North Arakan: an open prison for the Rohingya
by Chris Lewa
Many
minorities, including the Rohingya of Burma, are persecuted by being
rendered stateless.
Hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh and further
afield to escape oppression or in order to survive. There were mass exoduses to
Bangladesh
in 1978 and again in 1991-92. Each time, international pressure persuaded Burma
to accept them back and repatriation followed, often under coercion. But the
outflow continues.
The Rohingya are an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority group
mainly concentrated in North Arakan (or ‘Rakhine’) State in Burma, adjacent to Bangladesh, where their number is
estimated at 725,000. Of South Asian descent, they are related to the
Chittagonian Bengalis just across the border in Bangladesh, whose language is also
related. They profess Sunni Islam and are distinct from the majority Burmese
population who are of East Asian stock and mostly Buddhists. Since Burma’s Independence
in 1948, the Rohingya have gradually been excluded from the process of
nation-building.
The 1982 Citizenship Law
In 1982, Burma’s military rulers brought in
a new Citizenship Law[1] which deprived most people of Indian and Chinese
descent of citizenship. However, the timing of its promulgation, shortly after
the refugee repatriation of 1979, strongly suggests that it was specifically
designed to exclude the Rohingya. Unlike the preceding 1948 Citizenship Act,
the 1982 Law is essentially based on the principle of jus sanguinis and
identifies three categories of citizens: full, associate and naturalised.
Full
citizens are those belonging to one of 135 ‘national races’[2] settled in Burma
before 1823, the start of the British colonisation of Arakan. The Rohingyas do
not appear in this list and the government does not recognise the term
‘Rohingya’. Associate
citizenship was only granted to those whose application for citizenship under
the 1948 Act was pending on the date the Act came into force. Naturalised
citizenship could only be granted to those who could
furnish “conclusive evidence” of entry and residence before Burma’s Independence
on 4 January 1948 and who could speak one of the national languages well, and
whose children were born in Burma.
Very
few Rohingyas could fulfil these requirements. Moreover, the wide powers assigned to a
government-controlled ‘Central Body’ to decide on matters pertaining to
citizenship mean that, in practice, the Rohingyas’ entitlement to citizenship
will not be recognised.
In 1989, colour-coded Citizens Scrutiny Cards (CRCs) were introduced: pink cards for
full citizens, blue for associate citizens and green for naturalised citizens.
The Rohingya were not issued with any cards. In 1995, in response to UNHCR’s
intensive advocacy efforts to document the Rohingyas, the Burmese authorities
started issuing them with a Temporary Registration Card (TRC), a white card,
pursuant to the 1949 Residents of Burma Registration Act. The TRC does not
mention the bearer’s place of birth and cannot be used to claim citizenship.
The family list, which every family residing in Burma possesses, only records
family members and their date of birth. It does not indicate the place of birth
and therefore provides no official evidence of birth in Burma – and so perpetuates their
statelessness.
The Rohingya are recognised neither as citizens nor as foreigners.
The Burmese government also objects to them being described as stateless
persons but appears to have created a special category: ‘Myanmar residents’, which is not a
legal status. However, on more than one occasion, government officials have
described them as ‘illegal immigrants from Bangladesh’. In 1998, in
a letter to UNHCR, Burma’s
then Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt wrote: “These people are not originally from Myanmar
but have illegally migrated to Myanmar
because of population pressures in their own country.” And a February 2009 article in the government-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper stated
that “In Myanmar there is no national race by the name of Rohinja.”
Deprivation of citizenship has served as a key strategy to justify
arbitrary treatment and discriminatory policies against the Rohingya. Severe
restrictions on their movements are increasingly applied. They are banned from
employment in the civil service, including in the education and health sectors.
In 1994, the authorities stopped issuing Rohingya children with birth
certificates. By the late 1990s, official marriage authorisations were made
mandatory. Infringement of these stringent rules can result in long prison sentences. Other coercive measures such as
forced labour, arbitrary taxation and confiscation of land, also practised
elsewhere in Burma,
are imposed on the Rohingya population in a disproportionate manner.
Restrictions
of movement
The Rohingyas are
virtually confined to their village tracts. They need to apply for a travel
pass even to visit a neighbouring village – and they have to pay for the pass.
Travel is strictly restricted to North Arakan.
Even Sittwe, the state capital, has been declared off-limits for them. Their
lack of mobility has devastating consequences, limiting their access to
markets, employment opportunities, health facilities and higher education.
Those who overstay the time allowed by their travel pass are prevented from
returning to their village as their names are deleted from their family list.
They are then obliterated administratively and compelled to leave Burma.
Some Rohingyas have been prosecuted under national security legislation for travelling without permission.
Rohingyas are also
forbidden to travel to Bangladesh,
although in practice obtaining a travel pass to a border village and then
crossing clandestinely into Bangladesh
has proved easier than reaching Sittwe. But, similarly, those caught doing so
could face a jail sentence there for illegal entry. Many people, including
patients who sought medical treatment in Bangladesh, were unable to return
home when, during their absence, their names were cancelled on their family
list. Once outside Burma,
Rohingyas are systematically denied the right to return to their country.
Marriage authorisations
In the late 1990s, a local order was issued in North Arakan,
applying exclusively to the Muslim population, requiring couples planning to
marry to obtain official permission from the local authorities – usually the
NaSaKa, Burma’s
Border Security Force. Marriage authorisations are granted on the payment of
fees and bribes and can take up to several years to obtain. This is beyond the
means of the poorest. This local order also prohibits any cohabitation or
sexual contact outside wedlock. It is not backed by any domestic legislation
but breaching it can lead to prosecution, punishable by up to 10 years’
imprisonment.
