on humanitarian considerations, although these are always stressed in public pronouncements—than on a particular state's domestic and international interests.

However, the principal international definition at present is the UN concept that was formulated in the immediate post-World War II period, largely in response to European refugee flows. According to the 1951 UN Conventions Relating to the State of Refugees, a refugee is "any person who, owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.[3]"

Apart from this narrow internationally agreed-upon definition, the term 'refugee' has been widened in practice to cover a variety of people in diverse situations who need assistance and protection. The most notable addition is found in the Convention on Refugee Problems in Africa, a regional instrument adopted by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1969, which includes people fleeing ‘external aggression, internal civil strife, or events seriously disturbing public order' in African countries.[4] The Cartagena Declaration of 1984, approved by representatives and experts from Central American nations and covering Central American refugees, also goes further than the 1951 UN Conventions by including persons "who have fled their country because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.[5]

However, in recent years there has been great resistance in the West to this pragmatic expansion of the definition of the refugee and of the UNHCR's mandate. In the most industrialized nations, the 1951 definition, with its focus on individuals and on persecution, is used for resettlement and asylum purposes, although groups of people, at grave risk of death or violence if returned home, are given temporary protection.

Strategic Roots of Refugee Movements
Today, majority of mass movements are caused by war, ethnic strife and sharp socio-economic inequalities. The difficulty of building durable state structures in the context of deep ethnic divisions and economic under-development has resulted in much of the domestic conflict and political instability that the developing states have experienced or are experiencing[6]. These conditions not only generate refugee flows, but also make the resolution of refugee problems in the developing world quite problematic.

A by-product of the superpower and regional rivalry has been huge refugee flows, and warring factions in these countries have served as surrogates of the superpowers, from which they received considerable support in the form of weaponry, economic assistance and military training.

Yet, large-scale displacements are not just the result of external interventions or of random upheavals, conflicts and inequalities, but frequently stem from officially instigated or organised state actions. Certain kinds of government actions, ranging from decrees and overt use of force to more covert persecution, intimidation, discrimination and inducement of an unwanted group to leave, generate refugee flows. Myron Weiner has argued, that governments sometimes took steps to reduce or eliminate from within their borders selected social classes and ethnic groups in order to transform society and consolidate political control.

Throughout history states have used mass expulsion as a means of dealing with national minorities e.g. early in the nation state building process in Europe, Spain expelled Jews and Moors or as Idi Amin did in early 1970s to rid Uganda of a prosperous Asian minority group. A large proportion of the world's displacements also occur as a direct result of political and social revolutions. For instance, during the past 40 years, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Iran, Angola, Mozambique and Nicaragua generated massive refugee outflows as a result of the revolutionary changes in their political, economic and social system.

Revolutionary regimes typically rely on mass exoduses to rid themselves of political dissidents, potential challengers to authority, and other such undesirables. For decades, communist governments have employed forcible expulsions as a means to rid themselves of class enemies and to reinforce political control. Also, in order to achieve a new society, communist and other revolutionary regimes have resorted to mass expulsions to rid themselves of entire social classes opposed to the government's or ruling party's economic and political changes; the Russian Revolution forced a million people to flee persecution, conflict and famine. Even non-communist regimes like the one in Iraq have repeatedly tried to drive populations hostile to the regime, particularly Iraqi Kurds and Shias, to the neighbouring countries.

In the 1990s, refugee movements are likely to be the result of ethnic and communal conflicts, fuelled by the increasing availability of modern weaponry and socio-economic inequalities. Although East-West conflict was a factor in the past, the underlying dynamic of many Third World Conflicts, today, has, in fact, been competition for political power among fiercely rival ethnic groups. In the Horn of Africa, for example, the root cause of the enduring conflicts has been competition for power among multi-ethnic groups in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

Currently more than half of the world's refugees are fleeing from communal-based violence, and this trend is likely to continue. Indeed, we should expect ethnic warfare to flare up repeatedly in the developing world in the 1990s, and to become more perplexing and intractable for those managing international security than were the politically motivated guerrilla wars of national liberation of the past several decades.[7] Moreover, ethnic conflicts are also likely to re-emerge in regions where such tensions and hatreds have remained largely dormant for the past several generations[8]. This is most evident in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where long-standing ethnic rivalries are more apparent than at any time since World War II, but conflicts are also likely to occur among indigenous populations in Latin America and elsewhere. With modern weaponry accessible even to the poorest country, civil war can quickly devastate its fragile infrastructure, while population increase and density usually mean that more people are displaced than in previous conflicts.

