U Kyaw Min of Burma:A Member of Parliament without Citizenship

By: Ahmedur Rahman Farooq

January 31, 2008

Burma, a resource-rich country of 678,500 sq. km and 57.6 million people which the military rulers have turned into a secret state of terror during its 46 years of unbroken despotic rule and where a Nobel Peace Laureate like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and many other members of parliament are languishing in detetion or jails years after years, the issue of U Kyaw Min can not usually make a story.

But the case of U Kyaw Min alias Master Shamsul Anowarul Hoque deserves special attention as it is different in nature from legal point of view and it carries a different perspective which is related to the fate of 4.5 million Rohingya ethnic minority of Arakan, Burma.

U Kyaw Min is a Rohingya by ethnicity. He has been sentenced to 47 years imprisonment and at the same time his wife Daw Tiza, his two daughters Kin Kin Nu and Way Way Nu and his son Maung Aung Naing have also been sentenced to 17 years imprisonment respectively. Now all of them have been passing a nightmarish life in the jail in Burma. The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) which is serving as a government in exile with its headquarter in Washington D.C., states about him, "U Kyaw Min(age 54), the representative-elect (MP) of Butheetaung Township constituency (1), belongs to the National Democratic Party for Human Rights (NDPHR) and a member of the CRPP, was detained on 17 March 2005, A statement was released by CRPP on last Union Day, in which U Kyaw Min took in active part. Besides, he met with ILO delegation, which visited Burma on 21st to 23rd of February 2005. He was sentenced to 47 years imprisonment on 29 July 2005. His wife, two daughters and a son were also sentenced to 17 years respectively. The junta banned the NDPHR under order No. 8/92 on 18 March 1992, and at that time U Kyaw Min was a member of the party's Central Executive Committee. U Kyaw Min received a Bachelor of Economics degree from the Rangoon Institute of Economics in 1968, and in 1969 he began working as a teacher. In 1983, he received a Diploma in Education and served as the Deputy Head of Buthidaung Township Educational Department. In 1985 he became a middle school principal but was dismissed from the position in 1989 because of his involvement in the August 1988 uprising. U Kyaw Min received 30,997 valid votes or 74 % in the 1990 elections."
(http://www.ncgub.net/staticpage s/index.php/MP-update-August200 7)

U Kyaw Min was born in the village "Mikyanzay" under Buthidaung Township in Arakan State of Burma in 1944. In 1988, he led anti government democratic uprising as the chairman of "Democracy Fighting Committee" of the Mayu Division and at the same time he was the executive member of Arakan State Peace Commitee whose chairman was the then Head Monk of Arakan State and which was maintaining the law and order situation in the whole Arakan State during the two months of chaotic and volatile period of 1988 when there was virtually no governance in Burma. He was also the adviser to the " 88 Generation of Mayu Division". However, after the landslide victory of U Kyaw Min in the general election of 1990, the military rulers took it as a big dust on their eye. In 1992, he was put in detention for 3 months in the custody of the military intelligence during operation "prataya". He was again put in detention for 15 days when a senior official of the UN visited Buthidaung in Arakan State. In 1994, an insurgent group launched several offensives in western Arakan, then the military intelligence again put him in detention for 45 days eventhough he has never supported any separatism and has continuously raised his voice for the communal harmony and peaceful coexistence of all communities of Arakan particularly the Rohingyas and Rakhines under the Union of Burma. Finally, in March 2005, he was arrested from his residence in Rangoon and was charged under Section 18 Citizenship Law 1982 and section 5(j) Anti State Emergency Law .

Mentionably, after he joined the CRPP (Committee Representing the People's Parliament) in 1998 at the invitation of Daw Aung Suu Kyie to represent the Rohingya ethnic minority, the main pro-regime party"NUP" (National Unity Party) invited him to join NUP to support military backed national convention and to resign from CRPP. But he did not agree and this has brought serious wrath of the military rulers and the ultimate consequence was the handing of 47 years imprisonment.

From February 21 to 23.2005, a high power delegation of ILO (International Labor Organization) has visited Burma and they have held an exclusive meeting with him and after the visit of that delegation, Burma was suspended from ILO and then the military rulers suspected him to have played an active role in the suspension of Burma from the ILO.

However, the imprisonment of U Kyaw Min under the allegation of not being the citizen of Burma, is a part of systematic persecutions of Rohingya ethnic minority of Arakan. U Kyaw Min has got his graduation from the Rangoon University on the subjects of Bachelor of Economics. As per the Burmese law, this subject is not allowed to study for foreigners. For 18 years, he has held a number of different positions in the government job, which is not allowed for someone who is not the citizen of Burma. It is also true that the Election Commission of Burma never allows a foreigner to participate in a general election. But despite the Election Commission knew it very well that he is a Rohingya, he was allowed to run the election after scrutinizing his nationality status.

Mentionably, an amendment to the Burma citizenship law in 1982 deprived the Rohingyas of citizenship, suddenly making them illegal immigrants in their ancestral motherland where they have been living centuries after centuries and whose presence in the region can be traced back to the 7th Century. However, this amendment has reduced them to the status of a Stateless Gypsy Community of the world.

The Burmese military rulers do not want to know and let others know that the Rohingyas have a long history, a language, a heritage, a culture and a tradition of their own that they had built up in Arakan through their long history of existence there and in order to garner support among the Buddhist majority Burma, the military rulers have continuously run their criminal propaganda against the Rohingyas to such a level that many people still believe that Royhingyas are foreigners and that they do not belong to Burma.

