By FRANCIS WADE
Still from video shows Rohingya being forced to work on the Bangladesh-Burma border fence in 2010 (The Arakan Project)
Evidence from surveys carried out among the ethnic Rohingya population of northern Arakan state suggest that contrary to pledges made by the new Burmese government, forced labour has not abated.
Some communities in the impoverished region of western Burma claim that instances of forced labour had in fact risen since the elections in November last, as local authorities push ahead with the completion of infrastructural projects.
The surveys were conducted by The Arakan Project, which has a number of covert fact finding teams working in the area.
“During the period immediately preceding the elections, forced labour demands had noticeably decreased, raising hopes among Rohingyas for a better future under the new government, including some respite from compulsory labour,” the report, ‘Forced labour after the elections’, says.
“Unfortunately, their expectations were short-lived. Within days, forced labour exactions did not simply resume but, by December, reached a peak unseen since the early 1990s due to extensive repair of the [Burma-Bangladesh] border fence.”
Civilians are mainly sought to work on infrastructure aimed at securing the porous border between the two countries, and allowing for better maneuverability of Burmese troops close to the fence.
The eventual by-product of this, the report warns, will be an intensified militarisation of the region, where abuses of the Muslim minority at the hands of the army and local border guard force, known as NaSaKa, are already rampant. Moreover, the orders for civilians to join the workforce are given by a unit within the army known as Garrison Engineers (GE), reinforcing claims that discrimination against the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Burma largely on the basis that they are Muslim, is state-sanctioned.
The report says that while enough government funds have been allocated for the labourers working on the fence and surrounding infrastructure, little of it reaches its supposed destination.
“GE subcontract most construction projects to the NaSaKa Sectors, who siphon off the budget earmarked for the manpower and use forced labour instead.”
According to observations made by Arakan Project teams, children make up as much as 40 percent of the forced labour workforce in the region around Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships in the north of the state. Some of these may be as young as 10.
Reports emerged in Bangladeshi press earlier this week claiming that Dhaka had struck a deal with Naypyidaw to return the thousands of Rohingya refugees living in the two official camps of Kutupalong and Nayapara.
Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, however rubbished these claims, and said there was no evidence of any sort of bilateral agreement being struck. Moreover, the prospect of many of these people being forced to return to Burma to face a situation that has apparently not changed since they fled, will trigger alarm.
“The consequences of these Bangladesh statements are often renewed pressure and abuses on the refugees. Fear is already spreading in the refugee camps, and acts as a ‘push-factor’ for camp refugees to flee by boat to Malaysia,” she told DVB.
Up to 300,000 Rohingya have fled Burma for Bangladesh, but Dhaka has allowed only 28,000 to be registered by the UN, leaving hundreds of thousands eking out a precarious existence in unofficial camps and on the fringes of towns. The Rohingya have been described by various groups as one of the world’s most threatened minorities.
Credit : DVB news
The newly formed government of Myanmar has agreed to take back registered Rohingya refugees currently staying at two refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar but made no decision on the large number of unregistered Rohingyas living in Bangladesh.
The number of refugees in Nayapara and Kutupalong camps is now 28,000 and the Myanmar government agreed that a large number of the refugees are Myanmar nationals, said Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes on Saturday at a press briefing at the foreign ministry.
Apart from the refugees, there are a huge number of undocumented Myanmar nationals living in Bangladesh without refugee status, he said referring to the unregistered Rohingyas.
“Although they do not have refugee status, we are not forcing them out of the country on humanitarian ground,” Quayes said, adding that the Myanmar authorities have agreed to discuss the undocumented nationals.
The refugees at the camps had declined to return, he said hoping that they may have the confidence to go back now as Myanmar has a new government.
Bangladesh, Myanmar and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) took a fresh initiative to return the refugees to their homeland, said Quayes, who attended Foreign Office Consultations held in Myanmar on August 25.
Both governments are in discussion to launch synchronized patrol of the common border by border guards of the two countries to stop fresh influx of Myanmar citizens into Bangladesh, Quayes said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to visit Myanmar soon to discuss this issue among others but the date of the trip has not been fixed yet, he added.
According to different sources, there are more than 300,000 unregistered Rohingyas living among the local population, in slums and villages mostly throughout Cox’s Bazar district but also in smaller numbers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Rohingyas began fleeing Burma in the late 1970s, although the biggest influx was in 1992 when an estimated 250,000 fled to Bangladesh. Most of them were repatriated following agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar with the UNHCR supervision.
Credit: Daily Star
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Dhaka, Oct 15 (UNB) - The elected government of Myanmar has agreed to take back all Rohingya refugees who are now staying in two camps in Cox’s Bazar, Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes said here today (Saturday).
Currently, some 28,000 Rohingyas are staying in Nayapara and Kutupalong camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Quayes, who had Foreign Office Consultation in Myanmar on August 25, said that apart from the refugees, there are a huge number of undocumented Mynamar nationals who intruded into Bangladesh without having any refugee status.
“Although they have no refugee status, we are not forcing them out of the country on humanitarian ground,” he told a regular press briefing at the Foreign Ministry.
The Foreign Secretary said since Myanmar has got a new elected government, a fresh initiative involving Bangladesh, Myanmar and UNHCR has been taken to see the refugees go back to their homeland of Myanmar.
He said both the governments are also in discussion to launch synchronized patrol of the common border by the border guards to stop fresh influx of Myanmar citizens into Bangladesh.
Quayes said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will visit Mynamar shortly, date of which has not been fixed yet. He hoped that during the visit, many bilateral issues including border haats and coastal shipping will be resolved.
The Foreign Secretary is leaving here this (Saturday) night for Beijing to hold the Foreign Office Consultations with China on October 17.
He said they would review the follow up actions on the decisions taken by the two countries during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China.
In reply to a question, Quayes said Bangladesh’s proposal seeking Chinese assistance to build deep seaport in the Bay of Bengal would be discussed.
Asked about the transportation of the Indian goods from Ashuganj to Akhaura, he said apart from transportation of Over Dimensional Consignments (ODCs) for Palatana power plant in Tripura under special arrangement, other goods are being transported under the existing arrangements with India.
Asked about the government’s latest position regarding the recognition of Kosovo, the Foreign Secretary said the matter is under consideration of the government. “We are monitoring the ongoing global momentum about the issue.”
Currently, some 28,000 Rohingyas are staying in Nayapara and Kutupalong camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Quayes, who had Foreign Office Consultation in Myanmar on August 25, said that apart from the refugees, there are a huge number of undocumented Mynamar nationals who intruded into Bangladesh without having any refugee status.
“Although they have no refugee status, we are not forcing them out of the country on humanitarian ground,” he told a regular press briefing at the Foreign Ministry.
The Foreign Secretary said since Myanmar has got a new elected government, a fresh initiative involving Bangladesh, Myanmar and UNHCR has been taken to see the refugees go back to their homeland of Myanmar.
He said both the governments are also in discussion to launch synchronized patrol of the common border by the border guards to stop fresh influx of Myanmar citizens into Bangladesh.
Quayes said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will visit Mynamar shortly, date of which has not been fixed yet. He hoped that during the visit, many bilateral issues including border haats and coastal shipping will be resolved.
The Foreign Secretary is leaving here this (Saturday) night for Beijing to hold the Foreign Office Consultations with China on October 17.
He said they would review the follow up actions on the decisions taken by the two countries during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China.
In reply to a question, Quayes said Bangladesh’s proposal seeking Chinese assistance to build deep seaport in the Bay of Bengal would be discussed.
Asked about the transportation of the Indian goods from Ashuganj to Akhaura, he said apart from transportation of Over Dimensional Consignments (ODCs) for Palatana power plant in Tripura under special arrangement, other goods are being transported under the existing arrangements with India.
Asked about the government’s latest position regarding the recognition of Kosovo, the Foreign Secretary said the matter is under consideration of the government. “We are monitoring the ongoing global momentum about the issue.”
Rights group Human Asia may only have been campaigning here for under six years, but the small Korean NGO aims to have a big impact on the region.
The organization which raises awareness on human rights across Asia has set out on an ambitious mission to establish a regional human rights protection mechanism, and it is starting by educating Korea.
And Human Asia program manager Lee Joo-yea thought a Seoul-based organization would be well-placed to lead a forum where representatives of many Asian countries can meet to find common ground on rights.
“Our long-term aim is to get a human rights convention for Asia,” she said. “The first step is getting a lot of human rights organizations together for an NGO-led forum.”
While Asian countries such as Thailand and the Philippines do not have the economic resources, and others have questionable human rights records to overcome, Lee believes that Korea now has the economic and diplomatic clout to lead in the field.
“We are looking to see who can be the leader of the (Asian) human rights movement,” she said.
“Japan has a past that they are not particularly proud of -― they colonized countries. China is economically successful but has so many human rights violations. It is not that Korea is totally innocent but at least the international community states that Korea is not so guilty ... In that sense we are really proud that we can come in to try to develop the human rights movement in Asia.”
The organization started in 2006 is working to educate people on human rights here and has already drawn interest from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea for a regional human rights forum, hoped to be held in the next three years.
Human Asia campaigners raise awareness of the plight of Rohingya refugees in a recent demonstration in Korea. (Human Asia)
While Lee is optimistic that common ground can be found among Asian countries, she recognizes that there are many hurdles to overcome, including neighboring nations’ differing agendas such as food security in Bangladesh to migrant workers’ rights in Korea.
She also recognized that further education was needed to put human rights on the agenda here.
“It is very hard because people have very different ideas about what human rights are,” she said.
“We don’t have any general human rights teaching in schools or universities. Most of the young students don’t have any basic idea of human rights.
“They think that human rights are something that belong to others. They don’t think of human rights as something they can use to empower themselves.”To change this, the organization has focused for the last six years on education.
It holds regular workshops for activists, human rights academies and has set up a human rights course with Korea University Graduate School of International Studies, with students attending from countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh as well as Korea. But now the charity is working to get more people outside of academia involved.“We are starting to run more campaigns to bring in ordinary members of the public as we want to expand our activities to include not just education but also toward more active campaigns,” Lee said. The NGO’s grassroots movement is also developing abroad with branches run by high school students cropping up in America ― in California, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Massachusetts.
In Korea, the charity has held street campaigns for Rohingya Refugees here, originally from Burma. It has also supported groups such as the Jumma people who fled persecution in Bangladesh to become refugees in Korea, and made a field trip to the country to learn more about human rights concerns there. As well as helping under-represented people, each campaign aims to accustom participants to the idea that they can become rights activists in their own way, too. “Korea has developed in various areas including economically, but you don’t have that kind of development in human rights.
