By Ahmedur Rahman Farooq
January 17-2008
The Rohingya refugee problem in Bangladesh is a decades-long pending issue. According to the official record, there are some 26,000 Rohingya refugees in two official camps in Cox's Bazar, a southern district of Bangladesh bordering Burma. The government of Bangladesh manages these camps with assistance from UN refugee agency, UNHCR. These refugees are the remainder of some 258,000 Rohingyas who left Burma to escape the genocidal operation led by the Burmese military rulers against the Rohingyas in 1991- 92.
On the other hand, some estimates suggest that there are over 400,000 Rohingyas who are living in Bangladesh as undocumented refugees without any status and there are about 300,000 Rohingyas who are living in different countries of the world with Bangladesh passport. These refugees are among those who crossed to Bangladesh over the past to escape the systematic genocidal operations and gross human rights violations in their ancestral motherland Arakan which is now a state under the Union of Burma.
In fact, the Rohingya community of Arakan is one of the most unfortunate and down-trodden ethnic minority groups of the world, who are not recognized as the citizens of Burma and they have been constantly subjected to gross human rights violation decades after decades by the Burmese military rulers who have turned the country into a secret state of terror since 1962.
The Rohingya community constitutes some 4.5 million people both at home and abroad and out of it, about 1.5 million have been uprooted from their motherland and those displaced Rohingyas have been leading a gypsy life in different countries of the world mostly in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia etc as undocumented and stateless refugees without having any recognized status as refugees to avail protection as per the International Law for Refugees.
Although the slavish history of the Rohingyas begins with the invasion of Arakan in 1784 and its subsequent annexation with Burman territory, but the story of their large scale persecution and oppression begins with the beginning of the 20th century and during the Pogrom of 1942 which is worldwide known as "Biyallisher Kharakhari" over 2 hundred thousand Rohingya men, women and children have been massacred which has also been recorded by the world history. During that Pogrom, the Rohingyas of 22 villages known as Baishfajja in Mrohaung Township which was the capital city of Ancient Arakan Kingdom and also the Rohingyas of 14 villages known as Chaiddafajja of Kyawktaw Township, have been purely massacred without leaving a single Rohingya alive in those villages. During that time, tens of thousands of Rohingyas crossed to neighboring countries. And particularly since Gen. Ne Win's seize of power in 1962, the exodus of Rohingyas from Arakan has turned out to be a regular phenomenon in order to escape the systematic genocidal, ethnic cleansing and drive out operations led against the Rohingyas by the Burmese military rulers.
And during the anti-Rohingya genocidal operation known as Dragon King Operation of 1978 over three hundred thousand Rohingyas took refuge in neighboring Bangladesh and later about 180,000 Rohingyas have returned to Arakan following the intervention of the international community to force the Burmese military rulers to take back its citizens. But due to the lack of an all-out guarantee of their security in Arakan, the rest portion of the refugees refused to return home and later, many of them got mixed with the local people of Bangladesh and started leading a gypsy life here and there as undocumented refugees and many of them crossed to different countries like India, Pakistan, UAE and Saudi Arabia etc.
However, the Rohingya undocumented refugees now living in Bangladesh are a group of people who never exist officially and there is no record of their life and death on the basis of their ethnic entity as Rohingya. Being uprooted from their original hearths and homes in their ancestral land Arakan, most of them have been leading an inhuman life in Bangladesh without having any regular source of income to feed themselves. Most of them have been living years after years in some huts made of filthy plastic and bamboo cane, where parents and children live huddling together like packs of rats in a sewer. And due to the lack of any recognized status as refugees, there is no scope for them to receive any financial or food aid, medicine or education.
However, since the last many years a serious concern has been growing in Bangladesh over the issue of Rohingya undocumented refugees. In December 29.2005 , the then State Minister for Communications of Bangladesh Salauddin Ahmed MP asked the government officials in a meeting of the district law and order committee of Cox's Bazar to enroll the unlisted Rohingyas so that they can be repatriated to their homeland in due time and accordingly the district administration has conducted a survey of the Rohingyas living in different areas of Cox's Bazar.
On November 15.2007, a seminar was held at the National Press Club of Bangladesh on 'Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh: Issues and concerns' where the participants at the discussion have raised serious concern over the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. They also urged the Bangladesh government to work internationally to link Rohingya refugee problem to the ongoing democratic movement in Burma and to focus the Rohingya issue before the international community properly to help end their problems. They also said that Rohingyas are not confined to Cox's Bazar and Chittagong only, they are also living in the slum areas of Dhaka and other big cities. They suggested that the Bangladesh government should allow international organisations to provide better facilities for Rohingya refugees. They also called on the media to play its due role to place the issue before the international community.
And one of the major problems which the Rohingya undocumented refugees in Bangladesh have been facing over the last one year is with passport. Since the Rohingyas are not recognized as citizens of Burma, so there is no way for them to get any passport of Burma.
Since the long past, the Rohingya undocumented refugees have been continuing to use Bangladesh passport to travel abroad for the interest of their easy survival as there was no problem to get a passport in Bangladesh after applying for the passport using some fake address along with some fabricated documents because there was no pragmatic procedure for the passport department of Bangladesh to investigate the genuinity of the documents as well as the origin of the applicants.
But since the last one year, there is no scope for Rohingyas to get any passport in Bangladesh due to strict process of scrutiny or verification as to whether an applicant is in fact a bona fide citizen of Bangladesh. Now no passport is issued until the passport office gets a concrete verification report of the police to the fact that an applicant is in fact a citizen of Bangladesh. And also the police department is maintaining so strict procedure to verify an applicant that now they never submit any report to the passport office without going directly to the spot of the address as mentioned in the application form and then verify it minutely.
