Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-t9bwh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-15T14:36:05.290Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Structuring the Demise of a Refugee Identity: The UNHCR’s Voluntary Repatriation Programme for Mozambican Refugees in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION: RECONSIDERING THE POLITICS OF ‘REPATRIATION’

In April 1994 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) formally implemented a programme to facilitate the ‘voluntary’ repatriation of an estimated 250,000 Mozambican ‘refugees’ from South Africa. By March 1995, when this phase of the programme was terminated, a total of only 31,985 persons had returned to Mozambique (UNHCR, Johannesburg, Personal Communication, August 1995). Through tracing the planning, implementation and initial impact of this ‘Voluntary Repatriation Programme’ (hereafter VRP), I examine some of the implications of this limited response for the majority of Mozambicans who remained in South Africa with fewer resources and no longer formally recognised as ‘refugees’. My assessment of the VRP, therefore, examines its relevance for social identities within the emerging state discourses of post-apartheid South Africa and postwar Mozambique.

By focusing on the relationship between local-level social processes and their broader implications, this chapter challenges established ways of understanding the UNHCR and its practice of promoting ‘repatriation’ as the most desirable ‘durable solution’ to any refugee crisis (Cunliffe 1995: 286; Harrell-Bond 1989: 41). As the ‘principal international actor for the assistance and protection of refugees’ (Cunliffe 1995: 278), the activities of the UNHCR are determined largely by international conventions that define its mandate, such as the 1951 ‘Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees’, or regional initiatives that have shaped it, such as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) ‘Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa’ (UNHCR 1994: 4-5). Recent evaluations of UNHCR operations have led to accusations that the primary role of the organisation is to enforce the will of the powerful states that constitute the principal source of funding for the organisation (Cunliffe 1995: 288-9; Hancock 1989; Harrell-Bond 1986: 188; 1989: 46).

Consequently, this ambiguous position of the UNHCR in the global context of assistance to ‘refugees’ has led to analyses of ‘repatriation’ from two broad perspectives (Allen and Morsink 1994: 2). Less critical approaches tend to provide descriptions of specific programmes as socially reconstitutive, measuring their ‘success’ in terms of the numbers of refugees who ‘benefited’ from the operations (e.g. Compher and Morgan 1991; Wood 1989).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×