Rohingya: Persecuted.

Addressing Rohingya crisis
By Samaha M Karim with Julhas Alam

FOOD and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque has said the government will take the Rohingya issue to international forum if the crisis is not resolved through bilateral negotiation with Myanmar.

“We are trying to resolve the issue bilaterally, but we won't hesitate to move to international bodies for a solution,” Razzaque told a discussion at National Press Club recently.

“We have done a lot for the Rohingya people over the years despite being a poor country, but we cannot afford it for an unlimited period,” he said.

The discussion on “Rohingya Crisis: Way Out for Bangladesh” was organised by the Centre for Education, Research and Advocacy (CERA), a Dhaka-based research and advocacy group, to highlight various aspects of decades-old crisis.

The academic nature of the discussion was focused on the origin of the crisis, its legal and humanitarian aspects, the possible role of local and international NGOs and the United Nations, options for diplomatic efforts in dealing with the crisis.

Less than 28,000 Rohingya Muslims live in two official camps run by the Food Ministry and UNHCR at Teknaf and Ukhia in Cox's Bazar, but there are 200, 000 others, some even say not less than 400,000, who are not recognised by Bangladesh as refugee. Some term them “economic migrants”, as they argue that many of the Rohingyas cross the border for better economic opportunities here in Bangladesh.

The documented Rohingya people in the camps get housing, food and healthcare in the official camps but the undocumented ones do not.

Local people say Rohingya people, who are not recognised as citizen by Myanmar, are causing many social obstacles in the coastal region.

On the other hand, human rights activists and international campaign groups demand the Bangladesh create bigger scopes for these persecuted people.

Referring to this complex context, the Food Minister said the government has no problem to document the rest, but it fears further influx from across the border where they allegedly face persecution by Myanmar's military junta.

The Food Minister also warned international NGOs for negative campaign against Bangladesh that they should be careful in the future before making any false and fabricated reports on so-called maltreatment of Rohingya people in Bangladesh.

Razzaque made the observation in the backdrop of recent campaigns by some groups that Bangladesh is cracking down on the Rohingya refugees.

“We want their support, but not any move that maligns our image abroad for something not actually happening here,” he said.

The minister argued that Bangladesh has done a lot since the 1970s when Rohingyas started coming here to flee the wraths of the Myanmar's government.

Muhammad Zamir, former Ambassador and Chief Information Commissioner, came down hard on the UNHCR for not making enough effort inside Myanmar to prevent Rohingya from crossing over to Bangladesh.

As a solution to the Rohingya setback he strongly insisted on a more proactive approach to be applied by the UNHCR and international organizations in supporting and rehabilitating Rohingyas.

Zamir said camps for Rohingyas could be set up by the UNHCR inside Myanmar territory and not in Bangladesh. He said the UNHCR should take the issue to the UNGA since Myanmar is a member state of the United Nations while there are scopes to raise the issue before ASEAN and OIC too since Myanmar is a member of ASEAN and Rohingyas are Muslims.

The former ambassador also said Bangladesh should put stricter measures in place along its border with Myanmar to prevent any further influx of Rohingya, while repatriation could be one of the major areas to deal with seriously.

'A more effective and meaningful border control mechanism should be enforced so that Rohingyas are stopped to cross over. Although it is a question of human rights, many countries have enforced a limit to the entrance of refugees,” Zamir said.

He said a proper registration system which would provide their identity with pictures and encrypted bar code could be introduced so that a more accurate number of the Rohingyas dispersed all over Bangladesh could be depicted.

Abu Murshed Chowdhury, a human rights activist from Cox's Bazar, said a huge presence of Rohingya people in Cox's Bazar and other parts of the Chittagong Hill Tract are putting extreme pressure on the resources.

“Local people are suffering a lot for their presence in huge number in the region,” he said. “They are causing deterioration of law and order in the region.”

Abu Naser Khan, Chairman of Paribesh Bachao Andolon, said Rohingyas are destroying hills and forests in Cox's Bazar and other nearby areas. “We need to deal with this very seriously to protect the special character of the region,” he said.

