34: Alexandra Lamarche on Internally Displaced People in Cameroon

Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today we welcome Alexandra Lamarche, Advocate for Sub-Saharan Africa at Refugees International, discusses the internally displaced people and humanitarian crisis in Cameroon.

Alexandra was interviewed by J. David Thompson in his first episode as One CA podcast host. He is a Civil Affairs Major in the Army Reserve. We're so fortunate he agreed to join the One CA team! Connect with Major Thompson on LinkedIn.

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Transcript:

00:00:00    SPEAKER_00
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Protecting civilians is at the core of what you do, and it's at the core of what I do, and I think that there are opportunities for us to work together in a lot of these theaters. I think that it's important for us to sort of understand how each of our organizations operate and what the limitations are, but also what the opportunities to work together are. So I beg anyone from the military who's in, you know, anywhere that there's a humanitarian context to familiarize yourself with the OSHA, always have SIGs -MILs coordination guidelines, and to figure out where the red lines are, but where the opportunities for us to work together are and to build relationships with the humanitarian community.

00:01:31    SPEAKER_03
Thank you for tuning in to the One TA Podcast. I am your host, David Thompson. With me is Alexandra Lamarche. Alexandra is an advocate for sub -Saharan Africa at Refugees International, where her work focuses on conflict, displacement crises, and peacekeeping. She led a research mission to Cameroon in March and April of 2019 to look at the internal displacement crisis and humanitarian situation there. Follow her on Twitter at Ali Lam. Alexandra, thank you for coming on the show.

00:01:58    SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much for having me. I feel like... humanitarian groups and armed forces should be spending a bit more time trying to understand the ways in which we both work, so I'm thrilled to be here.

00:02:08    SPEAKER_03
Absolutely. To get started, can you tell us a little bit about your professional and educational history that got you to where you are today?

00:02:16    SPEAKER_02
Yeah, of course. Admittedly, it was not where I was anticipating ending up, but I'm pleased to finally be where I am. I actually studied conflict and security with a focus on violent non -state actors at both the undergrad and the graduate level. And I always found sort of conflict dynamics to be very, very fascinating, but I eventually realized, sort of overcome with guilt that I should be and could be involved in addressing sort of the human consequences of conflict. eventually shifted away from conflict analysis and resolution to work to assess and report on the needs of those displaced by the very violence that I was always working on.

00:02:51    SPEAKER_03
Wow, that's really interesting. So what got you interested in refugees and then more specifically to your area, IDPs?

00:03:00    SPEAKER_02
Well, I was overcome with guilt and coming to the realization that I should be doing more to help people. I was living and working in Lebanon, and with the ongoing crisis in Syria, we were witnessing hundreds of thousands of Syrians come into Lebanon seeking safe refuge. And as I began to sort of delve into this issue of displacement, I noticed that in the context of displacement, internal displacement tends to be under the radar. If the displaced are not showing up in neighboring countries or in Western countries, more specifically, they tend to be forgotten in the eyes of the public, in the media and policymakers and international donors. You know, most of the internally displaced are often staying with host families, whether they be their own family or their friends or just complete strangers who are offering them a warm welcome. People pay less attention to them and seem to think that they don't need as much as a refugee does, but in reality, often their conditions are far worse. So as I continue to work on displacement, that tends to be my focus because, you know, my heart bleeds for under -the -radar crises.

00:04:04    SPEAKER_03
Absolutely. I think the recent report from the United Nations Refugee Agency stated that there were nearly twice as many IDPs as there are refugees.

00:04:14    SPEAKER_02
Yeah, there's 41 .3 million IDPs worldwide. So that's a pretty significant portion of people if you consider it. I mean, I'm from Canada, and there's, what, 36 million people in Canada? So more than the entire population of Canada is internally displaced in whatever country they come from.

00:04:29    SPEAKER_03
country they come from. If you add up the populations of IDPs with refugees, including Palestinian refugees, it's like the populations of California and Texas combined. So pretty staggering numbers.

00:04:45    SPEAKER_02
Staggering numbers that, I mean, surprisingly, the world continues to turn a blind eye to, unfortunately. We're talking about it. We're not doing very much.

00:04:54    SPEAKER_03
Well, that gives us into Refugees International, where you work, which is a really unique organization in that they do not take any funding from the U .S. government or the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR. Can you tell us more about the work of Refugees International?

00:05:12    SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Refugees International advocates for life -saving assistance and protection for displaced populations and promotes solutions to these very crises. We're not affiliated with any government. We don't accept any government funding or UN funding, which allows us to ensure the independence and credibility of our work. And that's something that I find extremely valuable in the crisis where I work in Africa, where, you know, there's a lot of government crackdown in NGOs. We get to come in and be an independent voice.

00:05:29    SPEAKER_00
that's something

00:05:38    SPEAKER_02
without fearing getting kicked out of the country or having our operations blocked. And we're also not tied to any of the international donors so we can be critical and target them in our advocacy. So our business model is that we conduct fieldness and two crises, assess the needs of the displaced and how effectively they're being addressed by the humanitarian community, and then provide policy recommendations on how to better protect and better provide for those affected. And then, you know, there's a long advocacy period after a report is published on that mission where we push for, you know, policymakers within governments and UN agencies to hopefully enact those recommendations.