We need to narrow this gap,” said Lee.“In Korea we have a very active civil rights and labor movement and the term human rights was always around but here people often associate the term with struggle, or fighting, or something political.“Even (our country’s) leaders, they think that human rights (can be used as) a tool for them to achieve a leadership position in Asia.”Lee said Human Asia aims to shift the focus from gleaning international prestige to helping people, avoiding many Asian NGOs often narrow scope that was often “very political and either right wing or left wing.”She added:
“We don’t necessarily represent the whole of Asia but by bringing together other civil society organizations and creating a forum we can discuss our different concerns.
”By Kirsty Taylor (kirstyt@heraldm.com)
Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world following decades of natural disasters, famines, civil war and over-population. It has also hosted the hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya refugees for over three decades. Refugees International assessed the situation of unregistered Rohingya refugees who have been living in eastern Bangladesh without assistance and legal protection. The Rohingyas’ plight has only worsened due to the government of Bangladesh’s tightening of restrictions on NGOs assisting the Rohingya. The Bangladesh government must improve protection of the Rohingya by permitting aid agencies to assist both refugees and impoverished local communities, as well as to develop a registration process for the unregistered population.
Leda site in Cox’s Bazaar district is home to 12,000 unregistered refugees. Because the population is not officially registered with the government or the UN Refugee Agency, they receive little humanitarian assistance and have no legal rights.
Leda site in Cox’s Bazaar district is home to 12,000 unregistered refugees. Because the population is not officially registered with the government or the UN Refugee Agency, they receive little humanitarian assistance and have no legal rights.
Credit :Refugee Int'l
By : PARINYAPORN PAJEE
A Thai documentary maker turns her attention to the Rohingya
Like many Thais, Thananuch Sanguansak saw CNN's report in early 2009 that the Thai military had been systematically towing boat-loads of Rohingya refugees far out to sea and setting them adrift. Her curiosity was aroused and the director and editor of the Nation Channel's documentary section decided to explore further with a documentary of her own.
"That was really the first time I'd heard about the Rohingya. They are part of our daily lives but we don't really notice them," says Thananuch, who set about tracing the Rohingya in Thailand from Ranong to Samut Sakhon - the provinces that are home to the largest concentrations of Burmese immigrant labour.
"I asked Burmese labourers where I could find Rohingya people and the answer was ‘any roti vendor'. I was surprised because I'd always thought that the roti vendors came from India or Bangladesh. In fact, they are Rohingya," says Thananuch.
After interviewing a Rohingya man in Ranong, she learned that he and his family had been evicted from their rented house and asked by government officials from not to give any more information. Thananuch was incensed and decided to develop her documentary and get to know more about the ethnic group.
Most of 50-minute documentary was researched, shot, edited and narrated by Thananuch on her own. Rather than focusing on the obvious human rights abuses, she presents the lives and an overview of these little known people in "My Roghingya" and lets the viewer draw their own conclusions.
"The documentary is from my point of view. I want to share their lives and tell their stories, not just what happened in news," she says.
After showing on the Nation Channel and Modernine as well as at the World Film Festival of Bangkok last year, the documentary is being screened today and on Saturday at the UNHCR's Refugee Film Festival in Tokyo.
It doesn't try to dramatise the hardships of these stateless people or the discrimination in their homeland. In fact Thananuch tries to paint an honest picture of the people who live humbly in Thailand and as well as in the Rohingya refugee camp at Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.
Unlike those in Thailand, the Rohingya in Bangladesh face a real struggle to survive. They have to stay in the refugee camp and while they can go out to work, they have to return to the camp at night. Thananuch discovered that it was not easy to interview Rohingya people in Bangladesh because they were terrified of getting into trouble with the Bangladesh people and the government.
"We interviewed them in the van so they'd feel safer," she says.
"But whether they are relatively free in Thailand or in a camp in Bangladesh, they really don't want to live abroad. They want to live in Burma," says Thananuch.
"They want Burmese citizenship and to be able to return home."
Many Rohingya people have lived in Thailand for decades, can speak Thai fluently and some have married Thais and are raising families. Aside from selling roti or grilled squid, some are waiting further endorsement of their legal refugee status through UNHCR.
The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim people from Arakan state in western Burma near the Bangladesh border. Long denied Burmese citizenship, they were chased from their homes by the junta and forced to flee to Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia, none of which wants them.
Burma is an ethnically diverse country. Not only the Rohingya, all ethnic people including the Karen or Mon have problems with the government. The Rohingya people still in Arakan State are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission and have no legal right to own land or property.
Thananuch says she sees no way out for the Rohingya.
"When their problem started getting more public attention, they hoped that their citizenship situation would be resolved because Asean and the UN were aware of their existence. But nothing is happening: it's not easy for any international organisations to interfere with Burma's internal policies."
ON THE WEB
Watch "My Rohingya" at
www.YouTube.com/user/Sthananuch.
"That was really the first time I'd heard about the Rohingya. They are part of our daily lives but we don't really notice them," says Thananuch, who set about tracing the Rohingya in Thailand from Ranong to Samut Sakhon - the provinces that are home to the largest concentrations of Burmese immigrant labour.
"I asked Burmese labourers where I could find Rohingya people and the answer was ‘any roti vendor'. I was surprised because I'd always thought that the roti vendors came from India or Bangladesh. In fact, they are Rohingya," says Thananuch.
After interviewing a Rohingya man in Ranong, she learned that he and his family had been evicted from their rented house and asked by government officials from not to give any more information. Thananuch was incensed and decided to develop her documentary and get to know more about the ethnic group.
Most of 50-minute documentary was researched, shot, edited and narrated by Thananuch on her own. Rather than focusing on the obvious human rights abuses, she presents the lives and an overview of these little known people in "My Roghingya" and lets the viewer draw their own conclusions.
"The documentary is from my point of view. I want to share their lives and tell their stories, not just what happened in news," she says.
After showing on the Nation Channel and Modernine as well as at the World Film Festival of Bangkok last year, the documentary is being screened today and on Saturday at the UNHCR's Refugee Film Festival in Tokyo.
It doesn't try to dramatise the hardships of these stateless people or the discrimination in their homeland. In fact Thananuch tries to paint an honest picture of the people who live humbly in Thailand and as well as in the Rohingya refugee camp at Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.
Unlike those in Thailand, the Rohingya in Bangladesh face a real struggle to survive. They have to stay in the refugee camp and while they can go out to work, they have to return to the camp at night. Thananuch discovered that it was not easy to interview Rohingya people in Bangladesh because they were terrified of getting into trouble with the Bangladesh people and the government.
"We interviewed them in the van so they'd feel safer," she says.
"But whether they are relatively free in Thailand or in a camp in Bangladesh, they really don't want to live abroad. They want to live in Burma," says Thananuch.
"They want Burmese citizenship and to be able to return home."
Many Rohingya people have lived in Thailand for decades, can speak Thai fluently and some have married Thais and are raising families. Aside from selling roti or grilled squid, some are waiting further endorsement of their legal refugee status through UNHCR.
The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim people from Arakan state in western Burma near the Bangladesh border. Long denied Burmese citizenship, they were chased from their homes by the junta and forced to flee to Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia, none of which wants them.
Burma is an ethnically diverse country. Not only the Rohingya, all ethnic people including the Karen or Mon have problems with the government. The Rohingya people still in Arakan State are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission and have no legal right to own land or property.
Thananuch says she sees no way out for the Rohingya.
"When their problem started getting more public attention, they hoped that their citizenship situation would be resolved because Asean and the UN were aware of their existence. But nothing is happening: it's not easy for any international organisations to interfere with Burma's internal policies."
ON THE WEB
Watch "My Rohingya" at
www.YouTube.com/user/Sthananuch.
Credit : The Nation
Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni on Monday urged Myanmar for quick repatriation of the remaining Rohingya refugees from Nayapara and Kutupalong camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Dipu Moni made the call while Myanmar Ambassador in Dhaka Min Lwin met her at her office.
During the meeting, the Foreign Minister underlined the importance of improving connectivity between the two countries through direct air, rail and water ways.
She appreciated the progress made through the ongoing bilateral meetings under the auspices of Foreign Office Consultations, Joint Trade Commission and Joint Boundary Working Group.
Dipu Moni proposed Myanmar to reach a broader framework agreement with Bangladesh for cooperation in multifaceted areas.
She urged the envoy to persuade the Myanmar businessmen to import more Bangladesh products, including pharmaceuticals, readymade garment and jute.
The Foreign Minister renewed Bangladesh’s interest to import surplus electricity and gas from Myanmar.
Referring to the sincere efforts made by the present Bangladesh government to resolve issues with neighbouring countries on the basis of friendship and goodwill, Dipu Moni requested the new Myanmar government to come forward to avail of the goodwill and sincerity in the best interest of the two countries and their people.
Min Lwin appreciated the ideas of the Foreign Minister and said all pending issues with Bangladesh will be resolved through discussion.
source : here
source : here
The Immigration Minister was chosen to answer a question in parliament brought by U Zarad Rawmam aka U Htay Win of Arakan constituency seven, in which he enquired about why “indigenous Rakhine Muslims” still had their freedom of movement curtailed by having to apply to the military’s border force, Nasaka, to move between towns. Failing to do so can result in jail time as a Muslim National League for Democracy (NLD) member found out near Mandalay.
Htay Win was quoted by the New Light of Myanmar saying that; “indigenous Myanmar Muslim voters in Maungtaw District of Rakhine State cannot travel freely; to travel other Regions or States for economic, education, health and social reasons, they have to take out Application Form (4) of Immigration Department under the directive of Na-Sa-Ka, forcing them to face many difficulties in socio-economic life; and how the state will help address this issue.”
The response came from the immigration minister, U Khin Yi, a former police chief. The key part of his response reaffirmed the government’s commitment to racial profiling, stating that;
“Those who are labeled “Myanmar Muslims” were assumed to be Bengalis in Maungtaw of Rakhine [Arakan] State;” and; “Bengalis in Maungtaw have shared common religion, culture, appearance and language with their counterparts [in Bangladesh].”
Incidentally other ethnic groups in Burma share “appearance” and cultural traits with those over international boundaries in nations such as Thailand or China.
David Matheison, senior Burma researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW) responded that it was symptomatic of “systemic racism” on the part of the Burmese government.
Khin Yi meanwhile claimed in parliament that migrants from Bangladesh were “penetrating deep into the country,” international NGOs and the UNHCR have confirmed that there is a “protracted emergency” in Bangladesh as a result of refugees from Burma’s northern Arakan state where Maungdaw or Maungtaw is located.