Dr Abu Jafar Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University said the UN should work more vigorously for democratisation of Myanmar, otherwise, the situation may not remain under control regarding Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.

He said the UN should take a proactive role shunning its current laid-back approach to resolve the issue.

CPB's Ruhin Hossain Prince said the government should look seriously into the allegations that a certain corner is using the Rohingyas for their political benefit.

He said extreme political elements are allegedly being injected to the Rohingyas taking the chance of frustration and desperation among them.

The participants suggested that a political resolution is also required and UN, International Organizations and NGOs vested in this issue should all unite to resolve this crisis upholding Bangladesh's security and sovereignty.

Representatives from some international agencies like Muslim Aid, UNHCR, IOM and the US Embassy also attended the occasion.


Julhas Alam is Correspondent of Associated Press and Samaha M Karim works with Law

http://www.thedailystar.net/law/2010/06/01/event.htm

Rohingya

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Caption: n this photo taken Sunday, March 7, 2010, refugees look out of an unregistered refugees camp outside the official camp for registered Myanmarese refugees at Kutupalong near Cox's Bazar, a southern coastal district about 183 miles (296 kilometers) south of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Myanmar only find themselves trapped in a hellish international limbo. As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar. As foreigners, they are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)


Myanmar refugees face grim future in Bangladesh

By JULHAS ALAM (AP) – Mar 12, 2010


KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh — Dildar Begum has no country, no job, no food and is fast running out of hope.

Her husband is imprisoned in a Bangladeshi jail while she lives in a slum with her five children, reduced to begging for rice from her impoverished neighbors. Her family is starving, she said.

"I can't live this way. It's better if my kids and I die suddenly," the 25-year-old woman said.

Begum is one of the hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group who have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Myanmar — only to find themselves languishing in filthy slums or open-air camps where food and water are scarce and medical care nonexistent.

As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar. As foreigners, they are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh.

In recent months, Bangladesh has cracked down on the group, arresting and repatriating many and stepping up security along the porous border to prevent more from arriving. At the same time, the government discouraged aid groups from giving most of those here food, fearing it would attract a huge new influx of refugees, a government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

International rights groups have decried their fate and Bangladesh's refusal to grant the vast majority of them refugee status, which would give them access to nearby camps where they could receive a full aid package of food, shelter and education provided by international agencies.

Without that aid, the Rohingya face widespread starvation, activists said.

"A grave humanitarian crisis is looming," Chris Lewa of the Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project said last month.

Bangladesh has also been accused of carrying out arbitrary arrests of the Rohingya and forcing many back into Myanmar.

In Kutupalong, 185 miles (296 kilometers) south of the capital, Dhaka, the undocumented Rohingya live in a squalid shantytown, where malnourished, barefoot children defecate outside.

With no right to work, many survive by bribing forestry officials to turn the other way as they illegally cut down trees to sell as firewood, men in the village said.

"The forest is being destroyed by them," said A.F.M. Fazle Rabbi, a government official in charge of the area. "I am sure over next few years, you will find no trees here."

The 800,000 strong Rohingya are believed to have descended from seventh century Arab settlers whose state along what is now the Bangladesh-Myanmar border was conquered by the Burmese in 1784.

The Myanmar junta refuses to recognize them as citizens, and the group faces extortion, land confiscation, forced evictions, and restricted access to medical care and food, according to Human Rights Watch.

Thousands have fled to Malaysia and Thailand, which depend on migrant labor, or braved the sea to go as far as the Middle East for work.

Last year, the Thai navy intercepted boats carrying 1,000 Rohingya, detained and beat them and then forced them back to sea in vessels with no engines and little food or water, according to reports from human rights groups.

On Friday, Malaysian authorities said they picked up 93 Rohingya who said they had been at sea for 30 days in a crowded wooden boat after apparently being chased out of Thai waters.

"They said they were sailing aimlessly in the hope of finding a country that will accept them," said Zainuddin Mohamad Suki, an officer with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The passengers were likely to be sent to a detention center, he said.

Most of the refugees, however, have fled on foot and by boat over the border to the nearby Cox's Bazar area in Bangladesh, where 28,000 are registered as refugees and restricted to official camps in Kutupalong and Naya Para.

