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USCR REPORT ON THE ROHINGYA REPATRI
Subject: USCR REPORT ON THE ROHINGYA REPATRIATION (PART 1 OF 4).
THE RETURN OF THE ROHINGYA REFUGEES TO BURMA:
Voluntary Repatriation or Refoulement ?
March 1995
U.S. Committee for Refugees
This paper was written by USCR consultant Curt Lambrecht. Lambrecht is an
associate of the International relations Program at the Yale Center for
International and Area Studies (YCI AS) at Yale University and Director of
the Burma Project of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights
Project at Yale Law School. Funding for Lambrecht's research was made
availabe in the form of a fellowship from the Orville H. Schell Center for
International Human rights at Yale Law School, and through a grant from the
Council on Southeast Asian Studies at the YCIAS.
PREFACE
The repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Burma has been
controversial since it first bagan in 1992. In December of that year, the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) withdrew from the program because
of concerns about the Bangladesh government's use of force and coercion to
ensure that refugees returned home. In May 1993, UNHCR resumed its
involvement after signing an accord with Dhaka that allowed UNHCR to
interview potential returnees to ensure that they were repatriating
voluntarily.
In August 1994, however, Bangladesh and UNHCR abandoned that system in
favor of a mass repatriation program. Since September 1994, thousands of
Rohingyas have returned -- or been returned -- to Burma every week.
UNHCR says that the repatriation is voluntary, a view shared by U.S.
government officials. UNHCR also says that the situation in Burma, where
the agency now has a presence, is conducive to the refugees' return.
However, other sources dispute the assessment of bothe the voluntariness of
the repatriation and of the safety of return. Reports by Refugees
INternational (RI) in April 1994 and Medicins Sans Frontieres - France (MSF
-F) in September 1994 found that the repatriation could not be considered
voluntary.
The following report was written by USCR consultant Curt Lambrecht, who was
in Bangladesh from June through August 1994 carrying out fi5rst hand
research on the repatriation. Lambrecht interviewed 49 refugees for one or
more hours each, and recorded the views of more than 150 other refugees. He
also met with national and camp level Bangladeshi government officials,
UNHCR, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and local people. His extensive
on-site documentation supports the findings of RI and MSF-F.
According to this report, the government of Bangladesh has used coercive
measures, including physical abuse, threats of physical abuse,
misinformation, arrest of refugees opposed to repatriation, and withholding
of food rations, to induce refugees to "volunteer" to repatriate. Lambrecht
found that a significant percentage of the refugees did not want to
repatriate and feared for their safet if returned to Burma.
UNHCR and U.S. government sources, whom we invited to comment on advance
copies of this report, disagreed with some of the report's findings. They
said that the report contained some factual errors, disputed the
interpretation of certain key events, and questioned the reliability of one
of the interpreters that Lambrecht used to communicate with the refugees.
According to U.S. Government sources, the situation has improved since
Lambrecht's visit. An Assessment of the repatriation in late Octobver by
representatives of the U.S. and British embassies in Dhaka concluded that
the repatriation is voluntary.
UNHCR noted that, in response to its demarches and those of the U.S. and
British governments, the government of Bangladesh had removed from their
posts all the bangladeshi officials responsible for abusese against
refugees. UNHCR added that, since the start of the mass repatriation
program in mid-1991, there have been "fewer protection problems (in
particular those of coercion) than at any time since the commencement of
the repatriation operation."
UNHCR also emphasized that the agency "is enjoying an excellent cooperation
with the Myanmar [Burma} authorities ..[and that] UNHCR staff have
unhindered access to all returnees."
However, other, also well informed readers, including staff of
international NGOs such as MSF-F and Medicins Sans
Frontieres-Holland(MSF-H) that work directly with the refugees in
Bangladesh, have confirmed the findings of the report and , as recently as
late February 1995, continued to express very serious concerns about the
repatriation. The have supported USCR's publication of this report.
MSF-H said that unpublished international research that it conducted
confirmed previously expressed concerns regarding the refugees level of
information about repatriation. MSF-H found that "few refugees seemed to be
aware of the possibility and the right to say no to repatriation." The
agency said that their findings "strongly question UNHCR's claim that the
repatriation is voluntary. MSF-H and other NGOs involved in the refugee
program in Bangladesh are urging UNHCR to improve considerbly the
dissemination of information about repatriation to the refugees."
MSF-F added that the Bangladesh authorities are using less coercion now,
but only because the refugees, thinking they have no choice but to
repatriate are mostly leaving quietly.
