Book Review: Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Camps, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid

Jenny Brown                                                                                                               Spring 2017

Gov. 4993 – Dr. Cocozzelli                                                                                          Book Review

Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Camps, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid: A Book Review

            Humanitarian conflicts are perhaps the most emotionally and morally entangled political issues. Refugee crises pull on heart strings, but they pull on resources even more so. What is the international community to do with millions of displaced people? States are not always willing or able to permanently resettle groups of refugees. In the last century, the UNHCR (along with the help of much of the international community) has established refugee camps as temporary solutions. These camps and conditions can be problematic, often leading to refugee related violence and even civil war. In humanitarian aid literature, this violence is commonly attributed to socioeconomic reasons. In Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Camps, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid by Sarah Kenyon Lischer, Lischer dismantles the typically provided explanations and argues that refugee-related violence must be examined within the political context of a crisis (Lischer 2015,11).

            Lischer begins by providing the typically offered socioeconomic explanations of refugee related violence. She notes that within the “humanitarian assistance literature and policy community,” scholars account the violence to the camps’ conditions, locations and populations (Lischer 2015, 10). These arguments suggest that refugee camps are large and hard to control, creating breeding camps for militant and criminal organizations. Additionally, the camps are often close to the sending state’s border, have large numbers or young men, and have horrid living conditions. These conditions theoretically all contribute to resentment and aggression. Lischer rejects these explanations, arguing that refugee-related violence instead needs to be understand “in terms of the political context of a crisis.” (2015, 11) The existing socioeconomic explanations falsely equate all refugee-related violence (Lischer 2015, 18). A good example of where these socioeconomic explanations fall short can be seen when discussing Afghan refugees. In 1979, nearly six million Afghans fled their homes due to the Soviet invasion. Three million of these refugees went to Pakistan and two million went to Iran (Lischer 2015, 42). Despite having come from the same home state and situation, refugees in Pakistan were able to militarize and incite a war against the Soviet backed regime in Kabul while refugees in Iran were unable to do so (Lischer 2015, 42). Traditional socioeconomic theories would suggest that the more militarized group perhaps had worse living conditions and a higher population of men. On the contrary, refugees in Pakistan had a surprisingly scarce amount of men, making up only 28% of their population (Lischer 2015, 60). Iran, however, most of the population were working aged men (Lischer 2015, 68). Additionally, living conditions in Pakistan and Iran were about the same. In Pakistan, refugee living conditions were even comparable to those of Pakistan residences (Lischer 2015, 60). Existing explanations fail to explain why refugee populations act differently when they are split up and why one group may be more inclined to be militarized than another. This reasoning is generalized rather than systematic. It does not account for the differences in political context.

            In order to analyze the political context of a refugee crisis, three conditions help determine whether or not the refugees are prone to violence and whether or not the crisis will develop into civil war. The three conditions are the origin of a refugee crisis, the policy and response of the host state and the influence of external state and non-state actors (Lischer 2015, 18). Lischer’s main criticism of socioeconomic explanations is how overly generalized they are so she makes an effort to break down and categorize each condition. Lischer categorizes refugee origins according to the “cause of their flight” (2015, 11). Situational refugees flee due to general destruction, such as civil war. These refugees did not flee direct persecution but rather general chaos and danger (Lischer 2015, 11). Persecuted refugees flee due to specific persecution of oppression based on any ethnic, religious, linguistic or political identity (Lischer 2015, 11). State-in-exile refugees are political and military leaders who sometimes flee and become refugees as a strategy to avoid defeat in a civil war. Lischer argues that state-in-exile refugees have “the highest propensity for political violence.” (Lischer 2015, 11) Additionally, situational refugees are the least prone to violence as they tend to have no or very little political organization (Lischer 2015, 18).

