$ AFRICA AND THE REFUGEE PROBLEM; REFUGEES IN GHANA. i f Ihf^ A. Essuman-Johnson ty ^t f * Ghana and the Refugee Situation

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1 AFRICA AND THE REFUGEE PROBLEM; REFUGEES IN GHANA ^^P^ i f Ihf^ A. Essuman-Johnson ty ^t f * by Ghana and the Refugee Situation The African refugee crises that have captured newspaper headlines and engaged world public opinion have been centered in the Horn of Africa, Sudan, and Eastern and Southern Africa. Little attention has been paid to refugees elsewhere on the continent. West Africa has had to adjust to population movements caused by war and oppression or drought. This paper focusses on the Ghanaian response to the presence of refugees. Since it became independent Ghana has provided a haven for political refugees from countries still under colonial rule and also for refugees and displaced persons from the Sahel countries to the north. At the same time poor economic conditions and political instability in Ghana has led to Ghanaians seeking refuge elsewhere in West Africa and in Europe. Here, however, I deal only with those who have entered Ghana, examining the response of the Ghanaian government and the development of its policy relating to refugees, the attitudes of Ghanaians to different categories of refugees, and the survival strategy of the refugees. It should be noted that the term refugee as used here does not conform with the UN definition nor with the position taken by the Ghanaian government for it includes those displaced by drought as well as those who have fled political prosecution. In this I follow the usage of most Ghanaians $

2 The domestic law and administrative regulations of Ghana do not cover asylum and refugees. However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in cooperation with representatives of UNHCR have developed administrative practices to deal with problems arising from the presence of refugees. Ghana acceded to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees on March 18, 1963 and to the 1967 Protocol on January 30, Ghana is also party to the 1969 OAU Convention governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa on January 30, These, however, are not considered part of Ghana's domestic law since no legislation has been passed to allow their enforcement by the courts. There is therefore no domestic legal definition of the status of refugee/ asylum seeker. The Ministry of Internal Affairs uses the extended definition contained in the OAU Convention as a basis of its categorisation on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately it is a question to be settled by the government and has been settled to provide refuge for those who may not normally fall within the definitions of the two conventions. In principle, a person who has been given refugee status in another country in cooperation with the UNHCR would be accorded the same status in Ghana. Ghana would also consider it her sovereign, peaceful and humanitarian right to grant asylum to someone who first fled to another country but was refused asylum. The government does not consider the refugees from the Sahel as refugees. Political refugees in Ghana From the time of Ghana's independence in 1957 until the overthrow of the Nkrumah government in February 1966, Nkrumah's Pan-Africanist policies which aimed at helping the liberation struggle throughout Africa attracted

3 African freedom fighters to Accra for political asylum and assistance. Ghana then served as a political haven for all manner of political refugees but they came principally from African countries still under colonial rule and especially from southern Africa. In the early stages of the southern African refugee flow, it was Ghana which made the first concerted effort to help them by issuing refugees with "Commonwealth passports" which were regarded as a special version of the Ghana passport (Legum 1967:58-59). -^ The Bureau opf African Affairs in the office of the President had special responsibility for refugees. It arranged accommodation, educational facilities and employment for them. After 1961 refugees began to arrive from newly independent African countries. In 1965 the presence in Ghana of so many political refugees from member states of the Organization of African Unity (OAU ) led to a rumpus which nearly caused the cancellation of the OAU Summit Conference in Accra. Most of the refugees had to leave Accra and some had to leave the country before the conference took place. After the overthrow of the Nkrumah government, successive Ghanaian governments showed less interest in political refugees even though government attitudes have generally been supportive of those who sought asylum in Ghana. The number of such refugees is much reduced although in recent years the country has been swamped by those fleeing from droughtstricken regions in the Sahel. As of June 1985, there were only 103 officially recognized refugees in Ghana, 80 from Africa including 9 from South Africa, 4 from Europe, 12 from Palestine, and 7 from elsewhere. The largest number from any country was 23 from Cameroon followed by 13 from Ethiopia. The above numbers do not include students from southern Africa. There

