*17--25.02.2006
Extra
New
Nansen Passports
Dear Burma Digest,
Your articles in previous issues taking a holistic view of refugees and migrants from Burma, has sent me looking for the papers given to the thousands of Displaced persons in Europe after the 1st World War. A Norwegian diplomat had suggested that temporary papers could help sort out some of the confusion and they were named Nansen papers/passports after him.
Basically, Nansen was an outstanding and practical academic who had traversed Greenland, and planned it so meticulously that when he and his partner literally burnt their boat behind them, it was 'go on, there was no turning back.'
His research in Oceanography led to a Professorship.
He was also a diplomat who had helped an amicable division of Norway and Sweden, So when the League of Nations needed someone to deal with the thousands of Prisoners of war in Russia after the First World War, he was roped in. Later, the question of the mass of displaced people and political prisoners in Europe, due to civil unrest, revolution and the redrawing of the map of Europe and beyond, he was again called on to deal with the problem.
He introduced a new form of passport, known as Nansen papers, an international identity card that was recognized by more than fifty countries. Finding permanent homes, providing them work and starting a new life, involved haggling and persuading country after country. Apart from the huge number of refugees, the prevailing economic crises and unemployment needed someone of his stature to achieve a solution. When many of the refugees were facing starvation, he drew on his own private resources.
Such was the respect in which he was held that he attained his goal, often raising funds by appealing over the heads of government.
For his untiring work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. We need someone of his like today, with his compassion, practical application and vision.
World War I aroused in Fridtjof Nansen an abhorrence for the senseless slaughter of warfare. When the League of Nations began to take shape after the war he worked tirelessly for its success, and was for many years Norway's delegate at its assemblies. In the negotiations prior to its establishment, the small, neutral nations had been virtually forgotten. The major nations dictated the terms. The small ones looked on. Nevertheless, Nansen saw in the League a new hope for mankind and he persuaded not only Norway, but also the other Scandinavian countries to apply for membership as soon as this was permitted; and Norway duly joined.
His work in this field completed, Nansen planned to devote the rest of his life to his chosen vocation, science. He had been a reluctant statesman and diplomat. He was entitled to retire from the international field with a clear conscience.
But the new League of Nations thought otherwise. Suffering in prison camps in Europe and Asia were half a million forgotten men, prisoners of war, who had fought for Germany and its allies. Locked in the grip of the Revolution, the Russians were largely indifferent to their fate. Many of the prisoners no longer had a homeland. They knew nothing of their families and little of what had occurred, and they were dying in thousands from cold and hunger.
The League of Nations faced the enormous task of repatriating these men or giving them a new homeland. Obviously the work must be led by a man of special caliber, one who could act quickly and resolutely, and who commanded the trust and respect of the international community. The choice fell on Fridtjof Nansen.
Though Nansen at first said "no" to the request, the repeated persuasions of the League soon had their effect. In April 1920 he left Christiania to start his difficult mission. The Soviet government would not recognize the League of Nations, and there were virtually no funds available for the task of feeding, clothing and transporting the men from the camps.
Though Nansen's great wish was to continue his scientific work, he saw in the task now facing him great possibilities. He could help prove that the League of Nations was a practical tool for improving the lot of mankind, and not just an idealistic vision. Also he could help the men whose sufferings touched him profoundly.
Such was the stature of Fridtjof Nansen that the Soviet authorities agreed to negotiate with him personally. Funds were somehow raised, and the gigantic task put in hand. By September of 1922 Nansen was able to tell the League of Nations that the mission had been accomplished. The Nansen Relief organization had succeeded. Well over 400,000 prisoners of war had been repatriated, not only quickly, but at amazingly low cost.
Nansen also organized and led another major refugee aid project; that of aiding the 2 million hapless Russians who had fled both revolution, and counter-revolution and were being shuttled from country to country like cattle. So many countries close to the USSR were involved that a central leader was needed who would could negotiate with many different governments. The League asked Nansen to act as High Commissioner for Refugees, with the task of coordinating all the relief organizations
The prime task was to provide the refugees with an accepted means of identification. This would not only give them status, but the possibility of procuring a passport. Nansen proposed that certificates be issued which later became Nansen passports.
Many governments agreed to recognize the "Nansen passports" and thousands of stateless people were enabled to travel and to settle in other countries. He himself approached the governments and managed to persuade them to accept quotas of refugees.
"In recognition of his work for refugees and the famine-stricken, the Nobel Committee in Oslo decided to honor Fridtjof Nansen with the 1922 Nobel Prize for Peace."
The greatest single achievement in Nansen's refugee work was probably the resettlement of several hundred thousand Greeks and Turks who fled to Greece in 1922 from eastern Thrace and Asia Minor following the defeat of the Greek Army by the Turks. Poverty-stricken Greece was unable to receive them. Nansen devised an unprecedented scheme. An exchange of populations would be effected between Greece and Turkey. Half a million Turks would be returned from Greece to Asia Minor, receiving full compensation for their financial losses. Further, a League of Nations loan would enable the Greek government to provide new villages and industries for the homecoming Greeks, who would take the place of the Turks. The ambitious plan took eight years to complete, but it worked perfectly.
I have a feeling that after the Declaration of Human Rights Nansen passports were quietly dropped, and the papers I had, have long since gone.
Admittedly since the signing of that benevolent document, every country seems to have whittled it away to a greater or lesser degree, including us in New Zealand, although ours was under pressure from the US, after we didn't join the Coalition of the Willing. Truly we are arrogant in our approach to others whose ideas are different.
Perhaps the subject of refugees/asylum seekers /IDP's and economic migrants should be included in the ASEAN Charter, along with human rights and the socio-economic concerns.
Fiona