In fact, such a situation has caused a serious problem for the survival of the Rohingya undocumented refugees in Bangladesh. And more importantly, if the Bagnladesh government refuses through whatever means to renew the passports of the Rohingyas who are living in different countries of the world with Bangladesh passport or to reissue their passports if it is lost, then it will cause a big Human Tragedy as thousands of Rohingya immigrants who have been living in different countries of the world, will become illegal immigrants abroad facing the risk of loss of jobs, jail or deportation and many of them will become stranded there and they will not be able to reunite with their families - wife,children, fathers,mothers ,brothers, sisters and other near and dear ones, and many of them will not even be able to see for the last time their dying mothers or any other near and dear ones at their death bed. And more importantly, in that condition of becoming an illegal immigrant for example in the Middle East with the loss of passport, if any Rohingya dies whose family is in Bangladesh, the family of the deceased Rohingya will not be able to get back even his dead body and see him for the last time.
Similarly, over the recent past there was a strong voice in the news media of Bangladesh against the inclusion of Rohingyas in the voter list and finally the Election Commission of Bangladesh has clearly stated that there is no scope for inclusion of Rohingyas in the voter list and accordingly they have already taken all out steps to drop the Rohingyas from the voter list which means that the door for getting any passport for Rohingyas has been permanently closed.
In fact, Bangladesh is a small country of only 147,570 square km with an overwhelming population of 134.6 million people out of which 70 million people live below the poverty level and out of them 45 million people live on below a dollar a day. Despite these so many limitations and limited resources, Bangladesh has given shelter to tens of thousands of Rohingya undocumented refugees over the past. But it is quite impossible for the people of Bangladesh to shoulder the burden of so many refugees for an indefinite period.
It may be mentioned here that giving citizenship to Rohingyas in Bangladesh or resorting to any other arrangement for their permanent resettlement in Bangladesh is not a solution to their problem. Any such move will rather aggravate their problem further. Such move will encourage the Burmese military rulers to launch more exterminatory operations against the Rohingyas in order to push the rest of Rohingyas from Arakan to Bangladesh and turn Arakan into a purely "Rohingyaless" land, because the Burmese military rulers have snatched away the citizenship right of Rohingyas on a false allegation that the Rohingyas are the British Era immigrants of the then East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and as such, this type of move will indirectly justify the allegation of the Burmese rulers. On the other hand, the burden of so many refugees will cause a tremendous problem to the poverty stricken people of Bangladesh. And, this type of move, which can literally be called as Bengalization of Rohingyas, will lead to the loss of an ethnic community "Rohingya" from the world in the long run.
So, the best option towards the solution to their problem is to let them live in Bangladesh until a democratic government comes to power in Burma and to recognize them as refugees for their easy survival and to provide them with Travel Document to facilitate them to travel abroad for their livelihood.
In fact, the people of Bangladesh are very sympathetic to the never ending story of plight of Rohingyas and the sufferings of Rohingyas remind the people of Bangladesh of their own plight during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 when millions of people of Bangladesh were compelled to take refuge in neighboring India to escape the Genocide. But in order to ensure prevention of any sort of conflict of interest between the Rohingya undocumented refugees and the people of Bangladesh for today or sometime in the future, a comprehensive initiative must be taken at the state level in collaboration with the UN to create an atmosphere in Bangladesh where these refugees will not be treated as parasites of the human society of Bangladesh and where they will not be subjected to any sort of discrimination in enjoying their fundamental human rights. Otherwise, these refugees may naturally try sometime in the future to avail the citizenship of Bangladesh by hook or by crook to avoid discrimination and for the interest of their easy survival.
It may be mentioned here that at present there is no effective tool in Bangladesh for the protection of refugees and identification of illegal immigrants and there is no institutional mechanism for refugee status determination (RSD) by the government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is not a party to the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, 1951, and it's Protocol of 1967. It also does not have any national legislation to deal with asylum or refugee issues. Though Article 31 of the Constitution of Bangladesh guarantees equal protection of law for "every other person" staying in the country for the time being, however, there is a lack of judicial interpretation and common understanding of the clause.
But Bangladesh has been a party to major international human rights instruments. It has also been a member of the UNHCR's Executive Committee since 1995. So, the state is already under obligation to extend protection to asylum seekers and refugees in the country.
Nevertheless, the ongoing process of marginalization of Rohingyas through the voter enlistment programme of the Election Commission of Bangladesh, has caused a question of life and death for tens of thousands of Rohingya undocumented refugees in Bangldesh. After the finalization of the ongoing process of voter enlistment within the Year 2008, the Bangladesh government will provide ID Card to all the voters. And this ID Card will be essential in all walks of life and without ID Card, it may be impossible to even buy a medicine or get treatment in a hospital. In such a situation, the survival of these Rohingyas in Bangladesh without any recognized status will be quite impossible and it will cause a big human tragedy if no specific step is taken in advance to solve their problem.
So, as a part of their protection, the Bangladesh government should take urgent step to recognize them as refugees and to raise the issue in the international forum with a view to find out a durable solution to their problem.
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Ahmedur Rahman Farooq, Chariman, The Council for Restoration of Democracy in Burma (CRDB) and a member of The Union of Rohingya Communities in Europe (URCE). Address: 2975, Vang i Valdres, Norway. Media Contact:+4797413036 Email: rohingyascrdbinfo@ gmail.com , crdbinfodept@ yahoo.com
