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Abstract
Non-state organisations were important actors in the international refugee regime after the Second World War. This article traces connections between refugee crises and geo-politics by focusing on the interaction of three NGOs with the new Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the 1950s. One non-state actor, the World Council of Churches (WCC), highlighted the suffering of German expellees as illustrating the limitations of the refugee regime. The second non-state organisation, Jami’at al’ Islam (JAI), asserted its right to represent all Muslim refugees in Europe. Along with its anti-Communist stance it adopted an anti-colonial rhetoric and denounced the limitations of UNHCR’s mandate, but it was later exposed as a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The third organisation, Comité Inter-Mouvements Auprès des Evacués (CIMADE), formed in 1939 to help French Jews escape deportation during the Vichy era, subsequently aided Algerians who suffered persecution by the French authorities. Like WCC, this began a long ‘career’ in humanitarianism. In its dealings with these NGOs, UNHCR trod cautiously, because it was constrained by its mandate and the governments that contributed to its budget. Each example demonstrates the challenges of ‘non-political’ efforts to offer humanitarian assistance to refugees and the limits to the autonomy of non-state organisations.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Felix Ohnmacht and Rachel McElroy White for drawing relevant material to my attention, and to Daniel Cohen and Eleanor Davey for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. I also wish to think the staff of the archives referred to in the endnotes.
Notes
1. Barnett, Empire of Humanity.
2. On the proliferation of NGOs, see Cooley and Ron, “The NGO Scramble;” Gorman, “Private Voluntary Organisations;” Kent, Anatomy; Ferris, Beyond Borders. For a study of broader social movements in relation to population displacement in the 1950s, see Gatrell, Free World?
3. Cohen, In War’s Wake; Ballinger, “‘Entangled’ or ‘Extruded’ Histories?;” Ballinger, “Impossible Returns, Enduring Legacies;” Holian and Cohen, “Introduction;” Feldman, “The Humanitarian Circuit;” Gatrell, Making of the Modern Refugee. The classic works include Vernant, The Refugee in the Post-War World, and Holborn, The International Refugee Organisation.
4. De Waal, “An Emancipatory Imperium?”
5. Charles Hogan, Head of UN ECOSOC NGO Section, 20 April 1951, Fonds UNHCR 11, Records of the Central Registry, Series 1 Classified (hereafter Fonds UNHCR 11), 2/8/GEN Policy and aims of UNHCR, 1960-1962, 4/0 Voluntary agencies – general, 1950–52.
6. This is not to overlook shifts over time in the ethos and practice of individual NGOs. See Hilton, “Ken Loach and the Save the Children Film.”
7. For present purposes, I define a refugee regime as an assemblage of institutional actors governed by international norms based upon an agreed definition of “the refugee.” See Skran, Refugees; Salomon, Refugees. A broader approach to the notion of a regime, including the problematisation of the category of refugee, is adopted by Gatrell, Making of the Modern Refugee.
8. In 1961 the UN General Assembly formally adopted the so-called “good offices” formula under UN Resolution 1499 (XV), enabling UNHCR to widen its remit. Holborn, Refugees, chapter 18.
9. Glynn, “Genesis and Development of Article 1;” the best overview is Loescher, UNHCR and World Politics.
10. Wyman, DPs; Reinisch and White, Disentanglement.
11. The expression “neo-refugees” was coined by Elfan Rees in 1948. It also appears in a resolution passed by the LWF Assembly in Hannover, July 1952, Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Archives, Box 36, Folder, “Refugees, General, 1948–1957.”
12. LWF Archives, Geneva, Box 36 Folder, “Refugees, General, 1948–1957."
13. Monthly report of Ecumenical Refugee Commission (ERC), July 1947, World Council of Churches (WCC) Archives, Geneva, 425.1.031, ERC Fieldworkers 1947–48; Rees, report to the General Secretariat of the Reconstruction Department, February 1947, File 425.1.033, ERC Different Countries and Refugee Groups 1947/8; Rees, statement on “the refugee problem to the WCC Assembly, Amsterdam, August 1948”, quoted in Gaines, World Council of Churches, 527; Rees, “The Refugee Problem Today.” The WCC was formed in 1948. In the same year it created a Department of Inter-Church Aid and Service to Refugees, although this had been preceded by a Department of Reconstruction and Inter-Church Aid, formed in 1942.