Refugee Movement asa Foreign-Policy Tool of Sending States
Forced emigration is also part of state strategy to achieve a foreign policy or security objective. Increasingly since the mid-1970s, sending states have actively used population movements or 'push-outs' as tools in their foreign policies[9]. Weiner notes that forced emigration is a policy instrument by which a state can project its economic and political influence, seek to affect the policies and politics of other states, and compel a neighbouring state to provide recognition, aid or credit in return for stemming or regularizing the flow.

Sending states may use migration for the purposes of asserting either sovereignty or de facto control of a territory. This policy involves governmental encouragement of civilian rather than military movement into claimed territories for the purposes of establishing effective control. During an earlier period of global expansion, it was an instrument of the foreign policy of the European empires to extend control over territories in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Australia.

In recent decades, there have been numerous examples of states employing population movements to assert political control over neighbouring states on territories. Following their answer to the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Vietnam actively encouraged the settlement of its own civilians in Cambodia as part of its overall policy to establish hegemony over all three communist Indo-Chinese states.

Mass expulsions can also be used to destabilize or embarrass neighbouring states which are strategic or political adversaries. For example, ASEAN officials claimed during the late 1970s that the expulsion by Vietnam of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese nationals of Chinese origin was a veiled attempt to create racial and economic problem in South-East Asia and to infiltrate enemy agents into the region.[10] An even more obvious example was Fidel Castro's deliberate move to shift a number of criminals and psychotics during the 1980 Marriel boat-lift to Key West, Florida, which was an explicit attempt to embarrass the United States.
The export of refugees can also be used as a bargaining chip in inter-state negotiations over trade and bilateral political recognition. Typically in such situations, the sending state possesses considerable leverage in the bargaining process. By demonstrating a willingness to manipulate it, the sending state is in a position to extract strategic and foreign policy concessions from the receiving state. For example, during the mid-1980s, the East German government facilitated the entry into West Berlin of tens of thousands of Third World asylum applicants. The Honecker regime anticipated that West Berlin and West German reception facilities and judicial systems would be unable to cope with such massive numbers of arrivals and that the Federal Republic would be forced to provide East Germany with additional financial credits in return for halting the flow.

Some sending countries have come to see refugee exoduses as a national resource, to be exploited like any other political resource at their disposal. For sending countries, such as EI Salvador, Vietnam or Morocco, the benefits of out-migration might include the export of their unemployed or underemployed populations, the hope of maximizing foreign currency earning through remittances by their expatriate citizens, and the provision of an outlet or 'safety-valve' for domestic dissidence and the relief of economic pressures e.g. encouragement of migration to the Middle-East by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Sending states may also encourage out-migration to improve economic opportunities and strategic influence in geopolitically important regions. Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, for example, Asian labour-exporting governments viewed the large-scale movement of their citizens as temporary workers to the Persian Gulf not only as a means to reduce unemployment and generate foreign exchange, but also as a way of solidifying their diplomatic and economic relations with oil-rich states.[11]

Foreign-Policy Tool for Receiving States
It is not only the sending states, but also the receiving countries that utilize mass migrations as instruments of their foreign and security policies. While official government rhetoric generally emphasizes the humanitarian motives of their actions, state responses to refugees have often been based on political, ethnic and ideological sympathies and considerations of national and international security.

The United States, for example, perceives itself as being a country of immigrants and refugees and the American people's sense of being a 'moral nation' has been a prominent feature of its foreign policy from its inception. Although humanitarian values compete with self-interest and real politik, the importance of an ethical dimension to many American citizens’ sense of legitimacy and purpose in foreign policy is such that no definition of the nation's long-term interest which wholly excludes these values is likely to be adequate.[12]

Nevertheless, the history of US refugee admissions policy reveals that political and strategic concerns have been of great significance in American responses to refugee crises.

Throughout the post-war era, the US has welcomed large numbers of refugees and immigrants from regions where it perceived its vital interest to be at stake. Preoccupations with the strategic balance during the era of East-West confrontation tended to favour 'burden-sharing' programmes and resettlement in the US whenever the stability of allies or sympathetic neutral countries was threatened by large number of involuntary immigrants. Thus, the admission of some 400,000 displaced persons from Europe after World War II; 35,000 Hungarians from Austria in 1957-58, and over a million Indo-Chinese from Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong since 1975 had, as a common theme, American concern over the destabilizing effect of large refugee populations in parts of the world deemed vital for national security.

