A solution for the world’s displaced?

Refugee group says to use billions frozen worldwide

UNITED NATIONS — The World Refugee Council has called for up to $20 billion stolen by government leaders and frozen in the United States, Britain and other countries to be reallocated by courts to help millions of displaced people forced to flee conflict, persecution and victimization.

The council also called for people responsible for the growing crisis of refugees and internally displaced people — including government leaders, military officers and opposition and rebel figures — to be held accountable, all the way to the International Criminal Court.

Chaired by former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, the 24-member council that was formed in May 2017 includes former heads of state and ministers, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee, and leading business, civil society and human rights officials.

The 218-page report it launched this month goes beyond what the United Nations has done, at a time when the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes is 68.5 million, the highest since World War II. Its release also comes as populist and nationalist political figures “are exploiting people’s anxieties, fears” about refugees, Axworthy said,

Tanzania’s former President Jakaya Kikwete, a council co-chair, said the current crisis is a consequence of some countries’ internal policies, authoritarianism, sectarianism, violence and conflicts, “but the other aspect is that the attitude towards refugees has changed.”

“In the past people have been welcoming, friendly,” he said. “Now people are closing the doors for people who are fleeing from danger. But they say, ‘no, no you can’t come’ and refugees are being blamed as being the problem.”

Kikwete said “unscrupulous politicians” are using refugees to get votes “because when you tell your people they’re dangerous” they react, and the politicians become popular.

At the same time, the report said, “the humanitarian commitment of nations, once a norm, has given way to nativism. Xenophobia — fear and exclusion of the ‘outsider’ — has gathered force in America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.”

The U.N. refugee agency, which relies on voluntary contributions, is seriously underfunded and its head, Filippo Grandi, called in his latest report on forced displacement for “a new and far more comprehensive approach” to the crisis.

Axworthy said the World Bank has estimated that there are between $15 billion and $20 billion “in purloined assets that various political leaders have stolen from their people.”

How much can be recovered, he said, depends on how many governments and countries are prepared to give courts the right to reallocate the money. He pointed to Switzerland as a positive model.