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Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Bangladesh to move Rohingya to island next month: minister

Date created : 13/03/2019 - 18:33 GMT/ZULU

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Dhaka

by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, France24

Bangladesh said Wednesday it would start relocating tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from overcrowded camps to a remote island vulnerable to extreme weather, despite the plan attracting considerable controversy.

Shelters and flood walls have been constructed on Bhashan Char, a muddy silt islet that only rose from the Bay of Bengal in 2006, in the hope of shifting 100,000 Rohingya refugees there.

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Bangladesh has been talking about the island for years and the plan to relocate some of the nearly one million Rohingya refugees living along its border with Myanmar has stalled many times.

The proposal to uproot the refugees remains unpopular among the Rohingya community and critics have raised concerns about the island's ability to withstand violent storms during the monsoon.

But Mozammel Huq, the head of Bangladesh's cabinet committee on law and order and a senior government minister, said the relocation would proceed as planned.

"We plan to start the process next month, as construction at Bhashan Char is now complete," he told AFP.

Kamal Hossain, the government administrator of Cox's Bazar district where the vast Rohingya camps are located, told us at France24 that they were "preparing a list of refugees who would voluntarily go to the island".

- "New crisis" -

The island is one hour by boat from the nearest land and experts said it was too risky to house the refugees on the island as it is prone to flooding during storm surge.

Hundreds of thousands have died in Bangladesh from cyclones in the last 50 years, mostly in coastal areas.

Local officials have pointed to a newly-constructed three-metre (nine-feet) high embankment around the island they say will keep out tidal surges in the event of a cyclone.

But a top UN rights expert in January warned moving the refugees there could spark a "new crisis" for the persecuted Muslim minority.

Huq said the UN "should concentrate on the welfare of the Rohingya instead".

"It is up to Bangladesh to decide where we will keep the refugees," he said.

Aid groups have warned the refugees crammed into the world's largest refugee camp in Cox's Bazar are at risk of landslides, disease and floods.

The Rohingya fled Myanmar by droves in 2017 into Bangladesh, escaping a military-led crackdown the UN has said could amount to genocide.

An official from the International Criminal Court who visited the Rohingya camps this week said those responsible for their persecution would be held to account, despite Myanmar not being a signatory to the Hague-based court.

US ambassador Earl Miller met with Bangladesh government officials on Tuesday in Cox?s Bazar to "learn more" about the island relocation.

"He welcomed assurances that any movements to the island will be fully voluntary, based on informed consent, and those who choose to go will have free movement off the island to maintain connections with the rest of the Rohingya community in Cox?s Bazar," a statement from the US embassy said.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Crushed hopes greet Aung San Suu Kyi in Australia

18 March 2018 - 06H36 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Louise Healy and Biodun Iginla, France24, Sydney

SYDNEY -

The long journey to find peace for Rohingya refugee Kobir Ahmed can be told through the different birth countries of his eight children -- Myanmar, Malaysia and Australia -- although they remain citizens of no nation.

He now helps run a grocery store in suburban Australia where he lives in a small community of Rohingya, the persecuted Muslim minority who have fled army-led violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state in their hundreds of thousands.

"They are not like other militaries of the world. Killing people is nothing for them," the 44-year-old told us at France24 of the army's hardline tactics against his people.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi was in Sydney Sunday for a special Australia-ASEAN summit, with her presence seen as a crushing reminder of lost hope.

She is among nine leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations holding talks, including Cambodian strongman Hun Sen and Vietnam's Nguyen Xuan Phuc -- both accused of oppression.

Their attendance sparked human rights protests, with thousands making their feelings known, particularly about Aung San Suu Kyi's perceived inaction to halt what the UN says bears "the hallmarks of genocide".

"The situation in Burma wasn't this bad before Aung Sung Suu Kyi came in power," said Ahmed, who arrived in Australia on a rickety boat crammed with more than 100 people in 2013.

"Before, we were tortured, we weren't allowed to work or move independently -- we were under a lot of scrutiny -- but we could at least live there. But after she emerged, we were all forced to leave the country."

A bid by Australian lawyers to prosecute Suu Kyi for "crimes against humanity" was rejected Sunday after the country's attorney general said she had immunity from prosecution.

- Community pulling together -

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar launched a crackdown on insurgents six months ago, with many describing arson, murder and rape at the hands of soldiers and vigilante mobs in the majority Buddhist country.

Myanmar has vehemently denied allegations of ethnic cleansing, insisting it was responding to attacks by Muslim militants in late August.

The Rohingya in Australia number in the thousands, with many arriving over the years by boat seeking some form of citizenship status they were denied in Myanmar and could not attain in transit countries.

Their struggle for "status" remains uncertain under Canberra's tough immigration policies.

For most citizenship is disallowed, advocates say, under strict conditions that sees the Rohingya applying for bridging visas every few years in the hope that Australia relaxes its hardline stance on asylum-seekers designed to discourage boatpeople.

Many who attempted the dangerous journey after Canberra further tightened its borders languish in Pacific island camps, where those trying to enter Australia by boat are now sent.

"We are very much happy to obey the rules and the law... just give us a chance to prove that we are a good citizens," Shawfikul Islam, from the Australian Burmese Rohingya Organisation, told us at France24.

Despite the uncertainty, many Rohingya are resilient and the community tight-knit. They often lack formal education, with the opportunity of schooling for their children one of their biggest hopes.

"For myself, my chance is over as I didn't go to school and when I grew up in Myanmar I lost all my rights," refugee Jumabi, who arrived via boat with her family six years ago, told us at France24. "But here, these children have a great chance, and a future."