14. Chandler, The High Tower of Refuge, 95–6.
15. Speech by James J. Norris, 5 November 1953, American Catholic University of America Collection, Series 3, Box 170, NCWC/USCC Office of the General Secretary/Executive Department, Office of UN Affairs, Folder 39 (Refugees: Memos, 1949–60).
16. “The Churches and Migration: the Need for a Policy,” memo, 23 January 1958, Christian Aid Archives, SOAS, University of London (hereafter CA), CA/I/6/2, Migration: Papers 1954–59.
17. Harrell-Bond, “The Experience of Refugees.”
18. WCC Archives, Geneva, File 425.1.043, “Human interest stories” (full names are given in the original records).
19. Gaines, World Council of Churches, 870, quoting a resolution passed in 1959.
20. Bulletin of Jami’at al Islam, Series V, no. 1, 1960. JAI should not be confused with the organisation of the same name that was founded in 1941 by Abu Ala Mawdudi. See De Cordier, “Faith-based Aid;” Benthall, “Cultural Proximity.”
21. Jami’at al’ Islam Inc. claimed to have originated in Central Asia in the late 1860s during the Russian conquest of Turkestan. This is certainly a foundation myth. On the murky world of JAI in Europe, its association with the CIA, and its demise in the early 1960s, see Johnson, A Mosque in Munich, 139–54.
22. Ibrahim Gacaoglu to the Minister for Refugees and Victims of War, Federal Republic of Germany, 25 March 1959, alluding to the “Committee for the Return to the Homeland” in East Berlin. Fonds UNHCR 11 Records of the Central Registry Series 1, Classified Subject Files, 15/64-15/74, Box 271, folder 1.
23. Kee, Refugee World, 76–7.
24. James Read to the President of JAI, 6 April 1959, Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74, Box 271, folder 1.
25. Gacaoglu to UNHCR, Geneva, 23 July 1954, Fonds UNHCR 11, Box 271, folder 1.
26. James Price, Address to the Convention of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Washington DC, 17 June 1960, Fonds UNHCR 11, Box 271, folder 2; Price to Eisenhower, 23 May 1960, Dwight David Eisenhower Library, White House Central Files, 1953-61, General File, Box 873 Folder 122-J-1 WRY; Note from Jami’at al Islam, October 1960, on the “policy direction and programming of the UNRWA,” Fonds UNHCR 11, 13/1/31/GEN Algerian refugees (1958–61).
27. Price to Lindt, 6 April 1960, Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74, Box 271, folder 1.
28. Price to Auguste Lindt, 18 May 1960, Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74, Box 271, folder 1.
29. Mustafa Amier, JAI International, to ICWRY executive and delegates, Geneva, 4 November 1960, Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74, Box 271, folder 1.
30. UN Archives, Geneva, ARR 55/0088, File Box 073 ICWRY; Mustafa Amier, on behalf of JAI International, to ICWRY executive and delegates, Geneva, 4 November 1960, in UNHCR Fonds 11, 15/64 – 15/74 Moslem Refugees; Series 1, Classified Subject Files.
31. Mustafa Amier, on behalf of JAI International, to ICWRY executive and delegates, Geneva, 4 November 1960, Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74. In 1960, UNHCR’s full-time professional staff numbered 106, only 14 of whom were non-European and half of those were from Australia and New Zealand. India, Iran, Lebanon, the UAR and Uruguay contributed staff either to Geneva HQ or to branch offices. Fonds UNHCR 11, 2/8/GEN, Policy and Aims of UNHCR, 1960–62.
32. James Price, Address given on 17 June 1960 to the Convention of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Washington DC, as above.
