A/S SAUERBREY'S MEETINGS WITH UN AND NGO OFFICIALS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 AMMAN 001380 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS CAIRO FOR REFCOORD FROM AMMAN REGIONAL REFCOORD E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2017 TAGS: PREF PREL PTER PGOV PHUM SY IZ JO SUBJECT: A/S SAUERBREY'S MEETINGS WITH UN AND NGO OFFICIALS IN JORDAN ON DISPLACED IRAQIS REF: AMMAN 1277 Classified By: CDA Daniel Rubinstein for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) Ellen Sauerbrey visited Jordan March 13-16 on the final leg of a regional tour focused on ensuring that displaced Iraqis receive effective protection and assistance, including expanded resettlement. Her meetings with senior GOJ officials -- which yielded assurances that Jordan would continue to host Iraqis, work to improve their access to services, and would welcome international funding to support these efforts -- are reported ref A. This message reports on the Assistant Secretary's meetings in Jordan with the UN Deputy Special Representative for Iraq, with officials responsible for UNHCR and ICRC's Iraq operations, and with representatives of IOM. END SUMMARY. ============================================= TRENDS: UN AND ICRC PROJECT MORE DISPLACEMENT ============================================= ¶2. (C) DEPUTY UN SRSG COMPARES PROTECTION GAP IN IRAQ TO DARFUR: A/S Sauerbrey met Jean-Marie Fakhouri, the UN's Deputy Special Representative for Iraq, to review displacement trends and the UN's rapidly evolving strategy to respond to them. NOTE: In addition to leading the UN's 14-agency Iraq country team which has been focused on reconstruction activities, Fakhouri coordinates UN humanitarian activities in Iraq. END NOTE. The Deputy SRSG explained that his humanitarian mandate expanded after January 19, when the SYG decided the UN needed to "publicly recognize the crisis in Iraq." He confirmed that an OCHA "surge team" had just arrived to bolster his office's assessment capacity - the full complement of 12 OCHA officials is expected to be on the ground at the UN's Amman-based offices within the month - and flagged the presence of additional senior OCHA officials seconded to help overhaul the UN's strategic framework for humanitarian assistance. According to Fakhouri, given that the situation includes a growing external displacement dimension, this new operational plan would have a wider regional dimension that would include UN country teams in countries neighboring Iraq. ¶3. (C) Fakhouri acknowledged that the UN had to make up some ground, and establish more credible monitoring systems and creative fundraising strategies that acknowledged that the GOI is already holding $26 billion in unspent reconstruction funds before it could hope to lead a more concerted humanitarian response. The Deputy SRSG was particularly critical of the fact that that IOM and UNHCR have different IDP estimates, and that other UN agencies are using inconsistent malnutrition measures. However, he said the populations requiring UN support were clear: 1) externally displaced Iraqis, 2) the internally displaced population, which, according to Fakhouri, had grown by 740,000 persons since February 2006 and now affected every governorate in Iraq but especially the KRG (which Fakhouri noted had received 120,000 persons in the last year) and 3) the "unnoticed" Iraqis who he said no longer have access to water and other services due to a combination of GOI incapacity and more insidious decisions by various Iraqi ministries to provide services based on sect, political or tribal allegiance. ¶4. (C) Fakhouri said he was particularly concerned about reports of "ethnic cleansing" in the KRG areas, and called the hidden problem of poor Iraqis without basic services "extremely dangerous." Comparing the operating environment to his previous assignment as UNHCR's Director of Operations for Sudan, Fakhouri argued that there is now an underlying protection crisis in Iraq driving these movements that is "at least as critical as Darfur." ¶5. (C) Continuing, Fakhouri argued that there is a direct internal-external displacement link threatening Iraq's stability. He stressed that the international community had to identify on an urgent basis mechanisms to help the Jordanians avoid resorting to refoulement, explaining that Iraqi cabinet ministers claimed earlier this month that they had agreed to create sectarian-based geographic "safe zones" in Iraq. Such safe zones, Fakhouri said, could hasten the division of Iraq, adding that the GOJ's policy of treating most Iraqis as "guests" rather than refugees - although AMMAN 00001380 002 OF 005 understandable given the real potential that displaced Iraqis will export violence to Jordan and the durable nature of the Palestinian refugee population -- kept the threat of destabilizing mass sectarian population