Dividing Divided States. Gregory F. Treverton
long-term strategies to quickly integrate them if they so wish. Both Indian and Pakistani leaders simply assumed initially that most of the refugees were there only temporarily. Thus, these governments did not start thinking about integrating refugees until the overcrowding of refugee camps was becoming a problem.
The lessons of Bosnia may be less immediately relevant to a country like Sudan; after all, the returnees to South Sudan were not, in general, returning to places where they were not wanted. In Bosnia, where ethnic conflict was the direct cause of displacement, it was naïve to view returning displaced persons to their homes as undoing the ethnic divides created by war. While multiethnic communities may be desired in principle by national (and international) entities, the rights of displaced persons, including the right not to return to their place of origin, should be paramount.
Make Sure Formal Agreements Are Rooted in Real Agreement
While formal agreements can be valuable for outlining the principles of returning IDPs to their homes, they will prove woefully inadequate if both parties are not committed to the process. The language of such agreements is typically broad enough that either party can stall the process without violating the letter of law. Such was the case between Georgia and Abkhazia; the latter, having achieved an Abhaz ethnic majority in Abkhazia, had little interest in seeing displaced Georgians return.
Prepare for the Returnees
When a nation breaks up, mass population movements of ethnic minorities toward their ethnic home can ensue even in the absence of ethnic persecution and violence. The migrant-receiving country must therefore have adequate institutions and support for potential returnees from the onset. Russia was not well prepared for the migrants when the Soviet Union came apart, and thus many of them wound up feeling disillusioned at best.
Transparency in resettlement benefits is also key, as the Pakistani case showed. Indeed, by favoring Punjabi refugees over Bengali ones, the Pakistani government fueled the tensions between these two groups. In particular, if tensions between different factions are high before partition, it is important to have key institutions like law enforcement functioning well, so as to be able to maintain order if tensions escalate. In India and Pakistan, these institutions were barely functional at partition. If they had been better, many deaths and displacements could have been avoided.
Protect the Returnees
In the event of a partition or secession, even when relations between the two states are acrimonious, it still may be possible to come up with joint solutions to facilitate the evacuation of refugee populations. The establishment of the Military Evacuation Organization by India and Pakistan is a good example. IDPs have frequently been used as political capital to establish or maintain a majority population in an area where political clout falls along ethnic lines—as they were in Bosnia. To combat this, durable solutions for the displaced should be viewed first in humanitarian terms.
Benefit from Third Parties
Third parties, especially UN organizations, can be very helpful both as providers of assistance and as guarantors of agreements. Especially in secessions like Sudan’s, where the countries are both poor and inexperienced in dealing with large population inflows, the international community can help the migration and settlement process. It can therefore be helpful for states to work with UN organizations, especially the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) both to establish needed institutions and to provide direct assistance to the returnees. That lesson emerges strongly in all the cases. In Russia, for instance, the UNHCR and the IOM, along with several NGOs, not only helped the Russian government set up the institutional and legislative framework for dealing with migration, but also provided direct assistance to the migrants themselves, in the forms of both financial support and capacity building, in order to facilitate their integration within Russia.
Those third parties must, however, be truly neutral. The UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), for instance, was composed entirely of Russian troops, and Russia had provided both arms and assistance to Abkhazia. In any case, given the lack of real agreement between Georgia and Abkhazia, UNOMIG has been able to sustain a ceasefire but hardly can guarantee the return of Georgian IDPs or refugees.
Avoid Letting Those Who Do Not Wish to Return Become Bargaining Chips
Georgia-Abkhazia in the mid-1990s was in some respects the mirror image of Sudan in 2010, for ethnic Georgians wished to return to their homes in Abkhazia but could not feel secure enough to do so. In the case of southern Sudanese in the North, that was not the case. The Georgian government was so focused on repatriating the IDPs that it took years to even begin to seriously try to integrate them in Georgia; they became a bargaining chip. Negotiations should aim to make sure that southern Sudanese or other IDPs who wish to return to the state they identify with do not become a bargaining chip.
Protect Those Who Do Not Wish to Return
A key strategy for migrant-receiving countries in avoiding a sudden flood of migrants is negotiating and advocating for the protection of ethnic minorities in the states where they reside, as Russia did with many of the other newly independent states (NIS). In general, protecting displaced persons’ right to return should not be construed by policy makers as a mandate to enforce their return. The freedom of movement—and therefore local integration in a new area—should simultaneously be respected.
Sometimes, even activities to ensure the protection of human rights can be construed as political. The UNHCR provided protection to Bosnian Muslims fleeing their homes in the 1990s and was later accused of being an accomplice to ethnic cleansing. Later, when the UNHCR protected ethnic communities that remained in their place of residence, it was criticized for sparing neighboring countries from receiving floods of refugees. Table 2.1 summarizes the policy suggestions.
Partition of British India
Issue and Outcome
At independence, British India was partitioned into two countries: on August 14 and August 15, 1947, respectively, the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India came into being. The former was composed of the two nonadjacent regions of East Pakistan (which is now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated by one thousand miles of Indian territory. The partition derived from a deep religious divide between Muslims and Hindus dating back to the early 1900s, as well as between Muslims and Sikhs, and from the desire of some Muslims to set up a separate state made up of the provinces with Muslim-majority populations. They felt the predominantly Hindu leadership in India would not adequately represent their interests.1
Table 2.1. Policy Suggestions for Refugee Issues
| Issue | Policy suggestion | Relevant cases |
| When to start public education? | Start early—indeed Sudan had the advantage of already having de facto separation. | India-Pakistan as starkest negative example of failure to prepare. |
| How to understand refugee intentions? | Carefully assess intentions, perhaps in surveys. | Both India and Pakistan thought refugees created by division would be temporary. In Bosnia, too, it was assumed that return would undo ethnic cleansing. |
| What is the role of formal agreements? | They are important but need to be based on real agreement between the parties; almost all formal agreements can be stalled or evaded. | Formal agreement between Georgia and Abkhazia meant little because there was no real agreement that the IDPs should return to Abkhazia. |
| How to prepare for the returnees? | This is very important, in terms of not only housing and jobs, but also legal institutions. Transparency is also key. |
Russia did little to prepare, and thus returnees were disillusioned. Neither India nor Pakistan was prepared; worse, Pakistan favored Punjabi over Bengali refugees.
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