{"id":130646,"date":"2019-04-08T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=130646"},"modified":"2019-04-03T12:49:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T11:49:53","slug":"like-fish-in-a-pool-with-little-water-who-will-help-the-rohingya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/04\/like-fish-in-a-pool-with-little-water-who-will-help-the-rohingya\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLike Fish in a Pool with Little Water\u201d: Who Will Help the Rohingya?"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Apr 2019 – Conditions deteriorate for Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh\u2019s refugee camps as countries around the globe close their doors.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Construction site for a new section of the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo by Mohammad Tauheed | https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/NxPq7C<\/p><\/div>\n

When taken up, the rod of violence
\nbreeds danger and fear.
\nSeeing people in strife,
\nI will tell you how I experienced terror.
\nSeeing people like fish in a pool with little water
\ncompeting with one another.
\nAs I saw this, fear came.
\nThe world was entirely without substance.
\nEvery direction was in tumult.
\nWanting a haven for myself,
\nI didn\u2019t see any place unoccupied.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s easy to imagine the above lines written by a Rohingya refugee caught between the guns of Myanmar and the ramshackle camps of Cox\u2019s Bazar, Bangladesh. They weren\u2019t. They were spoken by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, around 2,500 years ago as he went out into the wider world and saw the terrible toll of human violence and inter-communal conflict (SN 4:15, Attadandasutta<\/em>; author\u2019s translation).<\/p>\n

On March 1, Bangladesh announced<\/a> that they will no longer be accepting refugees from Myanmar, presenting a new challenge to the homeless Muslim minority who have fled brutal government-sponsored violence in majority Buddhist Myanmar. The total number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh now approaches 1.2 million people, with no clear solution to their plight in view.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictims must not be forced to wait in the purgatory of international inaction,\u201d Yanghee Lee, special rapporteur to the United Nations on Human Rights in Myanmar, told the international body\u2019s Human Rights Council<\/a> on March 11. Lee was reporting on the severe challenges the Rohingya face in the refugee camps, where the traumatized and destitute community faces poverty, unemployment, lack of access to education, and predation from drug dealers and human traffickers.<\/p>\n

Every direction was in tumult.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar stated, in late 2018<\/a>, that high-level officials should be prosecuted on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity for violence against the Rohingya, also citing the Burmese military\u2019s \u201ccontempt for human life\u201d and \u201cfor international law generally.\u201d Referring to that report, Lee reiterated her position that it was time to hold them accountable at the International Criminal Court.<\/p>\n

Last year the UN brokered an agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh in which Myanmar agreed to create conditions conducive to the \u201cvoluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees.\u201d Many international observers, such as Refugees International, were highly alarmed<\/a> by the idea. Since the agreement was signed, said Lee, the conditions for repatriation have not been met. As for the Rohingya themselves, most remain opposed to repatriation<\/a> without greater guarantees of their rights and freedoms upon return.<\/p>\n

Lee also said on March 11 that she had received a report earlier in the month that 24 Rohingya houses in the town of Buthidaung in Rakhine State, where most of the remaining Rohingya live, had recently been burnt down. Myanmar officials claimed, without evidence, that the owners\u2014living in deprivation after decades of systemic discrimination in Myanmar\u2014had torched the houses themselves.<\/p>\n

Those are not the only signs that Myanmar remains hostile to the Rohingya\u2019s rights in Rakhine State. Since the government forces conducted ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their home there, business interests with ties to the military have been quick to set up shop in the area. \u201cRevenues from natural resource extraction needed for vital services and development being diverted to the military and its allies undermines the civilian government, democratic reforms, the peace process, sustainable development, and the realization of rights,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n

At the same meeting of the Human Rights Council where Lee spoke, testimony was heard from two Rohingya refugees, Hamida Khatun from Shanti Mohila and Muhub Ullah from the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights. Khatun, a survivor of the genocide, told of the atrocities she had witnessed and said she had \u201cthree requests for the international community: first, justice including compensation; second, to return home in safety and security including citizenship; and third, access to education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet according to Yasmin Ullah (no relation) of the Free Rohingya Coalition, an international group of activists, foreign governments have shown little resolve to provide what the Rohingya seek\u2014a \u201cprotected return to a protected homeland in Myanmar.\u201d Ullah, herself a Rohingya, was smuggled out of Myanmar when she was three years old and now lives in Canada. \u201cIt does not appear that there is a will among the Western nations to forcibly return the Rohingya to some kind of internationally administered zone, which would be a just and effective solution,\u201d Ullah told me. She also pointed to China\u2019s role as a major regional player backing Myanmar.<\/p>\n

China, hard at work at establishing a China-Myanmar economic corridor<\/a>, has been supporting what the government has claimed is a legitimate counter-insurgency. Both they and Russia have moved to block UN attempts<\/a> to hold Myanmar accountable and to pressure Myanmar<\/a> to safely repatriate the Rohingya. China is a power few want to antagonize. Even relatively mild conflicts with China have had increasingly serious consequences. (Canada\u2019s recent move to extradite<\/a> a Chinese business executive to face criminal charges in the US, for example, is widely seen as having resulted in acts of vengeance from the Chinese government, including the detention of two Canadian citizens<\/a> and the execution of a third<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Despite China and Russia\u2019s provision of cover for Myanmar\u2019s human rights abuses, Bangladesh\u2019s Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen recently called for their help in establishing \u201csafe zones\u201d in Myanmar for the Rohingya, predicated on the guarantee of Burmese citizenship upon their return. China dismissed any such hopes as \u201cfake news.\u201d<\/a> The government of Myanmar, for its part, has invited the Rohingya to return to militarized \u201ctransit camps\u201d surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Myanmar has made this offer in return for the Rohingya relinquishing their claims to equal rights by accepting ID cards that classify them as foreigners, not citizens, in the country where their ancestors have lived since before it was called Burma<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Outside of Bangladesh and Myanmar, many of the countries with the capacity to accept the Rohingya are not willing to receive large populations of Muslim migrants. India has recently been embroiled in controversies over an effort to revoke citizenship from millions of people in the predominantly Muslim province of Assam<\/a> as well as an attempt to pass a bill that accepts only non-Muslim immigrants<\/a>. China, meanwhile, is interning Muslim Uyghurs in massive \u201cre-education\u201d camps<\/a>, which have been called the sites of the \u201clargest mass incarceration since the Holocaust.\u201d<\/a> In Europe, the influx of Muslim refugees has already provoked a crisis of management<\/a> in recent years, and the Trump administration\u2019s open hostilility to both refugees and Muslims has resulted in a 91 percent decrease<\/a> in Muslim refugees entering the US since the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

