Reply #57: You mean the commission--the representatives of the

[Igel]

Hindus and Muslims--actually called for forced "repatriation" to their new homelands without compensation for lost property? That's why there were riots and massacres and 12 million or so people picked up and moved--they had agreed to the communal violence and turmoil? Doesn't that mean that the many millions of Muslims in India (and the much smaller number of Hindus in Pakistan) violated the agreement?

Ah.

No. The populations, it was assumed, would stay put. Minority rights would be protected. That was the agreement. Nobody consented to communal violence and being forced to flee. The rest is a violation, one would assume, of human rights, and those forced to leave either country would then be eligible for returning.

They're not discussing the partition of Palestine, a political issue of regimes and maps. They're talking displaced people.

I think the proper generalization is that refugees are accommodated in their new digs when it's politically expedient: When new countries are involved, where there's some reciprocal movement, when it's necessary for a larger peace, when it's to the host country's advantage. Hence Italy/Slovenia, Germany/Czechoslovakia, Poland/Russia and Poland/Germany, India/Pakistan, Jews/Arab countries. It's not acceptable when it's too much of a burden on the host country or there's a political advantage to be gained by rejecting the refugees--Pakistan/Afghanistan, Rwanda/Congo, Bangladesh/India, Chad/Sudan, Jews/Europe.

When human rights activists get involved, there's even less of a chance of settlement because one side sees no reason to capitulate--think of the Ivory Coast and nearby countries, with lots of displaced people that must be granted rights in their new digs, not forced to return. Activism and local politics are often intertwined: Forced repatriation to Iraq would be a human rights crime; forced repatriation to Afghanistan, by and large, isn't. People care passionately about displaced Darfuris--how dare people be treated that way?. People didn't and don't care about those displaced from southern Sudan--people?

Time and extent also matters. For the first decade or two repatriation is more likely. By the time the number of people born outside of the "home country" exceeds the number of people to be repatriated, most don't care unless there's some principle involved. They've set up new lives, usually in their own communities. Their kids assimilate or adapt. When refugees are kept in concentration camps and kept out of the loop, this changes a lot. When hurting another group = boosting your group (i.e., when group honor or religion is in play) this also changes. So some Germans don't like having been chucked out of the new Czechoslovakia; some just want compensation, but a few others are incensed that the inferior Slavs humiliated proud Teutons. It's the latter that are the problem; such rantings are considered shameful. It's the same kind of problem in Palestine; such rantings are considered patriotic, if not holy.