By May Masangkay

KANAZAWA, Japan, Aug. 1 Kyodo - Former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sadako Ogata on Thursday called for greater awareness of the situation of refugees, saying it could help promote world peace.

''I hope people will understand the situation of refugees, and in understanding it forge a sense of solidarity. This solidarity, I believe, would ultimately lead to peace,'' Ogata told an audience of about 1,000 foreign students and local residents in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Ogata made her remarks during the 15th annual ''Japan Tent'' program which will end on Friday after an eight-day

In a lecture titled, ''Refugees and Peace -- Achieving Security for Mankind,'' Ogata urged citizens to boost grassroots efforts to promote awareness of refugee issues and to help curb the threat of terrorist acts.

She also stressed the obligations of Japan and its neighbors South Korea and China concerning asylum seekers and refugees. The three countries are signatories to an international treaty to protect refugees and have a duty to live up to it, she said.

Japan has often been criticized for its nonchalant attitude toward refugees, and accepts far fewer refugees and asylum seekers than most other developed nations.

Ogata also touched on the recent incident of North Korean asylum seekers who were dragged out of the compound of the Japanese Consulate General in China's Shenyang by Chinese police, saying China does not have an orderly system for examining refugee issues.

The consulate also did not act appropriately, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry too did not give clear instructions to the consulate on how to handle such situations, she said, calling for clearer government guidelines on refugee issues.

As for the Japan Tent program itself, Ogata praised it for promoting person-to-person exchanges among foreign students and locals. The program was set up in 1988 to enable foreign students in Japan to experience homestays with Japanese families and get hands-on experience of traditional Japanese arts and culture.

In her 10-year stint as head of the UNHCR from 1991 to 2000, Ogata said the U.N. agency had helped give legal protection to refugees, who now number tens of million.

She said it is important to provide educational opportunities for refugees so that when the time comes that they are no longer refugees they can find work and integrate into society.

In a separate interview with Kyodo News and local daily Hokkoku Shimbun, one of the Japan Tent sponsors, Ogata reiterated the key role she believes ordinary citizens should play in refugee issues, especially in pressing the government to deal with them more effectively and make its refugee screening process more transparent.

Ogata, Japan's first female envoy to the U.N., was co-chair of an international conference in Japan in January on reconstruction aid for war-ravaged Afghanistan. She is now with the Ford Foundation in New York.