Forgotten People: The Rohingyas of Burma

Why are the Rohingyas refugees in Bangladesh forgotten?

The human rights situation in Burma has led to thousands of people of various ethnic groups fleeing to neighboring countries. The Rohingya Muslims from Arakan state are vulnerable as they have no legal status in Burma and are considered to be non-citizens. The plight of the Rohingya demonstrates how people without citizenship rights in their own country can be forced out and become refugees, leaving them still vulnerable and without citizenship in the country of asylum.

The Rohingya have faced continuing persecution by the military government in Burma, and have escaped to Bangladesh in large numbers, with the biggest influx in 1991 and 1992, when about 250,000 of them crossed the border. Although many of these refugees have since then been repatriated to Burma, there are still about 21,500 refugees living in two camps in southern Bangladesh. The refugees are completely dependent on UN and aid agencies for food.

In addition, an estimated 100,000 Rohingya are living illegally in Bangladesh without access to protection or humanitarian assistance. Since economic opportunities in Bangladesh are limited, the Rohingya outside of camps are not living in Bangladesh for economic security, rather they are fleeing a history of persecution and human rights abuses by the Burmese government.
At first the Government of Bangladesh was welcoming towards the Rohingyas and made efforts to accommodate them. In recent years, however, it has pushed for all refugees to be sent back to Burma and has rejected any possibility of local reintegration for them.

The Government of Bangladesh, in order to improve relations and economic ties with Burma, has declared that the remaining Rohingya refugees in the camps should be repatriated by June 2003 and UNHCR has also announced its plans to turn over responsibility for the Rohingya to the Government of Bangladesh by the end of 2003.

Meanwhile the Government of Burma has not cleared most of the refugees in the two camps for return and accuses the camp residents of having contact with insurgents. The Burmese government has created a complicated system of bureaucratic conditions and procedures, which make it very difficult for refugees to be cleared and repatriated. Even though the Government of Bangladesh wants the refugees to leave, there is a very slow rate of repatriation.

The refugees who eventually make it to Burma find conditions there as bad as before, with restriction on movement, forced labor, violence and intimidation. They often have no choice but to reenter Bangladesh. Since January over 1,000 of those who have been sent back to Burma have returned.

The Rohingya

The Arakan State of Burma, bordering Bangladesh, is inhabited by two ethnic communities, the Rakhine Buddhist and the Rohingya Muslims. The Rakhine Buddhist is the majority group and is close to the Burman in terms of religion and language, while the minority group, the Rohingya Muslims, is ethnically and religiously related to the people from the region of Chittagong in southern Bangladesh.

The Rohingya Muslims number approximately 1.4 million.

The Rohingya have been in Burma since at least the twelfth century and often coexisted relatively peacefully with the Rakhine Buddhists. However, this changed around the Second World War, when communal riots erupted between the two ethnic groups. After Burma’s independence in 1948, Muslims carried out an unsuccessful armed rebellion demanding an independent state within the Union of Burma. This resulted in a backlash against the Muslims that led to their removal from civil posts, restrictions on their movement, and confiscation of their property.

Under the military regime of General Ne Win, beginning in 1962, the Muslim residents of Arakan were labeled illegal immigrants who settled in Burma during British rule. The government at the center made efforts to drive them out of Burma, starting with the denial of citizenship. The 1974 Emergency Immigration Act took away Burmese nationality from the Rohingyas, making them foreigners in their own country.

Following the takeover of the country by the military in 1988, there has been increased army presence in Arakan state. This build up has been accompanied by human rights abuses, and the Rohingya continue to face discrimination. They need authorization to travel outside of their villages, their land is confiscated by the government for use by Buddhist settlers, their mosques are destroyed by the military and they are routinely subjected to forced labor.

Conditions in Refugee Camps in Bangladesh

Out of 20 camps established in 1992 in south-western Bangladesh for the thousands of refugees, only two remain and even these are expected to be closed by June 2003. New arrivals from Burma have been denied access to these camps since 1995 and there are an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Rohingya living outside the camps.

According to Medicins sans Frontieres, for 10 years, the majority of Rohingya refugees in the camps have been malnourished and for many, food is the only source of income as employment is prohibited. There is limited access to adequate sanitation and the huts in which the refugees live are small and crowded. The freedom of movement of the refugees is restricted and they are confined to their camps. The MSF report on the situation in the Rohingya camps, “10 Years for the Rohingya Refugees: Past, Present and Future” is available at the following link:

http://www.msf.org/source/downloads/2002/rohingya.doc.

Coercion by Bangladeshi officials to repatriate and involuntary repatriation of cleared refugees have been reported from the camps, with refugees complaining that if they refuse to repatriate, they are arrested.

UNHCR is trying to reduce the burden of caring for the Rohingya refugees. They have recently proposed a phased withdrawal of their support, beginning with handing over responsibility for repatriation to the Government of Bangladesh at the end of June 2003. By the end of this year, UNHCR proposes to end all material support for the care and maintenance of refugees in the camps and the Government of Bangladesh will assume all responsibility for camp administration. UNHCR’s primary focus will be to monitor the degree to which any repatriations are voluntary.

Recommendations

The plight of the Rohingya in Bangladesh presents the dilemma of how to solve a protracted refugee crisis. They are unwanted in Bangladesh, but face danger and discrimination should they repatriate to Burma. As Muslims, they are particularly unlikely to be accepted for third country resettlement in the security environment prevailing in the post-9/11 world.

The Rohingya are therefore extremely vulnerable to being forced back to Burma. Prevention of being forced back (refoulement) is one of the signal protections in the 1951 Refugee Convention, and under no circumstances should UNHCR allow such a process in the case of the Rohingya. This will require UNHCR to maintain its presence in the Cox’s Bazaar area of Bangladesh where the refugees are located.

The best solution would be political change in Burma creating a political environment in which the rights of the Rohingya could be revisited within the context of the rights of minority peoples throughout the country. With this degree of political change presently unimaginable,

Refugees International recommends that:

• UNHCR maintain its support for the material well being of Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh.
• NHCR continue its direct involvement in refugee protection, including preventing refoulement, ensuring the voluntary nature of refugee returns to Burma, and providing logistical support to repatriation as required.
• The Government of Bangladesh cease all pressure on Rohingya refugees to repatriate and consider the possibility of providing options for local integration, with the financial support of international donors.