4 are presently 52 Namibian students in second cycle school-s and 20 South African students mainly at the tertiary level in universities and polytechniques. They are catered for by various sponsoring agencies which pay their school fees and a stipend to cover living costs. Sponsoring agencies include UNHCR for Namibian students and the African American Institute (AAI), Commonwealth Secretariat, the UN Education Programme for the Training of South Africans, the World Council of Churches, and Auto Benec of West Germany - all of whom support South African students. Student refugees from elsewhere in Africa but mainly from West Africa do not fare as well. They have no sponsors and must look after themselves. The Displaced Sahelian People Since 1984, Ghana has hosted an increasing but fluctuating number of victims of the drought in the Sahel. They have been treated very differently from the political refugees. Neither the government nor the UNHCR considers them to be refugees. The UNHCR would assist them if requested to do so by the Ghanaian government, but the government considers them to be indigent aliens and informal immigrants worthy of the attention of the Department of Social Welfare. For this reason, the government expected charitable organizations and individuals to provide whatever assistance was needed. As a result the Sahelians have had to survive on their own with such assistance as local government and humanitarian agencies or charitable Ghana ians can give. They come from Mali, Chad, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Their presence became more conspicuous in 1985 just about the time Ghanaian migrant workers in Nigeria were given the quit order. Fulanis from Burkina Faso have been able to bring their cattle with

5 them and graze these In the savannah areas of the Northern and Upper regions of Ghana. They are scattered throughout the savannah belt, support themselves, and are accepted. The majority of the refugees from the Sahel, however, are Tuareg and Tamashek from Mali. The seven years of drought had made them lose all or most of their cattle. Some brought a few of their surviving camels to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, sold them, and used the money to pay for transport to Ghana. They are scattered throughout the urban areas of the country where they find shelter with compatriots in the Zongos or live as squatters in uncompleted buildings. In Accra they are to be found in the slums of Nima, Sukura, New Fadama and Madina. They demonstrate how resilient a people determined to survive can be. They found shelter with compatriots and also got assistance from city authorities in Accra. The Department of Social Welfare allowed about a third of those staying at Madina to inhabit an abandoned department building. The Madina Zongo Chief sheltered another lot in an uncompleted building. Another group inhabited an old court building. Charitable Ghanaians provided them with sleeping mats, blankets, cooking pots and other household accessories. The Madina chief who had given them alms for some 18 months said, "They normally line up in front of my house and signal they are hungry and I give them the little I can." The Madina Catholic Church has also been very helpful. According to Father Francis Mulders, "In the first few months of their arrival, we prepared balanced meals for seventy refugee children each day. Most of them were malnourished and had Kwashlorkor; there was one mental case arising out of malnutrition and we sent him to the Pantang (Psychiatric) Hospital." The meals included rice, meat, fish powder and milk powder. The church also engaged the services of a retired nurse who took care of

6 the immediate needs of the refugees. The more serious cases were referred to the nearby University Hospital at Legon where they were treated for tuberculosis, liver infections, diarrhoea, kwashiorkor, etc. They paid no fees when admitted and medical attention was free. Other refugees stayed at the Holy Gardens at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Central Accra where the Accra City Council Task Force provided them with accommodations in tents and food. Soliciting for alms was done primarily by women and children and Ghanaians responded readily at first. Then as numbers increased and begging became more aggressive, they began to demand that the government take some action. Government Policy When the Sahelians started arriving, the Ghanaian government seems to have turned a blind eye to their plight and left them to their fate despite the fact that it had had previous experience of dealing with a massive influx. Just prior to their arrival, the government had mounted a national programme to deal with the arrival of the large number of Ghanaians 1-9 expelled from Nigeria in -]-9f r ^5r^ It asked for and received asssistance from the International Community. The National Mobilisation Programme (NMP) was set up to receive, screen, and arrange transportation. Those arriving from the Sahel were left without any similar arrangement. This lack of action stems from the fact that Ghana had not hosted such large numbers of refugees before. Simply put, the influx caught the government and its agencies unawares and nobody seemed to know what to do. A Refugee Advisory Board that used to advise government on such issues had ceased to operate and policy guidelines did not exist. Eventually public complaints in the press and by individuals forced it