The Kutupalong refugee camp is well-equipped with medical facilities, a computer learning center, volleyball courts and generators.

However, at least 200,000 other Rohingya here have not been given refugee status by Bangladesh and live under constant threat of being arrested or sent back home. Some work as day laborers or rickshaw pullers at Cox's Bazar.

Authorities fear that if they grant full rights to everyone, it will encourage even more Rohingya to come to Bangladesh, which is already overwhelmed with its own impoverished and malnourished population.

"We are a poor country, we cannot afford this for long," said Gias Uddin Ahmed, the chief administrator of the district.

Begum and her family fled with about 2,500 others seven months ago amid unrelenting attacks by their Buddhist neighbors, who eventually took their land in Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state. They left at night and bribed Bangladeshi border guards to let them enter and travel to the shantytown near the refugee camp in Kutupalong.

Her husband, 35-year-old Jamir Hossain, found work as a day laborer in the shantytowns that have sprung up near the Kutupalong camp, but police arrested him last month in a roundup of undocumented Rohingya.

With no money, Begum begs for rice from nearby villages to feed her four sons and a daughter.

"It's now afternoon, but I haven't been able to give any food to my kids," she said.

M. Sakhawat Hossain, the police chief in Cox's Bazar, said Bangladeshi villagers have accused the Rohingya of a wave of robberies across the coastal region and pressured the government to take action.

In the ensuing crackdown, 136 undocumented Rohingya were in custody on charges of illegally entering Bangladesh or engaging in criminal activities, he said.

"What we did is for maintaining law and order over reported crimes," he said. "Should not we do that?"

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Conjoined Twins

Bangladeshi mom wants twins to stay in Australia


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer
21 Nov., 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ The mother who gave up conjoined Bangladeshi newborn twins for adoption said Saturday she is overjoyed the toddlers have been successfully separated and wants them to grow up in Australia.

"My babies are alive and doing well. It's the best news I've ever got in my life," a tearful Lovely Mollick told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her home in Khulna district, 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Dhaka.

The twins, who turn 3 next month, had been joined at the top of their heads and shared brain tissue and blood vessels. They were separated Tuesday after 25 hours of delicate surgery in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, and then underwent an additional six hours of reconstructive work.

The charity that brought Trishna and Krishna to Australia two years ago for the surgery, Children First Foundation, has said it will support the twins as they undergo further medical treatment in Australia for at least the next two years.

Trishna awoke from a medically induced coma Thursday and Krishna regained consciousness late Friday.

Their 23-year-old mother said she made the heartbreaking decision to give up her daughters to a Dhaka orphanage after giving birth by cesarean section because she could not properly care for their special needs.

While she and her factory worker husband, Kartik Mollick, 35, wanted to maintain a relationship with their daughters, both parents hoped the twins would be raised in Australia.

"I am from a poor family and am not able to take care of them," the mother said. "I want them to get a proper education and live a good life."

"I want them to maintain a relationship with me, no matter where they live, when they are grown up," she added. "They have come from my soul."

The girls' Australian legal guardian for the past two years, Moira Kelly, the charity's founder, said Saturday she has not considered adoption. "I haven't even thought about it," Kelly told reporters.

Adoptions could be stymied since Australia restricts the adoption of foreign children with medical problems that could burden its health care system.

Kelly said the prognosis that both sisters were neurologically sound "gives me shivers down my spine." The twins' cots will be pushed together so they could again touch, she said.

Krishna is expected to have a longer period of adjustment as the separation brought more changes to her body and brain's blood circulation. Both girls were in serious but stable condition.

Doctors had earlier said there was a 50-50 chance that one of the girls could suffer brain damage from the complicated separation.

Australian aid worker Danielle Noble first saw Trishna and Krishna in an orphanage when they were a month old, and contacted the Children First Foundation.

"I got to see the girls for the first time today since their separation and it's the most incredible feeling to think that three years ago, this was just a dream," the 27-year-old volunteer told reporters.

"Now they are going to have a fantastic life," she added.