Matheison confirmed that claims of Bangladeshi migration to Burma were a “massive mistruth,” adding that; “its going the other way.”
Khin Yi however stated that; “As there was mass migration 180,000 were given refuge after being scrutinised by Nagarmin Operation and Hintha Plan in 1978.”
Nagarmin, translates as dragon, and was by most accounts an appropriate description for it was in all intents and purposes a racial purge, where by some 200,000 Burmese Muslims or Rohingya were sent fleeing into neighbouring Bangladesh by heavily armed members of the Burmese military.
Khin Yi none the less stated that; “the Application Form (4) is used in need of State’s security and nationalism as the foreign Bengalis illegally migrated into Maungtaw of Rakhine State.”
Muslims have lived in the Arakan region since at least the 9th century BCE whilst today Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh is home to some 200,000 Burmese Muslim refugees as well as significant numbers of Arakanese Buddhist refugees.
However systemic persecution on the basis of race has been experienced not just in border areas. Such laws or policies are regularly used against Muslim Burmese.
A Muslim member of National League for Democracy (NLD) in Mandalay’s Tatkon township was recently sentenced to one and half years in prison for trying to travel to a nearby town to celebrate Martyr’s Day.
Pho Htaung (also known as) Hla Myint was sentenced under the immigration act last Friday, said Meikhtila township NLD member Myint Myint Aye.
“He was prosecuted by Tatkon township’s Immigration Chief U Nyi Nyi for failing to inform the Immigration Office when he travelled outside of his town, a regulation for those who carry non-citizen ID cards. Now he has been sentenced to a year and half in prison,” said Myint Myint Aye.
Pho Htaung was previously arrested in March 2010 for travelling to Mandalay [town] to attend an NLD meeting there and sentenced to a year and half prison term. He was released from Sagaing Division’s Katha Prison after serving 13 months. His recent arrest comes just three months after he was released from his previous sentence.
The Muslim population of Northern Arakan state are known as Rohingya people. They were specifically targeted by the military party, the Union Solidarity Party (USDP) in last year’s controversial elections, to garner votes. Matheison states that they were given temporary ID cards to allow them to vote.
Despite being able to vote for the USDP they are now denied what Matheison describes as a “basic human freedom”, the freedom of movement.
As a result groups such as Refugees International describe the ethnic group as; “one of the most persecuted in the world”.
This discrimination was characterised by the Burmese consul general to Hong Kong, Ye Myint Aung who in 2009 described the ethnic group as “ugly as ogres” in the press.
Burma is not signatory to the UN’s convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, unlike all of its neighbours.
Credit : DVB News
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α္းα်ား αα္αα္αြα္ αိုαိုαူးေαါα္းေαာα္αြα္ေαး αိα
α₯αα္α်ားαို αα္းႏွီးαြα့္αα္းα
ြာ α‘ျαα္α်α္းααွα္ ေαြးေႏြးαဲ့αΎααα္" αု ေααျααα္။
ေαြးေႏြးαြဲαို ေαျαα္ေαာ္αြα္ αΎααα္α
္α αα
αα္ေααα ျαဳαုα္αဲ့αα္။ ျαα္αာαα္αွ ႏိုα္αံျαားေαး αုαα္αΎαီး α¦းေαာα္ျαα့္ α¦းေαာα္ေαာ αုိα္α
ားαွα္ α‘αြဲαα αα္ေαာα္αဲ့ျαီး ααၤαာေαα်္ααα္αွ ႏိုα္αံျαားေαး α‘αြα္းαα္ αα
α₯αာαိုαာαα္ αီα်ာαူးαါးαားα
္ α¦းေαာα္ေαာ αုိα္α
ားαွα္ α‘αြဲα αα္ေαာα္αဲ့αα္။
ααု ေαြးေႏြးαြဲαွာ αα₯α₯αα‘αΎαိα္ေျαာα္ ျαα္αာ-ααၤαားေα့α်္ ႏွα
္ႏိုα္αံ ႏိုα္αံျαားေαး αα္αΎαီးαာαα်ား α‘αΎαား αုαိααα္αΎαီး၊ α‘αြα္းαα္ α‘αα့္ αိႈႏိႈα္းေαြးေႏြးαဲြ ျαα
္ေαΎαာα္း αိααα္။
ααၤαာေαα်္α α‘α
ိုးααွ αူႏိုα္αံαြα္ αα္αုα္ αα္αိုး ျαα
္ေαေαာ ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံαားα်ားαို ျαα္αာ ႏိုα္αံαိုα ျαα္αိုαေαးαို ျαα္αာႏွα့္ ေαြααံု ေαြးေႏြးαြဲαိုα္းαြα္ αα္ျα ေျαာαိုေαာ္αα္း ျαα္αာαα္α αα္αံαိုေαΎαာα္း αံααα္αα္းα‘α ေျαာαိုαံုαွ α‘α αα္ေαြααြα္ αα
ံုααာ α‘ေαာα္ α‘αα္ေαα ေαာα္αြα္ျαα္း ααွိေαΎαာα္း αိααα္။
ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံαွ αြα္ααα္ αုαα‘αα္α်ားαို αα္αံαားαာ ေαာ့ေαာ αေαာα္ αုαα‘αα္ α
αα္းαွ αုαα‘αα္ αα
္α¦းα‘ား ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံ α‘α
ိုးααွ α‘αုα‘αါ αုαα‘αα္α်ားαို ျαα္αα္ αα္αံαα္ ေျαာαိုေαျαီ ျαα
္αျαα့္ ျαα္αိုαါααားαု ေαးျαα္းαာ αူα ααုαိုေျαာαα္။
" αα½ြα္ေαာ္αိုααို ျαα္αာα‘α
ိုးαα ျαα္ αα္αံαα္αိုαာαို αα½ြα္ေαာ္αိုα ααံုαူး။ α‘αα္၍ αα½ြα္ေαာ္αိုααို ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံαို ျαα္αိုααα္αိုαα္ αα½ြα္ေαာ္αိုααို ႏိုα္αံαား α‘ျαα
္ α‘αိα‘αွα္ ျαဳααα္။ αိုေαာα္αα္ αα½ြα္ေαာ္αိုα αα္ေျαေαြαို αα½ြα္ေαာ္αိုααို ျαα္ေαးααα္။ αြα္αα္α
ြာ ααီးαြားαာαြα့္ ျαဳααα္။ αီαို α‘α်α္ေαြααွ ျαα္αα္။ ααုα္αα္ αျαα္ႏိုα္αါαူး" αု ေျαာαα္။
ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံαွ ေαာα္αွိေαေαာ αုαα‘αα္α်ားαို ααၤαာေαα်္α α‘α
ိုးαα αူαႏိုα္αံ α‘αြα္း ααားαိုေαာ္αα္း ျαα္αာ α‘α
ိုးααွ αα္αံαူαα္ α
ိα္αႏα΅ ααွိျαα္းႏွα့္ ααၤαာေαα်္ααို ေαာα္αွိေααာ αြα္ααα္ αုαα‘αα္ α‘α်ားα
ုααα္း ျαα္αို α
ိα္ ααွိျαα္းေαΎαာα့္ α‘αိုαါ αုαα‘αα္ ျαα္αိုαေα ျαႆαာαွာ ေျααွα္း၍ αααဲ αα္α
ုႏွα
္ႏွα့္ α်ီျαီး αိα္αဲαα္းαα္း ျαα
္ေαျαα္း ျαα
္αα္။
Credit:αိαα₯αΉαာααα္း
The United Nations has warned that about 12-million people across the world have no citizenship of any country and consequently suffer from a denial of basic human rights.
The problem is growing worse because children of stateless parents are themselves stateless.
The UN said the problem is most acute in South East Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Without citizenship or permanent resident papers, stateless people are vulnerable to a large number of problems – for example, they’re often restricted from owning property, getting legally married or opening up a bank account. In worse cases, the stateless can be detained indefinitely since they cannot prove who they are or where they come from.
Prominent stateless people include the Rohingya people of Burma. An ethnic Muslim minority, thousands of Rohingya have fled brutality and oppression in Burma for neighboring Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh seeks to deport them back to Burma.
Perhaps the most famous stateless people in the world are the Roma of Eastern Europe. Typically called ‘Gypsies,’ the Roma are a diverse, nomadic group of people who originated in India and have lived in Europe for centuries.
"These people are in desperate need of help because they live in a nightmarish legal limbo," said Antonio Guterres of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Apart from the misery caused to the people themselves, the effect of marginalizing whole groups of people across generations creates great stress in the societies they live in and is sometimes a source of conflict."
As a result, the UN is calling on more countries to sign up to Conventions that guarantee some basic rights for the stateless.
At present, only 66 nations are signed up to the 1954 Convention which entitle stateless people to minimum standards of treatment; and only 38 states have agreed to the 1961 Convention which allows for provides a legal framework to help states minimize statelessness.
"After 50 years, these conventions have attracted only a small number of states,'' Guterres noted."It's shameful that millions of people are living without nationality - a fundamental human right."
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The chief of mission of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) of India said that all relevant factors and changes in conditions in a country of origin are important but they must be seen in an overall context when talking about sending refugees back home.
The Mae La refugee camp is located about 90 km from Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border. Refugees have been living in Thai camps since the mid-1990s. Photo: AFP
“The UNHCR follows very closely the political situations in all countries of origin of refugees, and we will continue to do so,” said Montserrat Feixas Vihe.
He told Mizzima that the UNHCR welcomed the Burmese president’s comments on Wednesday inviting Burmese living abroad to return home to help the country develop.
According to UNHCR reports, there are a total of 11,500 Burmese who are refugees or applying for refugee status in New Delhi.
“The UNHCR hopes that being a refugee is a temporary condition. Therefore, the UNHCR always welcomes positive development in countries of origin so that eventually refugees are able to go back home,” Vihe said.
He said the UNHCR considers voluntary repatriation as the best durable solution for refugees.
“If the situation in Burma evolves in such a way that makes return possible and the refugees are willing to return, the UNHCR will assist them to voluntarily repatriate as much as possible,” he said.
After President Thein Sein’s comments, Burmese refugees in camps along the Thai-Burmese border said they are worried that the Thai government will close the refugee camps, according to refugee sources.
Thein Sein said in a meeting with officials from economic and social organizations, “We will make a review to make sure that Burmese citizens living abroad can return home if they have not committed any crime, and if a Burmese citizen in a foreign country who committed a crime applies to return home, we will show our benevolent attitude in dealing with their case.”