00:06:05    SPEAKER_04
know,

00:06:09    SPEAKER_04
that mission

00:06:12    SPEAKER_04
know,

00:06:17    SPEAKER_02
So we continue to engage on the crises well after we've left them.

00:06:21    SPEAKER_03
Who were your main audiences post -report during that advocacy period?

00:06:26    SPEAKER_03
during that advocacy period?

00:06:29    SPEAKER_02
That definitely changes from country to country or crisis to crisis. Obviously, the U .S. government is always the main target, given the fact that we're based in Washington. But we're seeing an increasing amount of time that our advocates are spending in other capitals, you know, in Geneva, especially because a lot of U .N. agencies are based there, in New York because other U .N. agencies are based there, in Canada, and, of course, in Brussels with the EU being based there. I work in a lot of Francophone African countries. There's a lot more interest from other Francophone countries.

00:06:42    SPEAKER_04
of time

00:07:05    SPEAKER_02
of a mix depending on the context and depending who the key players are.

00:07:10    SPEAKER_03
Wow, so a very diverse group there. But let's talk more specifically about your recent trip to Cameroon. So recently you conducted research for Refugees International in Cameroon. Can you provide us a background of the situation or a history of the conflict that got us to the present day?

00:07:28    SPEAKER_02
Yeah, of course. Cameroonian has long been viewed as a model for stability in the region fraught with conflict. I mean, it's a pretty rough neighborhood, you know, surrounded by Chad, Congo, Central African Republic, and Nigeria. And it's always been sort of economically a little bit more developed and far more stable given the fact that it has, what, 200 different linguistic groups. However, under the surface... Tensions between its Anglophone and its Francophone populations have been simmering for decades. The Anglophone minority, which is mostly concentrated in the northwest -southwest regions of the country, has long been marginalized, discriminated against, and economically disenfranchised since the referendum that ended federalism and joined the two populations under one country in 1972. In recent history, in 2016, that instability... And that tension sort of gave way to violence when protests against the government's imposition of Francophone teachers and lawyers in Anglophone schools and courts were met with military action. What we witnessed was peaceful protests being met with pretty extreme violence from the Cameroonian military, and that sort of just fueling separatist sentiment that was bubbling under the surface, but not nearly as strong as it is now. Armed groups have since sort of... Multiplied and enforced school boycotts were about to approach the third year of children not attending school. And the subsequent violent confrontations between the armed groups and the armed forces have forced more than half a million people to leave their homes and 1 .3 million people in need of assistance.

00:08:58    SPEAKER_00
the armed

00:09:00    SPEAKER_02
than half a million people to leave their homes and 1 .3 million people in need of assistance. So it's pretty big numbers. pretty fast as well. We saw those numbers pretty skyrocket over the last year. Both our groups in Cameroonian forces have targeted civilians and blocked humanitarian groups from reaching those in need, and it's a truly dire situation. But with the right pressure and the right elbow grease, I think we can initiate some change.

00:09:26    SPEAKER_03
Wow, those numbers you're talking, 500 ,000 displaced, 1 .3 million in need of assistance. And that seems to be a common thing where Governments respond to peaceful protesters by using violence, and then it creates more problems for the government and the people.

00:09:47    SPEAKER_02
It does. I mean, you know, I can't go back in time and see what would have happened, but I don't think the crisis would be nearly as bad or the violence even from armed groups would be nearly what it is right now if the armed forces hadn't responded the way they had. But that's just my own. Absolutely.

00:10:09    SPEAKER_03
So from reading your report and hearing you talk, I noticed the tension between the government of Cameroon providing support for refugees fleeing violence from Boko Haram while simultaneously denying access to IDPs. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

00:10:25    SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it sort of goes against Cameroon's sort of longstanding reputation in the region as being fairly welcoming of refugees from neighboring countries. I mean, it has a relatively long history of welcoming people from neighboring conflicts. It still hosts, you know, scores of Central Africans in the east, and it's, you know, has obviously been grappling with the issue of Boko Haram with displaced Nigerians and also Cameroonians up in the area called the Extreme North around the Lake Chad Basin where Boko Haram operates. However, The access that has been afforded to humanitarian groups in those regions is much better.

00:11:05    SPEAKER_02
It has not been hindering humanitarian access in those areas the way that it has almost completely done in the Anglophone areas.

00:11:11    SPEAKER_02
not been hindering humanitarian access in those areas the way that it has almost completely done in the Anglophone areas. A group present in the northwest -southwest, you're speaking out against the governments and have reported that after they've publicly reported on the extent of the means that the government authorities have blocked their access to populations, not only the Anglophone populations, the northwest, southwest, but also in the extreme north. So there's, you know, some pretty significant intimidation from the government on that front. And some international governments have been calling for unrestricted humanitarian access, but frankly, these calls have been pretty weak. And the government's negative role in the conflict goes beyond blocking access. The government is perpetrating violence against the civilian population. It is repeatedly demanded that international NGOs and UN agencies publicly state that they support government forces. And if they did that, then they would provide them unrestricted access. But this would be against humanitarian principles, and that's not a possibility for a lot of humanitarian groups.

00:12:19    SPEAKER_03
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