Page 2 of
2 Nowhere
to go for the Rohingya By Phil
Radford
He went on to state there was a
great deal of intermarriage between the races,
particularly between Arakanese women and
Chittagongian men, up to 20,000 of whom moved
south across the border each year to find
temporary employment in the rice fields of Akyab.
Murray went on to comment - with a hint of
self-justification - that the two communities had
lived intermingled under British rule for 116
years in Arakan without much incident, "though
latent hostility between them flared up in
occasional riots and murders".
But what
Murray then goes on to describe is an almost exact
precursor to what is happening right now. During
the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, he says,
"... the area of mixed
population was the scene
of repeated large-scale massacres, in which
thousands of people perished or died subsequently
of starvation and exposure."
He reported
that although the populations separated, Arakan
became a battleground for the next two years and
was "thoroughly devastated", with Muslim fleeing
northwards to their relatives or to refugee camps
in Chittagong.
... and it does
repeat Flash forward 30 years, and the
cycle of violence and migration occurs again.
Three years after the Emergency Immigration Act
was passed, the Burmese army launched operation
"Nagamin" (Dragon King), in what David Smith calls
a "census operation". Amidst widespread
allegations of brutality, rape and murder,
approximately 200,000 Rohingya fled over the
border to Bangladesh in late 1977-78, with many
finding refuge in camps across the Naf river, in
Cox's Bazar, Chittagong Province, Bangladesh.
Bangladesh struggled to cope; but since it
wasn't a signatory to the United Nations
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
(CRSR), it didn't have to. After signing a
government-to-government agreement with Burma,
Bangladesh encouraged voluntary repatriation.
According to Alan Lindquist, who was head
of the UNHCR sub-office at Cox's Bazar, this
involved deliberately reducing the food rations
issued in refugee camps. In the following decade,
most Rohingya did move back to Myanmar, but
without documents, and not before 12,000 of them
had starved to death, according to a Human Rights
Watch report published in 1996.
Flash
forward to 1991-2, and exactly the same cycle
starts again. Following a military build up in the
two northern towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung,
approximately 270,000 Rohingya crossed the border
into Bangladesh, alleging "excessive" forced labor
demands from the NaSaKa (the Myanmar border
administration force), lack of freedom of travel
and land confiscations. Again, the refugees headed
across the Naf river to approximately 20 camps
around Cox's Bazar. Again, the main influx
happened immediately after the monsoon rains
stopped in November.
Bangladesh initially
refused UNHCR access to new arrivals, and did not
allow the majority of Rohingya to apply for
asylum. During 1994-5 and under UNHCR sponsorship,
approximately 50,000 did return, with an unknown
number following later. According to Human Rights
Watch, however, this repatriation occurred against
a backdrop of serious abuses in the refugee camps,
including beatings and the denial of food rations.
In its 1996 report, compiled from interviews with
refugees, Human Rights Watch claimed the
Bangladesh Border Rifles conducted daily searches
of camps, beating Rohingya who hid new arrivals.
Don't come back this time The
reception awaiting the 2012 take of Rohingya on
the Bangladeshi side is therefore predictable and
unpleasant. In any case, the Bangladesh government
has little room for maneuver: according to UNHCR
statistics, there are still 29,000 officially
recognized refugees in camps near Cox's Bazar,
remnants of the 1991-2 influx, with 40,000 more
unregistered near the camps, and up to 200,000
living in a refugee-like situation in the border
area. In June, the Bangladeshi foreign minister
told a news conference in Dhaka, "It's not in our
interests that new refugees come from Myanmar."
Aid agencies can do little to alleviate
the situation. According to Vivian Chan, the UNHCR
is trying to get Bangladesh to open its borders,
as well as offering to help refugees in the two
official camps, "... but we are unable to do more
because of a lack of access to the border areas."
At the beginning of August, the Bangladeshi
government ordered three aid agencies - Medecins
Sans Frontieres, Action Contre La Faim, and Muslim
Aid UK - to cease operating in the Cox's Bazar
area.
The international community can't do
much either. Bangladesh remains outside the CRSR,
which obliges signatories to protect persons "not
having a nationality", who are "outside the
country of [his] former habitual residence". So
Bangladesh is not obliged to co-operate with
UNHCR, nor is the country prevented by
international law from engaging in refoulement -
the forcible return of refugees to frontiers.
So tragedy and farce now combine on the
Naf estuary, with numerous observers witnessing
Bangladesh coast guards pushing boats back into
Burmese waters. Senior officers in the Bangladesh
Border Guards have told Human Rights Watch they
have pushed back as many as 1,300 people. The BBC
has published video of border guards claiming
refugees have pleaded with them to be allowed to
land, or just shoot them; but to no avail.
Probably the most rational hope for
Rohingya is that Myanmar will relent and grant
them citizenship. But this is their least
auspicious prospect because politics is stacked
against the Rohingya, at every level of government
in Myanmar and in the international community.
Uniquely among regional assemblies, the
Rakhine State Hluttaw is led not by the
military-backed Union Solidarity and Development
Party but by a local ethnic grouping, the Rakhine
Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), which won
18 of the 47 seven seats in the November 2010
elections. To the RNDP, the Rohingya are the enemy
within.
Although this author cannot
confirm authenticity, the party has apparently
released statements saying they refuse to accept
the Rohingya as an ethnic people of Myanmar and
urging the international community and the UN to
"set up a timeframe to resettle those who are not
Burmese."
At a national level, the
National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu
Kyi, is unlikely to be much help either. Hoping
for a majority in the national parliament's lower
house, the Pyitthu Hluttaw, in the 2015 elections,
the last thing the party wants is to espouse a
cause that arouses emotional antipathy amongst
almost the entire Tibeto-Burman population. Asked
what she thought about the Rohingya, Nobel Peace
Prize winner Suu Kyi pointedly failed to criticize
the stance adopted by President Thein Sein, said
she didn't know if the Rohingya can be considered
Burman, and cryptically suggested that clarity on
citizenship would prevent the problem recurring.
Meanwhile, the moral end of the
international community is anxious not disturb
Myanmar's glide path towards democracy and
official acceptability. Brad Adams, Asia Director,
Human Rights Watch, has accused countries of being
blind to the violence while lifting sanctions and
signing trade deals, although UK Foreign Secretary
William Hague, speaking in Vientiane on November
5, promised to raise the issue with Myanmar's
leaders when he had the opportunity to do so.
He might want to do that sooner rather
than later. November is the month the Rohingya
traditionally head for Bangladesh, only this time
they will hit something akin to a brick wall. For
those without hope, militant options beckon.
Armed Jihadis were well established in
northern Arakan after 1948, and during the 1980s
two guerrilla groups, the Rohingya Solidarity
Organisation and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front
openly established recruitment offices near
refugee camps outside Cox's Bazar.
New
jihadists would need cash, but the Rohingya have
wealthy friends. News of their plight has reached
the ears of the king of the House of Saud. US$50
million has been promised. And there are large,
exiled communities of Rohingya in Karachi,
Pakistan and Egypt who would be emotionally and
financially sympathetic.
For
Bangladesh and Myanmar, the situation could quickly take on
a less tedious aspect. Because, if nothing
changes, a brutal logic will prevail: if the
Rohingya cannot be citizens anywhere, then why
shouldn't they carve out a homeland for themselves?
Phil Radford is a freelance
writer and international security analyst, based
in Sydney.
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