|
[home]>[publications]>refugee watch
Bangladesh State and the Refugee Phenomenon
The refugee phenomenon has been an integral part of Bangladesh state
formation process. It is a refugee-generating as well as a
refugee-receiving state. During the War of Independence, Bangladesh
produced about ten million refugees, who took refuge in neighboring
India. Upon independence, about three hundred thousand Biharis became
refugees who proclaimed themselves as ‘Stranded Pakistanis’ in the
aftermath of the war and opted for repatriation to Pakistan. An
agreement in 1974 facilitated repatriation of 170,000 Bihari refugees.
But Pakistan’s domestic politics and its general disinterest in
receiving the Biharis have prevented a permanent settlement of the
problem to date.
In the post-independence era, Bangladesh generated as well as hosted
refugees. It produced over 50,000 ethnic conflict-induced Pahari (Hill
People) refugees, who crossed international border to take refuge in the
neighboring Indian state of Tripura. A substantial number of Hindus have
also allegedly migrated to India since independence. Insecurity and
discrimination against this religious minority community as well as the
factor of religious affinity with the majority population of India have
precipitated their movement. In addition, development activities during
the nation-building process and environmental degradation resulting from
it have displaced a large number of people within and outside
Bangladesh. Bangladesh also received a large number of refugees from
Myanmar twice in the last three decades. Given the above background,
this paper explores how the structural elements of nation-states and
their general tendency to protect ‘national interests’ have displaced
people from their original habitats keeping the context of Bangladesh
into perspective. For a closer exposition, three particular cases – the
Bihari refugees, the Pahari refugees, and the Rohingya refugees – are
examined in greater details
Case I: The Bihari Refugees
The history of the Bihari refugees goes back to the partition of India
in 1947. Their displacement occurred in the wake of communal violence
during and in the aftermath of the partition (for example, 30,000
Muslims were killed in the ‘Great Bihar Killing’ in October-November
1947). About a million of them migrated to the eastern wing of Pakistan
(East Pakistan), (Minority Rights Group, The Biharis in Bangladesh,
Report 11, 4th edition, January 1982, p. 7.) mostly from the eastern
Indian states of Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Nagaland, Manipur,
Tripura and Sikkim.
During the period of united Pakistan (1947-1971), the Urdu-speaking
Biharis were not assimilated with in the society of East Pakistan and
remained as a distinct cultural-linguistic group. They generally
associated and identified themselves with the West Pakistani society
primarily based on a shared linguistic heritage and supported the West
Pakistani governing elite in the process of capturing the economic and
political power in East Pakistan. The Biharis, consequently, enjoyed
government patronage and preferential treatment in various sectors of
the East Pakistan economy.
Initially the arrival of Biharis and the positive discrimination of the
Pakistan Government in terms of refugee rehabilitation were not resented
by the Bengalis. However, the euphoria of the formation of Pakistan and
the positive attitude of the Bengalis towards the Biharis was
short-lived. It was over as early as March 1948 when Mohammad Ali Jinnah
announced in Dhaka that “Urdu and Urdu alone shall be the State language
of Pakistan.” During the Language Movement, the Biharis instead of
supporting the Bengalis, sided with the West Pakistani ruling elite.
Further, in the 1954 provincial elections and in the 1970 general
elections, they extended their support to the Muslim League, which
symbolized and championed the domination of the West Pakistanis over the
Bengalis. They also supported the West Pakistani ruling elite and many
of them actively participated in the military actions against the
Bengalis in the 1971 Bangladesh Independence War. The exclusive attitude
of the Biharis and their pro-West Pakistani political activities
culminated with the growth of an anti-Bihari sentiment among the
Bengalis.
Against the above backdrop and, more importantly, because of their
active anti-independence role (for example, their participation in the
East Pakistan Civil Armed Forces, i.e. Razakars and Al-Shams, raised by
the Pakistani authorities to carry out atrocities over the East
Pakistanis), the Biharis became subject to widespread political
persecution preceding and during the Independence War, as well as in the
aftermath of liberation.2 Following independence, the Bihari political
persecution continued and their properties and houses were taken over by
the Bengalis. Several government promulgations [for example, the Acting
President Order I of 1972, the Bangladesh Abandoned Property (Control,
Management and Disposal) Order, 1972, President’s Order 16 etc.] did
facilitate the dispossession of Bihari properties. As a result, by the
middle of 1972, a total of 1,008,680 Biharis were domiciled in various
shanty camps spreading all over Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Government announced the Presidential Order-149 in 1972
as a step towards offering the Bangladeshi citizenship to the Biharis.