One refugee said, “If the UNHCR repatriates us because of the government’s offer, we will live in border areas. It is impossible that we can go back.”
A Chin refugee in New Delhi told Mizzima. “If the UNHCR forcibly repatriates us, I will join up with an armed group in the border area. I cannot be arrested in Burma.”
Stevin Kap Tlutng, the chairman of the Chin Refugee Committee based in New Delhi, said, “I don’t want them [UNHCR of India] to repatriate us, but I can’t say that it won’t happen.”
Burmese refugees are also concerned that if the UNHCR trusts the Burmese government’s offer, it may stop accepting new refugees, and it could stop or delay sending Burmese refugees to resettlement countries.
“We’re worried that Thailand will close the refugee camps. All the refugees here are worried,” Myo Thant, a refugee in the Umpiem Mai refugee Camp in Thailand, told Mizzima.
There are nine Burmese refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border: Baan Mai Nai Soi, Baan Mae Surin, Mae La Oon, Mae Ra Ma Luang, Mae La, Nu po, Umpiem, Baan Don Yang and Tham Hin; and one Shan refugee camp, Wieng Heng, in Chiang Mai District in northern Thailand.
In Mae La, the largest refugee camp, the Thailand- Burma Border Consortium provides relief to more than 50,000 refugees, and another 16,000 refugees at the Umpiem camp.
Burmese refugee organizations said that if the government really wants to make a positive change, it should first agree to a cease-fire with ethnic armed groups and release all political prisoners before inviting Burmese citizens abroad to return home.
Tha Kell, the vice chairman of the Mae La refugee camp, said, “The conditions in Burma have not improved. Inside Burma, revolutionists and other groups haven’t gotten what they want. Agreements have not been reached. The government’s problems with ethnic groups such as the Shan, Kachin and the KNU [Karen National Union] are not resolved.”
According to the UNHCR Web site, there are 62,015 internally displaced persons affected by the civil war in Burma, 415,670 Burmese refugees and 22,270 asylum seekers from Burma.
He told Mizzima that the UNHCR welcomed the Burmese president’s comments on Wednesday inviting Burmese living abroad to return home to help the country develop.
According to UNHCR reports, there are a total of 11,500 Burmese who are refugees or applying for refugee status in New Delhi.
“The UNHCR hopes that being a refugee is a temporary condition. Therefore, the UNHCR always welcomes positive development in countries of origin so that eventually refugees are able to go back home,” Vihe said.
He said the UNHCR considers voluntary repatriation as the best durable solution for refugees.
“If the situation in Burma evolves in such a way that makes return possible and the refugees are willing to return, the UNHCR will assist them to voluntarily repatriate as much as possible,” he said.
After President Thein Sein’s comments, Burmese refugees in camps along the Thai-Burmese border said they are worried that the Thai government will close the refugee camps, according to refugee sources.
Thein Sein said in a meeting with officials from economic and social organizations, “We will make a review to make sure that Burmese citizens living abroad can return home if they have not committed any crime, and if a Burmese citizen in a foreign country who committed a crime applies to return home, we will show our benevolent attitude in dealing with their case.”
One refugee said, “If the UNHCR repatriates us because of the government’s offer, we will live in border areas. It is impossible that we can go back.”
A Chin refugee in New Delhi told Mizzima. “If the UNHCR forcibly repatriates us, I will join up with an armed group in the border area. I cannot be arrested in Burma.”
Stevin Kap Tlutng, the chairman of the Chin Refugee Committee based in New Delhi, said, “I don’t want them [UNHCR of India] to repatriate us, but I can’t say that it won’t happen.”
Burmese refugees are also concerned that if the UNHCR trusts the Burmese government’s offer, it may stop accepting new refugees, and it could stop or delay sending Burmese refugees to resettlement countries.
“We’re worried that Thailand will close the refugee camps. All the refugees here are worried,” Myo Thant, a refugee in the Umpiem Mai refugee Camp in Thailand, told Mizzima.
There are nine Burmese refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border: Baan Mai Nai Soi, Baan Mae Surin, Mae La Oon, Mae Ra Ma Luang, Mae La, Nu po, Umpiem, Baan Don Yang and Tham Hin; and one Shan refugee camp, Wieng Heng, in Chiang Mai District in northern Thailand.
In Mae La, the largest refugee camp, the Thailand- Burma Border Consortium provides relief to more than 50,000 refugees, and another 16,000 refugees at the Umpiem camp.
Burmese refugee organizations said that if the government really wants to make a positive change, it should first agree to a cease-fire with ethnic armed groups and release all political prisoners before inviting Burmese citizens abroad to return home.
Tha Kell, the vice chairman of the Mae La refugee camp, said, “The conditions in Burma have not improved. Inside Burma, revolutionists and other groups haven’t gotten what they want. Agreements have not been reached. The government’s problems with ethnic groups such as the Shan, Kachin and the KNU [Karen National Union] are not resolved.”
According to the UNHCR Web site, there are 62,015 internally displaced persons affected by the civil war in Burma, 415,670 Burmese refugees and 22,270 asylum seekers from Burma.
Credit : Mizzima
By MAHN SAIMON
Kongchantuk was responding to a remark recently made by the governor of Thailand’s Tak province Samart Loifah. He had issued an order for refugee camps situated along the border in the region to make lists of their population to pre-empt a send back to Burma.
Kongchantuk however told DVB that we have yet to see tangible improvements;
“We sent a list of procedures for the concerned [Thai] government departments regarding the repatriation – that it should be voluntary and that their native country must be in a ready-state to accept them back,” Kongchantuk said.
“To decide whether the native country is ready or not should not be based on claims by the [Burmese government] alone but also needs to be inspected and approved by a UN organisation such as the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). So far, the UNHCR is yet to make any inspection about the real situation,” he added.
“This is not a case between just two countries but also concerns the international community. The Tak governor’s decision is irrelevantly premature and is causing a panic among the refugees.”
Samart Loifa made the orders after President Thein Sein’s remark on 17 August, that Burmese nationals living abroad in exile were allowed to go back to their home country.
He told the media that he was happy for Burmese refugees, who were forced to flee their homes, that they were allowed to go back to Burma and expressed a belief that this would bring peace to the Thai-Burma border region.
Saw Po Dan, chairman of Nupo refugee camp however said they had not received any order from Loifa as yet;
“There is no official order yet. [Loifa] came around our camp a couple of times in the past but he didn’t come in [the camp] – he just hung around outside and talked with camp officials. There was no clear order as yet,” said Saw Po Dan.
There are nearly 150,000 refugees living in nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. Whilst commentators have welcomed what appears to be a relative softening of rhetoric from Naypyidaw, others have responded to invitations back and supposed offers of dialogue with some scepticism.
Far from a decrease in violence in the ethnic areas of Burma the past year has seen an escalation in fighting as the Burmese military has pursued greater incursions into Shan, Karen and Kachin areas.
The last of which has seen around 10,000 people internally displaced and the World Food Program commence delivering food aid to over 3,000 vulnerable people near Kachin state’s capital, Myitkina last week.
The Daily Star>>>
Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Mijarul Quayes will be paying a visit to Myanmar to meet his counterpart on August 24 for two days to discuss bilateral and regional issues. The last meeting at the foreign secretary level took place in Dhaka on December 28, 2009. The trip is welcomed.
It is reported that the issues to be discussed, among others, may include:
* Multi-modal transport connectivity;
* Border security to prevent criminal activities and illegal immigration;
* Facilitation of trade;
* Repatriation of remaining Rohingya refugees;
* Cooperation in other areas including energy and agriculture.
Myanmar is the only other neighbour of Bangladesh besides India. Bangladesh shares 271 km of border with Myanmar -- both land and water. The two countries share the boundary Naaf River. Bangladesh is adjacent to two states of Myanmar -- Rakhaine and Chin.
Myanmar recognised Bangladesh on January 13, 1972 (the 7th country to do so) and Bangladesh remembers this friendly gesture.
Soon after independence, Bangladesh attached importance to its relations with Myanmar and in May 1972, the Bangladesh foreign minister visited Myanmar, and sent our seniormost diplomat.
Myanmar is so close but at the same time it is too far because of lack of interconnectivity. One has to travel by air from Bangladesh to Myanmar through a third country. This is unacceptable and needs to be sorted out as soon as possible for mutual benefit.
Bilateral relations are friendly but interactions between the two neighbours leave much to be desired. There are about 10 Agreements between the two countries, including those on areas of land boundary management, trade, transport, and prevention of narcotics smuggling. However, there is no direct road connectivity, no air link and no shipping connection between the two countries.
With the availability of weatherproof road, people-to-people contact is bound to increase and, consequently, commercial and trade opportunities will receive further boost between the two neighbouring countries. The road could also be used for establishing links with China and Thailand. Meanwhile, China has agreed in principle to Bangladesh's proposal of road connectivity through Myanmar to China's Yunnan province.
Since the present government came to power, there has been an attempt to inject momentum and dynamism into bilateral relations. On May 16, 2009, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Dipu Moni visited Myanmar and held official talks with her counterpart U Nyan Winz.
They reportedly discussed a host of issues, including repatriation of the remaining Myanmar refugees, relaxation of visa requirements for citizens of either country, facilitation of banking services, increased border trade, export of surplus power to Bangladesh, road link between the two countries up to China, direct air link, and sharing bandwidth with fiber-optic cable.
In January 2011, the Bangladesh foreign minister attended the 13th ministerial level meeting of BIMSTEC in Myanmar, and on the sidelines she discussed bilateral issues with her counterpart. She held discussions with a private company in Myanmar to purchase hydropower from adjoining Rakhaine state (Arakan).
The amount of bilateral trade is meager. It is reported that in 2008-09 Bangladesh's exports stood at $9.17 million and imports from Myanmar at $66.65 million. To increase trade, the joint trade commission of Bangladesh and Myanmar held its fifth meeting on July 21-22. It was agreed that the two countries would raise bilateral trade to $550 million from $160 million now.
Both countries agreed to increase the ceiling for transaction value to $50,000 per consignment from $30,000. Officials also discussed the potential for setting up wholesale border markets at Bangladesh's Teknaf and Myanmar's Maungdaw, a border town.
They also discussed how to complete border transactions through the Asian Clearing Union payment system as Bangladeshi importers now settle their payments for bulk shipments through bank drafts issued by foreign banks to a third country.
One of the bilateral issues that often cause tension is related to the issue of Rohingya refugees. It first cropped up in 1978. Within a year, it was resolved amicably. The result was all the refugees were repatriated to Myanmar with the assistance of the UNHCR. However, the flow of refugees came to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1997. About 21,000 refugees remain in Bangladesh and negotiations on the issue continue.