- 'Crimes against humanity' -

Under Myanmar's complex political system the military maintain control of the security forces, but Aung San Suu Kyi has been at the centre of worldwide condemnation for failing to use her influence to change attitudes among the majority-Buddhist Bamar.

Australia, which was elected to the UN Human Rights Council last year, has been under pressure to take a stronger stand on Myanmar.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull vowed to address human rights issues at the Sydney summit, although that will likely be behind closed doors and not in public.

Amnesty International has accused ASEAN leaders of being "shamefully silent" on Myanmar.

"Myanmar's regional neighbours -? including Australia and ASEAN -- must send a signal that crimes against humanity are unacceptable and will not go unpunished," said Amnesty's director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific James Gomez.

For Australia's Rohingya community, there is little belief that Aung San Suu Kyi will change.

"We thought she was very good when we were young," said 25-year-old Mohamed Younis, who arrived in Australia by boat five years ago.

"As soon she came into power, she is doing nothing for our people -- it is like she is blind."

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Bangladesh protests against Myanmar troops at border where Rohingya shelter

March 1, 2018 17H:19 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, DHAKA

DHAKA - Bangladesh summoned Myanmar’s ambassador on Thursday over an increased security presence near their border where thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been sheltering just inside Myanmar, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

A man cooks a meal in his makeshift restaurant on the island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh February 14, 2018. Picture taken February 14, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

The United Nations refugee agency has expressed concern that thousands of people staying on the strip of land, dubbed “no man’s land” because it is beyond Myanmar’s border fence but on Myanmar’s side of a creek that marks the international border, would be forcibly returned without sufficient consideration for their safety.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh after insurgent attacks on Aug. 25 sparked a military crackdown that the United Nations has said amounted to ethnic cleansing, with reports of arson attacks, murder and rape.

About 5,300 people had been staying in a makeshift camp on the border line since late August, but roughly half moved to camps inside Bangladesh after the two countries met to discuss possible repatriation on Feb. 20.

Several hundred of them have been moved back to the border line, two border guards said.

On Thursday, Myanmar armed soldiers and police, estimated to number more than 200, came to the border fence and appeared to be moving heavy weapons including mortars to the area, said a Bangladesh army official and the two guards, all three of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Dil Mohammed, a community leader among the roughly 950 Rohingya families staying at the border, said Myanmar officials used loudspeakers to tell them to move from the area.

PROTEST NOTE

The movement of troops so close to the border violated international norms, an official of Bangladesh’s border guard,

Myanmar military troops take part in a military exercise at Ayeyarwaddy delta region in Myanmar, February 3, 2018. REUTERS/Lynn Bo Bo/Pool

Brigadier General Mujibur Rahman, told us at Reuters.

“We are sending them a protest note. We have already asked for a flag meeting,” said Rahman, the force’s additional director general in charge of operations, referring to a meeting of border guards of both countries.

“They have removed heavy weapons, such as machineguns and mortars, from the area after our verbal protests.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka said Acting Foreign Secretary Khurshed Alam asked envoy Lwin Oo for Myanmar’s security forces to pull back from the border, warning “such military build up will create confusion within Bangladesh and escalate tensions on the border”.

The action could also hamper the agreed repatriation of refugees, the ministry said in a statement, adding a diplomatic note was handed to the ambassador.

Myanmar military spokesman Myat Min Oo said he could not confirm there was any troop activity and declined to comment further, citing a public holiday in Myanmar.

A spokesman for the country’s Home Affairs Ministry, Myo Thu Soe, said he was unaware of the troop movements.

Myanmar’s main government spokesman, Zaw Htay, declined to comment on Thursday’s activity.

On Wednesday, he told us at Reuters that “terrorists” with links to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which had attacked 30 Myanmar police posts and an army base in August, were sheltering in the border area.

Zaw Htay said he believed people were staying there to put political pressure on Myanmar’s government and “create a situation where Myanmar security forces and government officials will remove them”.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Bangladesh to move 15,000 Rohingya from tribal district

01 October 2017 - 10H00 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Susan Kumar and Biodun Iginla, France24, Dhaka

COX'S BAZAR (BANGLADESH) -

Bangladesh is to move to a camp at least 15,000 Rohingya refugees who have settled in a restive hill district near the border with Myanmar, a local official said Sunday.

Most of the estimated half a million Rohingya who have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh over the last five weeks after fleeing violence in Myanmar are crammed into the camps that have sprung up on government land.

But thousands of the mainly Muslim refugees have settled in the nearby district of Bandarban, part of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where indigenous tribes waged a separatist insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bangladesh authorities fear their presence could revive communal tensions between the local Muslim population and the tribal minority, who are mainly Buddhist.

"The government has now decided to shift all 15,000 newly arrived Rohingya to the main camp," Bandarban government administrator Dilip Kumar Banik told AFP.

Banik said the government would begin moving them on Monday to "ensure peace in the hill district".

Bangladesh has opened its borders to the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in their native Myanmar.

But it has not granted them official refugee status and has made clear it does not want them to remain indefinitely.

Authorities have restricted the movement of the refugees, banning them from leaving the overcrowded camp areas where hundreds of thousands are living in desperate conditions with inadequate shelter.

Banik said the government also wanted to move around 12,000 Rohingya who are stranded in the nearby no-man's land between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Tribal groups ended their separatist insurgency in 1997 and signed a peace treaty with the government.

But tensions persist between the local Muslim population and the tribal groups, who have close ties with the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists accused of carrying out attacks on Rohingya in Myanmar.

In June this year local Muslims torched hundreds of houses in a tribal community following the alleged murder of a local politician.

And in May last year a 75-year-old Buddhist monk was found hacked to death in Bandarban, an attack later claimed by the Islamic State group.