In 2005, as the NaSaKa was reshuffled following the ousting of
General Khin Nyunt, marriage authorisations were completely suspended for
several months. When they restarted issuing them in late 2005, additional
conditions were attached including the stipulation that couples have to sign an
undertaking not to have more than two children. The amount of bribes and time
involved in securing a marriage permit keeps increasing year after year.
The consequences have been dramatic, particularly on women. Rohingya
women who become pregnant without official marriage authorisation often resort
to backstreet abortions, an illegal practice in Burma, which has resulted in many
maternal deaths. Others register their newborn child with another legally
married couple, sometimes their own parents. Some deliver the baby secretly in Bangladesh
and abandon their baby there. Many children are reportedly unregistered. Many
young couples, unable to obtain permission to marry, flee to Bangladesh in order to live
together.
Education and health care
As non-citizens, the Rohingya are excluded from government
employment in health and education and those public services are appallingly
neglected in North Arakan. Schools and clinics
are mostly attended by Rakhine or Burmese staff who are unable to communicate
in the local language and who often treat Rohingyas with contempt.
International humanitarian agencies are not allowed to train Muslim health
workers, not even auxiliary midwives. Some Rohingya teach in government
schools, paid with rice-paddy under a food-for-work programme as they cannot
hold an official, remunerated teacher’s post.
Restrictions of movement have a serious impact on access to health
and education. Even in emergencies, Rohingyas must apply for travel permission
to reach the poorly equipped local hospital. Access to better medical facilities
in Sittwe hospital is denied. Referral of critically ill patients is
practically impossible. Consequently, patients who can afford it have sought
medical treatment in Bangladesh
but are sometimes unable to return to their village. Likewise, there are few
secondary schools in North Arakan and pupils
need travel permission to study outside their village. The only university is
in Sittwe. After 2001, most students could no longer attend classes and had to
rely on distance learning, only being allowed to travel to Sittwe to sit
examinations. Since 2005, however, even that has been prohibited. Not
surprisingly, illiteracy among the Rohingyas is high, estimated at 80%.
For the Rohingya, the compounded
effect of these various forms of persecution has driven many into dire poverty
and their degrading conditions have caused mental distress, pushing them to
flee across the border to Bangladesh.
In exile
In Bangladesh,
the 28,000 Rohingyas still remaining in two camps are recognised as refugees
and benefit from limited protection and assistance by UNHCR but it is estimated
that up to 200,000 more live outside the camps. Bangladesh considers them as
irregular migrants and they have no access to official protection.
The combination of their lack of status in Bangladesh and their statelessness in Burma
puts them at risk of indefinite detention. Several hundred Rohingyas are
currently languishing in Bangladeshi jails arrested for illegal entry. Most are
still awaiting trial, sometimes for years. Dozens have completed their
sentences but remain in jail – called ‘released prisoners’ – as they cannot be
officially released and deported, since Burma refuses to re-admit them.[3]
Tens of thousands of Rohingyas have sought out
opportunities overseas, in the Middle East and increasingly in Malaysia, using Bangladesh as a transit country.
Stateless and undocumented, they have no other option than relying on unsafe
illegal migration channels, falling prey to unscrupulous smugglers and
traffickers, or undertaking risky journeys on boats.[4]
In Malaysia
or Thailand,
the Rohingyas have no access to protection. They are regularly caught in
immigration crackdowns and end up in the revolving door of ‘informal’
deportations. Since Burma
would not take them back, Thailand
has occasionally deported Rohingya boat people unofficially into border areas
of Burma
controlled by insurgent groups. Malaysia
usually deports them over the border into Thailand in the hands of brokers.
Against the payment of a fee, they are smuggled back into Thailand or Malaysia and those unable to pay
are sold into slavery on fishing boats or plantations.
In December 2008, Thailand started implementing a new
policy of pushing back Rohingya boat people to the high seas. In at least three
separate incidents, 1,200 boat people were handed over to the Thai military on
a deserted island off the Thai coast and ill-treated before being towed out to
sea on boats without an engine and with little food and water. After drifting
for up to two weeks, three boats were finally rescued in the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands of India and two boats in Aceh province of Indonesia.
More than 300 boat people are reportedly missing, believed to have
drowned.
The issuing of a TRC to Rohingyas has been
praised as ‘a first step towards citizenship’. On 10 May 2008, the Rohingya
were allowed to vote in the constitutional referendum but ironically the new
Constitution, which was approved, does not contain any provisions granting them
citizenship rights. There is no political will for the Rohingya to be accepted
as Burmese citizens in the foreseeable future.
Recommendations
On 2 April 2007, six UN Special Rapporteurs put
out a joint statement addressing the Rohingya situation and called upon the
Burmese government to:
§
repeal or amend
the 1982 Citizenship Law to ensure compliance of its legislation with the
country’s international human rights obligations, including Article 7 of the
Convention of the Rights of the Child and Article 9 of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women;
§
take urgent
measures to eliminate discriminatory practices against the Muslim minority in North Rakhine [Arakan] State, and to ensure that no
further discrimination is carried out against persons belonging to this
community.
In addition, Bangladesh,
Malaysia and Thailand should
put in place effective mechanisms to allow Rohingyas access to protection as
refugees.
“We, Rohingyas, are like birds in a cage. However, caged birds are
fed while we have to struggle alone to feed ourselves.” A Rohingya villager
from Maungdaw, North Arakan
Chris
Lewa (chris.lewa@gmail.com) is
coordinator of The Arakan Project, a local NGO primarily
dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights for the Rohingya
minority of Burma,
through documentation (including first-hand testimonies) and research-based
advocacy.
[4] See
Chris Lewa ‘Asia’s new boat people’, FMR 30:
http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR30/40-41.pdf
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