CODIFICACIÓN DE HISTORIAS DE USUARIO

Having introduced the notion of a refugee cycle, attention is now focused upon placing repatriation in that cycle. This emphasis reflects the fact that repatriation has already been

identified as the least-studied stage of the refugee cycle. It is asserted that repatriation may be understood as the outcome of a subjective comparison by refugees of conditions in exile vis-a-vis conditions at home. This is often true for both official and self­ repatriation. This approach highlights the significance of information about home conditions in the decision-making process.

3.4.1. Official vs. self-repatriation

Repatriation is the end of the refugee cycle. It represents one option which may be taken after flight and temporary exile in a country of asylum. Other options are permanent settlement in the country of first asylum, and third country resettlement. Together these three are the tripartite of so-called durable solutions promoted by the UNHCR (Stein,

1986).

The usual vehicles for official repatriation programmes are Tripartite Commissions consisting of the UNHCR and the governments of asylum and origin. The political nature of official repatriation programmes has been emphasised by Harrell-Bond (1989), who argues that repatriation has become the preferred solution of the UNHCR, largely because it is a body with no mandate for action independent of the donor countries, in which repatriation is often perceived as the cheapest option. The repatriation of some 40,000 refugees to Namibia following the Declaration of Independence on 21 March 1990 is the best recent example of a successful large-scale programme organised by the UNHCR (Gasarasi, 19916, Simon & Preston, 1993).

However repatriation is not necessarily a process which occurs in response to official programmes. It may be possible to view it in terms of a rational decision made by individual refugees. Rationality is subjectively defined and will depend upon the information available to the refugee. The limited research on repatriation suggests that refugees do not necessarily wish to participate in official repatriation schemes. They may ignore them and remain in exile, or self-repatriate either before the introduction of official progranunes or parallel to them.

The failure of official schemes has often been a function of the mistiming of their introduction. An example of an unsuccessful official scheme occurred in the context of

Ugandan refugees in Sudan, for whom an official repatriation programme was launched at a time when ’..battles continued within earshot of many [refugee] settlements..’ (Harrell-Bond, 1986, p. 196), and was therefore largely rejected by the refugees. A similar resistance to repatriation amongst Ethiopian refugees was found in Djibouti throughout 1983, even though they faced considerable harassment from the police (Crisp, 1984a). The majority of refugees returned at the end of 1983 and beginning of 1984 only after they received assurances regarding their safety and the recovery of their property upon return.

Nonetheless, although they are by nature difficult to document and enumerate, it is estimated that on a global scale self-repatriation accounts for more returnees than organized programmes (Cuny and Stein, 1989). This estimation is generally agreed in the African context (Allen and Morsink, 1993) and in the case of repatriation from Malawi to Mozambique (UNHCR, 1993). Conunonly this is described as ’spontaneous’ repatriation, but the term is often inapplicable as many refugees plan in advance for these return movements. Consequently the term such self-repatriation are gaining credence. For the most part these refugees are willing to go home without material assistance and before a decisive political event at home (Harrell-Bond, 1989). These movements are based on the decision of individual refugees that they can return home (Cuny and Stein, 1989), but may sometimes be very well organised at a collective level (Hendrie, 1991).

3.4.2. Repatriates as return migrants

If it is not necessarily in response to official programmes, when do refugees repatriate? It is proposed here that repatriation can be compared to return migration. While there may well be differences between the decision-making of potential asylum-seekers and other potential migrants, there are less likely to be such stark contrasts between potential repatriates and other potential return migrants, since for the most part refugees are not living in conditions so miserable that they return home without planning. (It is important to note that this cannot be said of victims of forced repatriation, ’refoulement’, such as those involved in recent repatriation movements in the Horn of Africa.) In most cases then, light may be thrown on the process of repatriation by study of the process of return migration.

According to the systems approach to migration, the potential migrant’s decision whether to move is inextricably linked with his/her knowledge, or perception, of conditions in both the countries of origin and destination. Individual migration results when a tension arises between an individual’s aspirations on the one hand, and expectations about the current situation on the other. This tension prompts a search for better opportunities elsewhere. A similar framework of analysis is applicable to return migrants (Cerase,1974; King, 1978). Migrants may not attain full knowledge of the range of opportunities in another location. They choose according to a limited subset of possible alternatives, which are determined by the information available. Thus they can be seen as ’satisficing’ rather than ’maximising’ agents (Molho, 1986). This distinction highlights the importance of received information in the decision-making process.

The inference is that repatriates, like return migrants, decide whether to go home as a result of a balanced decision depending on their personal aspirations. Central to that decision is knowledge of conditions at home, which are compared with conditions in exile. This is exactly the position of the potential mover depicted in the ’systems model o f a refugee cycle ’ above, who receives inputs from both the country of origin and country of asylum sub-systems, as well from the external environment. The limited research considering the factors involved in the decision by refugees whether to go home suggests that this framework is applicable to repatriation.

Akol (1987) identified three factors which were of importance in the decision whether to self-repatriate by Southern Sudanese refugees. First was the nature of settlement in the country of asylum. Refugees in organised rural camps are more easily mobilised than ’spontaneously settled’ or urban refugees. Second was the level of socio-economic development achieved by refugees vis-a-vis conditions prevailing in their places of origin. Thirdly, a common ethnicity with members of the host population may reduce propensity to return. Rogge and Akol (1989) introduced another important factor. The longer the refugee has been in exile, the greater his/her acculturation in the host society. These are all, therefore, functions of the country of asylum sub-system.

At the same time, how refugees subjectively evaluate conditions in the country of origin sub-system is clearly also crucial. Basok’s (1990) study of the repatriation of Nicaraguan

refugees from Honduras and Costa Rica showed that more refugees returned from the former. It also revealed that a higher proportion of ’costenos ’ (indigenous Nicaraguans) than of ladinos ’ returned. The difference in rate between countries was explained by the fact that in Costa Rica, unlike Honduras, many refugees were provided employment and became better-off in exile than they would have been in their own country. The difference in rate between populations was also explained in terms of their evaluations of conditions at home. The 'costenos’ received economic assistance upon return, whereas the ladin o s’ were often treated with suspicion and not offered aid by the Sandinista government.

The decision to repatriate can therefore be considered to involve a subjective comparison by the refugee of conditions in exile vis-a-vis conditions at home. This comparison is then pitched into the context of personal characteristics such as gender and age; and objective characteristics such as nature of settlement in exile, length of time in exile and so on.

What is suggested is that, like other potential migrants, refugees in exile have information about conditions at home against which to compare their present positions. It follows that the quantity and quality of that information is critical in the decision whether or not to return and, ipso facto, in ending the refugee cycle. In the following section, the notion of a repatriation information system is introduced and modelled; and key elements such as the type of information available to refugees about their home areas, the sources of information and the accuracy of information are discussed.