Refugee Scandal Alleged

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31776, 5 September 1968, Page 21

Refugee Scandal Alleged

f.V Z P A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, Sept. 3. Widespread graft in the United Nations’ handling of Arab refugees has cost United States taxpayers millions of dollars. according to a Middle East expert. Half a million “non-exist-1 ent ghosts” are being supported in Middle East refugee camps with United States tax dollars, says an article in the magazine “Look.” by Mr Ira Hirschmann. a New York businessman, author and lecturer who was authorised by • the United States State Department to investigate the; Arab refugee problem and! how it is being handled by the | United Nations’ Relief and! Works Agency for Palestine! refugees in the Near East. “The American taxpayer, in! the name of humanitarianism, i has unwittingly written a i blank cheque that is helping' to develop a permanent Arab! refugee body, intensify Arab-! Israeli animosities, and incite general war in the Middle! East.” Mr Hirschmann says. ! He recalls that over the past 20 years U.N.R.W.A. j funds have been largely sup-! plied by the United States i Congress, which gave the; agency SUS4OOm. or nearly! two-thirds of its budget “Yet U.N.W.R.A. has failed' almost completely in its orig-. Inal assignment of rehabilitat- j ing Arab refugees.” alleges; Mr Hirschmann. “Its j bureaucracy of 12.000 em-j ployees is merely perpetuat-' ing itself in Jordan, Gaza, > Lebanon and Syria. “The suffering of the Arab; refugees ii perpetuated so! that the Arab countries can! continue to raise the refugee' issue.” Mr Hirschmann alleges that j U.N.R.W.A. officials conceal! death in the refugee camps.) and that false registrations.! black markets in ration cards! and unreported deaths alll

contribute to highly-inflated population figures. The refugee “scandal” was brought to light a few months after the six-day Middle East war in June of last year, Mr Hirschmann says. Israeli census-takers were then able to make an accurate count of refugees in camps now inside Israeli-occupied territory. “The census results were

illuminating.” writes Mr Hirschmann. "The Israelis found that the U.N.R.W.A. figures for registered refugees in those camps checked were much larger than the real total. From the over-all census it can be concluded that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 refugees of the total of 1.3 million are nonexistent ghosts, many of whom still receive U.N.R.W.A aid.”

Mr Hirschmann says he I found that many Arab refugee • families in the camps did not report the deaths of family

members so as to ensure the continued use of their ration cards. “This fact is well known to many U.N.R.W.A. officials, who not only do nothing about it but knowingly falsify camp population reports,” writes Mr Hirschmann. “Furthermore, the sale of illegal ration cards to non-refugee Arabs outside the camps became an immense black) market business openly encouraged by Jordan and Syria because both countries saw the black market as a means of fostering Arab unrest.”