ABSTRACT
Anticipating future events and policy options requires more than an after-the-fact assessment of what happened before. Making useful predictions it requires analysis in order to infer possibilities in the future. This chapter demonstrates that when the international refugee regime is in place, there is a tendency to anticipate refugee movements. This results in more false positives, and fewer false negatives, than would occur if the international refugee regime were not in place. The international community focused on refugee movements in Tanzania between 1993 and 1996. Substantial portions of the Burundian refugees, perhaps as many as 60,000, made their way back to Burundi following the signing of a tripartite agreement between Burundi, Tanzania, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1991. The international relief regime's reading of Burundian political and refugee situation in 1993–94 was poor. Policy did not reflect well what was happening in Burundi, and/or the refugee population.
