time to take over the custody of the displaced persons from UNRRA administration.

II. "REFUGEE"-THE IRO DEFINITION

The constitution of the IRO, annex I, part I, section A, point 1, defines the term "refugee" as applying to: "a person who has left, or who is outside of, his country of nationality or of former habitual residence, and who, whether or not he had retained his nationality, belongs to one of the following categories:

(a) Victims of the Nazi or Fascit regimes or of regimes which took part on their side in the Second World War, or of the quisling or similar regimes which assisted them against the United Nations, whether enjoying international status as refugees or not;

(b) Spanish Republicans and other victims of the Falangist regime in Spain, whether enjoying international status as refugees or not;

(c) Persons who were considered refugees before the outbreak of the Second World War, for reasons of race, religion, nationality or political opinion. We cannot help feeling that this is a clumsy and altogether unnecessary circumlocution. The fact is that only a tiny minority of the refugees in Europe today are refugees from Nazi, Fascit, or Falangist persecution. The vast majority of them are refugees from the regimes that have been set up by our Soviet ally and its satellite powers. It is true that considerations of diplomatic etiquette might have made it difficult to include these categories by name in the constitution of a subcommittee of the United Nations. But this still does not justify the employment of a formula which completely obscures the real nature of the problem. It must be pointed out, in fairness, that the constitution at another point (annex I, pt. I, sec. A, point 2) lists another category of "refugees:"

"The term 'refugee' also applies to a person, other than a displaced person as defined in section B below, who is outside of his country of nationality or former habitual residence, and who, as a result of events subsequent to the outbreak of the Second World War, is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of the government of his country of nationality or former nationality."

It would have been much better and it would have reduced the possibility of future disagreements, if the constitution had confined itself to the second paragraph quoted above, and avoided the misleading emphasis on altogether minor categories which characterizes the first paragraph quoted above.

III. CATEGORIES EXCLUDED UNDER IRQ CONSTITUTION

(1) Among the displaced persons in Europe are some 250,000 Ukrainians and some 200,000 Russians, the majority of whom are classified as nationals of the Soviet Union.

A large number of these originally fought in the uniform of the Red Army, were captured by the Germans, and then accepted service in or were impressed into the German Army. Having been taken in German uniform, they are still classified as "Surrendered enemy personnel." This categorization also applies to a certain number of Baltic DP's who were coerced into joining the German Army. With altogether negligible exceptions, these "Surrendered enemy personnel" did not serve with the German Army because they were pro-Nazi. The vast majority of them were simple peasants who were either starved into accepting service in the Wehrmact or else did so because they were opposed to the regime in power in Russia or because they found the world about them utterly confusing. More probably, all three explanations played some role in determining their action. We believe that the mere fact that a man served in German uniform does not automatically convict him as a war criminal, and should not be sufficient to deprive him of the right to refugee status. The demands of the Soviet Government for extradition should be honored only in the case of those who (1) participated in massacres or other war crimes, (2) carried on active propaganda for the Nazis, (3) actively recruited for the Nazis. Those who are not returned should be accorded refugee status under the IRO and not left suspended in midair or left to eke out their existence as unwanted aliens in an understandably hostile Germany which has not got enough food for its own people.

(2) Annex I, part 2, point 6b, states that:

*

or

"Persons will not be the concern of the organization who have become leaders of movements hostile to the government of their country of origin sponsors of movements encouraging refugees not to return to their countries of origin."

Although it may be argued that the terms "leaders" and "sponsors" will apply to only a small minority of the DP's at present in the camps, we still believe that this is a clause which violates the traditional concept of the right of asylum as well as the basic right of freedom of speech. It need only be pointed out that, had the League of Nations insisted on such a definition after the First World War, Alexander Kerensky could never have qualified as a refugee.

In effect, this section says the following: "We recognize your right to be opposed to the regime in power in your homeland. But, no matter how much you may abhor this regime, no matter how bitterly you may feel about what it has done to your country, you must not participate in any movement which is hostile to this regime. You must remain silent about your convictions and your feelings else you will automatically forfeit your eligibility to refugee status. We recognize, too, your right to be opposed to repatriation, and your right to disbelieve the propaganda material that is distributed to the DP's by their countries of origin. But again you must remain silent. If you undertake to express your opinions and to warn your fellow countrymen in exile against repatriation, this, too, will automatically deprive you of all protection and assistance from the IRO."

