Stop the Involuntary Repatriation of Refugees from the Sudan!
- by: Melaku A.
- recipient: Antonio Guerres, High Commissioner, UNHCR
The Republic of Sudan is rounding up Ethiopian refugees for a second round of its infamous involuntary/forced repatriation in a space of 10 years - back to the TPLF/EPRDF regime in Ethiopia - the notorious ethno-dictatorial regime known for devouring without a trace hundreds, if not thousands, of democracy and social justice activists during its 15-year iron rule. We plead upon the UNHCR, Amnesty International and human rights groups in the Sudan and elsewhere to put pressure on the Sudanese government to obey the international law as outlined in the Refugee Convention and to stop persecuting these refugees. Please support us all by signing this petition for as one of history's greatest human rights leader (MLK) succinctly put it: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", we have a duty to do so as concerned members of the international community.
We are Ethiopians in the Diaspora as well as friends of Ethiopia who are gravely concerned about the plight of Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan asking you to intervene and stop their involuntary repatriation back to Ethiopia where they could face an imminent danger to their lives. It has been reported that Sudanese security forces have been busy rounding up Ethiopian refugees for deportation following a controversial immigration bill passed by legislators and a number of them had already been sent back while many others are in detention centers waiting to be deported and about two hundred have been protesting by taking sanctuary near the UN/UNHCR office in Khartoum. It was also reported that approximately two weeks ago, at least two of the protesters survived a machete attack by Sudanese citizens (probably soldiers in plainclothes), a criminal act executed with intent to harm based on hate propaganda disseminated by some legislators prior to the incident, as also reported by the refugees’ advocates. In the 1990s, the Sudanese government defied the International Refugee Convention and forcibly repatriated Ethiopians in tens of thousands of whom many re-migrated and some got “disappeared” by the regime in Ethiopia. Thanks to the controversial policy of the then UNHCR’s High Commissioner - Sadako Ogata’s “decade of refugee repatriation” (1990s-2000) and the invoking of the “Cessation Clause” that forced 12 million around the world to return involuntarily, Sudan got away with its own crime of re-foulment. The families of the disappeared will not forget! It appears that Sudan is once again repeating this dirty history of mistreating refugees. Hundreds of democracy and social justice activists, who fled Ethiopia both prior to and after the May 2005 election, are now facing involuntary repatriation to Ethiopia. If past experience means anything, involuntary repatriation of these activists may mean that:1) Many of them could be persecuted and some may even be “disappeared”.2) Many could find themselves in alien territory in Ethiopia where they would not be welcomed for the socio-cultural and political landscape had changed dramatically along ethnic federal policy of the ethno-dictatorial regime in power so that ethnic groups protect their own and spit/reject others; and3) Many could re-migrate facing another danger for their lives.Hence, we request that the UNHCR, the Amnesty International and other IGOs and human rights groups put adequate pressure on the Sudanese government so that it scraps its controversial law and continue to provide protection to these refugees. We also ask the UNHCR to re-assert its Conventional mandate and authority by providing these refugees with their international rights of protection: safety and security of the person - as provided through the 1951 Convention, the 1967 Geneva Protocol and the 1969 African Declaration of similar rights!
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