Human rights monitors continue to report human rights abuses in Burma. On
February 2, according to Reuters, the UN's Special Rapporteur on human
rights in Burma told the UN Human Rights Commission that the conduct of the
Burmese military must be brought "into line with accepted international
human rights and humanitarian standards so that they do not arbitrarily
kill, rape, confiscate property, force persons into acts of labor or
porterage, relocate them, or otherwise treat persons without respect for
their dignity as human beings."
We are, quite frankly , unable to reconcile these discrepant findings and
obeservations. Colleagues surely can -- and will -- disagree over the
details of particular events on the grounds. But our serious concern is the
disagreement over the ultimate voluntariness of this repatriation. The
international community has spelled out clearly the standards to which a
fully voluntary repatriation must adhere. What this reports finds, and what
NGO colleagues on sidte affirm, is that this repatriation has not, and does
not, meet those standards.
We believe that the international community must closely scrutinize this
repatriation. Publishing this paper is one step toward that process. USCR
will also continue to monitor the repatriation closely, possibly soon
making a return visit to the region, including the refugees' home areas in
Arakan if the Burmese government will permit it.
Sd. Roger P. Winter, Director
March 1, 1995
---------------------------------------------
THE RETURN OF THE ROHINGYA REFUGEES TO BURMA:
Voluntary Repatriation or refoulement ?
---------------------------------------------
>From late 1991 through mid-1992, an estimated 250,000-300,000 Rohingya
(Burmese Muslim) refugees fled from Arakan (Rakhine) State in western Burma
into Bangladesh in search of asylum. Human rights organizations that
subsequently documented the causes of the exodus found that the Rohingya
had been the victims of severe human rights abuses committed by the Burmese
army (tatmadaw ) and security forces (Lone Htein).
Throughout their stay in Bangladesh, the safety and welfare of the refugees
have been issues of concern. Reports by the U.S. Committee for Refugees
(USCR), Refugees International, Amnesty International, and Human Rights
Watch (Asia) documented severe and systematic abuses of the refugees by
camp officials, the police, and the local populace. Beating, torture, and
the deprivation of food and shelter have been at the forefront of these
concerns.
A repatriation program begun in September 1992 was characterized by the use
of force and coercion. In May 1993, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) began interviewing Rohingya scheduled to repatriate to ensure that
they were returning to Burma voluntarily. Repatriations during this period
were also characterized by coercion and force. In August 1994, those
individual interviews were terminated, and the Bangladesh government and
UNHCR instituted a program for the mass repatriation of the Rohingya
refugees. According to press reports, as of early February 1995, a total of
155,000 refugees had repatriated and an estimated 4,000 of the 95,000
refugees remaining in the camps in Bangladesh contnuned to repatriated each
week. Thus mass repatriation scheme raises questions about two issues of
fundamental importance: the principle of voluntary repatriation, and the
safety of the returnees.
The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the military junta
that forcefully seized control in Burma in 1988, has been designated as one
of the worst abusers of human rights in the world. Human rights monitoring
organizations indicate that serious human rights abuses in Burma continue.
Indeed, human rights violations remain a direct causal link in the
continued flow of refugees from Burma. For example, a July 1994 report from
Human Rights Watch (Asia) documented a Tatmadaw attack on a Mon refugee
camp in Burma whose occupants had been forcibly repatriated form Thailand;
all 6,000 refugees subsequently fled again into Thailand. In late January
1995, 8,000 additional refugees entered Thailand in search of asylum.
Asylum seekers were also entering Bangladesh in late August 1994 at the
time this site visit was being conducted. In violation of the principle of
non-refoulement, these refugees were consistently forced back to burma when
they were detected by the Bangladesh Border Patrol (BDP) or other security
forces.
As recently as December 1994, the United Nations has condemned the SLORC
for continuing to commit human rights abuses. While the situation in Arakan
is not well monitored, compelling evidences exists that human rights abuses
remain pervasive there. During the August site visit cross-border traders
and refugees who had visited Arakan recently reported that beatings,
torture, rape, forced lagor and forced relocations are prevalent. As
recently as December 1994, there were reports of flaring communal tensions
that culminated in the descration of three mosques in Arakan.
According to a UNHCR cable, UNHCR has "a meaningful presence enabling [it]
to under take a reasonable pro-active and re-active monitoring function of
the well being of the returnees and the progress in the implementation of
the movement and reintegration phases." However, UNHCR faces logistical ,
geographical, political, and staffing constraints that prevent it from
effectively intervening on behalf of the returnees.
Furthermore, the widespread sentiment among the refugees is against
repatriation. Because this sentiment is grounded in both objective and
subjective fears of persecution, questions also need to be raised about the
nature of the repatriation process: that is, whether the repatriation is
voluntary or, in contrast, if it is being effected through coercion. Only
between one and two percent of the refugees whom the author inteviewed for
this report indicated a willingness to return to Burma. All other refugees
said that they were opposed to being returned given their fears of
persecution.