The migration of Rohingya people to Bangladesh is a complex matter. It should not be seen merely as a refugee problem with humanitarian dimension partly because Rohingya Liberation Front has been reportedly fighting for decades for a separate land in Rakhaine state.
Given the background, both countries need to identify the root cause of the issue and jointly develop effective border management to prevent the flow of Rohingyas to Bangladesh.
The political environment in Myanmar is different from that of the past. Myanmar had elections in November and a civilian government (dominated by former military officials), has been in power since March 30.
The opposition leader Suu Kyi has met twice in recent weeks with representatives of the government, who have delivered conciliatory overtures toward her. On August14, she made her first political trip to the countryside. On August 19, the government invited Suu Kyi for the first time to participate in an economic development workshop, and she met for the first time with President Thein Sein.
Given the political atmosphere, Bangladesh may now seize the opportunity to expand its relations, both in depth and in dimension, with the government of Myanmar, including the desirability of a visit of Bangladesh prime minister to Myanmar.
The geographical proximity makes both countries natural partners, and they should see cooperative efforts and interconnectivity as catalysts for economic growth and prosperity for the people of Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
Young Myanmar refugees from the Rohingya ethnic minority attend their English class in Kuala Lumpur in this August 16, 2011 file picture.
MYANMAR: The Rohingyas from western Myanmar have suffered a history of abuse. Unlike the majority population, they are Muslims of South Asian descent. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for them to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar, up to 300,000 in Bangladesh and many more have fled to Southeast Asia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Some end up sold into slavery on fishing boats and plantations.
KUWAIT: Many people among the nomadic Bedouin tribes failed to acquire citizenship when the country became independent in 1961. Their descendents are known as bedoun, which means "without" (nationality) in Arabic. It is estimated there are 93,000-180,000 Kuwaiti Bedoun in the country and many more outside. They are barred from free education, healthcare and many jobs. The government says they are illegal residents from other countries. They faced increasing hardship after the 1990-1991 Gulf War and many thousands who fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation were refused back after liberation.
KENYA: The Nubians have lived in Kenya for over 100 years but they are regularly denied national identity cards and passports which they need to work, vote, travel, own a mobile phone, open a bank account, attend university or enter government buildings. Nubians from Sudan first arrived in Kenya in the 19th century when they were recruited by the British to fight in East Africa. Decades of marginalization have led to desperate poverty. In March 2011, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child found Kenya in violation of the rights of Nubian children to nationality and protection against statelessness.
MALAYSIA: Tens of thousands of children in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo are stateless. They are the children of Indonesians and Filipinos who have migrated to Sabah to work, both legally and illegally, often in palm oil plantations. Without citizenship these children have no rights to education or healthcare. Many end up as child laborers. Others get involved in drugs and petty crime. Some parents do not register their children because they fear deportation or are not legally married. Others cannot afford the cost. Mass deportations mean some children get stranded without their parents.
IVORY COAST: During the 20th century, Ivory Coast encouraged millions of immigrants, particularly from Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana, to work on its coffee and cotton plantations. At least a quarter of the population is estimated to be of foreign descent. The issue of who is or is not Ivorian fueled the country's 2002-03 civil war. Much of the protracted peace process was about registering northerners and putting them on the electoral list if they could prove at least one parent was Ivorian.
SYRIA: In 1962 many Kurds in the northeast were stripped of citizenship. New York-based group Human Rights Watch says the move was part of a plan to "Arabize" the resource-rich region. Today there are an estimated 300,000 stateless Kurds in Syria. Their rights to education, healthcare, employment, property ownership and travel are severely limited. In reaction to this year's uprising in the country, President Bashar al-Assad promised to give nationality to many stateless Kurds, but it is not clear how many will benefit or whether any changes will last.
NEPAL: Official figures show 800,000 people do not have confirmed nationality and cannot access key services. However, the UNHCR believes the figure is far higher. Married women cannot get a citizenship certificate without the approval of their husband or father-in-law and women married to foreigners cannot pass citizenship to their children. The U.N. refugee agency fears a proposed new constitution could exacerbate statelessness. There is also a large stateless population from neighboring Bhutan, which expelled over 100,000 people of Nepali origin in the early 1990s after stripping them of citizenship. They are also refused citizenship in Nepal. Many have been resettled in the United States.
THAILAND: More than 540,000 people are stateless. Many are members of ethnic hill tribes such as the Yao, Hmong and Karen who live in the mountainous north on the border with Myanmar and Laos and have distinct languages and cultures. The government has refused to issue them ID cards or provide state services. This has left them economically vulnerable, especially to human trafficking.
EUROPE: The Roma, an ethnic group with origins in India, are concentrated largely in central and eastern Europe. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 have no nationality. The break-up of former Czechoslovakia and former Yugoslavia caused enormous difficulties for them when new successor states claimed they belonged somewhere else. Many other Roma in Kosovo and Bosnia have become stateless due to mass displacements during wars. Roma families often do not register the birth of a child and do not hold official property titles, preferring to pass their houses to relatives informally. This makes it difficult to prove where they are from and leaves them very vulnerable.
ESTONIA/LATVIA: When the Soviet Union broke up, many ethnic Russians were stranded in the new Baltic states. They were defined as "non-citizens" even though they had not acquired Russian citizenship. In Estonia and Latvia, ethnic Russians have had trouble obtaining citizenship and are frequently discriminated against. The UNHCR says there are over 100,000 in Estonia and 326,900 in Latvia.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: The government denies people of Haitian descent access to identity documents. This includes people whose grandparents were born in the Dominican Republic. The country has ignored a 2005 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which declared that the nation must extend full citizenship to Dominicans of Haitian descent.
(Sources: UNHCR, Refugees International, Forced Migration Review, Open Society, Irish Center For Human Rights)
(AlertNet is a global humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Visit www.trust.org/alertnet)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-stateless-groups-idUSTRE77M2AS20110823
Aug 23 (AlertNet) - There are an estimated 12-15 million people worldwide who are not recognized as nationals by any country. On Thursday the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR will launch a campaign to highlight the plight of stateless people. Below are examples from around the world.
MYANMAR: The Rohingyas from western Myanmar have suffered a history of abuse. Unlike the majority population, they are Muslims of South Asian descent. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for them to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar, up to 300,000 in Bangladesh and many more have fled to Southeast Asia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Some end up sold into slavery on fishing boats and plantations.
KUWAIT: Many people among the nomadic Bedouin tribes failed to acquire citizenship when the country became independent in 1961. Their descendents are known as bedoun, which means "without" (nationality) in Arabic. It is estimated there are 93,000-180,000 Kuwaiti Bedoun in the country and many more outside. They are barred from free education, healthcare and many jobs. The government says they are illegal residents from other countries. They faced increasing hardship after the 1990-1991 Gulf War and many thousands who fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation were refused back after liberation.
KENYA: The Nubians have lived in Kenya for over 100 years but they are regularly denied national identity cards and passports which they need to work, vote, travel, own a mobile phone, open a bank account, attend university or enter government buildings. Nubians from Sudan first arrived in Kenya in the 19th century when they were recruited by the British to fight in East Africa. Decades of marginalization have led to desperate poverty. In March 2011, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child found Kenya in violation of the rights of Nubian children to nationality and protection against statelessness.
MALAYSIA: Tens of thousands of children in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo are stateless. They are the children of Indonesians and Filipinos who have migrated to Sabah to work, both legally and illegally, often in palm oil plantations. Without citizenship these children have no rights to education or healthcare. Many end up as child laborers. Others get involved in drugs and petty crime. Some parents do not register their children because they fear deportation or are not legally married. Others cannot afford the cost. Mass deportations mean some children get stranded without their parents.
IVORY COAST: During the 20th century, Ivory Coast encouraged millions of immigrants, particularly from Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana, to work on its coffee and cotton plantations. At least a quarter of the population is estimated to be of foreign descent. The issue of who is or is not Ivorian fueled the country's 2002-03 civil war. Much of the protracted peace process was about registering northerners and putting them on the electoral list if they could prove at least one parent was Ivorian.
SYRIA: In 1962 many Kurds in the northeast were stripped of citizenship. New York-based group Human Rights Watch says the move was part of a plan to "Arabize" the resource-rich region. Today there are an estimated 300,000 stateless Kurds in Syria. Their rights to education, healthcare, employment, property ownership and travel are severely limited. In reaction to this year's uprising in the country, President Bashar al-Assad promised to give nationality to many stateless Kurds, but it is not clear how many will benefit or whether any changes will last.
NEPAL: Official figures show 800,000 people do not have confirmed nationality and cannot access key services. However, the UNHCR believes the figure is far higher. Married women cannot get a citizenship certificate without the approval of their husband or father-in-law and women married to foreigners cannot pass citizenship to their children. The U.N. refugee agency fears a proposed new constitution could exacerbate statelessness. There is also a large stateless population from neighboring Bhutan, which expelled over 100,000 people of Nepali origin in the early 1990s after stripping them of citizenship. They are also refused citizenship in Nepal. Many have been resettled in the United States.
THAILAND: More than 540,000 people are stateless. Many are members of ethnic hill tribes such as the Yao, Hmong and Karen who live in the mountainous north on the border with Myanmar and Laos and have distinct languages and cultures. The government has refused to issue them ID cards or provide state services. This has left them economically vulnerable, especially to human trafficking.
EUROPE: The Roma, an ethnic group with origins in India, are concentrated largely in central and eastern Europe. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 have no nationality. The break-up of former Czechoslovakia and former Yugoslavia caused enormous difficulties for them when new successor states claimed they belonged somewhere else. Many other Roma in Kosovo and Bosnia have become stateless due to mass displacements during wars. Roma families often do not register the birth of a child and do not hold official property titles, preferring to pass their houses to relatives informally. This makes it difficult to prove where they are from and leaves them very vulnerable.
ESTONIA/LATVIA: When the Soviet Union broke up, many ethnic Russians were stranded in the new Baltic states. They were defined as "non-citizens" even though they had not acquired Russian citizenship. In Estonia and Latvia, ethnic Russians have had trouble obtaining citizenship and are frequently discriminated against. The UNHCR says there are over 100,000 in Estonia and 326,900 in Latvia.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: The government denies people of Haitian descent access to identity documents. This includes people whose grandparents were born in the Dominican Republic. The country has ignored a 2005 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which declared that the nation must extend full citizenship to Dominicans of Haitian descent.
