In 1991, 260,000 Rohingyas had fled from Arakan and found refuge in Bangladesh to escape from summary executions, rape, ill treatment, forced labour and land confiscation. In 1999, a great majority of the refugees had gone back home, most of them forced by the Bangladeshi authorities or strongly encouraged by the UNHCR. In Arakan yet, the situation was far from having changed, and a new exodus was in progress.
The Rohingyas, once they came back to Burma, had to face the same executions, the same violence, and the same discrimination that had forced them to leave their country. Consequently, between 1996 and 1999, some 50,000 to 100,000 Rohingyas crossed once again the border to find refuge in Bangladesh.
In a report published in 2000, the FIDH noted that if the most visible and most violent forms of repression against Rohingyas seemed to have decreased - probably due to the presence of the UN agencies and international NGOs - the Burmese authorities were trying by all means possible to bring the Rohingyas to a point of utter political, social, economic and cultural precariousness, the supreme goal being to empty Arakan from its Rohingya population. Unfortunately, the FIDH holds this to remain true in 2003, allowed in particular by the near complete indifference of the international community.
Since 1982, the Rohingya Muslims minority of Burma is stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law. They are consequently deprived of the rights to freedom of association, to appeal to justice or to access higher education. They also face severe restrictions to freedom of movement, which prevents them from seeking a job in other villages or from trading. This leads to an accelerated impoverishment of that population. Their land is confiscated and used for building military facilities or the construction of villages for Buddhist settlers. Forced labour, though common through Burma, harshly affects the minorities, particularly the Rohingyas.
In June 2003, Forum Asia evaluated that there were about 21,500 refugees remaining from the 1991-92 exoduses sheltered in the two refugee camps in Southern Bangladesh (Kutupalong and Nayapara)1. According to the same source, since May 2003, the rate of repatriations from those refugee camps increased significantly (704 people in May 2003 against 93 in April 2003), and so did the complaints of coercion and harassment.
According to several sources, those refugees are victims of intimidation and harassment in order to pressure them to return to Burma. In recent months, refugees who refused to repatriate have been intimidated and threatened. Forum Asia reported in June 2003 that mental or physical pressures were used to induce repatriation such as threats of jail, arbitrary arrest, beatings, deprivation of food, destruction of housing and transfer to other sections of the camp.
The services available in the camps have been reduced. Medical care, which had been provided for years by humanitarian NGOs, including MSF, is provided for by the Bangladeshi Ministry of Health since August 2003.
Some repatriated refugees left Burma between April and June 2003 and have come back again to Bangladesh. According to MSF2, both repatriated refugees and new arrivals complain about the fact that they don’t receive a citizenship, food problems, arbitrary taxation, rising extortion and restriction on movement - the very same reasons as in the past.
Recommendations:
In light of that information, the FIDH calls on the international community to urge Bangladesh to provide proper assistance to the Rohingyas who are refugees on its territory. It also calls on the UNHCR to upgrade its presence in the two camps in Bangladesh and in Burma. The UNHCR should strengthen its assistance programmes in Burma in favour of the Rohingyas.
The FIDH asks the CHR to adopt a resolution renewing the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma. The resolution should notably urge the Burmese authorities to:
– put an immediate end to the current repression against the Rohingyas
– implement the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, notably with regard to ethnic minorities
– to recognise without ambiguity the Rohingyas as a minority in Burma, and to respect their rights in that regard