Rohingya refugees refuse to leave grim camps and face violent militia
JEHANGIR is a Majhi or leader of his camp. He is ready with his list of demands to meet with visiting Burmese Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye, who is on his first visit to the sprawling and congested Rohingya camp at Kutupalong in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar.
More than a million refugees have crossed over to Bangladesh from Burma after last year’s violence.
Jehangir was a teacher when the Burmese army attacked his village, Maungdaw. “They fired at us and burnt many houses. My cousin was killed in that attack,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner.
Unlike when he had arrived, Jehangir looks better. Staying in the camp has done him good. “Will you return to your village?” “Not till we get the citizenship papers and guarantees for our safety,” he said. This is the message he and many other Majhis conveyed to the minister, who chose to address them as “Bengalis” rather than people from his own country.
Not far away from the Kutupalong camp, at the Unkhia subdistrict centre, there was another protest by Rohingyas, chanting: “They murdered, raped and tortured us and they drove us out of the country.”
Despite the visit by the Burmese minister and signing of an agreement with Bangladesh last November that involved repatriation of all refugees to their villages, nothing much has happened on the ground.
At the last count, only one refugee had gone back. These figures manifest the resistance the Rohingyas are putting up against leaving the camp; despite its over congestion, lack of hygiene and many other troubles.
They would rather stay in this overcrowded camp than face rape and violence at the hands of the militia or the army.
The Burmese government of Aung San Suu Kyi, due to international pressure, has talked of accommodation and taking back the refugees, but neither history nor the present will allow a happy closure to this issue.
The Muslims who live in these Arakan Hills have been variously described by the local Buddhist Burmese as “Indian Muslims” and subsequently “Pakistani Muslims” – depending on who ruled in what Bangladesh at the time.
When Warren Hastings was governor of Bengal, a British officer, Captain Hiram Cox, was mandated to settle the violence-wracked is now Arakan Muslims in an area now named after him, Cox’s Bazaar. That was in 1799. Since then, violence has never really stopped, nor has the wave of refugees to these parts.
There were expectations that after the return of democracy and coming to power of the iconic Suu Kyi, the lives of these wretched Rohingyas would improve.
These hopes were belied. In Burma the return of democracy meant revival of the old social fault lines that contributed to crafting a militant majoritarian narrative that excluded and disenfranchised the Rohingyas.
State counsellor Suu Kyi has been surprisingly silent in recognising their identity within the Burmese nation state. Rohingyas, therefore, continue to be condemned as stateless people living on the compassion of the country that gives them refuge.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who earned international praise for opening her borders and heart to the refugees when other neighbouring countries were chasing them out or viewing them with extreme suspicion, is exploring options of how to ensure their presence does not cost her politically in the coming general elections.
Experts feel that the Bangladesh economy that has performed spectacularly in the past few years, notching around 7% growth in its GDP, could come under a strain due to the refugees.
Even people on the street are heard complaining: “These Rohingyas have so many children. It is time they went back.”
In Cox’s Bazaar, the army guards the Rohingya camp. Though earlier refugees are located in other parts of the town, the current intake of refugees are not allowed to mix with the local people.
Humanitarian agencies are not allowed to teach them the local language, Bengali, lest it facilitate their unwelcome immersion in Bangladeshi society.
Sheikh Hasina’s government is proposing to shift some of these refugees to a floating island that has sprung up in the Bay of Bengal since 2007.
This island, inhabited by society’s malcontents who allegedly include pirates and human smugglers, is witnessing some serious construction by Chinese and Bangladeshi workers.
Come June, the Bangladeshi government would like to ship them to this island from where there is no escape to anywhere except Burma – once the government in Naypidaw decides to take them back.
“It is like Alcatraz or India’s Andaman penitentiary. Once a person is sent there, there is no getting out,” said a distressed employee of an international humanitarian agency.
In fact, these agencies, that include UNHCR, have resented the Bangladesh government move and called it similar to refoulement, or the forcible return of the refugees to their country against their wishes.
This is the tragedy of these nowhere people – no one listens to them, nor tries to understand where they would like to eventually settle.
This is what happens when your neighbour turns into an enemy.
Kapoor is an Indian actor and producer