Thank You for Supporting Key Conflict Prevention Tools
Dear Chair Patrick Leahy and Ranking Member Lindsey Graham,
The Friends Committee on National Legislation commends your leadership in support of international development and diplomacy programs on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. Your subcommittee's fiscal year 2013 bill (S. 3241) demonstrates a strong commitment to fully funding many key programs in the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development's budget. However, we are gravely concerned that the bill's United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reporting requirement forces the United States to assume the inappropriate role as the arbiter of who qualifies as a Palestinian refugee, which would further undermine prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace and could provoke disastrous regional and global consequences.
Thank You for Supporting Key Conflict Prevention Tools
As the United States grapples with a staggering deficit and recovering economy, maintaining investments in civilian agencies is critical in order to prevent costly military expenditures. We applaud your subcommittee's leadership in meeting the Administrations' fiscal year 2013 request for the Complex Crises Fund, Transition Initiatives, Conventional Weapons Destruction, Conflict Stabilization Operations, Contributions to International Peacekeeping and Contributions to International Organizations. These modest but important investments will preserve scarce resources by improving the U.S. government's ability to help prevent and mitigate conflict.
Thank You for Ensuring Greater Oversight of Security Assistance to Kenya
Recent reports have revealed egregious human rights violations and continued impunity on the part of some Kenyan security forces, and we thank you for expanding report language to help ensure that U.S. security assistance does not enable further abuses. As tensions around the current conflict with al-Shabaab rise and Kenya's next national elections in March of 2013 approach, we urge you to continue pressing for more comprehensive and vigilant monitoring of this security assistance which will only exacerbate current instability. Rather than supporting these and other lethal means, we encourage you to instead focus on rule of law, civilian leadership and comprehensive justice reform assistance to Kenya and the broader region.
Anti-UNRWA Provision Could Fuel Further Conflict in the Middle East
The additional UNRWA reporting requirement, however, could fuel further conflict in the Middle East by encouraging an attempt to define the status on Palestinian refugees according to U.S. political considerations rather than on the basis of international law. Furthermore, it could open the door to dangerous cuts to U.S. assistance toward UNRWA and force the rights of Palestinian refugees off the table in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As the Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides pointed out in the Administration's letter of opposition to this reporting requirement, this provision "poses the serious risk of damaging a range of key United States interests in the region".
Rather than designating the United States as the decider of this extraordinarily sensitive issue, we urge your subcommittee to consider the fundamental principles of international law in defining Palestinian refugees, or any other refugee population. Under the universally recognized principle of "family unity", refugees and their dependents retain their status as refugees until a just and lasting solution to their plight is realized. Given the absence of a political settlement, many Palestinian refugees have for generations been compelled by dire circumstances to retain their refugee status. This anti-UNRWA provision is a dangerous distraction from the urgent necessity of a negotiated political settlement to resolve the Palestinian refugee crisis as part of the broader Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict.
As you negotiate the final version of the bill, we urge you to prioritize cuts in Foreign Military Financing before considering decreasing funding for civilian capacities needed to meet today's complex security and humanitarian challenges. These investments and strong oversight of vital foreign assistance programs increase the security, health and economic well-being for billions around the world. We also urge you to remove the reporting requirement which politicizes Palestinian refugees and to fully support UNRWA's life-saving support for Palestinian refugees, which provide a vital source of stability for the entire Middle East region. By investing in the prevention of deadly conflict, costly interventions can be avoided, which saves both lives and dollars.
Sincerely,
Diane Randall
Executive Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation
