Refugees who support rebel groups are usually convinced that military action is necessary for their grievances to be heard and redressed. This sentiment is powerful because of the violence and upheaval that originally precipitated the refugee flow. The embittered Afghan villager or the Tutsi farmer driven from his land knew firsthand how their rivals had used force to achieve their aims. Accordingly, they inevitably came to believe that only brute force triumphs and that a negotiated settlement is impossible except from a position of military strength. Moreover, the suffering and deprivation refugees experience creates a strong desire for revenge, which can make negotiation difficult and achieving peaceful resolution impossible even if the other side is willing to make significant concessions.

Coercion is another factor explaining refugee contributions, particularly when rebel movements control refugee camps. Insurgents often come to dominate these sites, largely because they are well armed and organized, while the displaced population is weak and disorganized; in addition, there may be no government or aid agency capable of imposing order. In such circumstances, it is relatively easy for rebel groups to demand money, provisions, or recruits from displaced populations, even when those groups are not popular with the broader population that they claim to represent. After the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent Rwandan Patriotic Front's takeover of the country, for example, the murderous interahamwe and former Kigali government officials organized their resistance in UN High Commissioner for Refugees-run refugee camps in Zaire. They used the coercive power of their arms and their superior organizational skills to create a virtual government within the camps, exploiting international support to carry on their struggle against the Tutsi government in Rwanda. As long as the interahamwe controlled the distribution of food and otherwise acted as the de facto administrators of the camp, the mass of Hutus had little choice but to follow.

The limited range of refugee support
The support provided by refugees for an insurgency differs considerably from that provided by states or diasporas. Poor and lacking even basic resources, displaced populations can seldom offer arms or money. Even the highly successful Taliban relied on Pakistan for arms, materiel, and other basic support. What refugees can and do provide, however, is manpower, especially in the aftermath of mass refugee waves. The KLA, for example, was able to greatly expand its recruiting after Serbia launched an ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo in 1999, which displaced over 200,000 people--one-tenth of the enclave's inhabitants--from their homes. Over time, insurgents may additionally organize recruitment and training networks that draw on the entire refugee community as a manpower pool. This has occurred with Palestinians in Lebanon, Tutsis in Uganda, Afghans in Pakistan, and Tamils in India.

As with diasporas, actions of the host nation are often critical when its populace seeks to assist insurgents in their home countries. If the state favors the refugees' cause or is too weak to impose its will, displaced communities can often act with impunity, channeling whatever assistance they can to rebel groups. Afghan refugees, for example, played a major role in the anti-Soviet struggle in large part because Pakistan strongly opposed Moscow's intervention in Afghanistan and made common cause with the anti-Soviet guerrillas. After the Soviet withdrawal, Afghan refugees played a similar role in the subsequent success of the Taliban largely because Islamabad used the militia as a surrogate to impose its hegemony over its northern neighbor.

There have been numerous other instances where displaced populations have been used as strategic instruments in the power plays of competing regional states. The Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Tanzania have all used asylum and assistance as a form of surrogate support for armed rebel movements in one another's states. Damascus has allowed (or, more clearly, has not prevented) Kurdish refugees in Syria to provide important backing to the PKK as a way of indirectly weakening Turkey. New Delhi has attempted to fulfill its border demarcation objectives with China by giving Tibetan exiles an essentially free hand to arm and train in India. And Malaysia has often been accused, by both the Philippine and Thai governments, of deliberately fomenting separatism in Mindanao and Pattani by allowing support and weapons to be channeled through displaced Muslims in Sabah and Kelanatan.

When governments provide refugees with assistance and encourage them to back insurgents, the refugees' own cause and the government's blur. Refugee camps can become a place for insurgents to live and organize with relative impunity, while fighters may travel there to plan, train, or rest from operations. Such support is in essence a state-provided sanctuary even though government may be passively complicit.

State backing may also be inadvertent, especially if the government in question cannot control its own borders. Lebanon, for example, allowed Fatah and other Palestinian groups to operate from its territory during the 1970s, mainly because the central government could not force the movement to stop its attacks. Syria and Jordan, in contrast, succeeded in limiting Palestinian refugee support for anti-Israel efforts that did not suit either of these regimes' purposes.

As with diasporas, host countries' treatment of refugees frequently has a critical impact on the refugees' willingness to support insurgents over the long term. If the host country can provide security for refugees on its soil, insurgents will be less able to coerce and obtain support. For economic reasons, many refugees may also prefer to assimilate into their host country rather than return to their homeland, a factor that can greatly affect support over time.