Immigration policies are also affected by a state's broader international and strategic role in the world community. For the United States, the influx of refugees and migrants, especially those from an adversary country, makes powerful symbolic statement about American foreign policy goals and its vision of its place in the international system. For example, the arrival in Florida of one-tenth of Cuba’s population before 1980 (about 800,000 refugees) was viewed as a concrete evidence of the bankruptcy of communism and the superiority of the free enterprise system. A national sense of obligation or guilt because of past political and military involvement can also affect a nation's immigration and refugee policies, as can be seen in the open-armed welcome the US gave to Indo-Chinese refugees for over a decade.

International political commitments, largely rooted in past imperialist ties, have influenced the immigration actions of several West European governments. In the two decades after World War II, France, the UK, Portugal and the Netherlands admitted overseas subjects ranging from Algerians to Vietnamese, Jamaicans to Indians, and Timorese and Moluccans from the Dutch East Indies because of strategic and foreign-policy links with their former colonies.
Some population movements are seen as contributing to the host state's power base, national self-confidence or dominant ethnic community. The large-scale influx of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel, for example, was viewed by Israel as a demographic boost to the state, and as a disaster by its Arab neighbours.

Population influxes can also augment the size of the receiving state's defence capabilities or military establishment. For example, the influx of former Soviet immigrants would give Israel greater depth in military power and will bolster its confidence to deter an Arab attack or fight another war. Similarly, it could also increase Israel’s confidence about its internal demographic balance and about making peace with its more populous Arab neighbours.

International migrants often form expatriate communities, become an important actor in the countries in which they reside, and can significantly affect the context and future flows of international migration. Immigrants and their descendants have traditionally been active lobbyists on admission from abroad. This is particularly true in host countries which readily admit those with whom their population shares a close ethnic or religious affinity.

Recognizing the potential symbolic and instrumental use of refugees, policies adopted by the Western governments have in the past created incentives which in effect encourage the outflow of refugees and migrants. US refugee admission policy towards states and other revolutionary regimes, for example, has been guided by the belief that refugee outflows serve to embarrass enemy nations and to discredit their political systems.
Refugee-policy can also be used to deny refugee status to nationals of a friendly state, and will often imply foreign-policy support for the sending government. The decision to bestow formal refugee status on citizens of a particular state usually implies condemnation of the sending government for persecuting its citizens. American refugee policy in particular has consistently demonstrated an anti-communist bias which has often resulted in granting open-ended blanket admissions to those fleeing communist regimes.

Offering open admissions from enemy countries has frequently created pull factors which have in turn stimulated refugee and migration movements. Since the early 1970s, there have even existed specific legislative measures, such as the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which link the extension of trade benefits to freer emigration in order to influence Soviet migration policies and to encourage migration of Soviet Jews and other East Europeans to the United States. From late 1965 to 1973, hundreds of thousands of Cubans migrated to the United States as refugees via an airlift of 'freedom flights' which the two governments negotiated. Undoubtedly, some Cubans who arrived during these years had left their home for purely political reasons, but the programme also had a foreign policy objective of encouraging flight in order to embarrass and discredit the Castro government.

Although strategic and foreign-policy factors appear to play a less important role elsewhere than they do in the United States, nearly the responses of almost all the governments to refugee flows are directly influenced by political and strategic considerations. During the movement for independence in Africa, e.g., the countries there that had achieved independence sought to encourage anti-colonial struggles in other African countries by not only accepting refugees, but by giving them enough assistance to organise themselves into effective liberation movements.

Finally, although refugee population from geopolitically important regions will usually have international patrons, there are some groups that are relatively neglected and have no foreign sponsors. For example, massive international assistance has been extended to the Afghans and the Indo-Chinese, whereas very little has been given to the East Timorese, the Biharis or the Burmese. Moreover, refugee flows are conditioned by international willingness to provide asylum or resettlement. Thus, for example, despite the huge numbers of victims of human rights abuses during China's Cultural Revolution, relatively small numbers of refugees were generated, mainly because no outside country was prepared to offer them admission.

