Nowhere to go

The Rohingya Muslims are as genuine an example as it is possible to find of a people without a state. The community has a population of about 800,000 in Burma but has never been welcome there, and a statement last year by Burmese President Thein Sein that all Rohingyas should either be deported or placed in refugee camps sparked a mass exodus. Since the Rohingyas are ethnically Bengali, many chose to seek refuge in Bangladesh, which now has an estimated population of some quarter of a million Rohingyas. There, too, they have found conditions to be less than welcoming. Bangladesh does not appreciate the presence of the Rohingyas, despite their ethnic ties to the country and has been striving to make life as difficult as possible for them in the hope that they will leave.

Bangladesh has resisted pressure from international agencies to provide Rohingyas basic necessities like healthcare and education and has even gone so far as to stop the agencies themselves from helping the migrants. The ostensible justification for this is that if life becomes too comfortable for the Rohingyas, even more refugees will be tempted to come to Bangladesh. This logic is absurd. Refugees are created by unlivable and dangerous conditions at home, not because they will find a life of luxury in their new home. As long as the Burmese government continues to treat the Rohingyas as non-citizens, the refugee problem will persist. This is a reality that Bangladesh is ignoring. It has gone as far as to forcibly send Rohingyas back to Burma, where they face repression and perhaps, even death.

All countries should have a moral obligation to accept refugees who are in danger and to then help them resettle. Bangladesh will always be the first destination of choice for Rohingya Muslims and so to turn them away is equivalent to signing their death warrants. Basic decency says that is not a policy a country should be pursuing and other members of the international community need to make that clear to Bangladesh.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2013.