American dream keeps refugees from going home

While fighting stopped in Liberia well over two years ago, thousands of refugees sheltering in camps in the lush forest region of neighbouring Guinea have no intention of going home, not now, not ever. Their sights are fixed on the board by the camp entrance that proves there remains a chance of seeking refuge in the United States. “I have left that place behind me, I am never going back,” said 21-year-old Betty Farngalo outside her mud-brick house in Laine refugee camp, home for the present at least to over 18,000 Liberian refugees. The camp, 75 km east of the southern Guinean town of Nzerekore, lies close to two borders, a bare day’s walk through forest to Cote d’Ivoire and a little further to Liberia. Betty was only seven when she ran from Liberia carrying her three-year-old sister on her back and has never known any other life than life in a camp. Now she has a three-year-old of her own, a boy named Adolpho, and she is certainly not taking him back to a village where she saw neighbours killed by rebel fighters who set their homes ablaze. The problem for Betty is that donors, led by the US, plan to stop funding a multi-million dollar refugee relief programme, which means that on 31 December 2006, food distributions will stop. But even that will not drive Betty home. “I will hustle,” she says, “like I did in Cote d’Ivoire. The same God will look after me in the future like he did then.” Most residents of Laine refugee camp fled northern Liberia just across the border in 1990 when the warlord who would later become president, Charles Taylor, began a violent quest for power. But for many, Guinea was not the first port of call. Most fled east to Cote d’Ivoire and then were forced, when civil war erupted there, to head off once again, this time to Guinea. Like Betty, the average resident of Laine, which was set up in 2002, has three times fled fighting and three times at least rebuilt a life from scratch. Nonetheless, the UN refugee agency UNHCR has signalled that the time has come for one last move, the final trek home. It has launched an ambitious programme to this year repatriate 35,000 Liberian refugees living in five camps across southern Guinea before the year, and before the funds, run out.

A Liberian woman queues with her refugee card to collect her food allowance

So at Laine, people are being asked to pack up their few belongings and close the door on what UN workers describe as a five-star camp: a rambling but well laid-out collection of mud-brick homes at the end of a dirt road that offers refugees far more than the Guinean villagers nearby - access to schools, hospitals and clean running water. Across the border in Liberia, reconstruction after 14 years of fighting is still in its early stages. UNHCR officials say the year started well, with over 2,000 refugees hopping on trucks bound for Liberia in two weeks in January alone. But the momentum is fizzling out, particularly at the largest camp of Laine, and officials are blaming Washington. “The announcement of the arrival of a resettlement mission from the US had a negative impact on the decision of the refugees to return to Liberia - in a camp like Laine, the refugees are very, very interested in this resettlement,” said Salif Kagni, head of UNHCR in Nzerekore. In the Guinean capital Conakry, Louise Bedichek spokesperson for the US embassy confirmed that the US had conducted a small resettlement mission from Guinea recently, but said no more were planned. "The United States is committed to supporting UNHCR's efforts to voluntarily repatriate Liberian refugees in a safe and dignified manner. The United States respects the principle of refugee family unity. However, given improved country conditions in Liberia, large-scale US resettlement programmes for Liberians in the region have concluded," said Bedichek. Pining for safety in the USA At the entrance to Laine camp, administrator Ouo-Ouo Zingui Delamou scrawls updated camp statistics on a large blackboard in his office. Big white letters show that a few days earlier, on 21 February, 59 Liberians boarded trucks for Liberia, but that the same week 10 others left the continent altogether, either to Australia or more likely, to the US. According to Delamou's blackboard, over 1,700 Liberians have headed to the US or Australia from Laine camp since 2004. Those who resettle in the America have the right to call for relations through the US' family reunification programme. In shaded doorways at the camp, where families sit sheltering from the brutal midday sun, as they have done for years in the camps - girls plaiting each other’s hair or women laboriously preparing meals - everyone is aware of the special buses for America.

