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On 20 June, we celebrated World Refugee Day, a day set aside each year to commemorate vulnerable people who have fled their countries out of fear of further persecution if they were to return.
Who are the perpetrators of this persecution? For much of the past century, communist and totalitarian regimes have been the largest source of refugees.
World Refugee Day has its origins in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 1 of this UN Convention defines a refugee as “a person who is outside his or her own country owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” [their] nationality and are unable or unwilling to use it due to such fears [himself or herself] For the protection of the country.”
Ukrainian refugees queue at the Polish border. (Associated Press)
It would be absurd to imagine that in 1951 there would have been a mass influx of refugees from the US, Canada, Britain and other Western democracies. Flee East They sought protection from the Soviet Union.
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Rather, by 1951 there were millions who did not feel safe returning home because of their Christian faith, because they were ethnic minorities in countries that had been annexed by the Soviet Union, such as Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians, or because they had publicly recorded support for democracy, such as many Poles, Hungarians and Czechs.
The majority of refugees came from communist countries during the Cold War. Here’s a snapshot of the end of the Cold War, showing the crimes of communism. In 1991, the world’s refugee population was just over 17 million people, the majority of whom had fled communist countries such as the Soviet bloc, China, Vietnam, Ethiopia and North Korea.
The United States has been a destination for many immigrants fleeing political, religious and economic persecution from their homelands, including Cubans, a tragic example dating back to the brutal occupation of Cuba by communist revolutionary Fidel Castro in the 1960s.
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Since then, a steady stream of Cuban refugees has been entering the U.S. In fact, according to one statistic, 1.4 million Cubans fled to the U.S. after Castro took control of Cuba, and the number continues to grow.
Unfortunately, many of the communist regimes that created the refugee crisis during the Cold War through totalitarian tactics and persecution remain malign actors today, particularly those in Moscow, Havana, Beijing, and Pyongyang, and their successors.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees counted the number of refugees at 37.6 million as of the end of 2023. Nearly three-quarters of them come from just five countries, often countries that have been directly affected by totalitarian regimes.
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Afghanistan, a country of 6.4 million people, has been in the grip of a constant refugee crisis since the Soviet invasion in 1979. Many Afghan refugees end up in refugee camps in Pakistan, never to return home.
Also on the list is socialist Venezuela, a once-wealthy country where more than six million refugees have fled. The authoritarian socialist government in Caracas has expelled many of its pro-democracy citizens from the media, business and religious communities over the past two decades.
Today, the enduring legacy of communism is also responsible for Europe’s refugee crisis. Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, driven by the revisionist policies of former KGB lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin, has forced the displacement of around six million Ukrainian refugees. Sadly, the UNHCR reports that this forced displacement is set to increase further in 2024.
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World Refugee Day is a day that highlights the plight of desperate, courageous people who, while often overlooked by the general public, have fled persecution because of fundamental religious beliefs, a desire for freedom and democracy in their countries, or a yearning for opportunity.
On World Refugee Day, we should be grateful that we live in countries where our citizens do not have to flee their countries in search of a better life, and we should be reminded that one of the terrible crimes that communist, socialist and post-communist authoritarian states continue to commit is criminalizing their own citizens and forcing them to flee their countries in search of a better life.
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