33. Press release dated 15 August 1962, Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74, Box 271, folder 3.
34. Johnson, A Mosque in Munich, 153–4.
35. Ruthström-Ruin, Beyond Europe, 187.
36. Bourguiba to High Commissioner, 31 May 1957, Fonds UNHCR 11, 13/1/31/TUN [1]; Ruthström-Ruin, Beyond Europe, 154–6, 160–1, 167.
37. Statement of the Office of UNHCR submitted to Committee of Experts, August 1960, Fonds UNHCR 11, 2/8/GEN Policy and aims of UNHCR, 1960–1962. See also the JAI proposal dated 25 February 1960, in Fonds UNHCR 11, 15/64-15/74.
38. I am indebted to Felix Ohnmacht for this information. See also Ruthström-Ruin, Beyond Europe, 175–7, 183; Nowinski, “French Catholic Activism in Algeria.”
39. Confidential letter from Kelly to T. Jamieson, 6 August 1962, and confidential memo dated 29 August 1962, Fonds UNHCR 11, 1951–70, 13/1/31 Rehabilitation-Algerians (1962–8). High Commissioner Felix Schnyder did not share Kelly’s gloomy appraisal, adding that he welcomed the contribution of LRCS to meeting the “humanitarian needs of the people” in North Africa, and looked forward to “longer term international cooperation in Algeria itself”, involving other NGOs as well as the ILO and UNICEF. Felix Schnyder, address to the Executive committee of LRCS, Geneva, 27 September 1962, Fonds UNHCR 11, 13/1/31 Rehabilitation-Algerians (1962–8).
40. Price to Eisenhower, 23 May 1960, as note 23.
41. Muetzelfeldt, confidential memo to members of the Commission on World Service, 9 March 1962, LWF Archives, Box 36, Folder Refugees – Algeria.
42. White, “CIMADE’s Intervention;” Gerdes, Ökumenische Solidarität; Onyedum, “Humanize the Conflict;” Klose, Menschenrechte.
43. Bouhouche, “The Return of Algerian Refugees.”
44. Bouhouche, “The Return of Algerian Refugees.”
45. Memo from Rørholt, UNHCR representative in Tunisia, to UNHCR Geneva, 12 January 1961, Fonds 11, Series 1, 13/1/TUN Assistance to Algerian refugees in Tunisia, 1959–62.
46. Schnyder to U Thant, 3 October 1962, Fonds 11, Series 1, 13/1/31 Rehabilitation-Algerians (1962–68).
47. Parker T. Hart, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, to Robert M. McClintock, US Ambassador, Beirut, 30 January 1961, Secret. NARA, RG 59 General Records of the Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Office of the Country Director for Israel and Arab Affairs, Records relating to refugee matters and Jordan waters, 1957–1966, Box 1, folder UNRWA General 1961.
48. Fonds UNHCR 11, 1951–70, 13/1/31/GEN, Algerian Refugees (1958–61).
49. Richard Russell, report on visit to Paris, May 1963, CA/I/6/7, Aid to European Refugees: correspondence and bulletins 1956–66.
50. “Twenty Years of Work for Uprooted: French Refugee Aid Movement,” The Guardian, 22 January 1960.
51. Bishop Sjollema to Brian J. Dudbridge, 3 May 1963, CA/I/6/6, Migration: correspondence on Arnoldshain conference, 1963.
52. Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan, The Charitable Crescent.
53. Kwon, The Other Cold War.
54. http://www.oikoumene.org/en/what-we-do; Ferris, Beyond Borders.
55. White, “CIMADE’s Intervention,” Epilogue; http://www.lacimade.org/.
56. FFHC/C2/65/Inf 5, CA/A/3/3 FFHC General, 1960-69. Charles Jordan represented the International Council of Voluntary Agencies. See also Coles, “Approaching the Refugee Problem Today.”
57. Harrell-Bond, “Can Humanitarian Work with Refugees be Humane?”