            Lischer simplifies the next category, the response and policy of the receiving state, into two categories – willingness and capability. A state is effective in preventing militarization if it is both willing and able to do so (Lischer 2015, 27). Often, cross border violence spreads in a refugee crisis because a state is capable of preventing violence but not willing to. In the case of a capable state, “its political preferences will largely determine whether war spreads.” (Lischer 2015, 28) Since the early 1990s, internal conflicts have caused millions of deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire (Lischer 2015, 71).  These internal conflicts did not stay isolated and spread cross borders, escalating into a conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (Lischer 2015, 71). As the violence progressed, the Rwandan civil war started to spill over into neighboring countries. Hutu state-in-exile refugees fled Rwanda, looking for asylum. In Zaire, authorities, “showed neither the will nor the capability to thwart the clearly militaristic ambitions of the refugee state in exile” (Lischer 2015, 81). The Zairian government contributed to the spread of civil war through Zaire’s alliance with the Hutu extremist movement and weakened internal government (Lischer 2015, 84). In Tanzania, however, the Tanzanian army was able to force militant refugees over the border back into Rwanda and the war from expanding (Lischer 2015, 100). This shows the ways in which receiving state’s policies determine the likelihood of violence. Another example of the way political preference and policy dictate violence can be seen in the Afghan refugees. As mentioned, Afghan refugees in Pakistan suggested militarized while refugees in Iran did not. In Pakistan, the government allowed both refugees and aid. The refugees were found common ground with the Pakistanis in both their anti-communism sentiment and adherence to Islam. This incited even stronger political cohesion among refugees, allowing them to build a strong resistance (Lischer 2015, 46). Pakistan saw the refugees as means to strengthen its international influence and prevent a Soviet invasion (Lischer 2015, 52). They hoped to “create a ‘Muslim belt south of the Soviet Union under Pakistan influence.’” (Lischer 2015, 52) Iran, on the other hand, did not have a national interest in Afghan refugees. They did not fear an imminent Soviet invasion and had no reason to capitalize on the refugee presence. Iran was already in the midst of war with Iraq, the Islamic revolution, and the hostage crisis with the United States (Lischer 2015, 64). In order to prevent anymore conflict, the Iranian government restrained both political and military activity among Afghan refugees. This made certain that a state-in-exile could not form the way it did in Pakistan (Lischer 2015, 65).

Keeping with the theme of generalization, Lischer argues that the response to humanitarian crisis is always indiscriminately humanitarian assistance. Similar to academic explanations of refugee-violence, the international community ignores the politics of each crisis (Lischer 2015, 5). The Western Government send humanitarian aid groups to provide food, shelter, and healthcare (among other resources) in place of becoming politically or militarily involved. Refugee crises are generally not a direct threat to Western governments. They are not overwhelmingly concerned with the specificity of a crisis, so long as it does not interfere with the delivery of aid (Lischer 2015, 5). This false simplification of crises sometimes leads to humanitarian aid actually exacerbating a conflict. According to Lischer, refugee relief can exacerbate conflict in four main ways – “feeding militants, sustaining and protecting militants’ dependents, supporting a war economy, and providing legitimacy to combatants.” (2015, 7) The recurring example of Afghan refugees can once again be used to demonstrate the role of international aid. In Iran, the government disputed any western aid and took the full responsibility of assisting the refugees for the initial three years (Lischer 2015, 67). Iran’s policy also prevented third party states from supporting the Mujahideen, the Afghan opposition groups, and thereby becoming involved in the crisis (Lischer 2015, 67). Pakistan, however, accepted billions of dollars in aid from the United States and Saudi Arabia, ultimately fueling the Mujahideen resistance (Lischer 2015, 70). This shows the effects of both international aid and state policy in preventing or encouraging refugee related violence.

While Lischer’s argument against typical socioeconomic explanations did hold its ground, her book felt repetitive and convoluted at points. Her distinctions in refugee populations, types of violence, and state response were effective in developing her argument. However, she repeated the distinctions more times than necessary throughout the book and sometimes relied on muddied examples. Overall, Lischer’s argument was effective in that she attempted to create a systematic explanation for refugee related violence.

Bibliography

Lischer, Sarah Kenyon. Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Camps, Civil War and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2015.