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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 */