movements real. Fakhouri argued that the UN and the U.S. should concentrate on persuading the GOJ to articulate its needs to support Iraqis in Jordan to counter this possibility, quietly suggesting that UNHCR step into the background and allow assistance to flow via UNICEF and other agencies. Fakhouri said this too may prove difficult, as UN agencies in Jordan have been told by the GOJ not to help Iraqis. (Note: Fakhouri did not specify what GOJ elements allegedly stated this to what UN agencies. End note.) Finally, he argued that UNHCR needed to articulate a clearer vision for its April conference to help repair its relations with the GOJ. ======================================== NEW APPROACHES NEEDED TO OPERATE IN IRAQ ======================================== ¶6. (SBU) UN REACHING OUT TO NON-TRADITIONAL PARTNERS: To help stabilize population movements within Iraq, Fakhouri said the UN would have to pursue new approaches to counter its shrinking presence, such as securing neighboring states' cooperation to carry out more cross-border activity and expanding partnerships to include non-state actors in Iraq. Fakhouri expressed strong appreciation for the protection that MNF-I forces provide the 60 UN internationals who operate from the Green Zone, but explained that this reliance continues to work against the UN because it is no longer regarded as a neutral entity. Fakhouri noted that the UN is about to close its office in Basra in response to threats. ¶7. (SBU) ICRC CREDITS NEUTRALITY FOR EXPANDED PRESENCE: ICRC's Iraq and Jordan delegations echoed in a separate March 15 meeting the pivotal role neutrality is playing in their effort to open up operational space in Iraq. Although five of their staff were killed in targeted attacks in 2005, Iraq Head of Delegation Karl Mattli said that ICRC has kept its commitment to a nationwide presence, largely through an outreach effort to obtain recognition from all armed groups. ICRC still limits international staff work in its Baghdad red zone offices to 48-hour tours, but has sustained international staffing at offices in Basra, a northern base covering Dohuk, Suleymaniya and Erbil, and a new Najaf office opened in late 2006. Mattli announced ICRC's imminent plans to open two new offices on the Iraq border at Trebil and Al-Walid where it is supporting UNHCR's efforts to assist Palestinian and Iranian Kurd refugee populations who are seeking to flee Iraq. ¶8. (SBU) While no group has openly rejected ICRC, Mattli said that degrees of acceptance vary, and that recognition of the neutrality of its local partner, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (ICRS),remains a problem. Twelve of the 42 ICRS staff who were abducted from their Baghdad offices earlier this year have not been released. To ensure neutrality of ICRS operations, Mattli said that ICRC carries out joint planning and requires stringent reporting. Mattli said ICRC shares the UN assessment that IDP vulnerability is increasing, noting that the IRCS had carried out a survey in late 2006 that suggests food insecurity increased from 12 to 16 percent in the last year. In response, ICRC is planning to increase aid from 5,000 to 10,000 beneficiary families in early 2007. If ICRS can maintain quality, it will expand further. In addition, ICRC will continue to maintain 17 transit camps for IDPs inside Iraq. The one operational problem ICRC alleged was increased difficulty securing permission from the GOJ to bring Iraqi staff to Jordan for training. ¶9. (C) CALLS FOR NEW STRATEGIES FOR VULNERABLE THIRD COUNTRY NATIONALS: In their March 15 meeting, UNHCR's Iraq representative Janvier Riedmatten also called IDP shelter the "number one" humanitarian need for Iraqis. However, he used his meeting with A/S Sauerbrey to underscore the increasingly precarious situation of third-country nationals in Iraq who are recognized refugees: the Palestinians and Syrians who are primarily in Baghdad, and Iranian Ahwazis in the south who are targeted by Shi'a. Riedmatten said a group of 43 Ahwazis had recently moved to the Iraqi side of the Iraqi-Jordanian border, and called the situation of the Palestinians there "chaos." He claimed Iraqi Interior Ministry personnel had beaten and tortured dozens of Palestinians detained in Baghdad March 14, and that this had prompted another 50 AMMAN 00001380 003 OF 005 Palestinians to move to the Iraqi-Syrian border. Riedmatten added that a GOI decision to withhold funding from its own Ministry of Displacement and Migration was directly impeding UNHCR/Iraq's protection efforts; UNHCR had provided MODM funds to pay the rents of Palestinians in Baghdad but the Ministry has failed to do so. ¶10. (C) Separately, Palestinian resettlement activist Perla Issa told A/S Sauerbrey March 15 that the Government of Yemen was receptive, provided funds were made available, to offering temporary safe haven