Posted on 01/21/2002 10:02:38 PM PST by stilts
TWELVE THOUSAND Somali Bantu refugees could be resettled in the United States after sailing through the first screening phase in Nairobi and also in the Daadab and Kakuma refugees camps in the northern part of the country.
The US embassy in Nairobi is now scrutinising the names of the refugees who will undergo another assessment to verify the legality of their presence in Kenya, possible criminal history and health status, an embassy official told The EastAfrican last Thursday.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Nairobi office, the Bantu Somalis will be resettled in the US on the basis of being "negatively discriminated" against in Somalia, their native country.
The Somali Bantus' plight came to the limelight after the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, after which the country plunged into factional fighting, now in its 10th year. They fled their homes in the Juba River valley during the civil war because they did not support any of the warlords in the conflict. Their farms were seized by bandits, forcing them to flee to Kenya.
According to Mr Andrew Hopkins, the UNHCR resettlement officer, the denial of the means of economic and social advancement in comparison with other Somali ethnic groups had made "a very good case" for the Bantus' resettlement abroad.
"They are simple and uneducated people, who view their repatriation to Somalia as a return to continued persecution," he said, adding that the minority group had suffered more than two centuries of persecution in the hands of the Marihan ethnic majority to which the late president Barre belonged.
In 1996, the Bantus petitioned the UNHCR to grant them special privileges, through a Nairobi law firm, Ibrahim and Issac, arguing that the clan fighting in Somalia had threatened them with extinction. "Even before the civil war, their rights had been trampled upon," Mr Ibrahim Mohammed, the Kenyan lawyer who represented them, said on Friday.
The US embassy in Nairobi confirmed that Washington was processing the resettlement of refugees under a special immigration programme for groups of people "who have founded fear of being persecuted in their country of origin."
Some 70,000 refugees are expected to be admitted to the United States this year, a third of them from Africa, under the programme through which 3,800 Sudanese refugees living in Kenya, mainly teenage male orphans, were approved for admission to the United States in 2000 and 2001.
Refugees have the second priority under US immigration law and are covered by a 1951 UN Convention that permits people living under extreme conditions to be resettled or granted refugee status without going through rigorous screening.
Small groups of refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, Sudan and Angola have, in the past, been resettled abroad under the programme, Mr Peter Claussen, the press attache at the US embassy said. Mr Hopkins added that other Somalis with genuine persecution fears were being considered alongside the rest."
UNHCR assistant representative in Nairobi, Mr Sergio Calle-Norena, said 10,000 of the Somali Bantus signed up to be settled in either southern Tanzania or Mozambique, where they trace their ancestry, when the repatriation got underway in 1997.
Following decades of war and the floods that devastated parts of Mozambique, Joachim Chissano's government decided it could not handle the refugee influx. Also, Tanzania declined to accept the Somali Bantu on the grounds that it was already struggling to cope with large numbers of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi.
In 1999, Washington declared the Somali Bantu a persecuted group potentially eligible for admission to the United States and stepped in to "save the refugees from persecution in Somalia," which has had no government for more than a decade.
The UNHCR carried out a screening exercise last month in which more than 12,000 Somalis qualified for resettlement in the US. The exercise, which cost UNHCR $150,000, began late last November and will be reviewed continuously by the US to eliminate cheating.
"At the end of the second phase of screening, we expect the number of refugees who will qualify for resettlement to the US to drop to between 8,000 and 10,000, said Mr Claussen. US officials said in Washington that up to 8,500 refugees would be resettled.
An official said no date had been set for personal interviews of the refugees, an integral part of the screening process for admission to the United States. Mr Claussen however said the screening is likely to start any time from this month.
"Once everything is in place, we will decide whether to take the screening team to the camps or transport the refugees to Nairobi," he said, estimating that the resettlement exercise would take about 18 months.
In the US, the refugees will be resettled in groups of 15, according to their own preferences across the the country, with family relations being a key consideration of integration into the American society. They are entitled to all the rights enjoyed by other Americans.
Plans to settle the Somalis in the United States are being implemented at a time when an American attack on suspected terrorist camps inside the country is anticipated.
The admission of refugees to the United States has slowed following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. Some Americans have become less welcoming toward immigrants, with Muslims being viewed with an especially high degree of suspicion.
The Somali Bantu are Muslims and speak the Af Maay variant of the Somali language. The ethnic group is more traditionally known as Mushunguli (descendants of slaves) or Gosha, according to the Cultural Orientation Project, a Washington-based NGO that assists in refugee resettlement in the United States.
Gosha (forest) refers to the historically wooded section of the Juba River valley in southern Somalia where the refugees had lived. The group does have Bantu ancestry that gives its members physical features different from those of indigenous Somalis who are Cushites.
Many of the Mushunguli originally lived in South Eastern Africa – today's Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique – from where they were abducted by Arab slavers in the 19th century. Those who came to the Juba River valley are the ancestors of the Somali Bantu currently living as refugees in Kenya.
Some of the Somali Bantu still speak Swahili, an indication of their Tanzanian origins.
I guess it's easier to just give up, and run.
So proud. I suppose next they'll be offered jobs in the Clinton Library...sorting Archie and Jughead files.
If the UN can continue to shuffle people around and remove them from their cultures and heritage they just might succeed in their mission of being the governing body.
It appears there is a methodical progression in removing the foundations that has made America, all in the name of diversity.
There is no war on terrorism. There is a deliberate war on the citizens of the USA.
It is being propagated by the one-world government currently under construction in Washington, D.C.
Good point. These farmers and their families are being murdered, but I guess their skin is not dark enough for Bush and the lefties. This country is going to hell and it doesn't matter whether we have a Republican in office or a Dem, they're all the same.
Yes, the Bushites are very involved with this effort.
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