According to Bangladesh Government sources, 600,000 Biharis accepted the
offer,3 (Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation, Government of the
People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh
(Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh, 1982, p. 3.) while 539,669 registered
with the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) opting to return to
their ‘country of nationality’ - Pakistan. Islamabad, however, was less
interested and showed a lax attitude about the repatriation of the
Biharis except those who joined the East Pakistan Civil Armed Forces and
surrendered with the Pakistan Army. According to a Pakistani Foreign
Ministry official: “What are we supposed to do with them (the Biharis)?
We have enough problems already. Besides, you must remember that they
are really Indian refugees.” Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the first post-1971
civilian president of Pakistan, was even unwilling to admit any sizeable
number of ‘Bihari refugees’ to be repatriated to Pakistan.
Bangladesh in its formative phase insisted that it would establish
formal diplomatic relations with Pakistan only if that country agreed to
expeditious repatriation of the non-Bengalis including Biharis from
Bangladesh. This insistence forced the Pakistan Government to move back
from its original stance and agreed to receive a sizeable number of
Biharis in the 1973 New Delhi Agreement as well as in the Tripartite
Agreement of 1974 in exchange for the return of the Bengalis from
Pakistan. As the first step towards implementing these agreements, the
International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) registered 539,639 Biharis
who intended to return to Pakistan. The United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) facilitated the return of 108,750 Bihari refugees
by June 1974. After that date, the UNHCR had to suspend the repatriation
process due to exhaustion of funds. The Bangladesh Government complained
to Islamabad about the slow repatriation of the Biharis and raised the
issue during the 1974 Mujib-Bhutto summit. The Pakistani side, as it was
earlier, showed little interest in the matter.
The post-Mujib Government undertook new diplomatic initiatives to
persuade Islamabad to resume the repatriation of the Biharis. It
approached the Islamic countries to exert pressure on Pakistan as well
as to provide assistance to resolve the matter. Despite initial
reluctance, President Zia-ul Haq subsequently, however, desired a
solution to the Bihari issue on humanitarian ground. He asserted during
a visit to Dhaka in December 1985 that Pakistan was ready to accept the
Bihari refugees if sufficient financial resources could be raised for
their transfer and rehabilitation. In 1988, a trust agreement was signed
between Pakistan and Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami (an Islamic charity
organization, hereafter Rabita) to expedite the process of Bihari
resettlement in Pakistan. A repatriation and resettlement plan was drawn
up which included the construction of 36,000 houses spread over 80 sites
costing about $278 million and with approximately $30 million for
community services and $10 million for the transportation of the
refugees. Despite elaborate preparations, the repatriation process could
not get off the ground.
Benazir Bhutto was traditionally opposed to the idea of transferring the
Biharis to Pakistan and followed the party politics (Pakistan Peoples
Party or PPP) and the state policy of her father (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto)
after she came to power in 1988. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it is noteworthy,
introduced the restrictive entry regulations for the Bihari refugees in
the early 1970s. During her tenure as Prime Minister, Benazir did not
grant the citizenship rights either to the refugees in Bangladesh or to
the 100,000 Biharis who moved to Pakistan illegally since 1977. During a
visit to Bangladesh in October 1989, Benazir asserted that the Biharis
should be permanently settled in Bangladesh and Pakistan would help to
raise funds from the Muslim world for their settlement Prime Minister
Newaz Sharif, was generally supportive to the repatriation of the Bihari
refugees from Bangladesh. He undertook meaningful initiatives for the
return of the Biharis. He was ready to rehabilitate them in his home
province (Punjab) and officially domiciled them issuing identity cards.
Although definite steps were taken for repatriation and a symbolic
return of 235 Biharis did occur on 10 January 1993, it was subsequently
shelved for ‘logistical and practical’ problems. All subsequent
Pakistani governments showed disinterest in ending the Bihari issue
that. It is indeed a political question rather than an economic problem.
Case II: The Pahari Refugees
The influx of Pahari (Hill People) refugees from Bangladesh to India in
the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s had been the direct result of
government’s repressive measures carried out in order to contain an
ethnic resistance movement that developed in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
(CHT) region from the failure of nation-building in the
post-independence Bangladesh ‘nation-state.’ The state and
nation-building process in the state of Pakistan
and later Bangladesh precipitated political, ethnic and religious
conflicts as well as created economic and developmental conditions,
which forced many people to migrate within and outside its territorial
boundaries. Indeed, the attempt to create a majoritarian state, where
the nation was conceived in terms of the culture and identity of the
dominant and governing social group, inflicted discrimination,
deprivation, marginalization and alienation of the minority communities
resulting in ethnic and other types of conflict and the displacement of
people in large numbers as refugees.