The foundation raised almost 250,000 Australian dollars ($229,000) for the cost of caring for the twins in between numerous earlier surgeries to separate blood vessels connecting their brains. A mystery benefactor funded all hospital costs, Smith said.
___
Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.

Slapped and threatened!

UNICEF says physical punishment of children in Bangladeshi schools, homes is widespread

Oct 9, 2009

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ More than 90 percent of Bangladeshi children have at some point been physically punished in school and nearly three quarters of them face similar treatment at home, according to a report from the United Nations children's agency.
UNICEF representative to Dhaka, Carel de Rooy, said such punishment violates the rights of the children.
"Hitting or smacking children is a type of violence against children that goes against children's rights," Rooy said in a statement that accompanied the report's release Thursday.
But, on Friday, a parent and teacher both defended physically punishing children as an effective way of disciplining children.
Salina Chowdhury, a mother of two in the capital, Dhaka, said using physical punishment helps her teach her children when they misbehave.
Children often do not respond to encouraging words, Chowdhury told The Associated Press via telephone, adding, "in that case, one or two slaps work better."
Siddiqur Rahman, a teacher at a school for girls in the northern district of Mymensingh, said he often hits students with sticks, but only after counseling does not work.
"Punishing them physically often works," he said in a telephone interview.
The UNICEF report states 91 percent of children in Bangladesh's schools are subject to physical punishment, while 74 percent experience corporal punishment at home.
The agency surveyed 3,840 households both in urban and rural areas, interviewing the head of each household and at least one child per house between the ages of 9 and 18, the report said.
Some 87.6 percent of children face beatings with sticks or canes in schools with teachers most often hitting the palm of their hands. Other punishments include twisting ears or skin, pulling hair, slapping them or forcing them to kneel in class.
The survey said 53 percent of students reported that "many to most" of their classmates suffer physical punishment, with 23 percent stating that such punishment in schools takes place daily.
In case of physical punishment at home, more than 69 percent said they are slapped, and 99 percent said they face scolding or are threatened.
Some 60 million of Bangladesh's 150 million people are children, according to UNICEF.

Champion Rat Killer!

Bangladesh awards farmer who killed 83,000 rats, launches culling campaign to save crops


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer
Sept. 30, 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ Bangladesh on Wednesday awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports.
Mokhairul Islam, 40, won a first prize of a color television for killing some 83,450 rats in the past nine months in Gazipur district near the South Asian country's capital, Dhaka. He collected their tails for proof.
"I am so happy to get this honor," Islam told The Associated Press after receiving a 14-inch television and a certificate amid cheers at an official ceremony packed with 500 farmers and officials. "I had no idea that the government gives prizes for this."
"This is an exciting moment. I will continue to kill them," he vowed.
Officials say the impoverished nation imports some 3 million tons of food annually, while the Ministry of Agriculture estimates that rodents annually destroy 1.5 million to 2 million tons of food.
"We can cut the import of food by at least half if we can succeed in this year's campaign," said Wais Kabir, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council.
He asked everyone, especially farmers, to take on the killing mission as a sport. The government has said it will train mainly farmers and students for this year's campaign.
"Killing rats is not that easy, it needs training," Kabir said.
Islam said he mainly used poison to kill the rats at his poultry farm, and that the cull has paid off as the rodents now scavenged less.
"Previously I needed 33 sacks of poultry feed per week, now I need less than 30," he said.
Fakhrul Haque Akanda, a farmer from northern Bangladesh and the second-prize winner, killed some 37,450 rats mostly with traps, some he invented.
"These bloody rats are my enemy, they destroy my gardens," Akanda said.
"Please pray for me so that I can continue my mission, and teach and motivate others to join me," he told the audience before taking his prize, also a television.
Last year, the U.N. World Food Program launched a monthslong food aid project in the country's southeast after a plague of rats devoured rice crops.

