Growing emphasis being placed on provision of humanitarian assistance.

• Position: Refugees and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees

The international community was placing growing emphasis on the provision of humanitarian assistance, protection and creation of conditions which could contribute to the early solutions of the refugee problems in the countries of origin, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata told the General Assembly's Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) on 20 November.

Although the core of her Office's mandate was still to provide protection to millions of refugees, she said the international community no longer wanted her Office "to wait for people to cross borders before it offered to protect and assist them".

According to Mrs. Ogata, some 9 million refugees and displaced persons had returned to their places of origin during the last five years, but increasing numbers were, and would be, repatriating to situations where peace and stability had yet to be established fully. Nevertheless, return was usually preferable to a prolonged stay in exile under intolerable and dangerous conditions. Operating in the midst of conflict was very difficult, she stated. In the former Yugoslavia, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had been powerless to stop some of the worst human rights atrocities in UN history.

Prevention was difficult because it was a political function, Mrs. Ogata observed. Prevention touched upon issues of sovereignty, whether in the context of early warning, preventive diplomacy, conflict negotiation and resolution. She looked to the Security Council and other political bodies to act on early warning signals and endeavour to prevent or resolve emerging conflicts.

Mrs. Ogata stated that a return to their countries of origin was always the best solution to the problem of refugees, but in the absence of that possibility, the importance of third-country resettlement could not be overlooked. She expressed concern at the growing reluctance of States to grant asylum, even on a temporary basis. Many countries were openly admitting their weariness in accepting large numbers of refugees seeking asylum, and some were closing their borders, while others were even introducing laws which denied admission to their territories. "The causes of conflicts must be addressed and solutions to them resolutely sought if humanitarian activities were not to be left to operate in isolation and continue indefinitely", she warned.

A massive new exodus of over 2 million refugees from Rwanda had cast a deep shadow over 1994 and the...