No end to miseries for Myanmar's ethnic minorities
Two ethnic minorities fleeing persecution from Myanmar – Christian Chins and Rohingyas – face abuse, harassment and exploitation in India and Thailand respectively. Human Rights Watch has called on the Indian government to do more to help Chin migrants and UNHCR has expressed its concern with the Thai government.
Bangkok: Up to 100,000 Christian Chin who have fled to India in the past 20 years to escape persecution by Myanmar's Buddhist military rulers are at risk of being forced back, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
The New York-based rights said local authorities and community organisations in Mizoram frequently targeted Chin migrants, one of the former Burma's many oppressed ethnic minorities.
- A Rohingya refugee boy near Kutupalong refugee in Bangladesh/ Photo credit: AFP
"They live at the mercy of the local population," HRW said in a report on the plight of the Chin, whose ancestral homes are in the mountainous reaches of northwest Myanmar.
"The Chin in Mizoram lack jobs, housing and affordable education," HRW consultant Amy Alexander said, adding most were relegated to temporary, labour-intensive and low-paying jobs, earning around 100 rupees ($2) a day for 10 to 16-hour shifts.
Despite relatively close ethnic ties between the Chin and Mizoram natives, tensions between the two populations regularly flared into anti-Chin pogroms, the HRW report said.
"Because they are stateless and marginalised and the poorest of the poor, they tend to be the scapegoat whenever there's an incident at the border," HRW researcher Sara Colm said.
The largest such campaign was in 2003, when the Young Mizo Association (YMA) forced 10,000 Chin back into Myanmar, HRW said.
In September 2008, the YMA issued an order for the Chin to leave Mizoram by the end of the month. The threat did not materialise, but it was enough for them to go into hiding, close their churches and wait till tensions were over, HRW said.
Such incidents showed India failing in its obligations to protect refugees or asylum seekers, Alexander said.
New Delhi has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention but under international law, is bound by the principle of 'nonrefoulement', which protects migrants from being returned to any country where they could be persecuted.
In addition to what HRW described as "decades of systematic abuse" at the hands of the Myanmar army, the Chin's woes have been compounded by a 2007 infestation of rats that destroyed huge swathes of crops and food stores.
A recent UN survey estimated that 40% of people in Chin State, Myanmar's poorest, did not have enough food, increasing the number of people trying to leave the country.
One week after asking for access to Burmese Rohingya refugees in Thailand, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday it is still waiting for a response from the Thai government.
The UNHCR’s regional spokeswoman, Kitty McKinsey, told The Irrawaddy: “We are very concerned about them [the refugees]. That’s why we want to have access to them to find out what the situation is. And we want to see if any of them are in need of international protection.”
It is estimated that up to 20,000 illegal Rohingya migrants have entered Thailand over the years and remain within the kingdom. Hundreds of refugees travelling in open boats were reported recently to have been turned back by the Thai navy, but Thai authorities denied allegations that they were being set adrift without food or water.
An official at the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting anonymity, confirmed to The Irrawaddy on Monday that he had passed the UNHCR request for access to Rohingya refugees to relevant agencies. No response had been received so far, he said.
Talks between Thai government representatives and the UNHCR had been proceeding for some time in Bangkok and Geneva, a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Last Friday, a permanent secretary of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs discussed the Rohingya problem with the ambassadors of Burma, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The UK-based Burmese Rohingya Organisation appealed on Monday to the Thai government and international organisations to look for a permanent solution of the Rohingya problem.
“We urge the government of Thailand and all those concerned to treat these boat people humanely, and not send the Rohingya asylum seekers back to Burma, where their lives will be in danger,” the organisation said in a statement.
The group also planned to held demonstrations outside the Thai and Burmese embassies in London on Monday.
Burma’s Muslim Rohingya minority are victims of extreme regime discrimination and abuse — denied Burmese citizenship and freedom of religion and movement. Thousands continue to flee, trying to reach Malaysia in open boats — many of which only make it to Thailand.
Kyaw Thaung, head of a Bangkok-based migrant worker group known as the Burmese Association in Thailand, said that while it was understandable that Rohingyas were fleeing repression in Burma, Thailand could not be expected to take thousands of illegal immigrants.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva recently told reporters, “We have to solve the illegal immigrant problem otherwise it will affect our security, economy and the opportunities of Thai laborers.”
The Thai government recently vowed to crack down on illegal immigrants, and labor rights groups report that raids and arrests are increasing in southern Thailand and the Tak province bordering Burma.