Questions about the voluntariness of the repatriation, concern about
returnees, safety and UNHCR's ability to monito4 the returnees effectively,
as wee as continuning human rights abuses in the refugee camps in
Bangladesh indicate the need for heightened efforts to ensure the safety of
the refugees, and the need for donor goverments and UNHCR/Geneva to
undertake a critical assessment of the repatriation process. Of paramount
importance is the need for independent verification of the safety of
returnees and for close monitoring of the repatriation process, so that it
is consistent with the principles of voluntary return and nonrefoulement.
Although UNHCR and the government of Bangladesh have agreed that all
repatriation s should be conducted with "complete transparency," foreign
and domestic journalists repeatedly ave been denied access to the refugee
camps. NOngovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in the camps have
always been similarly constrained from speaking with refugees unless they
do so in the presence of camp officials. The result of this policy is that
objective outsiders have not been able to monitor the human rights
situation in the camps consistently. Consequently, the abuses occurring in
the camps, including coerced repatriation, have for the most part gone
unchallenged.
--------------
The Site Visit
--------------
In response to concerns about the safety of Rohingya refugees and
returnees, the author undertook a site visit to Bangladesh to assess the
refugees' situation, the repatriation program, allegations of coercion in
the repatriation process, and the prospects for returnees in Burma. He was
present in Bangladesh between June and August 1994. In Dhaka, he met with
government officials and relevant NGOs. In the Cox's Bazaar area, he
interviewed UNHCR officials, local government and camp officials, NGOs, and
Bangladeshis residing near the refugee camps. The author interviewed
refugees living in all but one of the eighteen Rohingya refugee camps.
The Bangladesh government was not forthcoming in providing access to the
refugee camps and refugees. The author applied for permission to enter the
refugee camps in early June. the government rejected the application after
a delay of more than fifty days. Interviews were thus conducted with camp
residents outside the camps in the rice fields where refugees were working,
on the road directly in ffront of the reufgee camps, or in other public
places. Only on the day the author was preparing to leave Bangladesh did
the local official in charge of the repatriations, the Rohingya Relief and
Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC), agree to allow limited access to the
camps so that the government's version of the repatriations could be
presented. The author subsequently conducted an additional three days of
interviews in the refugee camps.
The author interviewed 49 refugees for one or more hours each, and recorded
the views of more than 150 other refugees, with the assistance of three
different interpreters who were fluent in English and the rohingya dialect.
NOne of the trends of abuse presented in this report relies exclusively
upon the testimony collected in a single interview. Rather, the date
presented in this report are based upon patterns of abuses that became
evident after interviews with a large cross-section of refugees. In most
cases, the information that refugees provided was supplemented and
corroborated through information obtained from UNHCR officials or documents
that were provided to the author, or both.
All of the refugees whom the author interviewed expressed apprehension
about speaking with a foreigner about the abuses that were occuring in the
camps because they feared they would be cought and severely punished. This
statement by refugee from Kutu Palong refugee camp is typical:"I am afraid
to talk to you. If anyone tells, I'll be beaten by teh Camp in Charge [the
Camp in Charge(CIC) is the highest ranking government official at the camp
level.]
In camps where human rights abuses were especially severe, refugees
expressed an even more profound fear of being caught speaking to
foreigners, including UNHCR officials, UNHCR situation reports acknowledge
this. Another refugee from Kutu Palong Camp stated plainly, "It's too
dangerous to talk to UNHCR." Other refugees expressed their feelings of
frustration and betrayal at what they viewed as UNHCR officials
indifference to the abuses what were occurring regularly in the camps. A
refugee from Moishkum Camp ( previously Adarshagram Camp) stated, "We are
forced not not trust UNHCR. They don't do anything for us but make things
more difficult." A refugee from Dua Palong camp stated, "Before we heard
that UNHCR was active in the camps, but now nobody gove a damn for the
refugees."
This issue paper provides abreifing of the current situation in Bangladesh
and Arakan as it relates to the Rohingya refugees. In so doing, it presents
the author's findings, assessments, and concerns. In particular, this
report is intended to clarify the current practices of the Bangladesh
government, the SLORC , and the UNHCr as they relate to the Rohingya
refugees, and to ascertain whether these practices comport with general
standards and norms of international law. This report concludes with a set
of USCR recommendations that, if implemented, would ensure greater safety
and a better livelihood for the Rohingya refugees in Burma and returnees in
Arakan.
