Cultural poverty and the
rights of the Rohingya
As a progressive state, Bangladesh needs to show resolve in raising global consciousness to unequivocally denounce all
harassment of Rohingyas in Burma and any other part of the world, write Mahbubul Haque and Ziaur Rahman
ANY student of economics would quickly relate to the theory of scarcity which starts with the premise that ‘the world will always be scarce in resources.’ No worse way to reaffirm this theory than by looking at the global spectrum of food and environmental crisis that is precariously pushing a large majority of people into extreme poverty. With significant climatological changes, bad harvest and managerial inefficiency, many countries of the world are seeing its agricultural resource being depleted; these issues bring us to discuss matters of poverty, rights and rights of the extremely marginalised population. From a rational point of view, when a country suffers from debilitating economic crisis, issues of ethics and morality are often trampled upon; however, at this juncture as a nation, we need to revisit our vision of building an equity driven, fair and accountable environment for people of all colours and creeds. Bangladesh is home to about 45 indigenous communities making up a small, but notable part of the population. In addition to our own indigenous (Adivasi) communities, we have approximately 100,000 Rohingyas (30,000 as official count) stationed in Bangladesh who are considered stateless, which is an affront to civilised society in any count.
On September 13, 2007 the United Nations adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People and it an achievement of countless indigenous people and the organisations that have campaigned with them to establish these rights. Unfortunately, Bangladesh was among the eleven countries that failed to sign on the pretext of not being clear on the definition of ‘indigenous’ or ‘Adivasi’. Being ethically sensitive citizens of Bangladesh, we believe this was counterproductive, especially when Bangladesh wants to brand itself as a nation of multi-party pluralist democracy where freedom of thought, speech and association will unquestionably be availed.
Now, let us draw attention to culturally sensitive issues of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Rohingyas had their origins in Burma. This ethnic community has been in a state of national limbo and persecuted by the Burmese (now Myanmar) military regime. Denied Burmese nationality, they are hemmed into the areas of the country in which they live. Therein, they face a daily tyranny against their rights to move freely within the country, and discriminations are rampant from the authorities on account of their religion (the Rohingya are Muslims in a Buddhist majority country) and perceived ethnicity.
In order to break loose from this long standing oppression by the junta, many of the Rohingyas have fled as refugees into neighbouring countries (Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia). Due to geographic proximity, a majority of the Rohingyas living along the border of Burma and Bangladesh had taken the escape route to enter Bangladesh. In addition, the Rohingya being more ethnically and linguistically related to the ethnic minorities of Bangladesh was a further motivation to seek refuge in Bangladesh as opposed to India, Thailand and other regional countries, a point that the ruling junta seeks to exploit by emphasising the links between the Rohingya and the Bangladeshis.
The status of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh is, however, precarious. While living in inhuman conditions boxed into refugee camps not exceeding 0.5 square kilometres without having been accorded any official status. The children and adults are mostly devoid of formal schooling and thinking about MDGs for their uplift feels like a dream. The Bangladeshi government considers them to be Burmese and pushes them back to Burma. The end result is that these people have no nationality, and no State protects them nor provides them services and rights. This political volleying is enfeebling their already desperate economic condition and turning them into ‘political prisoners’ and ‘climate prisoners’ as their movements are severely restricted and, therefore, they are virtually unable to work in a free franchise and be economically productive. The system is making them completely dependent and ironically forcing them away from economic emancipation.
In light of the events in Burma during September and October 2007, and the uncertainty about the future actions of the regime, and the wider global politics of Islam and of human rights, the Rohingya issue is significantly neglected in relation to its importance for the region, and for the Rohingyas themselves have been subjected to decades of human rights abuse, and stand as a nationless, stateless people with no means of representation. While we, the Bengali speaking community are beating the drum of freedom to speak and freedom of rights, the duality of our behaviour comes open when we accord next to no freedom for these Rohinghyas whom our collective conscience perhaps deems as sub-human. It is a pressing moral prerogative for Bangladesh to introduce the Rohingyas into our society whilst also promoting the human rights of the Rohingyas in Burma and advocating to all nations of the world to give credence to their (Rohingyas) rights to citizenship in the countries in which they are currently domiciled.
Who are the Rohingyas?
It is this question that ultimately is the root cause of the discrimination the Rohingyas face. Simply put, there is disagreement between the Rohingyas themselves, the Burmese and Bangladeshi governments and other parties as to who they are and what they constitute as a group, whether ethnic, religious, national or some combination of these and other attributes.
The strife of the Rohingyas can be followed back to particularities of the Burmese laws on nationality. ‘Approximately one third of the population is made up of seven ethnic minorities who live in seven ethnic minority states. The state of Rakhine (historically known as Arakan) in Western Burma is where most of the Rohingyas live, a geographically isolated state characterised by coastal plains, rivers and mountains (Amnesty International, 2004).’ Most of the 700,000 to 1.5 million Muslims in the state are Rohingyas.
