| The
Nairobi Connection |
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| How
U.N. agents bilk refugees they are supposed to
help |
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By
David Gough
NEWSWEEK
INTERNATIONAL |
Feb.
26 issue — He
fled the civil war in Somalia in 1991. Ever since he has
lived in a dusty camp in northern Kenya, enduring the
indignity and poverty of life as a refugee—and dreaming
of escape to America or Europe.
NEVER
HAD HIS HOPES soared so high as that
afternoon, last summer, when he stood in a Nairobi hotel
room fingering the $3,400 packed neatly into the brown
envelope tucked inside his pocket. It had taken him months
to beg, borrow and save the money that he was about to pay
to two United Nations officials sitting across from him.
It was a bribe, pure and simple. But Ahmed saw it as his
ticket to a better future.
Ahmed had seen
dozens of refugees like himself realize their dreams, in
just this way. The deal was deceptively straightforward:
pay off corrupt officials of the U.N.
High Commission for Refugees—the agency
charged with resettling thousands who have sought
sanctuary in Kenya from the wars and political upheavals
of their own countries—then within a few months be
whisked away to a new life in the United States, Canada or
some other land far from the misery of the here and now.
Ahmed knew that what he was doing was illegal. He also
knew that it was the only way to achieve what years of
going through official channels had failed to. What he did
not know was that the UNHCR had recently begun
investigating myriad cases such as his—examining, among
other alleged abuses, the extraordinary possibility that
as many as half of the thousands of refugees resettled by
the agency over the past five years had paid bribes
totaling hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
dollars.
NEWSWEEK
has learned that East Africans who were not even
refugees have been “resettled” by the agency, often
after being given phony identities and case histories.
Corruption is reportedly so pervasive that refugees are
unable to even enter the agency’s Nairobi office without
forking over baksheesh. “You have to pay 50 shillings
just to get inside the waiting room,” says Ahmed. “I
went to that office every day for three years and never
even got an interview.”
Daniel
Tshitungi, head of the UNHCR in Kenya, acknowledges the
“very serious problem.” He confirms that four of his
staff are suspected of soliciting money from the displaced
persons they are paid to assist. The UNHCR’s mission is
to protect refugees, notes one agency staffer. “The sale
of resettlement places is totally contrary to our
mandate.” But the system almost begs abuse. Roughly
200,000 refugees have flocked from Somalia, Ethiopia and
Sudan to Kenya in recent years, and the United Nations has
few options to cope with the crush. Most cannot go home;
their houses are gone, or they would be unsafe. Kenya,
moreover, has no program for integrating refugees into
local society. That leaves resettlement abroad as the last
and best hope for most displaced persons—a frail reed
considering that last year only 9,300 had such luck. Only
10 countries accept significant numbers of
refugees—among them Canada, New Zealand, Australia and a
handful of European nations, with the United States taking
the most.
Given the
stakes, it’s small wonder that a cottage industry has
sprung up selling these coveted spots. According to
refugees, the scam goes like this: “resettlement and
protection officers” at the UNHCR work through a network
of shadowy middlemen, or brokers. These brokers are
notified by UNHCR staff when there is a resettlement quota
to fill, then they go out into the camps and find refugees
willing to pay. In particular, they target Ethiopians and
Somalis like Ahmed, who have friends and family in the
West who might have the money.
The UNHCR began
receiving complaints about such practices in 1998, and in
1999 the agency began investigating the allegations. UNHCR
staff suspected of cooperating with the probe received
threats; several
were evacuated from Nairobi.
Three agency staffers
have been relieved of their
responsibilites in processing refugee applications for
resettlement, according to Tshitungi, but none has been
fired. He adds that no further action will be taken until
the agency completes its investigation.
The disclosures
have prompted the UNHCR to review its resettlment
programs. But it is unclear what, if anything, will
change. In November the agency took out an ad in the
Kenyan press urging refugees not to pay for the UNHCR’s
services—so far, the only public admission of the
problem. For Ahmed and countless other refugees,
meanwhile, the future holds little hope. His money is
gone. Soon he will go back to his wife and young son in
the Kakuma camp, far in the country’s inhospitable
north. He spoke to NEWSWEEK, he says, to help other
refugees avoid the trap that snared him. “I have been
dreaming for many years of telling my wife that we were
leaving for America,” he says. “Now I will return with
my head hanging low.”
© 2001 Newsweek,
Inc.
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