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Home Is Where the Hurt Is Being forced

游客2023-09-16  23
问题                                      Home Is Where the Hurt Is
    Being forced into flight totally disrupts the lives of the internally displaced, exactly as it does to refugees. But unlike many refugees, the world’s millions of internally displaced persons often have nowhere to turn. They remain trapped in the same unsafe environment from which they tried to flee. In situations of internal strife(冲突), by definition, the civilian government functions partially or not at all; and the civilian population is ignored or treated with hostility by both sides.
    A definition submitted to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights defines the internally displaced as "persons or groups of persons who have been forced to flee their homes or places of habitual residence suddenly or unexpectedly as a result of armed conflict, internal strife, systematic violations of human rights or natural or man-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border."
    Today, there are an estimated 30 million internally displaced people in the world double the number of refugees. In many places, they are all but forgotten by the international community.
    Although there are few refugees in Latin America, there are up to 3 million internally displaced persons in the region, including as many as 480,000 in Peru and 600,000 in Colombia. In both countries, a combination of political and socio-economic factors, such as excessively unequal income distribution, drug-trafficking and heavy involvement of the army in the political scene, have resulted in high levels of violence and a climate that fosters human rights abuses. Whether manifested as an ongoing conflict between the armed forces and the armed opposition (the case of Peru), or a constant armed struggle between rebel and paramilitary groups (the case Of Columbia), violence has caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of rural peasants and native people. The internally displaced often lead a very stable existence, and they are highly grateful for anyone who pays attention to their plight (a very bad situation that someone is in).
    Delia, of Peru’s Ashaninka people, has been displaced for the past eight years. Now, homeless and helpless, Delia and her people have to depend on the good will and charity of their remote relatives and of the occasional non-governmental organization (NGO). It has been a struggle for Delia, who has tried to obtain better education facilities for the children and to promote small handicrafts projects. And she tries to shield her community from the surrounding conflict by opposing any involvement with the armed opposition or with the rondas (a civil defense unit that fights against the Sendero). This neutral position, in the context of the conflict, is not a popular one with either side. To their way of thinking, one is either a rondero or a Sendero; there is no middle road.
    Women have been the driving force in efforts to maintain some semblance of normal life in the Peruvian Andes. There, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Quechua speakers, were displaced over the last 10 years. Husbands were "disappeared" or killed, and sons had to join the army. The women had to gather their children and flee to urban centers where they could melt into the poverty-stricken anonymity of a shantytown(以临时搭盖的陋屋为主的地区). Now they live in shacks with no water, no electricity and no sewage system. The children get little schooling and spend long days playing in the dirt. Poverty disease and unemployment make life nearly intolerable. But displaced women have not been idle. They have organized soup kitchens, "mothers’ clubs" and handicraft associations to support each other and improve living conditions. Irma, one of the women we talked with thinks that soon she and her sisters will be able to go back home. "But we’d like our government and the world to give us a hand," she said.
    Despite the many hardships, the Andean women of Peru are much better off than their displaced counterparts in Colombia. There the cycle of violence shows no sign of being broken. In the minds of the army and the paramilitaries, their villages are red. No matter who they were or what they did, they either had to join the paramilitary or leave or there was no guarantee they would see the light the next day.
    Thousands face this same dilemma every day in the Andean region. Civilians are told either to join the "right" side whether paramilitaries, ethnic or religious minorities or majorities—or to leave. No one is allowed to remain in their home in peace and security.
    In Africa, the figures are staggering; up to 16 million people could be internally displaced. In a continent plagued by deadly and seemingly endless conflicts, the needs of the internally displaced are both urgent and immense. They present impossible demands upon humanitarian agencies, which have to make extremely painful decisions on whom to help and whom to exclude. Such decisions are naturally based on the mandate(委任托管权) of the agencies. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for instance; does not have a general mandate to provide protection and assistance to the internally displaced, and can do so only under very specific circumstances. Inevitably, resources may not be sufficient to cover the needs of the internally displaced as well.
    An estimated 500,000 of Burundi’s 5.5 million people have been displaced. Some have crossed into neighboring countries, but most remain inside Burundi, either clustered around military posts(if they are of the same Tutsi ethnicity as the military) or dispersed in the hills(if they are Hutus). Whether Tutsi or Hutu, they live in the memory of the massacres of the last few decades, and the constant fear of new outbreaks of genocidal attacks. Every day some of them are killed, and others die of malnutrition or malaria. Abuses against women range from seeing one’s children or husband killed to being raped. A whole generation of children is being raised in a culture of revenge and hatred.
    Next to the camps of the displaced in Burundi are camps housing Rwandan refugees. Where UNHCR, mandated to care for the refugees, is involved, the situation is marginally better; it is to this "margin" that many displaced people owe their lives and those of their children. For example, huts are arranged around cooking fires and are provided with plastic sheeting; medical facilities are available and the food distribution is organized. Unfair difference between the refugees and the internally displaced in the level of humanitarian assistance provided to them can spark conflicts that can have a damaging effect on overall security.
    In the absence of UNHCR or some other international organization, local NGOs step in to help the internally displaced. In some countries, Sri Lanka for example, there is a tradition of a part-time and vigorous non-governmental sector. NGOs supply much needed housing materials, emergency food and medicine and some protection. In a lengthy conflict like Sri Lanka’s where UNHCR does not have an active presence—the role of the NGO community can be vital to the internally displaced. Even though the assistance the NGOs can provide is inadequate in comparison with the actual needs, in many cases it is the only available source of support.
    During a mission to eastern Sri Lanka, we found a large settlement of displaced persons huddled around a church compound. A nun, Mother Fransisca, said there were perhaps 3,000 people there, all of them displaced by the fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the government. "There is a long way to peace, and peace must be every one’s aim," Mother Fransisca said. Indeed, the displaced are often the forgotten victims of conflicts and our brief presence with them would seem to us to contribute very little to easing their plight. But, as Delia said in far off Peru, even if the world is doing little, at least someone knows they exist.
选项 A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案 B
解析 本题定位信息是internally displaced persons 和 refugees，涉及到二者的比较，从而锁定文章首段。根据该段第二句中的unlike可知，二者的处境并不相同，题干表述与文章事实不符，因此答案为N。
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