INNOCENCE AT RISK

Bangladesh authorities investigate marriage between 13-year-old girl, 75-year-old man

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer
Sept. 13, 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ Authorities in southern Bangladesh are investigating whether a 13-year-old girl was forced to marry a 75-year-old man as a way to pay off her father's debt, local media reported Sunday.
Lokman Shikder loaned the girl's father, Azhar Bepari, 4,000 takas ($59) several months ago, but Bepari had trouble repaying it, the United News of Bangladesh news agency reported. Shikder recently gave Bepari the choice of immediately paying back the money plus interest or allowing him to marry his daughter in exchange for waiving the loan, it said.
Shikder, who was already married, is the father of four grown children and has a host of grandchildren, the news agency said.
Badrul Huq, a government official in Barisal district, said authorities were investigating and legal action would be taken against the father and husband if the marriage indeed took place, the report said. People under the age of 18 are not legally allowed to marry in Bangladesh.
Shikder's first wife also wants her husband punished because he married the girl without her permission, the report said. Men can marry up to four women in Bangladesh, but their wives must agree in writing to any new marriages.
Human rights groups say child marriage is rampant in rural Bangladesh, an impoverished nation of 150 million people where almost half of the population lives on less than $1 a day. They say the punishment for violations of child marriage laws is too mild _ one month in jail or a fine of 1,000 takas ($15), or both.
Rashida Akhter Shirin, a women's rights lawyer, said she would help the girl and her family if they want to file a court case against Shikder, the report said.
Officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Snakebite death

Bangladesh government says snakebites kill 6,000 Bangladeshis each year

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ Some 700,000 people in Bangladesh are bitten by snakes every year and up to 6,000 of those die, in part because of poor access to medical care, making snakebites the impoverished country's second leading cause of unnatural death, a ministry of health study has found.
Most of the incidents occur during the May to October rainy season when snakes are flushed out of their natural environment, Azizar Rahman, director in charge of the government's department of disease control, said Sunday while explaining the snakebite study's findings.
Drowning is the leading cause of unnatural death in Bangladesh, a delta nation that is crisscrossed by some 350 rivers. The country of 150 million people is also home to some 50 species of snake, including the king cobra and krait.
The study, which was conducted by eight local and international experts with funding from the government and the World Bank, found that 29 percent of snakebite victims are bitten while walking at night, 24 percent while working in the fields and 15 percent while they are sleeping.
It's difficult to spot the snakes in the dark in rural areas where electricity and street lights are rare. Almost half of all Bangladeshis live on less than $1 a day.
The study found only 3 percent of the victims are treated at hospitals or by registered doctors, while 86 percent seek treatment from untrained snake charmers or village healers.
Rahman said the study underlined the problem of snakebites.
"It's good that we have done it finally," he said. "Now it will be possible to work on reducing deaths."
He said the government is planning a massive campaign to train people how to treat snakebites.

Ethnic violence

Bangladesh arrests more than 70 in ethnic violence


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press
2010-02-24 04:26 PM


Bangladeshi security officials have arrested more than 70 people as part of a crackdown in a town where ethnic violence has left one person dead, a dozen wounded and several homes burned to the ground, police said Wednesday.

Bangladeshi troops and extra police were called in Tuesday to stop ethnic clashes between Bangalee settlers and an indigenous tribe involved in a decades-old land dispute in southeastern Khagrachhari town. All public gatherings were banned and a curfew was imposed in the area, which was once at the heart of a tribal insurgency.

Police said they had recovered the body of a Bangalee man who was shot in the head. A dozen people were wounded in the violence, and several homes on both sides were torched.

More than 70 people from both groups were arrested in overnight raids, a police official at Khagrachhari police station told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Ethnic tension in the region 110 miles (175 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Dhaka, is not new. Authorities resettled landless Bangalees there in the 1980s in a bid to end the tribal insurgency in the area, which borders Myanmar and India. The area was largely Buddhist before the settlers, who are mainly Muslim, arrived.

Tribal groups say many of their people have lost their land because of the settlement and faced brutal repression during years of military operations meant to quell the insurgency. The insurgents signed a peace treaty with the government in 1997, but tensions have continued.

Tuesday's unrest began when activists from the United People's Democratic Front _ which opposes the peace treaty _ blocked roads and waterways in the area to protest the deaths of two tribal people they say were killed last week by security officials during clashes with settlers.

The government has said it will investigate the deaths as well as a series of arsons that the tribal people blame on the settlers.