(Sources: UNHCR, Refugees International, Forced Migration Review, Open Society, Irish Center For Human Rights)
(AlertNet is a global humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Visit www.trust.org/alertnet)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-stateless-groups-idUSTRE77M2AS20110823
The Rohingyas from western Myanmar have suffered a history of abuse. Unlike the majority population, they are Muslims of South Asian descent. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for them to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar, up to 300,000 in Bangladesh and many more have fled to Southeast Asia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Some end up sold into slavery on fishing boats and plantations.
statelessness
By Melanie Teff, Refugees International
Washington, D.C. - There are around 12 million people worldwide who lack citizenship and basic rights in the country in which they live. This stateless status often keeps children from attending school and condemns families to poverty. And it can be particularly hard on women – a fact that I had reinforced to me on a recent trip to Malaysia.
In February, I and a colleague travelled to Malaysia and Bangladesh to assess the needs of the Rohingya population – a Muslim ethnic minority group from western Burma.
The Rohingya have no rights in Burma, and their lives are made impossible by such practices as forced labor, displacement and systematic physical assault and rape. They are not allowed to marry or travel to other villages unless they pay prohibitively high taxes.
The Burmese authorities stripped the Rohingya of their Burmese citizenship in 1982, arguing that they are Bangladeshi. But the Bangladeshi government also does not accept the Rohingya as their citizens. So the Rohingya community is stateless, with no government that accepts them.
While in Malaysia, I met with Gultaz, who was nine months pregnant and very scared. Her story illustrates the type of problems that many stateless women around the world face, forced to hide themselves away and unable to advance in their lives.
Gultaz, her family and neighbours were displaced from their village near the archaeological ruins in Mrauk-U in Arakan State. The military wanted to develop the site for tourism and forcibly relocated them with no compensation. The Burmese authorities used brutal force to require Gultaz’s husband to work for them for no pay. They beat him in the face, and he has had two eye operations to try to repair the damage he suffered. He fled without being able to inform Gultaz of where he was going, so she was left alone struggling to look after their young son and suffering persecution from the Burmese authorities.
Eventually, Gultaz learned that her husband had made his way to Malaysia. She could no longer ensure the survival of her son in Burma and she decided that she had no option but to travel illegally, with her 12 year-old son, to Bangladesh, where they took a boat to Thailand. Then they made their way to the border between Thailand and Malaysia. Gultaz and her son were arrested there for illegal entry into Thailand, and they were held in a Thai detention centre for more than three months. The conditions in the detention centre were appalling for her and her child. When they finally got out of the detention centre, they managed to cross the border into Malaysia and Gultaz and her son were reunited with her husband.
Gultaz was relieved to get to Malaysia, where the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is permitted to assist the Rohingya. But, despite allowing UNHCR to register refugees there, Malaysia has not signed the international convention on refugees, and it still arrests foreigners who enter the country illegally, even if they are refugees or stateless.
Three years after arriving in Malaysia, when Gultaz was five months pregnant with her second child, she and her husband were both arrested by immigration authorities and were held in detention. Gultaz said that it was terrible being pregnant in the Malaysian detention centre, with inadequate food and unclean water, and she had difficulty getting medical attention. After two months, UNHCR secured the release of Gultaz from the detention centre. Over the past two years Malaysia has reduced arrests of refugees registered with UNHCR, but Gultaz’s experiences make her too scared to leave her house.
Gultaz struggles to survive economically, as her husband is still ill. But her fear of going out prevents her from taking up possible opportunities. She was offered a loan under a micro-credit scheme, but she refused as she was worried she would not be able to repay it. She pointed out that since she does not have the right to work in Malaysia, she fears she could be arrested again while trying to sell any products she would make. And she does not want to default on a loan.
When I asked Gultaz what she hoped for the future, she told me that her life was over (although she is only 37). All she thinks of is her children’s future. Her older child never went to school. But she hopes that her 3-year-old daughter will be allowed to go to government schools so that she will have a future.
Melanie Teff is a senior advocate for women’s rights at Refugees International. Refugees International is a Washington, DC-based organization that advocates to end refugee crises and receives no government or UN funding.
UNHCR-Malaysia ၏ αုαα‘αα္α်ား αα္ေαြႏွိα္αα္ααα္းႏွα့္ αα္αα္၍ αα.α.αααα αြα္ UNHCR-Malaysia αα္ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαွိ ျαα္αာαုαα‘αα္ α‘αြဲαα‘α
α္းαα်ိဳαα‘ားေαααူ၍ UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္ αα္αိုα္αα့္ α
ာαြα္α
ာαα္း αα္αα္αိုα္ေαာα္αားαူ αα္αူααို αα.α.αααα (ေαာαΎαာေαα) ေαာα္αံုးαား၍ αေαးαွားααααံုး၌ αα္ေαြαြားေαာα္ ေαးေαာα္ααα္αု α‘αြဲαα‘α
α္းေαါα္းေαာα္αα်ိဳαα‘ား αါးα
α္α
αားေျαာαΎαားαဲ့αα္αု αိααါαα္။ (ႏႈα္α
αားαာျαα့္αα့္α‘αြα္ ျαα္αာျαα္αွိ αα္αွိα‘α
ိုးααဲ့αိုα α‘α်ိα္αေαြး ေျαာα္းαဲႏိုα္αါαα္)
UNHCR-Malaysia αြα္ Community Development Unit (CDU) ေαါα္းα α₯္αြဲαာαααုαွိျαီး αိုαာααα္ေα‘ာα္αြα္ αေαးαွားαွိ ျαα္αာαုαα‘αα္ႏွα့္ ႏိုα္αံေαးα‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα‘ားαံုး၏αာαα္ႏွα့္ α ာαα္းα်ားαွိေααα္αု αိααါαα္။ αိုαိုαα‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα်ားα‘ား ေαααူαာαြα္ CDU α ာαα္းαြα္ αွိေααα့္ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαွိ ျαα္αာαုαα‘αα္ႏွα့္ ႏိုα္αံေαးα‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα်ားα‘ားαံုးα‘ား ေαααူေျαာαΎαားျαα္းααုα္αဲ UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္αီးα α္αα့္ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα်ားαိုαာ ေαααူα‘αိေαးျαα္းျαα ္ေαΎαာα္း αိααါαα္။
αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္ ααုျαဳαုα္ေαးαွ်α္αွိαα့္ Legalization αာαα‘αြα္း αုαα‘αα္α်ားα‘αြα္ α‘αြα္ααာα‘ေαးαΎαီးαα့္ ေαာ္ျααါααα္းႏွα့္αα္αα္၍ UNHCR-Malaysia αွ α ာα‘ားျαα့္ေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း၊ http://www.unhcr.org.my/ ႏွα့္ UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္αα္αိုα္αα့္ facebook αဲ့αိုαေαာ α‘α္αာαα္α ာα်α္ႏွာα်ားαြα္ေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း ေαΎαျαာα်α္αα ံုααာαုα္ျαα္ျαα္းααွိαဲ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းαα်ိဳααွ ေαါα္းေαာα္α်ားαိုαာ ႏႈα္ျαα့္αာ ααα္းေαးα αားေျαာαΎαားαဲ့ျαα္းျαα ္ေαΎαာα္း αိααါαα္။
αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္ ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံαွ αာေαာα္αိုαႈံαΎααα့္ αုαα‘αα္α်ား α်ားျαားေααα့္α‘ေα်ာα္ UNHCR-Malaysia ၏ ααိေαးα αားေျαာαΎαားαႈαို αΎαားαာαဲ့ααα့္ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းေαါα္းေαာα္αα်ိဳααα္ αိαိαိုα α‘αြဲααွ UNHCR αွα္αံုαα္α ာαα္းαα္ α‘αြဲααα္α်ားαိုေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း၊ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံααံαα်ားαွ UNHCR αွα္αံုαα္α ာαြα္/αα္ αα္αα္ αိုα္ေαာα္αားαူα်ား α‘ားαံုးαိုေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း αα္αα့္αα္αြα္ေαးα αα ္αို α‘αံုးျαဳ၍ α‘αိေαးေျαာαΎαားαα္αို ααα္ααွα္းႏိုα္ေα။
ααုα€ααα္းႏွα့္αα္αα္αα္α်ားαို ေαးαားေααα့္α‘α်ိα္α‘αိ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္αွိေααΎααα့္ αုαα‘αα္α်ားα‘ားαံုးα‘ေαႏွα့္ UNHCR-Malaysia αွ ααားαα္αုα္ျαα္ျαα္းααွိေαာ ααα္းα αားα‘ေαα ေααြဲααျαα ္ေααΎαျαီး ααိေαးα αားαΎαားαာαဲ့ααα့္ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းαα်ိဳααွေαါα္းေαာα္α်ားႏွα့္ αα္αွα္းααွီ၍ αိုααα္းα‘ား ααΎαားαိααဲ ααααံုးαိုα αα္ေαြαြားေαာα္ αေαးေαာα္ႏိုα္αΎααα့္ UNHCR-Malaysia ၏ αွα္αံုαα္α ာαα္းαα္ αုαα‘αα္α်ားα‘ေαα αα္αဲ့αိုα αိုးα်ိဳးαα္ေαာα္ႏိုα္αα္αို ααိαွိαေαးေα။
αိုαိုα UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္ αေαးαွားα‘α ိုးααိုα၏ ႏွα ္α₯ီးႏွα ္αα္αံုး၌ αα္ေαြαံုα ံααူαားαႈ ေααေαါα္αာαျαα္းαွာ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္ UNHCR-Malaysia αွ α‘ေαာα္α‘αားα ာαြα္/αα္ ႏွα့္ α‘αုα္αုα္αြα့္ ααားαα္αါαα ္ (αα္α αိုα) ႏွα ္αုα αံုးαို αိုα္ေαာα္αားαူα်ား ေαါα်ားαာျαα္းေαΎαာα့္ ျαα ္αα္။ αိုαဲ့αိုα αိုα္ေαာα္αားႏိုα္αူα‘α်ားα ုαွာαα္း UNHCR-Malaysia αွ α‘ေαာα္α‘αားα ာαြα္/αα္αိုααို α‘αြα္ααူျαဳαုα္ႏိုα္αΎααူα်ားျαα ္ျαီး αိုαူα်ားαα္ UNHCR-Malaysia αွα‘ေαာα္α‘αားαို ααိαႏိုα္αံαိုα αြα္αြာႏိုα္αα္α‘αြα္αာ α‘αံုးျαဳျαီး α‘αုα္αုα္αြα့္ ααားαα္αါαα ္αို αေαးαွားα‘ာαာαိုα္α်ားαွ αα္းαီးαဲ့αွ်α္ αုα္ျαα‘αံုးျαဳαΎαေαΎαာα္း αိααါαα္။