The Government of Bangladesh (GOB) responded to the Pahari resistance by
adopting a two-pronged counter-insurgency policy. First, it carried out
massive military operations in the CHT to flush out the armed members of
the resistance movement. During the operations, the Bangladesh Armed
Forces resorted to various repressive measures and mental and physical
violence on the Paharis. The repressive measures included, inter alia,
deliberate harassment, restriction on movement, rape, extrajudicial
killings and organized massacres. To escape from such repression,
thousands of Hill People crossed international borders and took refuge
in the Indian states of Tripura and Mizoram. Each counter-insurgency
operation carried out by the Bangladesh Military created a fresh wave of
refugee flows to India; in particular, such refugee flows were seen in
1979, 1981, 1984 and 1986.
Second, the GOB launched a politically motivated settlement program of
Bengalis in the CHT from the plains of the country in order to outnumber
the locals in their own region. The settlement program generated
conflicts over land between the settlers and the Hill People as there
was hardly any extra cultivable land available to accommodate new
settlements. It resulted in the eviction of the local Hill People from
their own land as the Civil Administration and the Law Enforcing
Agencies directly or indirectly promoted the cause of the new settlers.
It was in such a context that the settlers joined with the Bangladesh
Army to carry out organized massacres to evict the Hill People in order
to grab their land. (See. Ina Hume, “The Internally Displaced Persons of
the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, Case I: Sajek Union; Case II:
Farua Union,” paper presented at a conference on The Internally
Displaced Persons in Bangladesh: Towards Developing Research and Policy
Agenda, at BIISS auditorium, Dhaka on 15-16 January 2000.)
This strategy worked very well and organized violence forced thousands
of Paharis flee from Bangladesh.
A total of 54,000 Pahari refugees took refuge in the Indian state of
Tripura. They were over ten percent of the Hill population of CHT. The
GOB adopted a bilateral negotiating posture with India to resolve the
issue without involving any international refugee organization, such as
the United National High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In May 1992,
India and Bangladesh reached an agreement on the repatriation of the
refugees and Dhaka committed itself to creating an atmosphere congenial
to their return. The GOB also agreed to send a government delegation to
Tripura to make final arrangement for repatriation and encourage the
refugees to return.
On the surface it seemed that New Delhi emphasized the ‘voluntary’
repatriation of the Pahari refugees, however, it actually resorted to
‘non-violent pressure’ to make the refugees agree to repatriation. For
example, the Indian Government drastically reduced food rations, except
rice and salt, which resulted in near starvation and malnutrition of the
refugees. The Tripura State Government, having a directive from the
Central Government, threatened to stop rations after July 1992 if the
refugees did not agree to repatriate. Despite initial resistance, the
refugees eventually succumbed to the pressure. The first ‘experimental’
repatriation of 2,000 refugees took place on 15 February 1994.
Subsequently, a 20-point economic and rehabilitation package agreement
was signed between the GOB and the leaders of the Jumma Refugees’
Welfare Association on 9 March 1997. The agreement projected an
estimated repatriation of 63,861 Hill refugees. Despite intermittent
hiccups in the repatriation process due to bureaucratic delays and
uncertain political and security situation in the CHT, it finally got
underway following the conclusion of a Peace Accord between the
Bangladesh Government and the PCJSS in December 1997. The repatriation
of the Pahari refugees was completed in February 1998. The most striking
feature of the whole process was that neither Bangladesh nor India
preferred or wanted involvement of the UNHCR in the repatriation or
welfare of the Pahari refugees.
The conclusion that must be drawn from the above experience is that the
Hill People were the mere pawn of the ‘national interest’ politics of
India and Bangladesh.
Case III: The Rohingya Refugees
Like the case of the CHT Hill People refugees, the Rohingya refugee
problem can also be explained in terms of ‘nation-building’ failure in a
new state that wanted to imitate the Western model of ‘nation-state.’
