RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Rohingyas Finally Recognised as Refugees

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 3 2004 (IPS) - Finally after years of living as a stateless person in constant fear of the authorities, 42- year-old Abdul Jaffar, a Rohingya from Burma’s Arakan state, can now breathe easily.

No longer does he need to hide beneath a bridge every night, away from the eyes of the Immigration police, and neither does he need to work illegally.

A change in state policy this week has made him a ‘person of recognised concern’ in Malaysia. In lay terms, this means Abdul’s refugee status given by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has been recognised by the Malaysian government.

Malaysia’s Home Minister Azmi Khalid said Wednesday the government had made a ”firm decision” in recognising the refugee status of the Rohingyas.

Khalid told reporters it was better for the children of the Rohingyas to be educated rather than ”wandering around and becoming a liability.”

”I don’t have to hide anymore. I can seek a proper job and even start a business. Above all, I finally have an identity as a human being that is recognised by the Malaysian government,” said an elated Abdul when IPS met him at the Pudu wet market in the city where he works clearing rubbish.

”Because I had no papers, I had no identity and so I was a non-person. You would never know what it is to be a non-person in a foreign country,” said Abdul who arrived here in 1992, overland from Thailand.

Abdul was arrested and deported nine times – not to Burma because Rangoon does not recognise him as a citizen, but to Thailand. Each time from Thailand, he has played a cat- and-mouse game with authorities along the Thai-Malaysian border, and crossed over illegally into Malaysia.

The minority Muslim Rohingyas have often been referred to as Burma’s forgotten refugees and have often come under torture by Burmese troops, after having their land confiscated by the predominately Buddhist Burmese authorities. Many Rohingyas, too, have been pressed into forced labour by the army.

By the end of 1992, about 250,000 had arrived in south-eastern Bangladesh, bordering Arakan, where the government placed them in more than 20 camps around the town of Cox’s Bazar. Some also escaped to Malaysia and Thailand.

”Each time I was deported to Thailand, I re-entered Malaysia illegally the next day. But now I can stay here without any fear,” Abdul said confidently.

Some 10,000 to 15,000 Rohingyas – nobody really knows the true numbers – are in a jubilant state like Abdul. Their recognition as refugees entitles them to Malaysian identity cards that in turn allows them to live, work and educate their children without harassment and returned to Arakan when the situation permits.

Although Malaysia has not ratify the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees, a government official told IPS Kuala Lumpur had cooperated with UNHCR and non-governmental organizations in considering the plight of the Rohingyas.

”The government’s move in recognising the Rohingyas and allowing them to stay is part of this consideration,” he said. ”It is a temporary humanitarian measure until the situation in their country improves.”

Most Rohingyas live a hard life either begging on the streets or working as rubbish collectors, cleaners and labourers – jobs that start at midnight and end when Malaysians wake up, so as to make them ‘invisible’ to the public.

”Recognition also means we can move out of the squatter colonies into low cost housing,” said Jaafar Ahmad who runs a small centre helping Rohingyas speak out for better treatment.

Himself a Rohingya, Jaafar runs a website, gives interviews and had tried hard to get refugee status both from the UNHCR and the government.

Another Rohingya leader, Sawmee Ullah, director of the Rohingya Information Centre said the community could now move away from its hand to mouth existence.

”We can now get help from the UNHCR as well as send our children to school…we no longer have to hide from the authorities,” he told IPS.

In January 2002, the Rohingya Information Centre called on the Malaysian government to provide temporary shelter for ethnic Rohingya asylum-seekers, instead of deporting them.

It criticised as inhuman the decision by the UNHCR to hand over 28 asylum-seekers to the Malaysian immigration department.

The struggle of these asylum-seekers reached crisis proportions in April when a group of Rohingyas set the Burmese embassy, here, on fire and attacked its envoy to highlight their ”neither here nor there” plight.

Federal Government Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz briefed backbenchers in Parliament recently saying that Rohingyas carrying UNHCR passes no longer need to fear arrest by the authorities.

”Government identity cards for Rohingyas allow them to be residents but not citizens. If and when democracy is restored in Myanmar or Burma, these people will be repatriated,” he said.

But that repatriation could be a long time away.