UNHCR-Malaysia αြα္ Community Development Unit (CDU) ေαါα္းα α₯္αြဲαာαααုαွိျαီး αိုαာααα္ေα‘ာα္αြα္ αေαးαွားαွိ ျαα္αာαုαα‘αα္ႏွα့္ ႏိုα္αံေαးα‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα‘ားαံုး၏αာαα္ႏွα့္ α ာαα္းα်ားαွိေααα္αု αိααါαα္။ αိုαိုαα‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα်ားα‘ား ေαααူαာαြα္ CDU α ာαα္းαြα္ αွိေααα့္ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαွိ ျαα္αာαုαα‘αα္ႏွα့္ ႏိုα္αံေαးα‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα်ားα‘ားαံုးα‘ား ေαααူေျαာαΎαားျαα္းααုα္αဲ UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္αီးα α္αα့္ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းα်ားαိုαာ ေαααူα‘αိေαးျαα္းျαα ္ေαΎαာα္း αိααါαα္။
αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္ ααုျαဳαုα္ေαးαွ်α္αွိαα့္ Legalization αာαα‘αြα္း αုαα‘αα္α်ားα‘αြα္ α‘αြα္ααာα‘ေαးαΎαီးαα့္ ေαာ္ျααါααα္းႏွα့္αα္αα္၍ UNHCR-Malaysia αွ α ာα‘ားျαα့္ေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း၊ http://www.unhcr.org.my/ ႏွα့္ UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္αα္αိုα္αα့္ facebook αဲ့αိုαေαာ α‘α္αာαα္α ာα်α္ႏွာα်ားαြα္ေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း ေαΎαျαာα်α္αα ံုααာαုα္ျαα္ျαα္းααွိαဲ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းαα်ိဳααွ ေαါα္းေαာα္α်ားαိုαာ ႏႈα္ျαα့္αာ ααα္းေαးα αားေျαာαΎαားαဲ့ျαα္းျαα ္ေαΎαာα္း αိααါαα္။
αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္ ျαα္αာႏိုα္αံαွ αာေαာα္αိုαႈံαΎααα့္ αုαα‘αα္α်ား α်ားျαားေααα့္α‘ေα်ာα္ UNHCR-Malaysia ၏ ααိေαးα αားေျαာαΎαားαႈαို αΎαားαာαဲ့ααα့္ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းေαါα္းေαာα္αα်ိဳααα္ αိαိαိုα α‘αြဲααွ UNHCR αွα္αံုαα္α ာαα္းαα္ α‘αြဲααα္α်ားαိုေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း၊ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံααံαα်ားαွ UNHCR αွα္αံုαα္α ာαြα္/αα္ αα္αα္ αိုα္ေαာα္αားαူα်ား α‘ားαံုးαိုေαာ္αα္းေαာα္း αα္αα့္αα္αြα္ေαးα αα ္αို α‘αံုးျαဳ၍ α‘αိေαးေျαာαΎαားαα္αို ααα္ααွα္းႏိုα္ေα။
ααုα€ααα္းႏွα့္αα္αα္αα္α်ားαို ေαးαားေααα့္α‘α်ိα္α‘αိ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္αွိေααΎααα့္ αုαα‘αα္α်ားα‘ားαံုးα‘ေαႏွα့္ UNHCR-Malaysia αွ ααားαα္αုα္ျαα္ျαα္းααွိေαာ ααα္းα αားα‘ေαα ေααြဲααျαα ္ေααΎαျαီး ααိေαးα αားαΎαားαာαဲ့ααα့္ α‘αြဲαα‘α α္းαα်ိဳααွေαါα္းေαာα္α်ားႏွα့္ αα္αွα္းααွီ၍ αိုααα္းα‘ား ααΎαားαိααဲ ααααံုးαိုα αα္ေαြαြားေαာα္ αေαးေαာα္ႏိုα္αΎααα့္ UNHCR-Malaysia ၏ αွα္αံုαα္α ာαα္းαα္ αုαα‘αα္α်ားα‘ေαα αα္αဲ့αိုα αိုးα်ိဳးαα္ေαာα္ႏိုα္αα္αို ααိαွိαေαးေα။
αိုαိုα UNHCR-Malaysia ႏွα့္ αေαးαွားα‘α ိုးααိုα၏ ႏွα ္α₯ီးႏွα ္αα္αံုး၌ αα္ေαြαံုα ံααူαားαႈ ေααေαါα္αာαျαα္းαွာ αေαးαွားႏိုα္αံαြα္ UNHCR-Malaysia αွ α‘ေαာα္α‘αားα ာαြα္/αα္ ႏွα့္ α‘αုα္αုα္αြα့္ ααားαα္αါαα ္ (αα္α αိုα) ႏွα ္αုα αံုးαို αိုα္ေαာα္αားαူα်ား ေαါα်ားαာျαα္းေαΎαာα့္ ျαα ္αα္။ αိုαဲ့αိုα αိုα္ေαာα္αားႏိုα္αူα‘α်ားα ုαွာαα္း UNHCR-Malaysia αွ α‘ေαာα္α‘αားα ာαြα္/αα္αိုααို α‘αြα္ααူျαဳαုα္ႏိုα္αΎααူα်ားျαα ္ျαီး αိုαူα်ားαα္ UNHCR-Malaysia αွα‘ေαာα္α‘αားαို ααိαႏိုα္αံαိုα αြα္αြာႏိုα္αα္α‘αြα္αာ α‘αံုးျαဳျαီး α‘αုα္αုα္αြα့္ ααားαα္αါαα ္αို αေαးαွားα‘ာαာαိုα္α်ားαွ αα္းαီးαဲ့αွ်α္ αုα္ျαα‘αံုးျαဳαΎαေαΎαာα္း αိααါαα္။
Asylum-seekers are locked in a detention centre on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a nation that is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention. Source: AP
THE High Court will today formally consider the Gillard government's plan to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia. At the same time, many of the poor and the desperate across Asia have already considered the plan.
And many, it seems, have dismissed it. Since Australia signed the deal with Malaysia on July 25, five boats have arrived in Australian waters, carrying at least 338 asylum-seekers.
Under the scheme, which has already seen one Labor MP sidestepping party loyalty to express her concerns, Australia will resettle 4000 recognised refugees from Malaysia over four years, and in return send 800 arrivals back to Malaysia. If news spreads that an expensive and dangerous sea voyage will end not in Australia but in the crowded refugee ghettos of Malaysia, the Australian government believes potential asylum-seekers will think twice about setting sail.
And should the Malaysia plan come to grief, there is now a back-up: Papua New Guinea has agreed that a detention centre on Manus Island, closed for seven years, can be reopened.
But this plan, too, has been questioned. Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young yesterday called for an investigation to determine who would be sent to Manus Island, how much it would cost, and whether children would be detained in the centre.
"Last time Manus was open, under John Howard, for one month the bill for one lone person was $216,000," she told the ABC. "I don't think the minister can give the answers: [the government] is struggling to give the answers on Malaysia."
Labor MP Anna Burke has also gone on the record to criticise the Manus Island plan. And lining up with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and prominent human rights advocates such as Frank Brennan, Burke says she fears the Malaysia deal abrogates Australia's international responsibilities to asylum-seekers.
"I am concerned that we can't really guarantee the safety of the 800 people," Burke says. "That is my personal concern and I have expressed that in caucus."
Even so, if the asylum-seekers case in the High Court fails, it's likely the government will break records to get the first group on a plane bound for Malaysia. There are plans to film their departure and arrival and post the footage on the internet in the hope it will deter anyone considering getting on a boat destined for Australia.
Certainly, Afghans living in Kuala Lumpur have kept a close eye on the unfolding saga of the Australia-Malaysia refugee swap agreement.
Most know friends, relatives and compatriots who have attempted the journey to Australia in search of a better life, and they are aware the Australian government is trying hard to come up with a game-changer.
"They are actually well informed about it," says Afghan Zabiullah Ahmadi, who lives in Kuala Lumpur. "It's newspapers; it's the people around who watch what's going on. It's such a small community that word can spread very quickly."
Tahera Ahmadi and her husband Ali Haidari don't want to risk their lives, or the life of their two-year-old daughter, Angela, on a rickety boat, but they desperately want to live in Australia. From the Hazara ethnic minority, they have lived in Kuala Lumpur for nearly four years, waiting for the magic letter inviting them to become Australians.
"Actually, I think Australia likes Hazara people," says Ahmadi in the small flat she shares with eight members of her extended family, all recognised by the UNHCR as bona fide refugees.
"We have heard they give rights to Hazara people; they understand our problems. In Afghanistan, we don't have any rights. If a person doesn't have rights, this person is like a servant. I'm sure if I get to Australia I will have a nice future."
According to Abdul Ghani bin Abdul Rahman, a leader in the Rohingya community in Malaysia, asylum-seekers have paid as much as 10,000 Malaysian ringgit (about $3200) per person for passage to Australia, a stake that has frequently entailed selling everything and borrowing from friends and family.
And this is relatively inexpensive compared with fares cited elsewhere. From Burma, the Muslim Rohingya minority is considered among the worst-treated in the world, denied citizenship by their own country.
Abdul Ghani says some people-smuggler agents in Malaysia are working with Indonesian agents, preying on the desperate.
"Many lives are lost at sea. I think this [the Australia-Malaysia scheme] is a good policy," Ghani says. "In 2006 a friend of mine passed away because he went to Christmas Island. There are empty promises by the agents; unscrupulous agents. Many times I beg Rohingya not to do this."
For asylum-seekers, risk, hardship and expense are the prices to be paid for a new life. A survey of Hazara men conducted in four Afghan provinces late last year showed a degree of ignorance about Australian policy.
Commissioned by Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the Afghanistan Counter People Smuggling Scoping Study found that in all provinces, the Hazara were aware of the various risks associated with using people smugglers to travel to Australia, but "only a few Hazara realise that migrants also face a risk of repatriation and detention by the Australian authorities".
Some of the Hazara quoted in the survey had no access to the internet, some had no electricity in their homes, and many relied mostly on news from friends and family, although the BBC, Voice of America and certain Afghan broadcasters were also trusted sources of information.
Many, living all their lives in landlocked Afghanistan, feared drowning on the way to Australia, or otherwise dying, or being imprisoned, or losing their language or culture, or being humiliated. One interview subject voiced his fears of a sea journey to Australia.
"Some people call it the dolphin's way because many people are eaten by these dolphins in the sea."
