It seems that though I rail about the dearth of international media coverage on Bangladesh, nevertheless, I often miss important pieces that speak to Bangladesh’s opportunities–missed opportunities, perhaps–to make of itself a model, inclusive Muslim democracy. (For all my equivocations, I cannot reject the reality that both leading parties in Bangladeshi politics have long ceded their secular roots for the political expediency of garnering the votes of the bloc of politically motivated Muslims)
So, today I offer with regret some belated thoughts on the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh. The recent NY Times piece by Seth Mydans is revelatory to anyone who is unacquainted with the politics of the refugee crisis; it is a distinct reminder to those who follow South Asian politics that the interpenetration of legality and injustice are sometimes the cross-roads wherein a society finds itself to be something it could not have imagined. So it is with Bangladesh: a country that was founded on a rebellion against persecution has, for decades, persecuted its own Hindu, and Chakma minorities. In the past year, its persecution of the Rohinya people– a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, who have sought, without much success, refugee status within Bangladesh’s border–has begun to stain the government’s record on its otherwise laudable political and social moves.
Beginning in 2009 aid workers and human rights groups circulated widely reports of beatings and rapes of Rohinygas by members of the Bangladeshi armed forces and the local population.
As Mydans reports:
“Since October, the unofficial Kutupalong makeshift camp with its dirt paths, flimsy shacks and open sewers has grown by 6,000 people to nearly 30,000, with 2,000 arrivals in January alone.”
“They are among about 250,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh, a Muslim minority from neighboring Myanmar, where they do not have citizenship and are subject to abuse and forced labor, and where they cannot travel, marry or practice their religion freely.”
“Despite the hardships, people are continuing to flee repression and fear in Myanmar, and when they are deported, many return, several people said.”
“About 28,000 of them have been recognized by Bangladesh and documented as refugees. They receive food and other assistance in a camp administered by the Office of theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and have not been subject to the abuses and forced returns described by other Rohingya, said Kitty McKinsey, a spokeswoman for the agency in Bangkok.”
Stateless and therefore without procedural rights, the Rohingya work day-laborer jobs and servants while trying to evade authorities. As Paul Critchley the Bangladesh representative for Medecins Sans Frontieres claimed, ““It is illegal for them to work. All they can legally do in Bangladesh is starve to death.” Thus, though the Rohingya live like their Bengali neighbors in shanty towns where the state’s writ does not typically apply, they nevertheless suffer the brutality of state sanction for no reason other than that they are natives of a country where they are hunted down. Their original and brave escape from prosecution in Myanmar has landed them in the cross-hairs of the persecutory appetites of another unwelcoming state.
The Times article and the MSF report strongly indict the government’s inability or worse, active refusal to act on behalf of the Rohingya. Though a large population, the Rohingya live as any poor Bangladeshi does: through a hard-scrabble grab for the small, low-paying jobs that are available. But refusing to grant them refugee status not only pushes these people into a black market for labor-already a large, pulsating market–but disallows these individuals from seeking any help or redress from the state and through it, the various international intermediaries. Thus, the government in refusing to absorb into its ‘civic body’ a population that is ready to do the kind of work that is begrudgingly done by the locals, and by actively repatriating masses of the Rohingya to Myanmar where they will likely face more persecution, is in effect violating the human rights that we suppose are necessarily accorded to these people.
The Times article offers you all that you need to know about the crisis. My conjectures will not stand up to the scale of human misery that this ongoing story portends. To that end, I’ll quote the article at length:
“We cannot move around to find work,” said Hasan, 40, a day laborer who lives with his wife and three children in a dirt-floored hovel made of sticks, scrap wood and plastic sheeting. He said he had no way to feed his family.
“There is a checkpoint nearby where they’re catching people and arresting them,” he told a photographer who visited recently. Like other refugees here, he asked that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals.
“We aren’t receiving any help,” he said. “No one can borrow money from each other. Everybody’s in crisis now.” People do what they can to survive.
“When I visit the camp,” Mr. Critchley said, “I see small girls going out in the forest to collect firewood, and we have treated young girls and women who have been raped doing this.”
In its report, Médecins Sans Frontières said that a year ago 90 percent of the people in the makeshift camp were already running out of food.
“Malnutrition and mortality rates were past emergency thresholds, and people had little access to safe drinking water, sanitation or medical care,” the report said.
“The overcrowded camp has become an incubator for disease, Mr. Critchley said, and with the monsoon season peaking in late March and early April, medical workers fear a lethal spread of acute diarrhea.”
“International standards would assume that a latrine is shared by 20 people,” Mr. Critchley said. “With the number of latrines in the camp, over 70 people share each latrine. I’ve seen small children using piles of human feces as toys.”
‘The Rohingya know that they live at the very bottom of human society, that they are not wanted anywhere and that they are outsiders without legal standing or protection.”
