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| A soldier patrols through a neighbourhood that was burnt during recent violence in Sittwe on June 14, 2012. © 2012 Reuters |
March 26, 2013
Human Rights Watch
Fears of Long-Term Segregation of Displaced Population
(Bangkok) – The Burmese government is systematically restricting
humanitarian aid and imposing discriminatory policies on Rohingya
Muslims in Arakan State. The government should permit unfettered access
to humanitarian agencies to provide assistance to Muslim populations,
end segregated areas, and put forward a plan for those displaced to
return to their homes.
“Burmese government restrictions on aid to Rohingya Muslims are creating
a humanitarian crisis that will become a disaster when the rainy season
arrives,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights
Watch. “Instead of addressing the problem, Burma’s leaders seem intent
on keeping the Rohingya segregated in camps rather than planning for
them to return to their homes.”
An ethnic Arakanese campaign of violence and abuses since June 2012
facilitated by and at times involving state security forces and
government officials has displaced more than 125,000 Rohingya and Kaman
Muslims in western Burma’s Arakan State. Tens of thousands of Rohingya
still lack adequate humanitarian aid – leading to an unknown number of
preventable deaths – in isolated, squalid displacement camps. Government
security forces guarding the camps do not permit the residents to leave
the camps, which has a devastating effect on their livelihoods, Human
Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch has visited every major internally displaced person
(IDP) camp in Sittwe Township in Arakan State, as well as pockets of
unregistered displaced people in coastal and intra-coastal waterway
areas, and in Mrauk-U Township, where many displaced Rohingya currently
remain. Displaced Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State are
located in 13 townships throughout the state; the 15 largest IDP camps
are in the area of the state capital, Sittwe.
Several camps housing Rohingya are located in paddy fields and lowland
areas that face heavy flooding during the rainy season, which will begin
in May, yet the authorities have not taken serious steps to move them
to higher ground. Humanitarian organizations in Arakan State are
concerned that heavy rains will overflow already inadequate and overused
latrines, spreading otherwise preventable waterborne diseases
throughout the displaced population, whose health has already been
weakened by inadequate food and medical care. In some sites visited by
Human Rights Watch, a handful of latrines were being shared by several
thousand displaced Rohingya.
“The government seems untroubled by the dire humanitarian conditions in
the camps in Arakan State but it will be responsible for the lives
unnecessarily lost,” Robertson said. “Concerned donor governments should
be demanding that the Burmese government produce an action plan to
resolve the crisis because continued inaction will only make the crisis
worse.”
The Burmese government has obstructed the allocation of adequate land
for relocation sites for displaced Rohingya and Kaman Muslims despite
repeated appeals by humanitarian agencies. On March 18, the European
Commission warned the situation would turn into a “humanitarian
disaster” if the internally displaced people living on paddy fields and
sand banks were not relocated to safer sites within weeks. The United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
likewise warned of a “potentially devastating” effect on displaced
Rohingya when the rains start.
On March 20, President Thein Sein’s spokesman, Ye Htut, rejected
warnings about the severe humanitarian conditions for displaced
Rohingya, telling Australia Network’s Newswire, “they have enough
shelter and food supply for the rainy season.”
None of the displaced Rohingya interviewed by Human Rights Watch were
consulted about where their shelters would be constructed. The
government has refused to make a commitment to ensure their right to
return home, or set out plans to ensure security for both the Muslim and
Buddhist populations in the state. Human Rights Watch urged the Burmese
government to treat displaced people in accordance with the UN Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement.
Among the displaced population are tens of thousands of “unregistered”
Rohingya – those who were displaced between June and November 2012 but
who have not been formally recorded by the Burmese authorities, even
though they live in areas where the security forces deny them freedom of
movement and their presence is known to the aid community.
Unregistered Rohingya told Human Rights Watch they lack food, shelter,
medicine, potable water, clothing, and other necessities. The government
has not authorized providing them with humanitarian aid.