Such a nation-building strategy in multi-ethnic Myanmar led to the
gradual alienation of the minority communities from the national
mainstream that facilitated the growth of ethnic tensions and resistance
movements in various parts of the country. The Myanmar ruling elite
systematically used the ‘race and religion card’ while pursuing the
‘majoritarian’ and ‘authoritarian’ politics in multi-ethnic Myanmar and
played out the Rohingyas as pawns in this political game. It claimed
that the Muslim Rohingyas were the illegal migrants from Bangladesh and
they were the cause of social instability and deteriorating law and
order situation in Arakan. Therefore, they should be pushed back from
where they came.
Since independence, the Muslim Rohingyas have been subject to widespread
repression in various forms. For example, they were employed in forced
community labor and the government arbitrarily imposed tax on them. In
addition, heavy restriction was imposed on their movement inside the
country. The military ruling elite also undertook measure to
systematically deny them the citizenship right. The 1974 Emergency
Immigration Act codified the non-citizen status of the Rohingyas and the
Myanmar authorities gave them Foreign Registration Cards under the terms
of this Act. The 1982 Citizenship Act formalized the ‘statelessness’ of
the Rohingyas. In 1977, the Myanmar Government launched ‘Operation
Nagamin’ (Dragon King) to “scrutinize each individual living in the
State (of Arakan), designating citizens and foreigners in accordance
with the law and taking actions against foreigners who have filtered
into the country illegally.” (Human Rights Watch/Asia, Vol. 8, No. 3
September 1996). The primary objective of the Myanmar Government in
carrying this out, as can easily be inferred, was to drive Rohingyas out
of Myanmar. Various types of repressive measures were adopted by the
Myanmar authorities, which included - system of forced labor, denial of
citizenship rights, arbitrary taxation and extortion, system of model
villages, forced relocation, restriction on freedom of movements and
arbitrary deterioration of economic and food security in Arakan etc. As
a result, thousands of Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh in early 1978.
By June 1978, a total of 167,000 Rohingya refugees arrived in
Bangladesh, which made the country a refugee-receiving nation for the
first time in its short history as an independent state. This influx
started at a time when it seemed that Bangladesh-Myanmar bilateral
relation was on a sound track, particularly following the visit of
Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman to Myanmar in July 1977. In the wake
of the influx, Bangladesh in a protest note warned that “the treatment
meted out to the refugees constituted not only a grave violation of
Human Rights enshrined in the UN Charter, but also posed a serious
threat to the peace on the border and stability in the region.” However,
Bangladesh still adopted a bilateral negotiating approach to resolve the
problem without internationalizing it. Dhaka considered the refugee
influx as a short-term problem and hence sought a ‘quick and safe
return’ of the refugees to Myanmar.
Bangladesh’s bilateral negotiating approach soon floundered as its
diplomatic initiatives failed to resolve the problem and the refugee
influx continued unabated. Against this backdrop, Dhaka decided to
internationalize the issue supplementing the bilateral approach. Two
factors prompted Dhaka to advance such a posture. First, the Myanmar
Government was deliberately pursuing a policy of procrastination to
resolve the matter. Dhaka alone failed to create adequate pressure on
Rangoon to come to the negotiating table. Therefore, it was thought that
internationalization of the matter would help Bangladesh’s cause.
Second, the longer stay of the Rohingya refugees was proving to be
economically unbearable for Bangladesh. Hence, Bangladesh decided to
seek international assistance to feed the refugees.
Eventually, Rangoon sent an eleven-member delegation to Bangladesh in
July 1978 led by Deputy Foreign Minister U Tin Ohn to find out a
solution to the refugee problem. After intense negotiations, Dhaka and
Rangoon reached an agreement on 9 July 1978, which prepared the ground
for the repatriation of ‘all’ Rohingya refugees. Repatriation of the
refugees began on 1 August 1978 and was ended by the end of the year
with a total number of 187,500 Rohingyas returning to Myanmar. Although
all the Rohingya refugees went back within a relatively short period of
time, neither side actually paid attention to remove the fundamental
causes of the Rohingya refugee phenomenon. Therefore, it was not
surprising that a second Rohingya refugee influx in a bigger magnitude
occurred in the early 1990s. By October 1992, about 265,000 Rohingyas
took refuge in Bangladesh. (Based on UNHCR figure, Morning Sun, 1 May
1993) During the initial stage of the influx, Bangladesh and Myanmar
troops became involved in border skirmishes, which possibly occurred
from the former’s unwillingness to accept the Rohingya refugees and
forcible resistance to their entry. This development set the stage for a
serious deterioration of Bangladesh-Myanmar bilateral relations.
