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| Pushback from Bangladesh, 18th June 2012 |
Natalie Brinham
FM Review
December 2012
As stateless Rohingya in Burma face containment in IDP camps and within
their homes and communities in what is effectively segregation, their
human rights are on the whole being ignored by countries keen either to
support reform in Burma or to return refugees who have fled to their
shores.
It is no coincidence that the current crisis in Rakhine State in Burma
has taken place against the back-drop of Burma’s widely hailed, yet
still fragile, democratic reform process, the beginnings of which were
marked by the elections of 2010. The toxic mix of general racism and an
illiberal ex-military government seeking domestic support and democratic
legitimacy has proved lethal to the rights of the stateless Rohingya in
Burma.
The 1982 Citizenship Law of Myanmar, which ignored the Rohingya’s claim
to citizenship and thus rendered them stateless, has formed the legal
basis for arbitrary and discriminatory treatment against the Rohingya
community and made them subject to a series of draconian policies and
controls.1 In June 2012, large-scale violence against the
Rohingya – a stateless Muslim ethnic minority of around one million
people – resulted in estimated thousands of deaths, the forced
displacement of over 100,000 people, and the burning and destruction of
homes and property throughout Rakhine State.2 At the time of
writing there continue to be outbreaks of violence, arbitrary arrests of
Rohingya men whose whereabouts remain unknown, and torture and death in
custody.
Since June, Rohingya have been largely segregated from the other
populations in order to create ‘Muslimfree’ areas. Some have been ‘burnt
out’ through the destruction of their homes and properties. Others have
been relocated by government troops to IDP camps. Only Muslim
populations have been moved by the security forces; their displacement
is thus discriminatory rather than protective. Those who were not
displaced have been cut off from their livelihoods and face difficulty
in accessing food and basic services. Further violence in October, which
targeted Rohingya and other Muslim minorities throughout Rakhine State,
resulted in the whole and partial destruction of Muslim areas and
displacement of a further 36,000 people.3 Cut off from their
livelihoods and sources of income, unable to access markets, hospitals
and schools, and without access to relief aid, hundreds of thousands of
Rohingya are facing disaster.4 The government maintains tight
control over international agencies working in North Rakhine State,
leaving little space for these agencies to engage in public advocacy on
behalf of the affected population, let alone raise human rights
concerns.
Recent events in Rakhine State should not be viewed in isolation; the
Burma security forces have a long history of discrimination and
systematic human rights abuses against them. President Thein Sein’s
remarks in July 2012 that the “only solution”5 to the troubles in
Rakhine State was either to send stateless Rohingya to third countries
or to contain them in UNHCR-administered camps caused outrage within the
international human rights community. Despite the outrage, however,
110,0006 Rohingya remain held in squalid conditions in IDP camps
with no indication that they will be either allowed or assisted to
return to their home communities or to resume their lives as before.
Countries to which Rohingya have fled over the years as refugees have
been quick to condemn the recent spates of violence and persecution but
have not been so quick to recognise the rights of stateless Rohingya
refugees within their own territories. Bangladesh, for example, has
pushed back thousands of recently arrived Rohingya and has blocked
humanitarian assistance to the approximately 300,000 unrecognised
Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh. Discussion of ‘regional
solutions’ has so far focused only on overcoming the problem of
returning the Rohingya to Burma. Proof of commitment to protect the
Rohingya would be better demonstrated by receiving countries if they
were also to work together to protect Rohingya rights within their own
territories.
Western countries’ condemnation, on the other hand, has been
overshadowed by their praise for the wider reforms in Burma. The West
has rewarded Burma’s government for the steps they have made towards
democratic reform by easing sanctions and increasing investment. Yet
failure of the international community to use their leverage over the
Burmese state to ensure protection and recognise the rights of Rohingya
and other vulnerable populations in Burma could have dire consequences
for both democracy and stability in Burma.
Under the rubric of maintaining order and stability against (perceived)
domestic security threats – in this case the extremist Muslim Rohingya
and the backlash of so-called ‘communal’ violence against them – the
government seeks to legitimise the continued central role of the
military in politics. Lost in this discourse is the fact that it may be
the military/security forces, the perpetrators of decades of human
rights abuses against the Rohingya, that are most in need of reform.
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