Decades of neglect have turned the plight of the Rohingya into a regional issue, and any failure to address it adequately will only serve to undermine the bloc’s credibility.
The Rohingya are the second-largest ethnic group living in Arakan State, after the ethnic Rakhine; in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships, in the northern part of the state, they are in the majority. But even though they comprise nearly 30 percent of the state’s population of 2.75 million people, they are often treated as if they don’t exist.
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Goodwill Ambassador of the UNHCR Angelina Jolie smiles at Karenni refugee children during a visit to Ban Mai Nai Soi camp in northern Thailand. (Photo: AFP) |
Ultra-nationalist campaigns initiated by the Burmese government, often with the support of local Buddhist communities, have long portrayed the Rohingya as interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh and India, arguing that they are just another part of the negative legacy of British colonial rule.
As part of the effort to drive them out of the state, the Rohingya are routinely subjected to human rights abuses, including forced labor, land confiscation and even restrictions on marriage. They are also frequent targets of extortion and arbitrary taxation.
In 1991, waves of Rohingya refugees fled across Burma’s western border to Bangladesh to escape oppression. About 230,000 of the refugees have since been repatriated under an agreement between Bangladesh and Burma, with the involvement of the UNHCR, while approximately 28,000 remain in two refugee camps in Bangladesh.
As part of the ongoing repatriation program, the Burmese regime has agreed to issue temporary registration cards to returnees. The UNHCR estimates that around 35,000 cards were issued in 2007, with an additional 48,000 issued between January and May of 2008.
But far from providing them with any sort of legal status, the registration cards have often served to reinforce discrimination against the Rohingya.
According to the US government’s 2008 Report on International Religious Freedom, for instance, Burmese authorities insist that Muslim men applying for the cards “must submit photos without beards”—an offensively discriminatory requirement intended to discourage registration.
With no hope of improvement in their situation, many Rohingyas continue to leave Burma, often via Bangladesh. But in their quest for friendlier shores, they often have to pass through Burmese territorial waters, putting them at risk of arrest under Section 13(1) of the 1947 Immigration Law, which prescribes penalties for illegal entry into Burma.
According to the Arakan Project, many Rohingyas who have been arrested in Burmese waters on their way to Thailand have been sentenced to up to five years in prison for illegally crossing the border. Such prisoners account for the majority of the jail population in northern Arakan State.
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Rohingya boat people receive medical treatment at a temporary shelter in Aceh Province after being rescued by local fishermen on February 2. The all-male group of 198, who had not eaten for a week and who included a 13-year-old, was found floating in a wooden boat off the coast of Aceh after 21 days at sea. (Photo: Reuters) |
Former inmates of these prisons say that Rohingya prisoners are fed only once every three or four days, and are often subjected to beatings. Little can be done to protect them from such treatment, however, because international agencies such as the UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross currently have no access to jails in Burma.
For those who are pardoned and allowed to return to their home villages, the situation isn’t much better. They often find that their names have been permanently deleted from their household registries, meaning that they are constantly at risk of being arrested again.
“Since they are no longer administratively listed, many have been forced to flee to Bangladesh again,” according to Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project.
In Bangladesh, life is only marginally less precarious.