The survey found "information on the dangers of illegal immigration is primarily spread by word of mouth", with news coming from returning migrants, victims of people-smuggling fraud, friends and relatives in Australia and repatriated Afghans.
Regardless of the risks of the voyage, exodus beckons. There is little to keep potential asylum-seekers in Afghanistan, with economic stagnation, a critical shortage of government services and frequent discrimination pushing the Hazara people to look for a way out.
Many asylum-seekers in Malaysia took note of the announcement of the Australia-Malaysia plan in early May, but then, as the weeks passed, doubts began to surface regarding the final shape of the agreement. Hundreds of asylum-seekers in Asia apparently believed the failure to come up with a concrete plan presented a window of opportunity, and they arrived in Australian waters by the boatload.
Then, in late July, the plan was finalised, and officially signed. And still the boats kept coming -- five since the deal was signed, carrying nearly half the number of asylum-seekers Malaysia has agreed to take.
Many have been unaccompanied minors and, although Immigration Minister Chris Bowen declares there will be no blanket exemptions for unaccompanied under-18s, it's unlikely Australia will risk international opprobrium by sending these more vulnerable people to an uncertain future in Malaysia.
Many critics of the plan note that Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, that in general, refugees and asylum-seekers are not permitted to work in Malaysia, nor to send their children to government schools, they are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention, and at the extreme, brutally caned. The Australia-Malaysia plan has specific provisos to permit the 800 transferred to Malaysia to work, and to ensure they will not be caned.
But still the critics are not convinced. The opposition has slammed both the Malaysia deal and the recent PNG agreement, noting the dearth of detail.
Hanson-Young says the government should go back to the drawing board. "This is a mess. I don't think the government is winning any favours from anyone on this, and the solutions put forth by the opposition aren't cutting through either."
And she is particularly concerned about the children involved. "Why are we treating children like pawns in this awful human chess game?"
So far this year, 37 boats have arrived in Australian waters, carrying 2186 asylum-seekers. Afghans, like last year, loomed large: discounting the most recent boat, the totals comprise 892 Iranians, 604 Afghans, 129 Iraqis, as well as "other". It's not a huge number of people, in the global scheme of things, when millions of displaced Afghans languish in Iran and Pakistan, but asylum-seekers punch well above their weight in the Australian political arena.
Despite the clamour, numbers of arrivals have actually fallen this year, perhaps because of the mooted Malaysia plan.
Last year 134 boats arrived in Australian waters, carrying 6535 asylum-seekers, more than three times this year's total so far. But over the past few years there has been a steady increase.
Bowen has pinned his hopes on the swap plan, which he insists will "break" the people-smugglers' business model and prevent asylum-seekers risking their lives on often unseaworthy boats.
The Christmas Island boat tragedy last year has failed to dissuade asylum-seekers, although it seems they know that drowning is one of the risks.
When, or perhaps if, the first asylum-seekers eventually get to Malaysia, they will be taken to Port Dickson, on the coast south of Kuala Lumpur, where two basic hotels have been leased and renovated to provide temporary housing. It is expected they will remain in this accommodation for a short period, perhaps 45 days, before they are sent out into the community to lead their own lives.
Afghan advocate Zabiullah Ahmadi says the plan will create a two-tier system, with some asylum-seekers in Malaysia holding what he calls a "golden card" giving them some security.
But, he says, there is remarkably little envy from the refugees who have been living in Malaysia for so long. "At some point they are happy," he says.
Link: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/hope-springs-from-inside-the-wire/story-fn59niix-1226119180451
Phuket Boatpeople Trucked Out as Others Are Loaded into Longtails and 'Given 4000 Baht to Go' 
All were reported to be pale after more than six months imprisoned with little or no sunlight and exercise.
Their trip north marks what could be a new approach by the incoming Pheu Thai government to a long-standing international issue. Whether it has been done with the knowledge of other members of Asean is not clear.
The Rohingya, a Muslim minority, come from Arakan in north Burma but are not recognised as having citizenship rights in that country. Thailand's policy over the past two-and-a-half years has varied from pushing back the unwanted arrivals in unseaworthy vessels to keeping them in detention indefinitely, without hope of being set free.
But yesterday, Phuketwan has learned, a group of 70 Rohingya were placed in three longtails in Ranong, north of Phuket, each given 4000 baht by a person who said she represented a non-government aid organisation, and allowed to leave Thailand.
Where they go may depend on the people steering the boats. The departure of the three vessels, followed by the four-hour road trip north today by the group who had been captive in Phuket, comes as the new Pheu Thai Government takes over from the Democrat-led government.
What's not plain is whether the Burmese Government is now accepting back Rohingya boatpeople, or whether the three vessels that set off from the Customs pier at Ranong in Thailand yesterday were doing so without the knowledge of the Burmese government.
Adding to the mystery was a report that a woman who handed 4000 baht to each of the 70 boatpeople as they boarded the longtails said that she was a representative from the Jesuit Refugee Service, a highly-regarded Catholic aid group.
A spokesperson for another aid group associated with the Rohingya said it would be uncharacteristic for the Jesuit Refugee Service to be involved in a set of circumstances that appears to leave the Rohingya open to people-trafficking.
However, changes in many long-standing policies are reported to be taking place in Burma as the junta in control and a newly-elected Parliament appease international critics.
And Thailand just this week did gain a new and inexperienced Foreign Minister, Dr Surapong Tovijakchaiyakul, who has already been criticised for his rapid approval of fugitive former PM Thaksin Shinawatra's application to make a trip to Japan.
What Phuketwan can say with certainty is that the Immigration department's detention of Rohingya in numbers has strained the budgets of local holding centres. Allocations do not account for having large groups of people held prisoner for long periods.
Whether the sudden shift of captive Rohingya to Ranong and into longtail boats is a change in policy or a convenient but short-term solution to Thailand's Rohingya problem will only become clear as the United Nations and other organisations ask the new government for an explanation of what is going on.
PHUKET: A group of Rohingha boatpeople imprisoned on Phuket since January were trucked to the border port of Ranong today - a day after other would-be-refugees appeared to have been repatriated to Burma in highly unusual circumstances.
The 33 men and boys from Phuket had been kept in cramped conditions in cells at Phuket Immigration headquarters in Phuket City since coming ashore in Phuket in February. Two were said to have difficulty standing up straight when they were loaded onto a police truck today.
The 33 men and boys from Phuket had been kept in cramped conditions in cells at Phuket Immigration headquarters in Phuket City since coming ashore in Phuket in February. Two were said to have difficulty standing up straight when they were loaded onto a police truck today.
All were reported to be pale after more than six months imprisoned with little or no sunlight and exercise.
Their trip north marks what could be a new approach by the incoming Pheu Thai government to a long-standing international issue. Whether it has been done with the knowledge of other members of Asean is not clear.
The Rohingya, a Muslim minority, come from Arakan in north Burma but are not recognised as having citizenship rights in that country. Thailand's policy over the past two-and-a-half years has varied from pushing back the unwanted arrivals in unseaworthy vessels to keeping them in detention indefinitely, without hope of being set free.
But yesterday, Phuketwan has learned, a group of 70 Rohingya were placed in three longtails in Ranong, north of Phuket, each given 4000 baht by a person who said she represented a non-government aid organisation, and allowed to leave Thailand.
Where they go may depend on the people steering the boats. The departure of the three vessels, followed by the four-hour road trip north today by the group who had been captive in Phuket, comes as the new Pheu Thai Government takes over from the Democrat-led government.
What's not plain is whether the Burmese Government is now accepting back Rohingya boatpeople, or whether the three vessels that set off from the Customs pier at Ranong in Thailand yesterday were doing so without the knowledge of the Burmese government.
Adding to the mystery was a report that a woman who handed 4000 baht to each of the 70 boatpeople as they boarded the longtails said that she was a representative from the Jesuit Refugee Service, a highly-regarded Catholic aid group.
A spokesperson for another aid group associated with the Rohingya said it would be uncharacteristic for the Jesuit Refugee Service to be involved in a set of circumstances that appears to leave the Rohingya open to people-trafficking.
However, changes in many long-standing policies are reported to be taking place in Burma as the junta in control and a newly-elected Parliament appease international critics.
And Thailand just this week did gain a new and inexperienced Foreign Minister, Dr Surapong Tovijakchaiyakul, who has already been criticised for his rapid approval of fugitive former PM Thaksin Shinawatra's application to make a trip to Japan.
What Phuketwan can say with certainty is that the Immigration department's detention of Rohingya in numbers has strained the budgets of local holding centres. Allocations do not account for having large groups of people held prisoner for long periods.
Whether the sudden shift of captive Rohingya to Ranong and into longtail boats is a change in policy or a convenient but short-term solution to Thailand's Rohingya problem will only become clear as the United Nations and other organisations ask the new government for an explanation of what is going on.
Source : phuketwan.com
Danuta Kozaki
Australia's Burmese Muslim community - known as Rohingyas - say their kind are being ignored by the Australian Government's refugee swap deal with Malaysia.
Under the deal, 4000 refugees will be resettled in Australia while 800 asylum seekers will be sent to Malaysia.
The first group of refugees are expected to arrive in Australia later this week.
Yasmeen Fatima, from the Burmese Rohingya Association of Australia, says around 90 per cent of the 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia are Burmese.
She says many are from a Rohingya background, along with other Burmese ethnic minorities such as the Chin and Karen.
Ms Fatima says whilst the Rohingyas are a large group, community contacts in Malaysia say no Rohingyas have been picked to go to Australia in the refugee swap.
"I think this is really unfair because it is well known that in Malaysia the Rohingyas are the first burmese refugee," she said.
A spokesman for the Australian immigration department says the makeup of the 4,000 refugees to be swapped is yet to be determined, with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees making that selection.
Under the deal, 4000 refugees will be resettled in Australia while 800 asylum seekers will be sent to Malaysia.
The first group of refugees are expected to arrive in Australia later this week.
Yasmeen Fatima, from the Burmese Rohingya Association of Australia, says around 90 per cent of the 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia are Burmese.
She says many are from a Rohingya background, along with other Burmese ethnic minorities such as the Chin and Karen.
Ms Fatima says whilst the Rohingyas are a large group, community contacts in Malaysia say no Rohingyas have been picked to go to Australia in the refugee swap.
"I think this is really unfair because it is well known that in Malaysia the Rohingyas are the first burmese refugee," she said.
A spokesman for the Australian immigration department says the makeup of the 4,000 refugees to be swapped is yet to be determined, with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees making that selection.
Link::http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201108/3289722.htm?desktop
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