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Article Excerpt
Abstract
With the goal of better understanding some of the psychological factors related to refugees' desire to return home, surveys were administered to 235 South Sudanese refugees living in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Respondents were asked about how much they wanted to return to Sudan, their emotional reactions about returning, their views on the prospects for peace, their expectations regarding how they would be received upon return, and their concerns about specific challenges they might face. In addition, they completed an inventory measuring their personal beliefs about issues in five domains: vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness in regard to prospective returnees to Sudan. A large majority was very eager to repatriate. Individual differences in attitudes toward returning were significantly linked to the strength of their beliefs in the five domains. Stronger beliefs about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, and helplessness were associated with more negative perceptions of return, while a stronger belief about returnee superiority was correlated with a more favourable perspective on repatriation.
Resume
Dans le but de mieux comprendre quelques-uns des facteurs psychologiques lies au desir des refugies de retourner chez eux, des enquetes ont ete conduites aupres de 235 refugies originaires du sud Soudan et vivant dans le camp de refugies de Kakuma, au Kenya. On posa aux repondants des questions sur l'intensite de leur desir de retourner au Soudan, leurs reactions emotionnelles par rapport a toute la question du retour, leur point de vue sur les perspectives pour la paix, leurs attentes quant a la facon dont ils seraient recus au retour, et leurs preoccupations quant aux defis specifiques qui pourraient les con fronter. En plus, ils completerent aussi un inventaire de personnalite permettant d'evaluer leurs croyances personnelles sur des questions relatives a cinq domaines : la vulnerabilite, l'injustice, la mefiance, la superiorite, et le sentiment d'impuissance par rapport aux eventuels candidats au retour au Soudan. La grande majorite etait tres desireuse de rentrer au pays. Les differences individuelles dans les attitudes par rapport au retour etaient etroitement liees a l'intensite de leur croyance dans les cinq domames. Une croyance plus forte dans la vulnerabilite, l'injustice, la mefiance, et le sentiment d'impuissance etait associee a des perceptions plutot negatives sur le retour, alors qu'une croyance plus forte quant a la superiorite du refugie revenant chez lui etait correlee avec une perspective plus favorable sur le retour.
Introduction
The plight of refugees and other people displaced from their homes by uncontrolled violence or deliberate ethnic expulsion has been well documented and has received increasing attention from scholars, practitioners, and the international community over the past decade. (1) Millions of these refugees find shelter in large camps run by UNHCR and collaborating NGOs, where they may "temporarily" reside for years and sometimes for decades. From this distance, across their country's borders, refugees often dream of someday returning, in part because, despite the events that may have precipitated their flight, feeling "at home" is viewed as a comfort that only their homeland can provide. (2)
But numerous researchers have documented how repatriation often proves to be significantly less rewarding and far more disillusioning than the resilient refugees who return home had anticipated (3)--due to a variety of factors including resentment from stayees, being perceived as outsiders, disinterest in their stories, stressful economic circumstances, and unexpected changes during their time away. (4) In short, as Harrell-Bond and Gatson have observed: "Because the return is so strongly associated in the minds of exiles with the end of a traumatic period, the unexpected differences and difficulties can make going 'home' even more painful than the original exile." (5)
A particular setting where many of these issues and dynamics are currently salient is the Kakuma camp in Kenya, temporary haven to thousands of refugees from southern Sudan. During 2004-2005, UNHCR developed a repatriation plan to assist those refugees who want to return home. With this opportunity on the horizon, in the fall of 2005 we surveyed a sample of these refugees in Kakuma to assess their desire to return to Sudan, their emotional reactions at the prospect, their view of the ongoing peace process, the reactions they anticipated from stayees in Sudan, and the logistical challenges they expected to encounter. In addition, we were especially interested in how certain beliefs might bear upon their preferences and their perceptions of the road that lay ahead. Before describing these beliefs, some background on the Kakuma Refugee Camp is warranted.
Kakuma Refugee Camp and Its South Sudanese Refugees
Kakuma refugee camp was originally established for the 12,000 Sudanese minors who arrived in 1992, and since that time they have been joined by refugees from other nationalities and by thousands more Sudanese. Some have been resettled to third countries, such as the United States, Australia, and Canada, but many have been living in Kakuma for more than ten years. Those who came as children have been educated and have grown to adulthood in Kakuma; many children have been born here and have never seen Sudan.
The opportunities for refugees in Kakuma to improve their lives are limited. Kenyan government policy dictates that refugees are not allowed to live freely, but must stay in one of two camps (Kakuma or Dadaab). In Kakuma, refugees are not allowed to keep animals, since this is likely to increase conflict between the refugees and the local Turkana people. The semi-arid environment is not conducive to growing crops. It is possible for refugees to start small businesses, if the capital is available (either through a loan from an NGO or with money sent by family abroad). However, the market is finite because Kakuma is in a very isolated area and the majority of customers are other refugees, a small number of NGO staff, and local Kenyans. All NGOs in the camp "employ" refugees, but due to Kenyan laws prohibiting employment of refugees, they are engaged on a voluntary basis and then paid an "incentive," which is far lower than a wage would be for a Kenyan in an equivalent job.
Life in Kakuma, therefore, is hard, and the Sudanese community in the camp has placed a great deal of hope in the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which was signed on 9 January 2005. Many expect that this will enable them to leave Kakuma to return to a new and peaceful Sudan, where they will have opportunities to live more comfortable and fulfilling lives. Agencies such as UNHCR are also anticipating that most Sudanese refugees in Kakuma (as well as other parts of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo) will indeed return home. This process is not, however, expected to occur rapidly, because South Sudan currently lacks many basic facilities such as schools, hospitals, and roads, and much of the land is contaminated with mines.
UNHCR has developed a repatriation plan to assist those refugees who want to return. In addition to assisting returnees logistically (e.g., providing transport), the plan includes providing information, non-food items (e.g., cooking pots, blankets), and protection to those returning; registering, monitoring, and tracking returnees; and ensuring there is the capacity to respond to emergencies. The assisted voluntary repatriation process was anticipated to begin once the rainy season ended in Sudan (i.e., from October 2005 onwards), and to continue until May 2006, when the rains begin again and transportation becomes impossible due to the lack of paved roads. In July 2004 UNHCR anticipated that 30,000 Sudanese refugees would return from Kakuma in the eighteen months after the signing of the CPA. (6) However, it appears that this was overly optimistic. UNHCR revised its estimate with the expectation of 10,000 refugees being repatriated by the time the rains were to begin in May 2006.
The downward revision in large measure reflects recent political changes in Sudan resulting from the untimely death of Dr. John Garang de Mabior, the charismatic and influential leader of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Garang was killed in a helicopter crash on 30 July 2005, three weeks after being sworn in as the first vice-president of the new Sudan. As the leader of the SPLA, Garang led the rebellion against the Khartoum government for twenty-two years. He was an exceptional politician, and one of the few senior southerners who genuinely believed in the concept of a united Sudan. For many South Sudanese, hopes and aspirations for a peaceful and...
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