Considering this international climate, the Rohingya are likely to be in Bangladesh for some time. Yet conditions in Bangladesh are also a mounting cause of concern.<\/p>\n

I will tell you how I experienced terror.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe more time they spend in the camps, the worse it\u2019s going to get,\u201d Razia Sultana, a Rohingya lawyer and activist who received the International Women of Courage Award in early March from the US Department of State, recently stated in a conversation with Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, they are getting food. But that is not enough. It\u2019s like a zoo where the people are just being fed and grown. There\u2019s no education. There\u2019s no future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Maung Zarni<\/a>, a Burmese Buddhist and longtime activist for human rights in the region, told me that Bangladesh should be lauded for their generosity in allowing the refugees into their country. Yet he has serious concerns about the direction the current government is taking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are refusing to accept international proposals to substantially improve the infrastructure of Rohingya life in Cox\u2019s Bazar,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the past year, Turkey has offered to help build better living quarters for the refugees, and Canada has offered to help create educational pathways for Rohingya children, but both were turned down.\u201d According to Zarni, Bangladesh appears to fear that making life more livable for the refugees would encourage more Rohingya to enter the country from Myanmar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ignores the fact that they are not leaving Myanmar out of desire for what\u2019s in Bangladesh,\u201d said Zarni. \u201cThe majority of Rohingya have made it clear that they want to return to Myanmar. They are only in Bangladesh because they were driven out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world was entirely without substance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Bangladesh has proposed voluntarily relocating some 100,000 or more Rohingya to the tiny, uninhabited island of Bhashan Char in the Bay of Bengal, saying it will relieve pressure on the camps in Cox\u2019s Bazar and provide opportunities for work. Yanghee Lee joined many human rights groups and Rohingya activists in voicing serious qualms about the plan, however, saying it could create a \u201cnew crisis.\u201d After visiting it in January, Lee said, \u201cThere are a number of things that remain unknown to me even following my visit, chief among them being whether the island is truly habitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bhashan Char, which means \u201cFloating Island,\u201d is a spit of land made of accumulated silt. Locals from neighboring islands are skeptical of the relocation plan, telling Human Rights Watch<\/a> and others<\/a> that part of the island is eroded by monsoons every year, causing fatalities and cutting it off from the mainland, and that pirates have taken over the surrounding waters. Bangladeshi officials demur, saying the island has been secured and that the homes and cyclone shelters are better than what is available to many Bangladeshis.<\/p>\n

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said<\/a> that because Bangladesh is a disaster-prone country, \u201cmeasures are being taken for their temporary shelter in Bhasan Char. They\u2019ll stay there until they are repatriated.\u201d Reuters also reported<\/a> that Hasina, speaking at a press conference in the capital city of Dhaka, said the island could host as many as one million people in the future, hinting that her ambitions might go beyond resettling a portion of Rohingya there.<\/p>\n

One of Hasina\u2019s senior advisers told Reuters that, once on the island, the Rohingya would be able to leave only if they wanted to go back to Myanmar or were selected for asylum by a third country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a concentration camp, but there may be some restrictions. We are not giving them a Bangladeshi passport or ID card,\u201d said \u00a0H. T. Imam, an adviser to Hasina, adding that the island would have an encampment of 40\u201350 armed police personnel.<\/p>\n

Although some are tempted by the hope of improved conditions, most Rohingya are opposed to the move to Bhashan Char, which attracted widespread criticism from human rights workers and activists from the start. Human Rights Watch has compared the island to \u201ca prison.\u201d Zarni agreed, saying the motives of the Bangladeshi government are \u201cbeyond cynical . . . they are sinister.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHasina is called \u2018the mother of humanity\u2019 on billboards you see driving in from the airport into Bangladesh,\u201d he said. \u201cIf that is so, why has she allowed her government to abandon the Rohingya to these conditions? Why is she allowing the government to attempt to move them to an uninhabitable island?\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Rohingya are fearful of relocation to Bhashan Char<\/a>. Ullah joined Zarni in expressing skepticism. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be so detached from the rest of the community; there will be dangers that will grow unchecked. Policymakers sitting at the table forget there is actual human cost to these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wanting a haven for myself, I didn\u2019t see any place unoccupied.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While a long-term solution to the Rohingya crisis remains out of sight, there is still much that can be done to improve their lives in Bangladesh. The international community can ease their plight by helping Bangladesh to care for them. There are already some Buddhist groups helping them, such as the Korea-based Join Together Society, which in January took part in delivering 100,000 gas stoves<\/a> to the refugee camps. Others help by supporting aid groups and pressuring our governments to support humanitarian projects that build the kind of infrastructure the Rohingya need, like schools for their children. According to the UN, 60 babies are born every day<\/a> to the Rohingya refugees in the camps. We should do everything we can to ensure they will find a haven, not a shrinking pool of water.<\/p>\n

Aid organizations:<\/strong><\/p>\n