US embassy cable - 03AMMAN4450

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 004450 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR PRM AND NEA 
GENEVA FOR RMA; CPA BAGHDAD FOR WYLLIE AND LAPENN 
 
E.O. 12958:N/A 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, KPAL, KWBG, IZ, JO 
SUBJECT:  PRM A/S DEWEY DISCUSSES PALESTINIAN AND IRAQI 
REFUGEES DURING VISIT TO JORDAN 
 
REF:  Amman 4337 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary:  During a July 16-17 visit to Jordan, PRM 
A/S Dewey met with the Director-General of the GOJ's 
Department of Palestinian Affairs and the Camp Improvement 
Committee at Wihdat refugee camp, visited UNRWA 
installations and met with UNRWA Deputy ComGen Karen 
AbuZayd.  The Palestinian refugees urged the U.S. to 
continue its involvement in Israeli/Palestinian roadmap 
implementation and support the right of return as outlined 
in UN resolutions.  AbuZayd reported that UNRWA would assist 
in UNHCR's registration of Palestinian refugees in Iraq and 
also hopes to register qualifying refugees with UNRWA.  In a 
separate meeting with GOJ Minister of State for Foreign 
Affairs, A/S Dewey outlined U.S. views on the repatriation 
of Iraqi refugees.  The GOJ repeated previous assurances 
that it would not organize Iraqi returns until conditions 
improved inside Iraq but noted that its first priority for 
returns would be the 2,000 Palestinian and Iraqi refuges 
currently at the Jordanian-Iraqi border.  Embassy-arranged 
press interviews gave A/S Dewey an opportunity to highlight 
U.S. humanitarian engagement.  End summary. 
 
2.  (U) PRM A/S Gene Dewey visited Jordan July 16-17, prior 
to beginning a joint tour of Iraq with the UN High 
Commissioner for Refugees.  PRM/ANE Deputy Director Larry 
Bartlett, Charge d'Affaires David Hale, Regional Refcoord 
Joan Polaschik and Refugee Assistant Ibrahim Bisharat 
accompanied A/S Dewey in his Jordan meetings. 
 
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Palestinian Refugees Urge Continued 
U.S. Humanitarian and Political Roles 
------------------------------------- 
 
3.  (U) A/S Dewey began his meetings with a call on GOJ 
Department of Palestinian Affairs Director General 
Abdulkarim Abulhaija and the Camp Improvement Committee of 
Wihdat refugee camp.  Although the committee was grateful 
for the United States' long-standing, strong financial 
support to UNRWA, its members urged A/S Dewey to increase 
U.S. support to the agency.  With a rapidly growing 
Palestinian refugee population and declining donor support 
for UNRWA, the Wihdat committee worries that UNRWA will be 
forced to cut services, leaving a vulnerable population 
still further exposed.  In Wihdat camp, for example, 500 
families have an annual income of less than USD 80 and 
depend on assistance from UNRWA and the Zakat committee. 
 
4.  (U) The committee told A/S Dewey that continued U.S. 
political engagement on the peace process was just as 
important as continued financial support to UNRWA. The real 
solution to the refugees' humanitarian problems would be 
full implementation of the right of return as outlined in UN 
resolutions.  A/S Dewey responded that the parties 
themselves agreed that the right of return should be 
addressed only in final status talks, eliciting several 
impassioned interventions on the centrality of the right of 
return to lasting, comprehensive peace. 
 
5.  (U) A/S Dewey also visited a women's program center in 
Wihdat refugee camp, where he observed women's vocational 
training programs and received a briefing on UNRWA services 
from Jordan Field Director Bill Lee.  Lee told A/S Dewey 
that UNRWA services and standards (its historically superb 
school exam scores, for example) were dropping due to 
chronic underfunding.  Lee added that UNRWA's 1999 staff 
rules (which decreased staff salaries significantly) had 
severely impaired the agency's ability to hire and retain 
qualified staff.  Lee then accompanied A/S Dewey on a visit 
to UNRWA's Amir Hassan health center, a dilapidated, 
overcrowded clinic in east Amman that treats 108 patients 
per day.  UNRWA seeks USD 214,000 in special project funding 
to replace the clinic with a new, more accessible clinic. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
UNRWA Deputy ComGen Addresses GAO Investigation, 
Extraordinary Geneva Meeting and Palestinians in Iraq 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
6.  (SBU) In a separate meeting with UNRWA Deputy 
Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd, A/S Dewey and Bartlett 
briefed AbuZayd on the U.S. General Accounting Office's 
ongoing investigation of UNRWA's compliance with section 
301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act.  AbuZayd said UNRWA 
would welcome a GAO field visit during the week of August 24 
and was eager to facilitate the GAO's work.  They also 
discussed UNRWA's planned extraordinary meeting in Geneva 
(ref).  AbuZayd pledged that UNRWA would not include UNRWA's 
future as an agenda item at the meeting.  While UNRWA hoped 
to address more strategic issues such as the international 
community's crisis recovery plan for the West Bank and Gaza 
or the impact of chronic underfunding on UNRWA operations, 
the agency's leadership recognized that it could not take on 
political topics in the extraordinary meeting.  Refcoord 
urged UNRWA to hold technical-level planning meetings before 
the September major donors meeting, to ensure that all 
stakeholders were aware of and comfortable with UNRWA's 
plans for the extraordinary Geneva meeting. 
 