Sidiki Turay, with his mother in the background, is aware of the buses leaving to the US

“They are going. They told us it had stopped but they are going still,” said 39-year-old Sidiki Turay, a former primary school teacher who would be happy to go to the US too. Those who like Turay are most adamant that they cannot go back, say it is because Liberia simply is “not safe”. “Liberia is not safe for me, Guinea is not safe for me either - we are close to the border and could easily be attacked here. My only hope is that me and my family can be put somewhere else, somewhere safe,” he said. UN agencies on the whole dismiss such fears, pointing to the successful completion of a UN-organised disarmament programme that demobilised over 100,000 former combatants, and the security provided by 15,000 UN peacekeepers operating across the country. But further along the badly cratered road, at Kissidougou, 250 km northeast of Nzerekore, UN officials said they knew from bitter experience how the promise of a life in the US can drive refugees’ decisions. “We closed a camp for Sierra Leonean refugees, it has been one year now, but over 1300 of them are still there,” said UNHCR’s Philippe Creppy. The refugees, he said, had chosen to live on undeterred in the remains of Boreah camp without the usual support of aid organisations. “They are still dreaming of resettlement,” he said. Across the Guinean border in Cote d’Ivoire, some 6,000 Liberian refugees are refusing to budge from a camp known as Peace Town, located in the highly volatile government-controlled western region. Despite ongoing conflict in that country, the refugees are adamant that they have a right to be part of a programme to move thousands of Liberians to the US, that in fact was officially closed years ago. Meanwhile in Guinea, food distributions have been reduced this year with refugees receiving 1,600 calories a day of rations per head, compared to the full complement of 2,100, to get people used to the idea that food distributions will stop, according to the UN’s World Food Programme’s representative in Nzerekore, David Baduel. “Even if people stay [in camps] after the end of the year, the food distributions stay cut. The funding is finished, donors have been very clear,” said Baduel. Diplomats from some donor countries believe the end of humanitarian assistance programmes for Liberian refugees is long overdue while foreign businessmen point out that the camps provide jobs for hundreds of Liberian and Guinean staff. Insecurity, a real fear But the fact remains that those Liberians most insistent they cannot go home are mainly ethnic Mandingos from Nimba County, the county from which Taylor launched his anti-government rebellion in 1990. At the time, the Gio and Mano ethnic groups in Nimba had a slew of grievances against the government of the day, which was perceived to favour the Mandingos. When Taylor preached rebellion, Gios and Manos often were the first to sign up, while their Mandingo neighbours were quick to flee the country. “The same people who threatened us and wanted to kill us and our family members are still there,” said Nyan Minon, a 35-year-old Mandingo who fled Nimba county in 1990 and hasn’t been back since. Minon, who wears a t-shirt sporting the words “it takes courage to be a refugee”, spends much time sitting with friends listening to Liberian radio stations and following news reports. “Just look at who is in power. We can’t be sure that anything has changed - Prince Johnson, General Peanut Butter, Taylor’s wife - they are all there!” Minon said angrily. UN-organised elections in Liberia late last year saw the victory of Africa’s first woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a victory widely applauded as a decisive step towards peace and stability for a country ruined by the years of brutal fighting that left over 100,000 dead and millions displaced. But sitting in the houses of parliament are a host of less savoury characters. Elected to the senate for Nimba County is Prince Johnson, who ripped off the ears of President Samuel Doe before executing him as aides filmed the gruesome spectacle from beginning to end for distribution around Monrovia. Another newly elected Senator for Nimba is General Peanut Butter, formerly one of Johnson’s right-hand men who by 2003 rose to become military commander for then president Taylor. In Bong county, which neighbours Nimba, Taylor’s ex-wife has also secured a senate seat.

Nyan Minon, right, sits with friends - they follow Liberian news closely

And in the towns and villages of Nimba, houses that once belonged to Mandingos after 15 years have sometimes fallen into the hands of the same Gio and Mano neighbours who chased them away. “Our property has been destroyed or taken. Our family members were killed," said Minon. "They tell me to go home, but where do I go and to whom am I going to?” For testimonies of refugees living in Laine camp and Guinean residents of Laine, go to: "Hear our voices"