Rather than providing assistance, state government officials have made
excuses for denying the Rohingya aid, Human Rights Watch said. In
February, Win Myaing, spokesman for the Arakan State government, told
the Democratic Voice of Burma that Rohingya are deliberately inflating
the numbers of those displaced to receive more aid. “Now, when we are
making a list in the camp over here, then people from [another camp]
will come,” he said. “Frankly, [the Rohingya] are just attempting to
make the list bigger so that they can get more aid.”
The government’s failure to put forward plans or make efforts to return
displaced Rohingya and other Muslims to their original towns and
villages heightens concerns of a long-term intent to segregate this
population, Human Rights Watch said. In the city of Sittwe, the Muslim
population is now completely segregated. The neighborhood of Aung
Mingalar, which is the last remaining Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe, is
surrounded by barbed wire and Burmese army soldiers.
The Muslims remaining in the neighborhood are not permitted to leave the
area, and humanitarian agencies are not permitted to deliver aid to the
neighborhood because the residents are technically not displaced.
Rohingya in the neighborhood told Human Rights Watch the state
government has not replied to their requests to purchase rice.
A Muslim man in Aung Mingalar told Human Rights Watch that UN agencies
have not been able to deliver any aid since June, saying, “We only want
permission to bring food from outside to Aung Mingalar.”
In some areas, such as Myebon Township, the government and humanitarian
agencies are constructing shelter on stilts over ground that will flood,
rather than permitting the Rohingya to rebuild on land in their home
village nearby. The authorities have told the UN and diplomatic
community that the camps throughout the state are not envisioned as
long-term “solutions,” but the government has failed to put forward
plans for displaced people to return home, and also has not rejected
demands by Arakanese communities to keep Rohingya segregated in remote
areas.
“Donor governments should be pressing Burma’s government to allow
humanitarian agencies to provide assistance to all those in need,”
Robertson said. “But donors also need to make clear that government
policies intended to segregate the Muslim population will be publicly
opposed.”
The Burmese government has long prevented Rohingya from accessing health
care in Arakan State, and restrictions have tightened since violence
began in June. Human Rights Watch visited Arakan State’s largest
government-operated hospital in Sittwe in late October, at a time of
widespread violence against Muslims throughout the state, and there were
no Muslim patients in the hospital.
A displaced Rohingya man in Sittwe told Human Rights Watch at the time:
“After our houses were burned down here we couldn’t go to the government
hospital. We cannot go to government hospitals.” A hospital employee
confirmed that: “There have been no Bengali [Rohingya] patients in the
hospital. If some Bengali [Rohingya] patients were sent to the hospital
there would be many problems. I think there is a separate hospital by
the military, in the refugee [IDP] camp. This is a government
hospital.”
A discriminatory Citizenship Law passed in 1982 effectively denied
Burmese citizenship to Rohingya, who are estimated to number between
800,000 and 1 million people in Burma. The government does not allow
Rohingya to travel between townships without special permission or
paying substantial bribes to state security forces. Internally displaced
Rohingya are not permitted to travel outside of displacement sites,
severely restricting their ability to earn a livelihood. There are also
severe restrictions on marriage and the number of children Rohingya can
have – and the multiagency border guard force Nasaka typically demands
sizable payments from Rohingya seeking to marry or preparing to give
birth.
Arakan State’s Rohingya population also faces widespread hostility from
the majority Burmese Buddhist society. The violence in Arakan State in
June between Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims was followed by
planned attacks on Rohingya and Kaman Muslim communities in various
townships in the state in October.
More recently, disputes between Buddhists and Muslims resulted in
violence in the central Burma town of Meikhtila on March 20 to 22, which
has spread to other parts of the country. During the violence, at least
five mosques were burned down and an unknown number of people died as
mobs and Buddhist monks attacked Muslim residents and set fire to Muslim
homes, businesses, and places of worship. The violence in Meikhtila has
displaced 12,000 Muslims, according to OCHA.
“The unfortunate lesson from the violence in Arakan State is that so far
the government does little to hold accountable those who violate the
rights of Muslims in Burma,” Robertson said. “By failing to stop
violence and prosecute those who incite it, the country’s leaders are
failing the test of reform.”
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