UNHCR REPORT FINDS TUAREG REFUGEES NOT REFUGEES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAMAKO 000648 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ASEC PINS PINR ML SUBJECT: UNHCR REPORT FINDS TUAREG REFUGEES NOT REFUGEES REF: A. OUAGADOUGOU 00448 ¶B. BAMAKO 00507 ¶C. NOUAKCHOTT 00305 ¶D. BAMAKO 00435 ¶E. BAMAKO 00610 1.(SBU) Summary: The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Bamako recently shared with the Embassy an internal UNHCR assessment of claims by Malian Tuaregs who ostensibly crossed into neighboring Burkina Faso to flee fighting in northern Mali. The arrival of roughly 1000 Malian Tuaregs in Burkina Faso in May 2008 - and the decision to set up a camp for about 300 of these individuals at a football stadium in Ouagadougou - received a considerable amount of international press coverage and upset Malian officials who maintained that there was no reason for Tuaregs to flee northern Mali (Ref. A). According to the report, only 11 of the 300 Tuaregs housed at the football stadium in Ouagadougou are from the region of Kidal. UNHCR concluded that the rest of the Malian Tuaregs camped in Ouaga and Djibo did not meet refugee criteria. UNHCR found that many of these Tuaregs were either already living in Burkina, hailed from Bamako or Niger, or were of a certain "non-civilian" status. The report also strongly criticized Burkina Faso's National Refugee Commission (CONAREF),the Government of Burkina Faso and the international media, thereby raising perhaps more questions than it answered. End Summary. 2.(U) On July 6 the Embassy received a copy of an internal June 13 UNHCR assessment of Malian Tuareg refugees seeking asylum in neighboring Burkina Faso. The UNHCR office in Bamako communicated the report to the Malian Ministry of Territorial Administration on June 23. The assessment was conducted by UN officials based in Senegal, Benin, Togo and Mali and included representatives from UNICEF, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),the UN Populations Fund, the World Food Program (WFP) and Burkina's National Institute for Statistics. The assessment team interviewed Tuareg populations claiming refugee status in Ouagadougou and Djibo. 3.(U) UNHCR provided assistance to approximately 600 individuals in May after receiving a formal request for help from the Burkina government. According to the UNHCR report, "this was done with the clear understanding that the provision of assistance to members of this group was given on a purely humanitarian basis pending a thorough evaluation of the situation on the ground in the country of origin and in Burkina Faso." UNHCR subsequently dispatched two assessment teams - one to Burkina and a second to Mali "to collect country of origin information." The report states that limited results from the assessment visits to Burkina and Mali, combined with "the growing media coverage of the legitimate interest of the UN Country Team situation commanded setting up an interagency mission, with the WFP, UNICEF, OCHA joining UNHCR teams from Cotonou and Dakar to evaluation the situation in Ouaga and Djibo." 4.(U) The UN interagency mission concluded that "the discrepancy between the reasons which allegedly prompted the flight of members of this group of asylum seekers and the facts as recorded" cast "serious doubts on the motivations behind such a movement" of supposed Malian Tuareg refugees. In support of this conclusion, the evaluation team highlighted "the presence amongst members of this group of Touaregs who have been living in Ouaga for months, even years and who joined this group, attracted by the prospects of material assistance. Some families who were leading a normal life in rented houses in Ouaga, opted to join the group in the stadium, induced by the security of life in a camp established (by) CONAREF and where their needs would be cared for." 5.(U) The evaluators also documented the presence of Tuaregs from Niger and Bamako. "While the latter," said the report in reference to Tuaregs from Bamako, "is difficult to understand, the former is worrisome as it points to a possible alliance between the MNJ of Niger and the Touareg rebels in Mali." The UNHCR team also drew attention to some individuals with a "non-civilian profile." The report said the presence of these individuals within the group of asylum seekers called for "extreme caution." 6.(U) No more than 10 to 15 individuals claimed to be from the northern Malian region of Kidal, roughly 800 km from the Mali-Burkina frontier. The UNHCR report speculated that these individuals, along with some Malian Tuaregs originating in the Gao region closer to the Burkina border, may have BAMAKO 00000648 002 OF 002 traveled to Burkina to flee sporadic fighting, poor economic prospects, soaring food prices or any combination of the three. 7.(U) The report sharply criticized the Burkina Faso National Refugee Commission (CONAREF),concluding that "the precipitation with which the CONAREF has acted and the prospects of new life have significantly contributed to amplify the original situation." The report also faulted decisions by the international media and Burkina government. "Equally of concern," said the report, "is the Media coverage, a hammering worthy of a humanitarian emergency, encouraged by the authorities which induced more people to cross the border. Hundreds of families are waiting at the border (for) the establishment of a camp. The visit of three ministers to the stadium where 300 people are located has conferred to the operation a much higher profile than required; A special appeal to the international community for assistance was even made publicly by the MFA." 8.(U) The UNHCR assessment team found the "insistence" of Burkinabe authorities to set up a refugee camp in Ouaga "operationally hard to justify," but speculated that this insistence "may be explained by the security concerns" posed by the "uncontrolled presence" of Malian Tuaregs. The team concluded that while follow up with the 10-15 individuals from Kidal is warranted, "a fully fledged assistance program through a camp based structure is operationally inappropriate under the present circumstances and legally difficult to reconcile with refugee criteria." 9.(U) Comment: Few Malians believed that the Tuaregs camped in Burkina hailed from the region of Kidal, particularly after radio interviews with some of the individuals betrayed accents more in line with Tuareg populations located in the region of Gao along the Mali-Burkina border. However, international press reports of an exodus of Tuareg civilians fleeing fighting in the north put a considerable amount of pressure on the Malian government and elevated, however briefly, an internal conflict between the Malian military and Tuareg rebel/bandits to the level of an international humanitarian crisis (Ref. B). 10.(SBU) Comment continued: In some respects, the UNHCR assessment raises more questions than it resolves. The authors' strong words for the Burkinabe Refugee Commission and Burkinabe Government seem curious, as does the speculation that some "non-civilian" members of the MNJ are integrated among the Tuaregs camped in Ouagadougou and Djibo. There is no doubt that some Malian Tuaregs, still cognizant of the humanitarian consequences of the 1991-1996 rebellion for Malians of Tuareg and Arab decent and eager to avoid becoming entrapped by future hostilities, have fled the northern regions of Gao and Timbuktu for Burkina and Mauritania (Ref. C). Apart from the 10-15 individuals identified by UNHCR in Ouagadougou, most Tuaregs displaced by actual fighting in the region of Kidal have either moved to remote desert encampments still within the Kidal region or across Mali's northern border to southern Algeria (Ref. D). It is conceivable that some Bamako-based Tuaregs, fearful of the way winds appeared to be blowing earlier this year - particularly following the April 10 executions of two Tuaregs in Kidal, decided to leave the Malian capital with their families for Burkina or elsewhere. Many Tuaregs left Bamako to avoid reprisals during Mali's 1991-1996 rebellion and some also left, only to return a short time later, after the May 2006 attacks by Tuareg rebels on Malian military bases in Kidal and Menaka. It is also possible that some of "non-civilian" Malian Tuaregs in Djibo and Ouagadougou who hail from the region of Gao were involved, or are relatives of those who were involved, in the May 12 attack on the Malian gendarme base in Ansongo, which is less than 150 km from the Burkina border. LEONARD