We cannot protest too strongly against a constitution which protects all those who applaud the propaganda of the demanding powers and who encourage their comrades to return, while it persecutes those who refuse to accept this propaganda and who tell their comrades-which is their right as freemen-that, as bad as life in the camps may be, it is a thousand times better than life under totalitarian rule.

The recent meeting of the Preparatory Commission in Geneva adopted the following resolution (Document Prep/39, ch. IV, sec. D, 43 bis):

"Moreover the attention of the Preparatory Commission is drawn to the resolutions concerning Germany, adopted by the Council of Foreign Ministers in Moscow. According to these resolutions, (a) all committees, centers, and other organizations found to be engaged in activities hostile to the interests of any of the Allied powers should be immediately dissolved; and (b) all propaganda against the interests of the United Nations or against repatriation is forbidden in the camps in which the displaced persons are located."

If this resolution really means what it says, then the IRO has converted itself in advance into an agency of the totalitarian powers from which the refugees originally fled. Not only are “leaders” of anti-Communist and antirepatriation movements to be deprived of refugee status, but all anti-Communist and antirepatriation activity is to be prohibited by IRO law. We would urge the most energetic intervention of the State Department with a view to having the abovequoted section canceled.

IV. THE MAIN TASKS CONFRONTING THE IRO

Annex I, point 1, subsection B, says the following:

"The main task concerning displaced persons is to encourage and assist in every way possible their early return to their countries of origin, having regard to the principles laid down in paragraph (c) (ii) of the resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on February 12, regarding the problem of refugees (annex III)."

While the constitution at other points makes provision for the resettlement of those who, for valid reasons, refuse to return to their countries of origin, it is obvious that the main emphasis is on "repatriation." Indeed it has been reliably reported that at the first meeting of the Preparatory Commission in Geneva it was decided to launch the organization with a big "repatriation drive," calculated to liquidate approximately half of the DP problem.

As the attached petition to the Secretary of State says:

"The 850,000 political refugees who still remain in the camps and assembly centers of Europe have already refused repeated offers, frequently accompanied by substantial inducement, to return home. It is not an easy thing for people of the land to cut themselves off from their ancestral soil. If they have spurned the many overtures that have been made to them and resisted all the pressures that have been exercised on them, then it can only be because they find the regimes existing in their homeland so utterly abhorrent that they prefer all the hardships of exile and the camps to life in their ancestral homeland."

We believe that it would be the better part of wisdom to accept the fact that those who remain in the camps at this late date constitute a hard core of nonre

patriable refugees for whom the only effective solution is resettlement in one of the several countries that may be prepared to accept them. In line with this realization, we think it would be wise if the IRO placed its main emphasis on resettlement rather than repatriation.

V. THE EMPLOYMENT OF UNRRA PERSONNEL

According to preliminary reports, the Preparatory Commission has decided to staff the IRO with administrative personnel taken over en bloc from UNRRA. There have been too many reports from unimpeachable sources that UNRRA, and crtain of its administrators in particular, have been employing impermissi ble types of pressures and inducements to achieve the goal of repatriation, and that those refugees who have refused repatriation have been subjected to almost inhuman discriminatory measures in an effort to break their resistance. (See appended article on "La Guardia's visit to the El Shatt Camp.") Furthermore, there is very substantial evidence, supported by the declarations of no less an authority than General Morgan, that there has been a heavy Communist and ⚫ fellow-traveler infiltration in UNRRA.

Under the circumstances, we believe it essential that any UNRRA personnel employed by the IRO be carefully screened in order to weed out those who by their attitude have shown themselves to be hostile to the nonrepatriable refugees. In this connection, we append a letter which our organization dispatched some time ago to Mr. Arthur Altmeyer, the Chairman of the Preparatory Commission.

