Last Liberians head to US
2004-02-21 22:18
Abidjan - A convoy of buses bumping its way Saturday from the southwest corner of Ivory Coast to Abidjan carried a final group of Liberians headed for the United States under a controversial UN programme to give the west African refugees a second chance.
The refugees would be offered permanent residency under a programme that has resettled more than 138 000 African refugees in the United States since 1980.
According to a document from the US bureau of population, refugees and migration, 25 000 African refugees will be admitted from Africa in 2004, with 9 000 Liberians being joined by nationals of 23 other countries including Somalia, Sudan and Burundi.
Ivory Coast had integrated Liberians fleeing 14 years of relentless war into local communities. But in late 2002, the one-time economic powerhouse was facing its own crisis, which worsened in September that year with a rebel uprising to oust President Laurent Gbagbo.
Atrocious violence
Valid suspicions that Liberians were involved in some of the most atrocious violence during Ivory Coast's nine-month civil war turned once willing hosts against their refugee guests, and produced lingering tensions that made the resettlement of some of the most vulnerable populations crucial.
Violent attacks against innocent Liberian populations were frequently reported, and farming jobs that had previously been open to them were denied.
The United States stepped in in May 2003 when it was clear that no other country in the region would accept the Liberians, and with the UNHCR set strict criteria for those refugees in the most desperate need of a new home.
The programme was limited to three areas: a 1 000-strong population in Abidjan and 8 000 people from the western towns of Guiglo and Tabou, the Nicla transit camp and the port city of San Pedro.
"They had to have been here for a while, and been here when we were looking for them at three specific times. They were either here, or they weren't," said Anne Dolan, the head of the UNHCR field office in Tabou.
No way
"Some of them came back the third time with wives, new children, other family members. We said 'no way.' If they didn't like it, they didn't go."
The mercilessly selective process left a trail of frustrated refugees stretching from Tabou to Abidjan, where the UNHCR headquarters has had to call in Ivorian police to disperse rock-throwing Liberians with tear gas.
Hoping to avoid full-scale riots by the 68 000 Liberians who remain in Ivory Coast awaiting the sign it is safe to return to their still-volatile homeland, as well as to avoid sowing further discontent among Ivorians themselves at the "luck" of the refugees, the UNHCR has kept the US resettlement programme virtually top secret.
It was only on Saturday, when the last of six convoys from Tabou, the final stop of the "circus" as Dolan called the programme, that journalists were allowed to report on the planned resettlement.