Although the majority of the local people were considered poorer than the refugees, they did have some livelihood advantages over the Liberian exiles. Unlike refugees, they did not need to obtain permission from the government to apply for formal employment. Also, Ghanaians had better access to local markets, as refugees were often restricted to selling goods inside the camp area alone. Crucially, knowledge of local languages was a major asset for running local businesses as a command of English in the Buduburam area was not very strong.
The predominant livelihood activity of locals was the small-scale trading of groceries and other daily household items. Right next to the camp entrance, there was a Ghanaian market where many Liberians purchased their daily food and other necessities from Ghanaian traders. According to local merchants, the most important customers for Ghanaian retailers in the area were undoubtedly Liberian refugees residing in the camp. Edgar, a Ghanaian owner of a pharmacy in a village adjacent to the camp, told me:
Normally, I receive twenty customers per day. Ten out of the twenty are Liberians [refugees]. A Liberian normally spends more money than a Ghanaian customer … Before [repatriation started], I received many more Liberian customers. At its peak, I received almost fifty [Liberian customers] in one day … In this area, all Ghanaian shop owners are benefiting from Liberians’ money.1
I also saw other signs of interaction between refugees and Ghanaian villagers in the camp area. For example, many churches in and around the camp had both Liberians and locals in their congregations. Some friendly football matches were played between refugees and Ghanaian hosts. In the youth population, I observed several cases of intermarriage and dating between Ghanaians and refugees.
Whereas these observations and testimonies implied peaceful coexistence between local villagers and Liberian refugees, there was a view that, in recent years, the general relationship between Liberians and local people had cooled considerably, or even deteriorated. During my interviews with Liberian refugees, I occasionally heard complaints against Ghanaians. Some refugee business people said that economic transactions were almost entirely unilateral: only Ghanaian business people were benefiting from Liberian customers but not vice versa.
Also, I frequently heard from both refugees and local villagers about a land-related conflict between refugees and locals on excretion in the ‘Gulf’, a bushy area which many Liberians used as a latrine. In the camp, the use of public toilets was fee-based, so refugees without cash used this area regularly. In the local host community, this bushy area was perceived as a sacred place, and using it for excretion was seen as a disgrace and a huge insult against the (local) spirit. So whenever they found Liberians excreting there, Ghanaian villagers arrested and punished them violently. These incidents indicated that there was at least a certain level of tension between locals and refugees.
Distinctive Features of Buduburam Camp Life
Fee-Based Camp: ‘Nothing Is Free!’
‘Nothing is free in this camp!’ I heard this sentence repeatedly from Liberian residents. This was indeed true. As briefly mentioned above, refugees in Buduburam camp had to pay for basic services, including water, using a public latrine, medical treatment and electricity: for instance, 5 pesewas (3 to 4 cents) for a small bucket of water and 5 pesewas for each use of a public latrine. In addition, if a refugee was living outside the originally allocated camp area, they had to pay rent to a Ghanaian landlord. Monthly rent was roughly 10 GH
Education in the camp was no exception. The annual tuition fee in 2008/9 for Buduburam Refugee Community School, the largest school in the camp, was 45 GH
An experienced UNHCR field officer in Ghana told me that making Buduburam a fee-based camp had led to (or had created) ‘a strong drive for refugees to make a living on their own’.3 But for the majority of Liberian exiles, it was a major source of frustration or even distress to have to meet their own basic living expenses (see also Hardgrove 2009: 489). Many refugees asked me whether it was normal for refugees to pay for everything in other refugee camps outside Ghana.
The fee-based camp life had inevitably created disparities among refugees in their ability to access services. For example, households with limited financial capacity could not provide even primary education for their children and were unable to receive necessary medical treatment. Chapter 3 will provide a detailed quantitative analysis of how fee-based camp management burdened refugees and forced them to compromise on their fundamental needs.
Freedom of Movement and Access to the Camp
Host governments in the Global South often shackle refugees’ mobility outside camps to prevent them from melting into the host economy and fuelling competition with locals or taking away employment opportunities from them (Werker 2007: 471). However, unlike many refugee-receiving countries in Africa where refugees’ mobility is constrained, the Ghanaian government in principle respected the freedom of movement for refugees as enshrined in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Liberian refugees could go virtually anywhere in Ghana without restrictions. There was a local police station right next to the camp entrance but the police officers paid little attention to people’s entry to and exit from the camp.
The open-entry character of Buduburam camp made the camp accessible to people other than Liberian refugees, such as non-refugee Liberians, Ivorians, Sierra Leoneans, Nigerians and, of course, Ghanaians. I occasionally met non-refugee Liberians who were visiting their relatives or friends living in the camp. According to my interviews with camp-based Liberian refugees, after the resumption of the repatriation programme in April 2008, the influx of non-Liberian refugees, and particularly Ghanaians, intensified. These Ghanaians were coming into the camp and occupying vacant homesteads where repatriated Liberian refugee families used to live.
Buduburam: A Transit Point?
Buduburam camp was often referred to as a ‘transit point’ by both refugees and non-refugee actors. Whilst the term could be interpreted in several different ways, one of the meanings was related to trading activities carried out by Liberians. Taking advantage of freedom of movement, there were some Liberian business people who were using the camp as a transit centre for their sub-regional businesses.
The other, perhaps the most common, use of this expression was mainly among non-refugee stakeholders. The staff members of UNHCR tended towards the view that Liberian refugees in Buduburam camp chose to come to Ghana only for third-country resettlement rather than as a result of fleeing war or persecution. When Dick interviewed a UNHCR representative in 2000, the representative said to her, ‘Liberians are staying in