Posted on 01/21/2002 10:02:38 PM PST by stilts
TWELVE THOUSAND Somali Bantu refugees could be resettled in the United States after sailing through the first screening phase in Nairobi and also in the Daadab and Kakuma refugees camps in the northern part of the country.
The US embassy in Nairobi is now scrutinising the names of the refugees who will undergo another assessment to verify the legality of their presence in Kenya, possible criminal history and health status, an embassy official told The EastAfrican last Thursday.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Nairobi office, the Bantu Somalis will be resettled in the US on the basis of being "negatively discriminated" against in Somalia, their native country.
The Somali Bantus' plight came to the limelight after the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, after which the country plunged into factional fighting, now in its 10th year. They fled their homes in the Juba River valley during the civil war because they did not support any of the warlords in the conflict. Their farms were seized by bandits, forcing them to flee to Kenya.
According to Mr Andrew Hopkins, the UNHCR resettlement officer, the denial of the means of economic and social advancement in comparison with other Somali ethnic groups had made "a very good case" for the Bantus' resettlement abroad.
"They are simple and uneducated people, who view their repatriation to Somalia as a return to continued persecution," he said, adding that the minority group had suffered more than two centuries of persecution in the hands of the Marihan ethnic majority to which the late president Barre belonged.
In 1996, the Bantus petitioned the UNHCR to grant them special privileges, through a Nairobi law firm, Ibrahim and Issac, arguing that the clan fighting in Somalia had threatened them with extinction. "Even before the civil war, their rights had been trampled upon," Mr Ibrahim Mohammed, the Kenyan lawyer who represented them, said on Friday.
The US embassy in Nairobi confirmed that Washington was processing the resettlement of refugees under a special immigration programme for groups of people "who have founded fear of being persecuted in their country of origin."
Some 70,000 refugees are expected to be admitted to the United States this year, a third of them from Africa, under the programme through which 3,800 Sudanese refugees living in Kenya, mainly teenage male orphans, were approved for admission to the United States in 2000 and 2001.
Refugees have the second priority under US immigration law and are covered by a 1951 UN Convention that permits people living under extreme conditions to be resettled or granted refugee status without going through rigorous screening.
Small groups of refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, Sudan and Angola have, in the past, been resettled abroad under the programme, Mr Peter Claussen, the press attache at the US embassy said. Mr Hopkins added that other Somalis with genuine persecution fears were being considered alongside the rest."
UNHCR assistant representative in Nairobi, Mr Sergio Calle-Norena, said 10,000 of the Somali Bantus signed up to be settled in either southern Tanzania or Mozambique, where they trace their ancestry, when the repatriation got underway in 1997.
Following decades of war and the floods that devastated parts of Mozambique, Joachim Chissano's government decided it could not handle the refugee influx. Also, Tanzania declined to accept the Somali Bantu on the grounds that it was already struggling to cope with large numbers of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi.
In 1999, Washington declared the Somali Bantu a persecuted group potentially eligible for admission to the United States and stepped in to "save the refugees from persecution in Somalia," which has had no government for more than a decade.
The UNHCR carried out a screening exercise last month in which more than 12,000 Somalis qualified for resettlement in the US. The exercise, which cost UNHCR $150,000, began late last November and will be reviewed continuously by the US to eliminate cheating.
"At the end of the second phase of screening, we expect the number of refugees who will qualify for resettlement to the US to drop to between 8,000 and 10,000, said Mr Claussen. US officials said in Washington that up to 8,500 refugees would be resettled.
An official said no date had been set for personal interviews of the refugees, an integral part of the screening process for admission to the United States. Mr Claussen however said the screening is likely to start any time from this month.
"Once everything is in place, we will decide whether to take the screening team to the camps or transport the refugees to Nairobi," he said, estimating that the resettlement exercise would take about 18 months.
In the US, the refugees will be resettled in groups of 15, according to their own preferences across the the country, with family relations being a key consideration of integration into the American society. They are entitled to all the rights enjoyed by other Americans.
Plans to settle the Somalis in the United States are being implemented at a time when an American attack on suspected terrorist camps inside the country is anticipated.
The admission of refugees to the United States has slowed following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. Some Americans have become less welcoming toward immigrants, with Muslims being viewed with an especially high degree of suspicion.
The Somali Bantu are Muslims and speak the Af Maay variant of the Somali language. The ethnic group is more traditionally known as Mushunguli (descendants of slaves) or Gosha, according to the Cultural Orientation Project, a Washington-based NGO that assists in refugee resettlement in the United States.
Gosha (forest) refers to the historically wooded section of the Juba River valley in southern Somalia where the refugees had lived. The group does have Bantu ancestry that gives its members physical features different from those of indigenous Somalis who are Cushites.