Particularly since the takeover of General Ne Win in 1962, the Burmese military rulers have been continuously stepping up their systemic program to ethnically cleanse the Rohingyas from their ancestral homeland and they have been altering the demography of the region through extermination and displacement of the Rohingya population, demolition and confiscation of Rohingya properties and construction of Pagodas and monasteries on the demolished sacred sites of the Rohingyas to obliterate the identity of the Rohingyas. In Arakan there is a vast number of written and unwritten discriminatory rules which govern the lives of Rohingyas. They are subjected to severe restrictions of movement, which affect their ability to trade and to seek employment as well as limit their access to health care and education. The Rohingyas must apply for written permission to travel out of their home villages, and another permission document to sleep overnight in another village. Akyab (Sittwe), the capital city of Arakan, is totally off limits to them. Marrying without permission ?and permission is often denied or delayed ?can bring hefty fines and prison sentences and turns children of such "illegal" marriages into stateless non-persons. For the decades-long downtrodden and poverty-stricken Rohingyas, complying with the myriad restrictions requires an onerous and mostly unofficial payment every step of the way. Arbitrary confiscation of land without compensation continues, either to provide land for new Buddhist settlers or to build and enlarge military camps, including plantations to grow crops for the military for their own food as well as for commercial purposes.

Since the promulgation of the new Burma Citizenship Law 1982, the Rohingya students are denied their basic rights to education outside Arakan. It is important to point out that all professional institutes are situated outside Arakan. Thus, the Rohingya students are unable to study there because of such travel prohibition. In recent years, the Rohingya students are prohibited from even going to Akyab (Sittwe) to attend Sittwe University for their studies. These draconian measures barring Rohingyas from attending universities and professional institutes are marginalizing them as the most illiterate section within the Burmese population. They are forced to embrace a very bleak future for them.

Traditionally, the Rohingyas are a farming community that depends on agricultural produce and breeding of cattle and fowls. Unfortunately, they are forced to pay heavy taxes on everything they own: cattle, food grains, agricultural produce, shrimp, tree, and even roof of their homes. Even for a minor repair of their homes, they are forced to pay tax. They are required to report birth and death of a livestock to the authority while paying an arbitrary fee. Extra-judicial killing and summery executions, rape of women, arrest and torture, forced labor, forced relocation, confiscation of moveable and immoveable properties, religious sacrileges, etc., are regular occurrences in Arakan.

As a result, severe poverty, unemployment, lack of education and official discrimination are compelling the Rohingyas to lead an inhuman life, causing a negative affect to each Rohingya, especially its youths and workforces. The future of the community remains bleak and exodus into neighboring Bangladesh has become a recurrent phenomenon. The new arrivals unfortunately often face arrests and/or pushback from the Bangladesh security forces. And there is no international agency to look after the interest of these stateless Rohingyas. Because of their lack of legal identity, they are not allowed to work or hold work permit by any name. To survive, many work as illegal workers in different countries of the world where in many places they and their children are deprived of basic human rights.

However, in response to the efforts of the UNHCR to facilitate the survival of Rohingyas, the military rulers have agreed by middle of 2007 to issue Temporary Registration Certificate (TRC) for a limited number of Rohingyas, enabling them to inland travel from township to township or to apply for marriage permission. The UNHCR is present in northern Arakan state for the past 14 years, monitoring the welfare of more than 230,000 Rohingya former refugees who returned from next-door Bangladesh from 1992 onwards.

Nevertheless, after the resignation of the rest three Rohingya MPs under the pressure of the military regime, U Kyaw Min who proved to have the courage to stare at the eye of death, remained the only member of parliament among 4.5 million Rohingya Community to represent the political future of the Rohingyas in the National Parliament of Burma, in different strata of the state level of Burma and also to represent the Rohingya community in the UN and other World Bodies. He is a visionary leader and an illustrious son of the soil of Arakan. His ideal remains a luminary for the Rohingyas to build up a future even standing in the debris.He inspired hundreds of thousands of Rohingya youths to think as to how to emancipate the stateless Rohingya community from their decades-long sufferings.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyie is regarded by the people of Burma as well as Rohingyas as the icon of peace and liberty and at the sametime U Kyaw Min is regarded by the Rohingyas as the ray of hope as well as the crown of their respect which has been reflected in his landslide victory in the 1990 General Election and which has been recognized as a significant landmark for representation and which came after 26 years of military dictatorship. In fact, it was the first time when the people of Burma got an opportunity to vote for a government of their choice. It was one of the free and fair elections that had taken place in the South-East Asia region at that decade. He made unprecedented contributions for the cause of emancipation of the whole Rohingya community and as a great Rohingya scholar, he has shown the Rohingya community the road to emancipation through the restoration of communal harmony between Rohingyas and Rakhines under the Union of a democratic government of Burma.

U Kyaw Min tried his level best to inject the spirit of brotherhood among all communities of Arakan particularly the Rohingyas and Rakhines to work shoulder in shoulder for the build up of a prosperous future. He lives with dignity in the hearts of tens of thousands homeless Rohingyas. By imprisoning him on the charge of being an alien, the military rulers will not be able to wipe out his name from hearts of Rohingyas as well as other democratic forces of Burma. They have rather set with it another example of forcefully snatching away the rights of Rohingyas to citizenship and thus to compel them to born, live and die in this world without having the basic rights as stipulated by the UN Declaration of Human Rights.#
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Ahmedur Rahman Farooq, Chairman, 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

Protection of Rohingya Undocumented Refugees in Bangladesh

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

http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/archive/January%2008/17-01-2008.htm