Rohingya children from Myanmar carry water from a pond, with the mountains of Myanmar seen behind, at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazaar. REUTERS file photo by Andrew Biraj

No rights for stateless Rohingya fleeing Burma

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.

source:http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/alertnet-news-blog/no-rights-for-stateless-rohingya-fleeing-burma/

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Friday with Thein Sein, the president of Myanmar.

Clinton to meet with Myanmar president in recognition of reforms

By Jill Dougherty and Jethro Mullen, CNN

July 13, 2012 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Hillary Clinton will meet Thein Sein in the Cambodian tourism hub of Siem Reap
• The U.S. applauds Myanmar's recent political reforms
• The meeting comes after the U.S. eases sanctions on Myanmar
• Thein Sein will also attend a gathering of U.S. business leaders

(CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to meet Friday with Thein Sein, the president of Myanmar who has overseen a series of political reforms in the Southeast Asian country over the past year.

Clinton is in Cambodia to attend a regional conference after visiting a string of Asian countries in the past few days.

She will meet Thein Sein in Siem Reap, a fast-growing Cambodian tourism hub next to the spectacular temples of Angkor.

The meeting follows President Barack Obama's announcement Wednesday that the United States was easing sanctions on Myanmar, allowing American companies to do business there -- a move that prompted concern from human rights advocates.

The U.S. government considers the meeting with Clinton a reward for Myanmar's progress in undertaking reforms, a senior State Department official said Thursday. Thein Sein will also attend a gathering of U.S. and Asian business leaders at Clinton's invitation.

In the past year, authorities in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, have released hundreds of political prisoners and allowed the party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to participate in by-elections. They have also engaged in peace talks with ethnic rebel groups.

For decades, Myanmar was ruled by a repressive military junta. But in recent years, the generals have relaxed their grip on power, permitting Thein Sein's government to enact changes. Western government have responded to the reforms by easing sanctions.

Clinton held meetings with Thein Sein and Suu Kyi during her landmark visit to Myanmar late last year, the first by a U.S. secretary of state in half a century. At the time, she promised economic and diplomatic assistance if the reforms continued.

The United States has since appointed Derek Mitchell to become its first ambassador to Myanmar in more than two decades.

Obama on Wednesday praised Thein Sein, Suu Kyi and the nation for "significant progress along the path to democracy."

The loosening of sanctions, he said, "is a strong signal of our support for reform, and will provide immediate incentives for reformers and significant benefits to the people of Burma."

However, Obama noted that the United States "remains deeply concerned about the lack of transparency in Myanmar's investment environment and the military's role in the economy."

As a result, the licenses that will allow U.S. businesses to invest in Myanmar will not cover entities owned by the Myanmar armed forces and Ministry of Defense.

The U.S. Treasury will also have the authority to impose sanctions on "those who undermine the reform process, engage in human rights abuses, contribute to ethnic conflict, or participate in military trade with North Korea," Obama said.

But despite those safeguards, the Obama administration is allowing U.S. companies to do business with Myanmar's strategic oil and gas industry, which has been a key source of income for the regime, said Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia.

"We're disappointed that the U.S. government has included the oil and gas sector in Burma in the easing of the sanctions," said Robertson, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand.

He drew particular attention to Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise, a state-owned company singled out by Suu Kyi as lacking in transparency.

Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, said Thursday that it hoped U.S. companies would invest responsibly in Myanmar in light of these concerns.

"There is no true transparency in the country," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the NLD. "How can we be sure that investment will be beneficial to our people?"

The signs of both reform and resistance to it were evident in Myanmar this week.

Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate who endured years of house arrest under the junta, was sitting in parliament for her first legislative session since she was sworn in two months ago.

At the same time, military leaders nominated Myint Swe, a former general who is considered fiercely loyal to the former dictator Than Shwe, to be the country's next vice president.

His likely promotion from chief minister of the region of Yangon to the second highest post in the country has disappointed observers who hoped for a more reform-friendly candidate.

These conflicting signals will provide the backdrop to Clinton's meeting with Thein Sein on Friday.

Robertson said he hoped the secretary of state will raise the "long list" of outstanding human rights issues in Myanmar during the meeting, including the hundreds of political prisoners who remain behind bars and ongoing conflicts concerning ethnic minorities.

"The government says they will resolve these issues but they haven't done it," he said.

UN refugee chief rejects call to resettle Rohingya

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, July. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)

YANGON, Myanmar—The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Thursday rejected a suggestion by Myanmar's president that the world body resettle or take care of ethnic Rohingyas who have settled in the Southeast Asian country.

UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres told reporters it was not his agency's job to resettle the Rohingya, who live in western Myanmar but without Myanmar citizenship.

On his website, President Thein Sein said he told Guterres in a meeting Wednesday that the solution to ethnic enmity in Myanmar's western Rakhine state was to either send the Rohingya to a third country or have the UNHCR look after them.

Clashes last month between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslin Rohingya left at least 78 people dead and tens of thousands homeless. The Rakhine consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Thein Sein described the violence at the time as a threat to the democratic and economic reforms his government launched after decades of repressive rule by a military junta.

"The resettlement programs organized by UNHCR are for refugees who are fleeing a country to another, in very specific circumstances. Obviously, it's not related to this situation," said Guterres.

Thein Sein's reported suggestion to Guterres left unclear exactly how many people he had in mind. The U.N. estimates there are about 800,000 Rohingya in Myanmar. The count includes people of Bengali heritage who settled centuries ago, as well as people who may have entered the country in recent decades.

Many people in Myanmar don't recognize as legitimate settlers even those of Bengali heritage who came in the 19th century, when Myanmar was under British rule and called Burma.

Large exoduses of Rohingya to Bangladesh in the 1980s and 1990s because of persecution, and their subsequent return, also add to the confusion over who is an illegal immigrant.

Thein Sein told Guterres that according to Myanmar law, those Bengalis who settled in Myanmar before the country gained independence from Britain in 1948 and their children are regarded as citizens. However, post-independence immigrants are officially considered illegal and threatening to the country's stability.

In practice, it is difficult for many people of Bengali heritage to obtain citizenship, and they face discriminatory legal restrictions on movement, marriage and reproduction.

"We will take responsibility of our ethnic nationals but it is impossible to accept those Rohingyas who are not our ethnic nationals who had entered the country illegally. The only solution is to hand those illegal Rohingyas to the UNHCR or to send them to any third country that would accept them," Thein Sein told Guterres, according to his website.
Source:http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2012/07/12/un_refugee_chief_rejects_call_to_resettle_rohingya/