LITMIR.BIZ

      This chapter provides the research context of this book. It first sketches out both the demographic and geographic information of the camp and its residents, as well as distinctive features of Buduburam refugee life. Then, in order to contextualize refugees’ current living conditions in Ghana, the chapter takes a chronological approach, starting from Liberia’s prewar era and moving though its civil war and on to refugees’ displacement history, and then to their prolonged exile in Ghana. In particular, it details the recent socio-political environment surrounding the Liberian refugees in Buduburam.

      Buduburam Refugee Camp: Location, Demography and Governance

      The total number of Liberian refugees in Buduburam camp reached a peak of about 42,000 in 2003, but when my fieldwork began in 2008, the number of Liberian camp residents had fallen to about 18,000, in addition to a small number of refugees from other West African states. This Liberian refugee population had been listed as one of the thirty-eight major protracted situations by UNHCR (2004a: 10). There were no longer any makeshift tents in the camp as most of the refugees’ houses had already been converted by refugees themselves into permanent structures built with bricks and cement.

      The area of the camp was approximately 140 acres, although the camp boundary had never been defined clearly. Over time, due to the continuous influx of refugees from Liberia, refugees had spread beyond the designated site of the camp. Thus, in some areas surrounding the camp, the Liberian refugee population coexisted with local villagers.

      Buduburam refugee camp was in a semi-urban area, approximately a one-hour drive from Accra, the capital of Ghana. The camp was established on one of Ghana’s main highways, which follows the coastline of several West African states, making the camp relatively accessible. The semi-urban location of the camp had both advantages and disadvantages in terms of making a living. For refugees who were engaged in trade, the relative proximity of Accra was a major advantage for them, allowing them to purchase goods from markets there. Conversely, the locality constrained refugees’ access to natural assets such as arable land and rivers. In and around the camp area, cultivatable land and natural water were very limited, reducing the options for subsistence farming.

      The Ministry of the Interior is the governmental body responsible for issues regarding refugees in Ghana. Established in 1995 under the 1992 Ghana Refugee Law, the Ghana Refugee Board (GRB) was delegated to act on behalf of the ministry for the management of activities relating to refugees in the country, such as refugee status determination and refugees’ welfare. For dealing with daily activities in the camp, the GRB officially mandated the camp management team as an on-site representative body of the GRB. To assist in carrying out the wide range of responsibilities assigned to the camp management team, there was the Liberian Refugee Welfare Council (LRWC), a formal leadership structure comprised of appointed members from the Liberian refugee community in Buduburam camp. Along with a chairperson appointed by the Ghanaian camp commandant (sometimes called the ‘camp manager’ by refugees), the LRWC board was composed of two co-chairpersons and four executive members.

      Due to the frequent influx of Liberian refugees to the camp during the fourteen years of Liberia’s civil war, the refugee community in Buduburam became quite diversified, with different tribal groups from both urban and rural backgrounds. It is said that there are sixteen identifiable indigenous ethnic groups in Liberia (Bøås 2015: 60; Olukoju 2006: 3), in addition to a small number of miscellaneous groups and the Americo-Liberians – descendants of liberated American slaves.

      Because the Liberian civil war involved several ethnically based armed groups, there had been strong ethnic rivalry inside the camp. According to refugees who had lived in the camp since its foundation, tensions between different ethnicities in the camp reached a peak during the second half of the 1990s when military factions based on ethnicity mushroomed in Liberia. Some residents even began organizing camp-based political parties, which were mostly linked to specific tribes. However, the Ghanaian camp commandant saw the danger of increasing ethnic animosity between the refugees, and most of these political affiliations were subsequently dissolved.

      At the time of my fieldwork, acute tension between different ethnic groups seemed no longer to exist or was at least largely diluted. At a micro-level, nevertheless, tribal solidarity of course remained among the camp residents and sometimes played an important part in their daily economic coping strategies. In particular, mutual help between members of the same tribal group or clan was widely observed. Additionally, as legacies of ethnic and political affiliations in the camp, county-based organizations still existed. Liberia consists of fifteen counties, which are mostly populated by specific ethnic groups. Within the camp population, those from the same county organized themselves and selected their own representative and executive body. Being part of these ethnic groupings often had economic implications for members as some of these organizations sometimes provided welfare support for their fellows when in an economic predicament.

      Local Host Communities in and around Buduburam

      The Gomoa district in which Buduburam camp was located is known as one of the poorest districts in Ghana (Porter et al. 2008: 235). Interviews with the local community confirmed that the area used to be a tiny village in what was virtually bush country, with very little commercial activity. There was unanimity among the Ghanaian interviewees that the development of this local area began after the arrival of Liberian refugees.

      Despite the development induced by the influx of Liberian refugees, the economic level of local inhabitants had remained quite low. There were no official

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