VZCZCXRO1366
RR RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #0011/01 0071410
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 071410Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1426
INFO RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0244

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 000011 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR PRM/ECA 
BAGHDAD FOR REFCOORD 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O.  12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PHUM PREL SMIG AM
SUBJECT: ARMENIA:  STAKEHOLDERS IDENTIFY GAPS IN REFUGEE PROTECTION, 
BUT FUNDS TO FILL THEM REMAIN ELUSIVE 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  A draft UNHCR Armenia conference report on November 
2008 stakeholders' consultations identifies significant legal, 
economic, and social challenges to refugees' integration in the 
impoverished former Soviet republic.  While it makes dozens of 
recommendations for strengthening protection of forced migrants, the 
report is vague as to who will have to bear ultimate responsibility 
for a durable solution.  Sparse donor attendance at the 
consultations carries the risk that inter- and non-governmental 
organizations and the GOAM itself will lack adequate resources to 
achieve their laudable goals.  Refugees who participated in the 
consultations expressed deep frustration with their living 
conditions to date.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) UNHCR Armenia organized national consultations on 
"Strengthening Capacity to protect Refugees in Armenia" November 
6-7, 2008, in Yerevan.  The conference brought together mainly 
government, United Nations, and domestic NGO participants to analyze 
achievements and remaining gaps in the Armenian refugee protection 
system.  The only donor representatives present were PRM's 
Moscow-based Refcoord, Embassy Yerevan USAID staff, and the Head of 
Operations and European Neighborhood Policy Section of the 
Delegation of the European Commission to Armenia.  UNHCR Armenia 
Representative Bushra Halepota reported out the conference findings 
in a draft memorandum circulated December 22. 
 
Gaps in Full Integration of Refugees in Armenia 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶3. (U) While Armenia is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 
its 1967 protocol, and Yerevan officially welcomes individuals 
fleeing persecution, stakeholders participating in the November 
consultations agreed that the country's asylum regime does not meet 
international standards.  Conference participants identified the 
follow protection gaps, inter alia: 
 
-- Asylum seekers are not clearly exempt from prosecution for 
illegal entry into Armenian territory and are thus at risk for 
refoulement.  (Note:  In response to Refcoord's query, UNHCR said it 
had no statistics on actual refoulement; however, a governmental 
working group on border management has been meeting periodically 
since August to develop a referral mechanism for border guards who 
identify would-be asylum seekers.  End Note.) 
 
-- Border guards have inadequate knowledge of asylum law, refugee 
status determination procedures, and the role of the State Migration 
Agency (SMA). 
 
-- Separate application processes exist for temporary asylum (TA) 
and refugee statuses, and applicants are not well informed as to the 
advantages and disadvantages of one over the other. TA is relatively 
easy and quick to obtain but does not afford crucial housing 
benefits as refugee status does. 
 
-- Negative asylum decisions are vague and issued only in the 
Armenian language, thus hampering effective appeals; furthermore, 
asylum seekers are not issued with legal i.d. for the duration of 
their cases, putting them at risk of detention and again of 
refoulement. 
 
-- No group recognition mechanism exists for prima facie refugees in 
mass influxes, e.g. as might have been anticipated from Georgia if 
there had not been an early ceasefire.  (Note:  As of the date of 
the consultations, SMA had received 108 asylum applications from 
persons from Georgia and nine asylum applications from persons from 
South Ossetia.  End note.) 
 
-- SMA eligibility and registration staff lack standard operating 
procedures and guidelines. 
 
-- Refugee service providers lack adequate awareness of 
post-traumatic stress syndromes and sexual and gender-based violence 
(SGBV) issues. 
 
-- Access to free health care, supposedly a right of refugees, does 
not exist de facto.  (Note:  As elsewhere in the region, due to 
inadequate resourcing by the state doctors and hospitals expect 
payments under the table for their services and/or require patients 
to purchase necessary medical supplies on the economy.  End note.) 
 
-- Housing schemes to house refugees have fallen far short of 
meeting the need for climate-appropriate shelter.  Existing 
collective centers are in such poor repair as in some cases to merit 
condemnation. 
 
¶4. (U) These gaps have resulted in troubling statistics for 
Armenia's approximately 5,000 refugees: 
 
-- Unemployment for refugees is 2.5 times higher than for the rest 
 
MOSCOW 00000011  002 OF 003 
 
 
of the population. 
 
-- Per capita income of refugees is three times lower than that of 
the rest of the population. 
 
-- Many refugees only get one meal a day. 
 
-- School drop-out rates for children of refugee families are two to 
three times higher than the national average. 
 
-- With current government budgets, it will take 20 years to house 
all the refugee families in need of shelter assistance. 
 
Key Recommendations... 
---------------------- 
 
¶5. (U) While some GOAM officials present at the consultations spoke 
to defend their agencies' existing programs, they were outnumbered 
by academics (from, e.g., the American University of Armenia, the 
Open University of Armenia, Yerevan State University, and Progress 
University of Gyumri), domestic NGO representatives (from, e.g., 
Mission Armenia, the Armenian Center for Health and Education, and 
YMCA Shelter), and individual refugees who pled for extensive 
reform.  These civil society representatives ultimately agreed that 
the way forward should involve: 
 
-- Harmonization of legislation pertaining to rights of refugees, 
with emphasis on decriminalization of asylum seekers' unlawful 
entry. 
 
-- Training of border and SMA officials and introduction of clear 
regulations on how effectively and efficiently to identify and 
document persons in need of international protection. 
 
-- Training of courts on proper application of refugee law. 
 
-- Elaborating a standard format for justifications of negative 
decisions on asylum claims. 
 
-- Provision to asylum seekers of identity documents valid 
throughout the application and appeal processes and accompanied by a 
leaflet indicating asylum seekers' rights and obligations. 
 
-- Provision to refugees of social and legal counseling to explain 
their shelter and property rights and facilitate the exercise of 
these rights. 
 
-- Dissemination of information to the population of concern on 
smuggling, trafficking, SGBV, and other forms of abuse. 
 
-- Development of preschool training programs, including language 
training, for refugee and asylum seeker children and adolescents; 
and of self-reliance and vocational training programs for teens and 
adults. 
 
...And Harsh Reality 
-------------------- 
 
¶6. (U) Entreaties by the invited refugees brought a sense of urgency 
to the proceedings.  A woman originally from Azerbaijan said that 
throughout her 20 years in Armenia she had lived in a remote village 
where winter temperatures dropped to minus 35.  The closest village 
with a school, grocery store, and pharmacy was 14 kilometers away, 
making children's education an ongoing challenge (note:  as the 
state does not provide school buses; end note).  Mission Armenia had 
been funded to help the community from 2002 to 2006; the year after 
it stopped working there, some 19 people, including the woman's 
sister and brother-in-law, both 44, had died for lack of medical 
care.  The woman regretted that various needs assessments have been 
performed in the village for the past couple of years, but they have 
not led to any new assistance.  Being a refugee is undignified, she 
mourned, "like a spot that you can't wash away." 
 
¶7. (U) Lisa Toros, an ethnic-Armenian from Iraq, was present to 
represent Armenia's newest refugee population, now numbering close 
to a thousand.  After two years in Yerevan, Toros, a 41-year-old who 
had been managing director of a computer and office equipment 
service company in Baghdad, was unemployed and, she confided to 
Refcoord, frustrated.  Armenian authorities are all talk and no 
action when it comes to accommodating forced migrants, she 
complained.  Armenia is too poor to take refugees and should not 
offer to do so, she said.  She could not obtain her mother's heart 
medicine in Armenia and, ironically, had to continue to import it 
from Iraq.  Without local connections, she could not find a job. 
Acquaintances who had fled to Western Europe received public 
assistance, but in Armenia her family did not.  Armenian culture 
also grated on Toros - she rued the lack of friendly greetings in 
the market and the small apartments that felt confining after Iraq's 
 
MOSCOW 00000011  003 OF 003 
 
 
big houses with gardens. 
 
¶8. (U) Toros is lucky, after a fashion:  she and her family (mother, 
sister, twin brother, and brother's wife and three daughters) were 
able to bring some money and belongings with them from Baghdad. 
Newer Iraqi refugees are arriving without any means to survive 
because they did not have a chance to sell their properties before 
leaving Iraq.  And what very few middle class jobs exist in Armenia 
generally require fluency not only in Eastern Armenian language 
(whereas the Iraqis speak Western Armenian) but in Russian (which 
the Iraqis do not speak at all).  One Iraqi at the consultations 
said his mother had come to visit from Iraq and, when she saw how 
his family was living in Armenia, advised them to return with her. 
 
Directions for Donors 
--------------------- 
 
¶9. (U) UNHCR's Halepota appeared to take an ambivalent view toward 
her agency's - and, by extension, government donors' -- 
responsibility to meet the demands on it inherent in the 
stakeholders' recommendations and refugees' frustrations.  On the 
one hand, she stressed in November and reiterated in the draft 
conference report that "refugees naturalize without being fully 
integrated socially and economically in the Armenian society. 
Therefore, UNHCR seeks...to continue to assist the most vulnerable 
refugees including the naturalized former refugees until a durable 
solution is achieved through their full local integration."  On the 
other hand, she openly acknowledged the dubiousness of UNHCR 
continuing to fund shelter for refugees from Azerbaijan 20 years 
after they were uprooted.  And in implicit acknowledgment of the 
dearth of donors present, she announced plans to raise consciousness 
in wealthy Armenian communities abroad of refugees' struggles in the 
motherland. 
 
¶10. (U) The consultations' conclusions were rather vague regarding 
to whom would fall responsibility for acting on stakeholders' 
recommendations.  The draft report mentions donors only three times 
in 29 pages, advising as follows: 
 
-- donors (and others) should initiate projects targeting vocational 
training needs for refugees while widening the choice of 
professions. 
 
-- donors and other relevant partners should develop a strategy for 
elaborating an effective SGBV reporting and response mechanism. 
 
-- donors and other relevant partners should assist the GOAM in 
providing health care to the population of concern "through a 
rights-based advocacy approach and jointly elaborated effective 
referral mechanisms." 
 
In addition, the report quotes Deputy Head of the SMA David Hakobyan 
calling on the "international community" to help resolve housing 
needs. 
 
¶11. (U) In championing Armenia's claim to the international 
community's consideration, Halepota repeatedly returned to the 
country's uniquely constructive attitude toward refugee reception. 
"It is no exaggeration that the hospitality shown refugees here 
exceeds that in many places with fewer refugees and greater wealth," 
she declared.  The challenge is to leverage the positive 
governmental and societal attitudes into resources for 
capacity-building and programming that facilitate full legal, 
social, and economic integration.  Refugees, Halepota urged 
listeners, should not have to leave Armenia because the means do not 
exist for them to live in dignity there. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12. (U) Host nation poverty combined with the donor world's focus on 
areas with ongoing violent conflict mean that financial solutions to 
refugees' duress will likely only emerge from the private sector. 
The GOAM will need to incentivize domestic corporate donorship, and 
IGO's and NGO's will need to approach wealthy diaspora communities 
in order to re-resource modest existing assistance programs. 
Fortunately the flow of Iraqi refugees to Armenia seems to have 
slowed, if only because word has gotten back about poor economic 
prospects and high barriers to social integration in their ancestral 
home. 
 
RUBIN