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WASHINGTON, October 9, 2003 (AFP) - For the first time in at least three years the US State Department has been forced to withdraw plans to resettle refugees in a local community due to intense opposition from residents, officials said.
The department said it shelved plans to place a group of 60 Somali Bantu refugees in the small town of Cayce in the US state of South Carolina after the community registered fierce objections to the proposal.
"In recent months it had become clear to (us) through a series of letters from Cayce officials that sufficient local support for the settlement of Somali Bantu did not exist," said Brooke Summers, a department spokeswoman.
"We believe that the best interests of the Somali Bantu are paramount and should guide all decisions regarding their placement in American communities," she said.
"Our main concern is that they, like all refugees, should be received into a welcoming and supportive environment," Summers said.
Another official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the decision to scrap the plan was highly unusual because the department has generally been able to forge compromises on resettlements with communities in which refugees are to be placed.
"This is definitely not the norm," the official said, noting that the department and the sponsoring agency -- a Lutheran church group -- had earlier halved initial plans to send 120 Bantu to Cayce, population 12,500.
The town replied that it was willing to accept not more than three or four families, the official said, adding that residents of Cayce had expressed concern that the refugees would drain town resources.
In addition, the official confirmed local media reports that some in the community had complained that the Bantu -- agrarian Muslims who have faced more than a century of persecution in Somalia -- were too primitive to adapt to life in Cayce.
Officials in Cayce could not immediately be reached for comment but the mayor was quoted in the Charlotte Observer newspaper in neighboring North Carolina as saying the town felt it was being forced to accept the refugees.
"When you try to cram something down somebody's throat, it's just not going to be well-received by any community," Mayor Avery Wilkerson told the paper.
The State Department is now considering plans to resettle all 120 Bantu -- who are currently in refugee camps in Kenya -- in Columbia, South Carolina, the state capital, where local authorities have said they would be welcome, officials said.
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