for Palestinians in Baghdad as it did when the PLO evacuated Lebanon. She thought Yemen might attempt to raise the issue at the next Arab League meeting. COMMENT: Issa secured the Government of Chile's agreement to resettle 100 ex-Iraq Palestinians who Jordan admitted in 2003. The PLO's Department of Refugee Affairs is also following up on the Yemen option. END COMMENT. =========================================== EXPANDING ASSISTANCE TO DISPLACED IN JORDAN =========================================== ¶11. (C) VISITING UNHCR HQ OFFICIALS AND NATIONAL STAFF REVISE THEIR JORDAN STRATEGY: In a March 13 working dinner, visiting UNHCR HQ Middle East Department Director Radhounne Nouicer told A/S Sauerbrey that he had met Jordan's Foreign Minister jointly with officials from MOI and GID earlier that day, and had reached an agreement on UNHCR's registration practices: UNHCR would return to its pre-February practice of registering individual Iraqis (as opposed to considering all Iraqis in Jordan as having a prima facie case for recognition),pending negotiation of a new MOU. ¶12. (C) UNHCR officials stressed that the requirement to work strictly within the parameters of a bilateral MOU makes protection the "paramount issue" for UNHCR in Jordan, as it "obscures" refoulement, and in their view, leaves many of the out-of-status majority of Iraqis in Jordan without guaranteed access to government services. (At present, Iraqis in Jordan on expired visit permits who wish to apply for more permanent status in Jordan generally must be able to demonstrate to Jordanian officials that they have in Jordan substantial assets, a business, political connections, or useful professional qualifications (i.e., as doctors or university professors). Okoth-Obbo revealed that UNHCR's current strategy towards the MOU is to focus on the nomenclature in the run-up to April UNHCR conference, and to ensure that if states use differentiated language, that the protective content is clear. After that, UNHCR would "incrementally" re-visit how to adjust the old MOU with the GOJ to ensure it better addresses the current refugee situation. ¶13. (SBU) UNHCR AND UNICEF FLEXIBLE ON ASSISTANCE: Asked about their assistance strategy for Jordan, Okoth-Obbo and outgoing Jordan Representative Rob Breen indicated that UNHCR would be flexible and introduce a differentiated approach in Jordan that was more "responsive than proactive." Fundamentally, UNHCR had always intended to adopt a community-based approach where host communities take the lead in assistance. Breen added that UNHCR's approach, since it was allocated additional resources to assist Iraqis in Jordan, had been to partner only with long-established NGOs that are legally registered, and maintain programs that also target poor Jordanians. This required UNHCR to do more accountability work to ensure their partners were targeting vulnerable Iraqis, but they do not see this as a difficult obstacle. In a separate March 15 meeting, UNICEF's Jordan Representative Anne Skatvedt indicated interest in expanding UNICEF's national program to also target Iraqis in Jordan. She noted that the goal would be to increase capacity of GOJ schools before the start of the next school year. Given that this left only 3-4 months, a key issue for Skatvedt was whether the survey of Iraqis that the Jordanian Department of Statistics is planning to conduct with the Norwegian NGO FAFO would be sufficient to start talks with the Ministry of Education, or if additional assessments would be required to negotiate viable strategies. Skatvedt also stressed the need to focus on "software" as well as "hardware" in the education sector, noting that many Iraqi children have been out of school for several years and many are traumatized. Teacher training will also be required to integrate these children. ¶14. (SBU) SOME NGOS BELIEVE THEIR OPERATING SPACE IS SHRINKING: NGO representatives participating in a roundtable AMMAN 00001380 004 OF 005 that A/S Sauerbrey chaired on March 13 agreed it would be easier for agencies working on poverty alleviation to assist Iraqis in Jordan than for agencies that explicitly target refugees, but many expressed concern that new assistance mechanisms would fail without a general "amnesty" that would legalize out-of-status Iraqis and thus make the children among them eligible for Jordanian government schools. NOTE: This roundtable targeted NGOs already assisting vulnerable Iraqis in Jordan, Iraq or Syria, and included seven internationals (CARE International, Danish Refugee Council, International Catholic Migration Commission, International Medical Corps, International Orthodox Christian Charities, Mercy Corps and Save the Children USA) and three Jordanian organizations (CARITAS Jordan, MIZAN Law Group and the National Center for Human Rights). END NOTE. CARE, which operates a long-standing Jordanian assistance