While recent international crises have focused attention on the repercussions of the foreign and security policies of states on migration movements, mass displacements, in turn, have had important impacts on such interests and policies.

Strategic Consequences of Refugee Movements
Refugee movements can both create or exacerbate conflict between neighbouring states and challenge the integrity of the host state. Refugees and other migrants are frequently perceived by both sending and receiving states as a threat to stability and as a bilateral problem with serious national security implications.

This is particularly the case in conflicts involving the spill-over of turmoil across national borders and frequently involves a mass exodus of refugees from one country to another. The activities and ambitions of the refugees themselves, as well as those of the governments of asylum and of the guerrilla movements in both sending and receiving states are additional significant factors in the prolongation and complexity of refugee problems. For example, the intricate relations between Iraqi and Turkish Kurds, and Ankara's policies vis-à-vis its own Kurdish population and Iraq, posed security risks that in effect led to the intervention of Western forces in northern Iraq.

As a general rule, when a mass exodus occurs the primary concern of policy makers in both countries will be the impact of this flow on their own power positions. If the refugees and migrants are seen as contributing to the receiving state's power base, policy makers will accept and in some cases even welcome the newcomers. On the other hand, if the influx is perceived as a threat to the national security of either the sending or receiving state, the population movement will result in inter-state tension and conflict.

Unwanted migrations, such as refugee movements, can also frequently threaten inter-communal harmony and undermine major societal values by altering the ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic composition of the host population[13], as in Tripura state in India.

In countries which are divided into antagonistic racial, ethnic, religious or other groupings, a major population influx can place precariously balanced multi-ethnic societies under great strain and may even threaten the political balance of power. It is not surprising, therefore, that many states are extremely reluctant to accord legal recognition to refuges from neighbouring countries for fear of complicating political relations, encouraging a mass influx of people seeking assistance and eventually swamping the existing cultures, or increasing political instability by offering protection to ideologically or culturally incompatible groups of people.

Even in situations where refugees share similar ethnic and linguistic characteristic with their hosts, hospitality can soon wear thin, especially when strategic and security issues are at stake. The pressures created by mass refugee influxes in poor countries can also affect the formulation of security and foreign policies in these states. Governments walk a tightrope in trying to balance economic, national security and humanitarian interests. Refugees and other exiles often live on, or very close to, the disputed borders; they either reside among combatants in an on-going conflict, or are suspected of materially assisting guerrilla forces attempting to overthrow the government from which they have fled. Some host governments are understandably reluctant to offer asylum for fear of being drawn into the conflicts involving their neighbours.

There is no doubt that mass influxes of migrants and refugees, if not adequately addressed, can endanger social and economic stability and security, particularly in countries where ethnic rivalries may already be virulent, where the central government is weak and consensus on the legitimacy of the political system is lacking, and where essential resources are very limited. In such situations, migrants and refugees compete with nationals within host societies for the scarce jobs and services available. The strain on the host population’s social services and physical infrastructure, the distortion of local economic conditions, and the racial and religious tensions which sometimes result in countries with acute problems of cultural heterogeneity constitute legitimate security concerns for many developing countries.

Problems encountered by the Sending States
The political costs of emigration to sending states take many forms. Population movements can be a source of political embarrassment to sending governments because emigrants, particularly refugees, are powerful political symbols. By their very presence, refugees demonstrate that the states from which they have fled are repressive and undemocratic. Refugee movements may be used by the receiving states not only to embarrass their foes and score ideological brownie points, but also to encourage brain drains and the departure of much needed skilled and professional workers. The collapse of East Germany was, in effect, precipitated by mass exodus of its workforce to West Germany.

Refugees are not only a source of political embarrassment to sending countries and a potential security risk to both sending and receiving states, but they may also be perceived as a means to change the internal economic or political situation in another country. The threat to security is heightened when receiving countries strike alliances with refugee groups and actively support their attempts to change the political situation in their home countries. Neighbouring states can employ or even instigate military activity within refugee communities across their common borders in pursuit of their own national security objectives or regional hegemony. For example, all three of the major countries in the Horn of Africa have used asylum and assistance as a surrogate form of support for rebel movement in other states.
The examples of host and other states employing refugees and so-called 'freedom fighters" as strategic instruments are seemingly endless and present considerable security problems for the countries of origin. To give a few examples, the United States armed Cubans in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs; the United States armed contra exiles from Nicaragua; the Indian government armed Bengali "freedom fighters" against the Pakistani military; the Chinese provided arms to Khmer Rouge refugees to help overthrow the Vietnamese-backed regime in Cambodia.