CONCLUSION

The constitution of the IRO is sufficiently elastic-and sufficiently contradictory-to permit of a wide margin of interpretation. If the IRO personnel are carefully selected and if the American representatives on the IRO are wisely instructed, there is no reason why the IRO should not be able to act as an effective defender of the refugees. If, on the other hand, the IRO should develop into the continuator, both in personnel and in policy, of the unlamented UNRRA Administration, then it will earn for itself the curses of all of its million wards-a UNRRA has already done for itself.

DAVID MARTIN, Secretary, Refugees Defense Committee.

CONSTITUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL

REFUGEE ORGANIZATION

PREAMBLE

The Governments accepting this Constitution,

RECOGNIZING:

that genuine refugees and displaced persons constitute an urgent problem which is international in scope and character;

that as regards displaced persons, the main task to be performed is to encourage and assist in every way possible their early return to their country of origin;

that genuine refugees and displaced persons should be assisted by international action, either to return to their countries of nationality or former habitual residence, or to find new homes elsewhere, under the conditions provided for in this Constitution; or in the case of Spanish Republicans, to establish themselves temporarily in order to enable them to return to Spain when the present Falangist regime is succeeded by a democratic regime;

that re-settlement and re-establishment of refugees and displaced persons be contemplated only in cases indicated clearly in the Constitution;

that genuine refugees and displaced persons, until such time as their repatriation or re-settlement and re-establishment is effectively completed, should be protected in their rights and legitimate interests, should receive care and assistance and, as far as possible, should be put to useful employment in order to avoid the evil and anti-social consequences of continued idleness; and

that the expenses of repatriation to the extent practicable should be charged to Germany and Japan for persons displaced by those Powers from countries occupied by them:

HAVE AGREED:

for the accomplishment of the foregoing purposes in the shortest possible time, to establish and do hereby establish, a non-permanent organization to be called the International Refugee Organization, a specialized agency to be brought into relationship with the United Nations, and accordingly

HAVE ACCEPTED THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES:

ARTICLE 1. MANDATE

The mandate of the Organization shall extend to refugees and displaced persons in accordance with the principles, definitions and conditions set forth in Annex I, which is attached to and made an integral part of this Constitution.

ARTICLE 2. FUNCTIONS AND POWERS

1. The functions of the Organization to be carried out in accordance with the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, shall be: the repatriation; the identification, registration and classification; the care and assistance; the legal and political protection; the transport; and the re-settlement and re-establishment, in countries able and willing to receive them, of persons who are the concern of the Organization under the provisions of Annex I. Such functions shall be exercised with a view:

(a) to encouraging and assisting in every way possible the early return to their country of nationality, or former habitual residence, of those persons who are the concern of the Organization, having regard to the principles laid down in the resolution on refugees and displaced persons adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 12 February 1946 (Annex III) and to the principles set forth in the Preamble, and to promoting this by all possible means, in particular by providing them with material assistance, adequate food for a period of three months from the time of their departure from their present places of residence provided they are returning to a country suffering as a result of enemy occupation during the war, and provided such food shall be distributed under the auspices of the Organization; and the necessary clothing and means of transportation; and

(b) with respect to persons for whom repatriation does not take place under paragraph 1 (a) of this article to facilitating:

(i) their re-establishment in countries of temporary residence;

(ii) the emigration to, re-settlement and re-establishment in other countries of individuals or family units; and

(iii) as may be necessary and practicable, within available resources and subject to the relevant financial regulations, the investigation, promotion or execution of projects of group re-settlement or large-scale re-settlement.

(c) with respect to Spanish Republicans to assisting them to establish themselves temporarily until the time when a democratic regime in Spain is established.

2. For the purpose of carrying out its functions, the Organization may engage in all appropriate activities, and to this end, shall have

power:

(a) to receive and disburse private and public funds;

(b) as necessary to acquire land and buildings by lease, gift, or in exceptional circumstances only, by purchase; and to hold such land and buildings or to dispose of them by lease, sale or otherwise;

(c) to acquire, hold and convey other necessary property;

(d) to enter into contracts, and undertake obligations; including contracts with Governments or with occupation or control authorities, whereby such authorities would continue, or undertake, in part or in whole, the care and maintenance of refugees and displaced persons in territories under their authority, under the supervision of the Organization;

(e) to conduct negotiations and conclude agreements with Governments;