7.  (SBU) AbuZayd also briefed A/S Dewey on UNRWA's plans to 
send a three-person technical team to Iraq, to assist UNHCR 
-- at its request -- in the registration of Palestinian 
refugees in Iraq.  AbuZayd said the team's mandate initially 
would be limited to assisting UNHCR in the registration of 
Palestinians for UNHCR assistance but that the agency 
ultimately would like to register as UNRWA refugees those 
Palestinians in Iraq who meet the definition of an UNRWA 
refugee (Palestinians who lived in British Mandate Palestine 
between 1946 and 1948 and lost their homes and means of 
livelihood as the result of conflict).  Under UNRWA 
regulations, however, UNRWA is able to conduct new 
registrations only in its five fields of operations - 
meaning that Palestinian refugees must physically be present 
in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Syria or Lebanon.  AbuZayd said 
UNRWA was considering how to handle the Iraqi population in 
light of these regulations. 
 
---------------------------------- 
Iraqi Refugees and Return Programs 
---------------------------------- 
 
8.  (SBU) A/S Dewey briefed GOJ Minister of State for 
Foreign Affairs Shaher Bak on U.S. plans for large-scale, 
assisted returns of Iraqi refugees to Iraq.  Both the U.S. 
and UNHCR agree that such returns should not be conducted 
until conditions in Iraq improve.  UNHCR's successful return 
of several hundred stranded in Dubai had encouraged the U.S. 
and UNHCR to resume planning for the first returns from 
Saudi Arabia's Rafha refugee camp.  Consideration would next 
be given to organized returns of Iraqi refugees from Iran 
and then from other neighboring states. 
 
9.  (SBU) Bak responded that the GOJ's first priority for 
returns was to solve the situation at the border, returning 
to Iraq the 1,000 Iranians Kurds and 900 Palestinians who 
have been seeking in asylum in Jordan since mid-April (ref 
b).  However, the GOJ agreed with the U.S. and UNHCR on 
their return policy and would not organize Iraqi returns 
until conditions improved inside Iraq.  Bak also reported 
that initial post-war spontaneous returns had leveled off, 
with Iraqis now "coming and going" but no general trend 
toward returns.  The GOJ continues to enforce its previous 
halt on deportations but would review this decision on a 
quarterly basis.  Bak was very interested in U.S. plans to 
improve security and socio-economic conditions in Iraq and 
asked for a readout of A/S Dewey's upcoming joint trip to 
Iraq with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.  The Charge 
promised the Embassy would provide a briefing. 
 
----------------------------------- 
Press Coverage of A/S Dewey's Visit 
----------------------------------- 
 
10.  (U) PA Amman arranged interviews for A/S Dewey with the 
Arabic language daily "Al Dustoor" and the English-language 
daily "The Jordan Times," providing an opportunity to 
highlight for a wider audience ongoing U.S. support for 
Palestinian refugees and other issues of interest in the 
Middle East such as U.S. assistance to refugee communities 
in Iraq and Afghanistan.  On July 17, Al Dustoor ran its 
interview under the headline, "U.S. Assistant Secretary of 
State:  Solution to the Issue of Palestinian Refugees Part 
of the Road Map."  The article emphasized A/S Dewey's 
remarks urging progress on the Roadmap as the best means to 
solve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians; 
calling for greater support for UNRWA programs by European 
and Arab states; expressing concern over the situation of 
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon; and explaining that, with 
regard to Iraqi refugees seeking to return to their country, 
the U.S. goal is to improve the security situation and 
strengthen UNHCR's capabilities, so that Iraqis can 
eventually begin to return to their country in large 
numbers.  He noted that the international community learned 
much from the Afghanistan experience, where the U.S. 
campaign to bring down the Taliban regime led to the return 
of over 2 million old-caseload refugees.  A/S Dewey also 
highlighted the relatively low numbers of refugees or 
displaced persons as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 
attributing it to U.S. and international efforts to prepare 
for and head off such a humanitarian crisis. 
 
11.  (U) A/S Dewey took advantage of a question regarding 
increased security measures directed towards Arab and Muslim 
visitors and migrants to the United States to stress that 
while the U.S. must take measures to ensure a safe homeland, 
it will remain an immigrant nation and continue to welcome 
and need the talents of immigrants from all over the world. 
The Jordan Times ran a brief item 7/17 -- as did all 
Jordan's dailies -- regarding A/S Dewey's visit to Whidat 
refugee camp. 
 
12.  (U) A/S Dewey cleared this message. 
 
13.  (U) CPA Baghdad minimize considered. 
HALE