With or without the aid of host governments, migrant communities can pose major security problems to their countries of origin. Weiner notes that there are numerous examples of politically active exiles seeking to bring about reform or the overthrow of the governments in their homelands e.g. Cuban-Americans in Florida actively seek the overthrow of Fidel Castro; Overseas Chinese who supported the dissident students at Tiananmen square. The presence of refugees and politically active immigrant communities, therefore, can raise what may already be a high level of tension between neighbouring countries. Sending governments frequently complain that countries of asylum directly support the political activities of expatriates and accuse host governments of interfering in their internal affairs as China and Sri Lanka used to accuse India at one point of time.


Risks to Receiving State
Refugee and migrant communities can also pose considerable political and security risks for host governments. Weiner has catalogued how international migrants are frequently a political force in their country of residence, and argues that the way they react to the politics of the host country, and their political relationship with the country of origin, has become factors in influencing relations between the sending and the receiving countries. Receiving countries must now anticipate the political reactions among its migrants to changes in their foreign policy, and take the risk that expatriate communities may dictate the host governments’ policies towards the sending state. For the United States, the presence of nearly one million Cuban refugees, most of whom are implacably opposed to the Castro regime, has clearly made more difficult the normalization of US-Cuban relations.

In Western Europe, the efforts by expatriate communities to promote policies intended to benefit the foreign policy and strategic interests of their countries of origin have recently been highlighted by events in the Middle East and North Africa. During the 1991 Gulf War, popular support for Iraq both within North African countries and to a significant extent among immigrant communities in the West complicated Southern European policies towards the Middle East, and initially led to fears that the war might have adverse long-term consequences for their future relations with the Maghreb.

Very often, the sending country tries to mobilize its expatriate population in support of its own positions in economic and political dealings with the host countries. Some countries of origin, for example, have become increasingly interested in the role that migrant businessmen can play in investment and the transfer of technology.
Population Movements asEconomic and Cultural Threats
Refugees and migrants present political and security problems for the domestic policies of the receiving state. The host population will be on the watch for any threat to its own interests or, more generally, to the impact of immigrants on the political and social complexion of their country. They will resent the attention and assistance given to the newcomers, and fear the influx of labour will drive down wages and create unemployment while driving up the cost of housing and other goods.

One analyst has written that the most intense hostility may be directed towards those refugees or migrants who have some ethnic or other link to the host country such as Algerian settlers forced to return to France in the 1960 after the Algerian war for independence; Ugandan Asians with British passports admitted to England in the early 1970s, or Afghan Pathans fleeing into the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan in the 1980s, or ethnic Germans moving to the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1990s. These arrivals are often viewed by host populations as direct competitors for resources; they have a rightful claim and, therefore, feel entitled to what they receive; they can demand state benefits much more forcefully because they are familiar with the language, and they are far more likely to compete for entry into the labour market and to settle permanently.[14]

Migrants and refugees can also be perceived as a threat to the cultural identity of the receiving state. In Western host countries, expatriate communities establish schools for their children, their own newspapers, religious institutions and cultural organizations. The initial concern of migrants is often to preserve their cultural heritage and to protect the interests of their community. However, as expatriate communities or their leaders gain their political footing, they can also intervene in a variety of ways which threaten the security and stability of host countries. They often align themselves with opposition parties and use this leverage as pressure on ruling governments to advance their own interests.[15] In Pakistan, for example, Afghan refugee groups back efforts by Pakistani fundamentalist parties to adopt Shariat legislation aimed at turning Pakistan into an Islamic state.

Refugees as a Source of International Conflict
Refugees can also be sources of international conflict. Offering sanctuary and support to migrants and refugees frequently incurs military retaliation and draws asylum countries into the turmoil. In many Third World regions of conflict, fighters often mingle with refugee populations, using their camps for rest and medical treatment and sometimes for recruitment. In response to the real or perceived threats of refugee warrior communities, refugee camps and settlements have increasingly become military targets. South Africa, for example, regularly attacked camps in Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Lesotho, and Vietnamese force repeatedly shelled Cambodian refugees encamped along the Thai border.