program, asserted that Jordanian government ministries would refuse to work with them to plan dual interventions that assist both Jordanians and Iraqis as long as the Iraqis being targeted are illegal, which many NGOs claimed includes the majority of Iraqis in Jordan. Most NGO representatives were skeptical that the survey the GOJ is conducting with FAFO would capture actual needs, as most Iraqis would fear that participation would lead to their deportation. Note: The GOJ has not/not deported Iraqis on a significant scale, and Post sees no indications that it is preparing to do so. ¶15. (SBU) NGO representatives voiced other complaints about GOJ policies. Save the Children Representative Dennis Walto told A/S Sauerbrey that he had just left a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Education, at which he had hoped to develop strategies to expand educational services to out-of-status Iraqis. He said he was informed that Iraqis will not be allowed to attend public schools during the 2007-2008 school year, and that those individuals who were admitted during the current year would not be allowed to matriculate. Walto said that MOE officials did indicate willingness to allow Iraqis to enter private schools and even some new receptivity to the idea of establishing prefab classrooms in public schools, but had been told that any such discussion required the personal approval of the Minister of Education. Mercy Corps and IOCC added that they had concluded the Ministry of Social Development (MOSD) was working to ensure that NGOs do not shift their assistance from poor Jordanians. They reported receiving generic letters from MOSD earlier that week that warned them that they should not apply for any new funding without prior approval from MOSD; while the letters did not mention the Iraqi issue, these NGOs believed Iraqis were the focus. MIZAN added that letters were also sent to Jordanian NGOs, and that they were having difficulty obtaining a response to their requests for permission to develop new programs for Iraqis. Mercy Corps added that many international NGOs registered with MOSD who are attempting to target Iraqis are having difficulty getting their registrations renewed. ======================================== U.S. RESETTLEMENT: EXPANDING THE PROGRAM ======================================== ¶16. (C) A/S Sauerbrey also focused on the modalities of expanding with UNHCR resettlement for Iraqi refugees in Jordan, including discussion of how best to grant access to the resettlement program for those claiming USG ties. UNHCR expressed interest in the possibility of a direct access program for such cases that would not involve UNHCR referral, but committed to referring vulnerable cases from among its currently registered caseload in the near term. While assuring NGOs that the U.S. strategy was to develop conditions to allow Iraqis to return to Iraq, A/S Sauerbrey also invited the NGOs attending her roundtable to participate in PRM training on how to refer extremely vulnerable cases directly to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. ¶17. (C) On March 15, A/S Sauerbrey also met with Zeyad Khadem, former head FSN at PRT Hillah who was Embassy Baghdad's first direct referral to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Khadem recounted the reasons for his flight, which included the kidnapping and murder of his brother. Khadem paid ransom in an effort to secure his brother's release, and his case (among those interviewed by DHS in Amman in late February) is now on hold because of "material support" issues, although it may benefit from the recently signed waiver for material support under duress. Khadem described his reception in Jordan, noting that many AMMAN 00001380 005 OF 005 Iraqis who had arrived on his flight were turned away by Jordanian immigration, including an elderly woman seeking medical care. He also argued the need for an alternative system for individuals with USG connections to approach UNHCR, explaining that he felt threatened by fellow Iraqis waiting to register with UNHCR Jordan who realized that he was being "fast-tracked." ¶18. (C) In meetings with IOM that afternoon, A/S Sauerbrey explored the idea of creating a "hybrid" IOM/UNHCR registration system for U.S.-affiliated individuals. IOM Jordan/Iraq Representative Rafiq Tchannen expressed willingness to develop such a system, but noted that IOM needed a clear definition of eligibility. Tschannen was also willing to establish a transit center for individuals accepted into USRAP pending their move to the U.S. Tactically, he argued that the GOJ would be more supportive of these new operations if IOM could simultaneously respond to a pending GOJ request to repatriate out-of-status domestic laborers being held in Jordanian detention centers. Visit Amman's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ RUBINSTEIN