---------------------
Historical Background
---------------------
Arakan state lies along Burma's western coastline and borders, the Bay of
Bengal, Bangladesh, and India. Arakan's population is estimated to be 3 to
3.5 million persons, of whom approximately 1.4 million are Rohingya. The
Rohingya are ethnically and regiously distinct from the Buddhist Burman and
Rakhine ethnic groups. In fact, the Rohingya closely resemble the Bengali
in neighbouring Bangladesh, with whom they share a common language,
religion, and culture.
One consequence of these differences has been communal tensions between the
Rohingya and the Rakhine and Burmese. Some scholars have poisted that the
Burmese government has fueled these tensions in times of economic or
political discontent , as a means of diverting the anumus of the populace
away from the government.
In any event, the Rohingya have been subjected to a long history of abuse
in Burma. Particularly severe abuses, including forced relocations, have
prompted large exoduses of Rohingya into Bangladesh five times since 1942.
Massive internal displacement of Rohingya has also occurred. In 1978, the
Burmese military's Naga Min (King Dragon) campaign was characterized by
particularly egregious abuses, prompting and exodus of more than 200,000
refugees into Bangladesh.
Shortly after the 1787 Influx, Bangladesh bagn to force the refugee back
into Burma. In the process, approximately 10,000 refugees died, most of
whom were children and women. The death were caused by severe malnutrition
and illness after food rations were drastically cut, therby reducing food
to below subsistance level. Separate reports by the head of the UNHCR
sub-office in 1978 and a Food and NUtrition Advisors to the Food and
Agriculture organization(FAO) alleged that the Bangladesh Government
purposely cut food supplies to compel the refugees to return to Burma. The
deaths of the refugees stand in stark contrast to the government's repeated
claims that it respected the principles of voluntary repatriation in 1978.
---------------------------------
Persecution and Flight from Burma
---------------------------------
Beginning late in 1991, severe human rights abuses in Arakan state prompted
the current exodus. As amny as 300,000 Rohingya, primarily from Maungdaw,
Buthidaung, Rathedaung, and Akyab districts, fled across the border into
Bangladesh. According to the Bangladesh government, 250,877 refugee were
registered and housed in refugee camps. (Other sources indicate that
perhaps tens of thousands more were not registered as refugees and remained
outside the camps.)
Human rights organizations documented a gross and consistent pattern of
human rights violations committed by the Burmese army against the Rohingya.
These abuses included gang rape, summary execuritns, torture, severe
beatings, and forced labor to the point of complete physical exhaustion.
One refugee recounted his expreience inthese terms:
We didn't come here happily. We come here because we were suffering in
Burma. Before the influx, the government was constructi ng a road from
Buthidaung to Tang Bazaar. The road was to be raised 6 feet above the
ground and to be 33 hands wide [approximately 40 feets]. Each person
was to build 10 hands [12 feet] of road. Those who were unable to work
because of fatigue were taken to the bushes and beaten. If you could
survive, then you were lucky, If you were unlucky, then you died. The
women were not spared. They were also forced to work and were raped by
soldiers at night. I witnessed three women taken away after they failed
to perform labor.
There has been no authoritarive survey of the refugees to determine what
percentage of the refugee population suffered rape and other forms of human
rights abuses. However, a doctor who was treating the refugees during the
initial influx estimated that in the average family often, two members
exhibited evidence of recent abuses such as gunshot wounds, beatings,
burns, or physical exhaustion, and that on average one women per family
had been raped.
The severity and magnitude of these abuses seem to have been predicated and
motivated, at least in part, on religious grounds. Consistent with such an
understanding are the widespread destruction of mosque, cemeteries, and
other Muslim holy sites in Arakan and elsewhere in Burma, bans on religious
activities, and persecution by army offficials, including harassment of
religious leaders and inflammatory remarks made about Islam. The Rohingya
also suffer persecution in a broader political and social context. For
example, Rohingya continue to be denied citizenship and the accordant
rights that are enjoyed by the other peoples of Burma; they are not allowed
to serve as government officials; their children have not been permitted to
attend school beyond class four.
In 1992, Human Rights Watch(Asia) found that SLORC had embarked upon a
policy of "ridding the country of ethnic Rohingyas by any possible means."
Many of the refugees, for instance, claimed that military personnel ordered
the Rohingya to "go home" [to Bangladesh] and confiscated their identity
cards. Similarly, the military expreopriated the land, houses, and
livestock of the Rohingya and redistributed them to non-Muslim Rakhine.
According to border traders and refugees, this practice continues. One
Rohingya opposition group, the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Frant, terms this a
"de-Muslimization policy." In contrast, a Burmese diplomat told the author
that Human Rights Watch (Asia) and Amnesty International had written
"exaggerated reports" of human rights abuses in Arakan, and denied the
existence of any religious persecution in Burma. The diplomat referred to
the Rohingya refugees as "absconders".
/* ENDOF PART1 */