7 to take some action. A registration exercise was begun by the Department of Social Welfare at the instance of the National Consultative Committee on Disaster Relief, which had been formed at the request of the PNDC Chairman J. J. Rawlings in December 1984 (The Mirror, January 26, 1985). This effort did not go beyond the registration stage, due, according to officials, to lack of cooperation from the refugees. Officials of the Department of Social Welfare reported (personal communication) that this was due to fear of being rounded up and sent to relief camps which the government planned to establish. These were to be sited in Sege in the Greater Accra Region where a pilot agricultural programme existed or at Hiawa in the Western Region. The camps were never set up. Officially this was said to be due to a lack of cooperation by the refugees, but investigations showed that the basic infrastructure was never put in place. Interviews carried out among the refugees indicate that they were not interested in being settled in a camp where they would be asked to engage in agriculture. They were nomads and would prefer to be given goats or sheep to graze in the savannah areas in Northern Ghana. In comparison to the policy towards refugees from Southern Africa, the policy toward those who came from the Sahel lacked generosity. The Sahelians were forced to live on the charity of Ghanaians and to survive had to beg aggressively. This in turn affected the way the Ghanaians came to view them and all refugees. To most Ghanaians the only refugees in the country were those from the Sahel because the numbers from South Africa were few and for the most part they were supported by government or the international agencies and did not become visible to the general public.

8 Ghanaian Attitudes Towards Refugees When the refugees from the Sahel began to arrive they were warmly received and Ghanaians were at their charitable best. After some time the warm hospitality began to cool. A columnist in The Mirror on October 18 and November 8th, 1986 (p.10) articulated the changing attitude. Some Ghanaians described the Sahelians as "lazy crooks whose main aim is to beg for alms from the public as the only legitimate means of earning a living instead of finding lucrative jobs to do. Others argue that in the past (between ) before the Aliens Compliance Order of 1970 most of these refugees were already in Ghana and were not 'beggars' as they are now. They were hardworking, energetic and prosperous working as 'water boys' and porters in the markets. For these reasons some Ghanaians think that the refugees are lazy. They have thus been refusing to be charitable as they used to be towards these refugees. Others argue that when Ghanaians were forced by difficult economic conditions at home to leave for neighbouring countries, they went to work, not to ask for alms, therefore these Chadians (the popular Ghanaian term for the refugees) should be forced to work on the farms and rehabilitated by the government and their failure to comply should be met with immediate deportation back to Chad. Other Ghanaians think that the refugees live beyond their means. They point out that in the early months of their arrival some of the begging refugees took home about 1,000 cedis a day and although this later stabilized at about 300 cedis per day, the average Ghanaian workerr takes home only 90 cedis a day. They also compared the hundreds of cedis the average Ghanaian spends on a single visit to the hospital and the denial of medical services to Ghanaians who cannot pay with the services given the

9 refugees. Some Ghanaians, however, continue to provide support. They argue that because of the OAU which seeks to unite all Africans and because of humanitarian reasons, the refugees should be permitted to survive in the country. Attitudes therefore are ambivalent. The situation is such that there is a need for the government to take a second look at the whole issue of refugees and establish new guidelines to deal with all displaced people. References Legum, Margaret 1967 Problems of Asylum for Southern African Refugees. In Refugee Problems in Africa. Sven Hamrell, ed. Uppsala:The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. Ofosu-Amaah, G. K. The Legal Position of Aliens in National and International Law in Ghana. Beitragen Zum Auslandischen Offentlichen Recht und Volkerrecht 94. Berlin:Springer-Verlag. UNHCR 1987 Information Paper, April Geneva:UNHCR. The Mirror 1986 Columns published November 8 and October 18.