Many of the Mushunguli originally lived in South Eastern Africa – today's Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique – from where they were abducted by Arab slavers in the 19th century. Those who came to the Juba River valley are the ancestors of the Somali Bantu currently living as refugees in Kenya.
Some of the Somali Bantu still speak Swahili, an indication of their Tanzanian origins.
Because that would not work towards the continuing assault on the American Culture. Can't have that. Words cannot describe my disappointment with Bush. The guy is truly a One World Socialist sell out.
Hmmm Spanish speaking Muslims...How American!
Yep!! And what good would it do to seal the borders when the government is flying them in on air conditioned 767's and serving them Happy Meals. Insanity is an understatement!!
That's Ok. Good ol' George is going to fix all of em' up nice with our taxpayer dollars.
You asked for it.
What do you get when you cross a Somali and a Mexican?
Ans: A Somali Tamale.
We need more diversity in the welfare rolls.
Our government is the most corrupt in the world. They preach tolerance, and acceptance. They teach our children to accept diversity and moral relativism. They make it easy to come to America to take the citizen taxpayers money that the avareage citizen can't get in loans or grants. The immigrant can come to this country with nothing, and be given all he or she needs in the way of material goods, education and health care, while the American Citizen born and raised here can't get anything.
Like Rome, our government is rife with corruption and greed. Our government has created a situation where to react to any of this is too much hassle for the average American. To speak out, is to be against diversity, to be racist, to be selfish, and that is something nobody wants to be. Why? Because on TV, everyone gets along, and the world is happy so long as there is beer in the fridge, and gap stores that are open.
As Americans we have tolerated too much. We have tolerated leaders who can be bought by foreign nations and corporations. We have tolerated murderers who claim to be men of the people. We have accepted the lie that less freedom is more safety. We have tolerated illegals within our borders who do nothing but ship their wealth to their respective homelands. We have been force fed political correctness by our media, and special interest groups. We have been stripped of our sovereignty and dignity by the hands of the United Nations. We have as a nation accepted and tolerated too much from our government, and would be dictators in the United Nations.
When our nation dies completely we have nobody to blame but ourselves for letting this brainwashing happen. We are represented by people who are exactly what we deserve for tolerating too much. I love my country, and wish it were different. There is only one thing that will change this country for the better, and unfortunately it would mean that a great many of us will become outlaws. It's a sad fact, but our country isn't ours anymore. Our government does not serve us, we serve it. Our government only serves the interests of those who are willing to pay the highest price.
When we wake up from our idiotic slumber, we will have nothing left of the nation that was once America. We will have an economic zone, where each of us gets what we need according to our needs, and means. Welcome to the newest third world nation on the planet earth, America. We hardly knew you...
You know it! Gotta clinch up that valuable Sudanese and Somali vote for the pubbies! Just like all those Mexicans he's rolling the red carpet out to are going to turn down democrat-promised entitlements and vote republican.
I'm starting to think Bush wants to be the last republican president ever.
According to the local leftists, Zimbabwe and South Africa are now egalitarian paradises. Perhaps they would rather relocate there.
If we are going to take the world's rejected people, regardless of racial factors, regardless of language or cultural factors, regardless of any ties of heritage, consanguinity or history; in sort regardless of any common sense, we are going to accelerate the present downward spiral in our cultural institutions, level of political discourse, etc.. I do not want to insult these poor people, but is there anything in the above article from which one could possibly conclude that these people are above average in traits desired in America, even in comparison to other Somalis? (Do those who support this sort of thing ever even bother to analyze what sorts of traits would be in demand in Somalia, and why? That is very, very relevant, because selective breeding patterns, caused by the perceived desirability of those traits, would definitely effect the present aptitudes of the people. For an obvious example, the present demonstrated ability of those from the horn of Afica as distance runners is no chance occurence.)
When the Constitution speaks in the Preamble about our Posterity, they are not speaking about the World's dispossessed. Let those who want to address the needs of the World's dispossessed use their own resources to do so. They did not win America. It is not theirs to give away. (See, generally, Immigration & The American Future.)
William Flax
The American Left is trying to accomplish in three generations what it took Roman corruption about fifteen to accomplish. This madness must be stopped. As Secretary Of State Thomas Jefferson explained in his classic 1793 memorandum to President Washington, which is so close to the heart of our traditional foreign policy, no Government has the right to pursue a policy that will destroy the Nation. This policy, continued, undermines the very legal basis of the Government that pursues it.
I am not trying to suggest anything. These concepts are spelled out in Jefferson's Memorandum, and in the tracts on the Law of Nations that he cites. It is very, very late. Some of those pursuing these mad policies do not have a clue, either as to what they are doing or as to what the eventual responses may be. It could get ugly, beyond any of our imaginations.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
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