Immediately following the initiation of the second influx, Bangladesh
took the matter at diplomatic level with the Myanmar authorities.
Protracted bilateral diplomatic negotiations resulted in the conclusion
of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Bangladesh Government and
the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) of Myanmar on 28
April 1992. Under the terms of the MOU, Rangoon agreed to take back
those refugees who could establish their bona fide residency prior to
their departure of Myanmar. Despite its commitment, Myanmar adopted a
policy of procrastination in implementing the accord.
Dhaka was quite aware about the economic, social, environmental,
security and diplomatic fallouts of the prolonged stay of the Rohingya
refuges on its soil. Therefore, its policy from the early stage of the
influx was to send them back as expeditiously as possible and by any
means, even by the ‘use of force.’ For example, the first repatriation
on 22 September 1992 following the conclusion of the MOU was allegedly
executed “by considerable pressure from the Bangladesh authorities.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other
human rights organizations protested the forcible repatriation of the
refugees. Bangladesh Government thereafter restricted the access of
UNHCR to the refugee camps. UNHCR, as a result, withdrew from the
repatriation process on 22 December 1992.
This development triggered an international outcry against the
Bangladesh Government. Protest from the UNHCR, other international
organizations and the Western countries forced Bangladesh to change the
repatriation procedure and to make it more transparent. After intense
negotiations, Bangladesh Government signed a revised MOU with the UNHCR
in May 1993, which allowed “free access to officials of the UNHCR to
independent interview of refugees in transit camps.” The MOU further
committed the Bangladesh Government that “no refugees will be coerced
into leaving against his/her will.”
The UNHCR also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the
Myanmar Government in November 1993. Under the terms of the MOU, Rangoon
assured that the returnee refugees would be allowed to go back to their
respective places of origins. Following this, about fifteen to eighteen
thousand refugees returned per month. By April 1997, a total of 238,000
refugees went back to Myanmar leaving 21,117 Rohingyas in two refugee
camps of Bangladesh. Most of the refugees had gone back (only about
22,000 still remains in Bangladesh) and the problem has almost been
‘resolved.’ But the structural factors that made the Rohingyas refugees
have not been addressed. Therefore, the possibility of new Rohingya
influx still remains. Indeed, fresh influx of Rohingya refugees on a
smaller scale was reported in 1997.Therefore, Bangladesh may have to
receive fresh waves of Rohingya influx in future.
Conclusion
The point is that refugees are the pawns in the political games of the
nation-states. Nation-states are basically concerned about their own
‘national interests.’ They generally tend to overlook the plights and
human rights of the displaced people.The three cases that have been
explored in this paper indicate that Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and
Myanmar have only been concerned about their own interests at the
expense of the rights of the refugees. The Bihari refugee problem is
truly a humanitarian issue. The Biharis have been in the refugee camps
in a very inhuman condition for over last three decades. Still the
concerned states have not acted based on humanitarian grounds. Rather,
they have played political game with the Biharis, which severely
curtailed the rights of this ‘stateless’ population. The stories of the
Hill People and the Rohingyas are similar. India played out the Pahari
refugees to create political pressure on Bangladesh to serve its own
‘national interest.’ Whereas, Bangladesh’s objective was to minimize
that pressure overlooking the rights of the Hill People. In the case of
the Rohingya refugees, both Bangladesh and Myanmar have been guided by
the policy of protecting themselves from the refugees rather than
protecting the right of the refugees.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the nation-states (Bangladesh,
Pakistan, India and Myanmar) have glaringly failed to protect the human
rights of the refugees. In this context, it is also relevant to point
out that all the South Asian states have consciously bypassed the
international refugee conventions. Further, it is noteworthy that no
state in the South Asia region has adopted a National Refugee Law.
Therefore, the ground for violating human rights of the refugees is
quite open in South Asia.
The term ‘refugee’ is an evolutionary as well as a contested concept.
There is considerable confusion and a lack of clarity in its meaning,
nature, scope and usage. The terminologies that are used relating to the
term – political refugees, economic refugees, environmental refugees,
resource refugees, developmental refugees, eco-migrants, internal
refugees or internally displace people, external refugees etc. –
indicate its multi-context usages and a certain degree of confusion over
its definition. On the changing contour of refugee definition, see
Pirkko Kourula, Broadening the Edges: Refugee Definition and
International Protection Revisited (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1997).( Bhumitra Chakma)
|
