Refugee schools threaten M.E. crisis

Press, 3 February 1982, Page 16

Refugee schools threaten M.E. crisis

From the

“Economist,”

London

A new, and unnecessary, crisis is taking shape in the Middle East. It centres on schools attended by more than 300,000 Palestinian refugee children. They may have, to close because the United Nations agency that runs them is hard up. Should this happen, it is a fair prediction that there will be rioting and other violence. The Arabs will accuse the West of again neglecting its responsibilities towards the Palestinians; the West,, will accuse the oil-rich Arabs of spouting about the “Palestinian cause” while refusing to send a few petrodollars to pay for Palestinian children’s education.

To many Governments the crisis will come as a surprise. They have not grasped how near the schools are to closing their doors. The problems of the agency — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (U.N.R.W.A.) — are of long standing, and a report on its finances is due for debate this month. Why not wait? For a lot of reasons.

The agency has enough money to keep the schools open only until the end of April. If more is not forthcoming by mid-February, U.N.R.W.A. will have to prepare letters giving the 10,000 or so teachers at the schools 30 days notice of dismissal. The dispatch of these letters at the end of March would so upset the Palestinians that the schools would probably close immediately. The United Nations has a

special obligation to the refugees, arising from its help in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. It set up U.N.R.W.A. in 1949 and gave it quasi-governmental responsibilities to care for refugees from what was formerly Palestine. This responsibility is to continue until the refugees can return to their homes or are compensated. A year ago the U.N. General Assembly voted to extend U.N.R.W.A.’s mandate until June 30, 1984. The agency has in recent years been using an increasing proportion of its income to educate refugee children: descendants of the refugees displaced in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. This year it needs, in all, $262 million. It expects to receive $lB5 million, which leaves a deficit of $77 million. Much of the money is required to pay for essential health and welfare work among 1.9 million registered refugees. So, despite the high priority that U.N.R.W.A. gives to its education programme, it has been obliged to inform Governments of the countries where the refugees now live — Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel — that it may soon have to close its 635 primary and junior secondary schools.

The U.N. has never properly addressed itself to the trickyproblem of how to pay for the agency. U.N.R.W.A. relies on voluntary contributions, mostly from Governments, many of which do not announce their contributions until well into the financial year. It is a hand-to-mouth existence. Of the $lB5

million the agency expects to ’receive this year,-only $lO7 million was pledged when the General ’Assembly met last November. The rest is based on the assumption that Governments will give at least as much as they did in 1981. If some contributions are less than last year’s, the agency’s deficit will be even bigger. The United States provides by far the biggest contribution; Japan, Sweden and Britain provide just over 4 per cent each. Obvious absentees among the contributors are the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which pay nothing. Despite numerous statements of. support. for the Palestinians from Arab Governments, total Arab cash pledges last November amounted to only a touch over $4 million. Last year, Arab countries made special contributions to U.N.R.W.A. amounting to $l3 million, but even these were a mere 5 per cent or so of. its budget. The agency’s money problem is entangled in politics. Arab countries blame the West, and particularly Britain and the United States, for the creation of Israel, and argue that they should not have to pick up the bill. Whether or not this explanation was valid in 1949, it is difficult to reconcile with the constant professions of Arab brotherhood. The losers are Palestinian Arabs, It. is not unreasonable to expect oil-rich Arab countries to help fellowArabs.

America’s contribution of $62 million, although nearly a third of what the agency receives, is meagre when compared with the $2200 million a vear it

provides for Israel. A sensible solution to U.N.R.W.A.’s financial crisis might be for the Arabs to match America's contribution by providinng say, a third of the budget. The agency’s needs increase every year' because of the growth in the refugee school population (the refugees have one of the highest birth rates in the world) and inflation (which in the occupied territories is tied to the Israeli rate of more than 10 per cent a month). Last year, the threatened closure of schools in Jordan and Syria was averted by the last-minute receipt of special contributions, but not before some 5000 letters of dismissal had been prepared. The agency’s Com-missioner-General, Mr Olof Rydbeck of Sweden, and his staff are now engaged in two eleventh-hour attempts to prevent a closure of the schools. One move is to secure more promises of money (which must be received by mid-Feb-ruary ‘if they are to be effective). The other is to try to persuade the European Economic Community, which is a large donor of food, to convert these contributions into cash. Mr Rydbeck is planning to meet the E.E.C.’s Commissioner for Development, Mr Edgard Pisani, as soon as he can.

Countries with surplus products make altruistic gestures by offloading them onto relief agencies, often without adequately considering whether they are required. U.N.R.W.A. distributes such food to some 830,000 refugees even though it considers that only a small

number are genuinely in need. The value of the E.E.C.’s food contribution for 1981 was $31.3 million. If most of this contribution could be converted into cash, it would go a long way towards solving U.N.R.W.A.’s real problems for 1982. The closure of the schools could lead to the complete

collapse of U.N.R.W.A. operations. So the future of nearly 2 million people stake: people who already endure life without a government and without a passport. Humanitarian considerations apart, the security risk involved in closing the schools should persuade the world to act quickly.