Receiving governments also fear that migrant and refugee communities will turn against them if they are unwilling to assist in their opposition to the government of their country of origin. The danger may particularly be great if the host country arms the refugees against the sending state.
Refugee groups may also enter the arena of international politics, both regional and global, by seeking affiliations with governments or political organisations who may support their position. The actions of refugee warriors during the past decade have also helped shape the terms on which regional and international peace agreements are structured. The presence of Afghan refugees and Mujaheedin in Pakistan, of Nicaraguan Contras in Honduras, for example, have created obstacle to cease-fires and peace agreements in Afghanistan and Central America.
Conclusion
As complex mass movements continue to occur all over the world, it is evident that the issue of refugees and other population movements will be high on the international agenda in the coming years. Today, refugee movements are increasingly being perceived as matters of the highest concern for the international community. Yet despite this awareness and concern, the response of states to this issue has been narrow and confused. Foreign policy-makers must look beyond refugees and relief measures for them to address political conflict, violation of human rights and economic impoverishment as the root causes of refugee flows.

Although, it is apparent that refugee and security issues are closely related and do often command the attention of the high-level policy-makers, the nature of the security threat posed by refugee problems is frequently outside the usual scope of defence and foreign ministries. The deployment of military forces and the creation of security alliances are largely irrelevant to such non-military threats to security, and different institutions, techniques and forms of international co-operation are needed to deal with them. What we require now, are new and innovative approaches towards conflict resolution, external assistance and domestic controls. In the long run, the only effective way of dealing with the problem is to address systematically the conditions that create such movements.

While it is clear that the issues that immigration raises require a long-term perspective and a systematic approach, the successful management of this problem will also require unprecedented cooperation between North and South and East and West. In particular, the countries of origin have a responsibility towards their own citizens especially in terms of preventing the situations which give rise to refugee and migrant flows, and national sovereignty should not be used to shield governments from their responsibilities. In this regard, the countries of origin must reach accommodation with their ethnic and religious minorities and refrain from political repression. Without directly addressing the root causes of refugee flows, there can be no realistic chance of regulating emigration pressures. Moreover, rapid population growth in the Third World threatens to swamp any progress achieved in economic development and human rights. It will not be possible to curb transitional refugee and migration flows until the South manages to control its population growth.

A failure by both the industrialized and developing countries to take action to stem the tide of poverty, violence, persecution and other refugee-inducing factors will prove costly in security terms. Dealing effectively with refugee and other population movements both at home and abroad is, therefore, in their self-interest and coincides with their search for long-term global strategic stability.
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References:

[1] UNHCR Information Paper, 1997, page 6.
[2] Mel Gurtov, “Open Borders: A Global-Humanist Approach to the Refugee Crisis”, World Development, Pergamon Press Plc, Oxford, Vol. 19, No. 5, 1991, pp. 487.
[3] As quoted in Anna C. Bramwell (ed), Refugees in the Age of Total War, Unwin Hyman, London 1988, p. 9.
[4] Ibid, pp. 11.
[5] Some Basic International Legal Documents on Refugees and Human Rights, UNHCR, New Delhi, 1997, pp. 98.
[6] Klaus Knorr, “Military Trends and Future World Order”, The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 68-95.
[7] James Scarrit and Ted Robert Gurr, “Minority Rights at Risk: A Global Survey”, Human Rights Quarterly, 1989, Vol. 11, pp. 375-405.
[8] This point has been argued by Anthony Smith in his books ‘Theories of Nationalism’ (London: Duckwork, 1983) and ‘Nationalism in the Twentieth Century’ (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979).
[9] Michael Teitlebans, “Immigration, Refugees and Foreign Policy”, International Organisation, Summer 1984, pp.429-50.
[10] Adelphi Papers, Brassey’s Ltd, London, Summer 1992, pp.32.
[11] Myron Weiner, “Migration and Development in the Gulf”, Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, No. 11, March 1982, pp. 1-36.
[12] Bruce Nichols, and Gil Loescher, The Moral Nations: Humanitarianism and Foreign Policy, University of Notre Dame Press, South Bend, 1989, p. 1.
[13] Barry Buzan, “New World Realpolitik: New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-first Century”, International Affairs, Vol. 67, No. 3, July 1991, pp. 431-52.
[14] Cheryl Bernard, “Politics and the Refugee Experience”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 101, No. 4, 1986, p.622.
[15] Ibid, pp. 635.

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