The Burmese military government known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which has been in power since 1968, recognises 135 national races in the Burma, through its 1982 Burma Citizenship Law. This creates three classes of citizens, known as full citizens, associate citizens and naturalised citizens (Amnesty International, 2004). The rights that associate and natural citizens may or may not enjoy are determined the ‘Central Body’ also created by the 1982 Law, which Amnesty reports has ‘wide ranging powers.’ The Rohingya are not considered to be one of the 135 national ethnic groups and so are not entitled to be full citizens. To qualify for associate citizenship, an individual must be eligible under the preceding 1948 Citizenship Act, and have applied for citizenship under that. Few Rohingyas are in this position. For naturalised citizenship, one must be in possession of documentary evidence of residence in Burma prior to independence on 4 January 1948. Birth lists do not show place of birth, and consequently the Rohingyas cannot usually produce sufficient evidence required. In legal terms, the Rohingyas do not have Burmese nationality, and do not have ethnic nationality status. The SPDC does not accept the existence of an ethnic group known as the Rohingya.
History is fraught with grave injustices and the fate of Rohingyas is strewn with monumental and deliberate fabrications, causing them institutionalised mistreatment. It is assumed that Muslims arrived in Burma as a consequence of the Anglo-Burmese wars of the early 19th century, launched from British controlled India. The annexation by Britain in 1824 is therefore seen by many as the dividing line between ‘indigenous’, pre-colonial peoples, and the arrival of Bengali Muslims and Hindus from India as the new territory was incorporated into the growing Empire. While others settled, the Rohingyas were ‘beyond any shadow of doubt, indigenous people of Arakan. They did not settle during the British occupation of Arakan (post 1824)’ as quoted by Habib Siddiqui.
History’s brutal pages did not allow them to live in peace. Many Rohingyas were forcibly evicted or chose to leave during the oppressive regime of the Burman King Bodawpaya after his 1784 conquest of the Rakhine Kingdom. They settled around the vicinity of Chittagong. The British allowed resettlement of these displaced people after the defeat of this regime. It is this return that is often distorted, to be seen as a first arrival of Rohingyas, by the Burmese government and others that would deny the Rohingya citizenship, and is unfortunately accepted by Amnesty International (2004). History is always written by the victors and it is unkind to the vanquished. In this case, the Rohingyas were the vanquished and settled for a history that only time can change to its true turn of events.
Rohingya culture and society
The language of the Rohingya is closely related to Bengali (Bangla), particularly the dialect spoken in the Chittagong area of Bangladesh. They are genetically related to Bengalis, Indians, Arabs and Moors, reflected in their darker skin and South Asian appearance, in contrast to the Southeast Asian appearance of recognised national groups in Burma. In addition to Bengali influences, there are Urdu, Hindi and Arabic words, reflecting the Indian and Muslim tradition of the group, and also Bama and English worlds, as a result of the British colonial occupation, and the interaction with Burmese majority groups. Unlike the majority of the Burmese population, they are Muslims. Mosques and religious schools are ubiquitous in the region, and women tend to wear the hijab.
Treatment of Rohingyas in Burma
As per the Amnesty International, they suspect that the Rohingyas are severely restricted group. Their Freedom of movement is severely restricted. They must apply for permission to leave their village, even journeying to a neighbouring village. This discrimination does not apply to other peoples living in Rakhine. This has impacted their ability to find work and sustain their livelihoods, especially as applying for a permit has a cost that most people cannot pay on a regular basis. Due to these economic and sanctions on freedom of movement, most Rohingyas have become day labourers, unable to produce goods for markets that exist in some other part of the state; even as labourers, when employment opportunities such as seasonal harvests occur in other places, they are never given the opportunity to exploit these potentials.
Forced labour remains a major concern of human rights groups among Rohingyas. Burma is known to use forced labour widely, especially from ethnic minority groups. Although being a signatory to the Convention on Forced or Compulsory Labour, Burma has been seen to practice forced labour in spite of it being made illegal as per ILO conventions. However, whilst the ILO has concluded that forced labour has in general fallen across the country, there has been little change in the Rakhine state. The confiscation of land is also a major concern. The SPDC has a policy of relocating non-Rakhine people to the region in new ‘model villages’ which are often populated by the NaSaKa and their families, former insurgents, plains people and non-Rohingyas from the state. This sorry state of affairs reflects the scenario where the government of Bangladesh had relocated Bengalis into the CHT regions over the last few decades without understanding the harmony that needed to blended between the indigenous community people and the Bengali people, causing tensions and brewing distrust among different communities.
The time has come to allow the Rohingyas to live their lives with the proper dignity of human beings. As a progressive state, Bangladesh needs to show resolve in raising global consciousness to unequivocally denounce all harassment of Rohingyas in Burma and any other part of the world.
The makings of a China-Latin
love affair
Relations between China and Latin America today have progressed beyond commerce, though trade and FDI are still primary
objectives on both sides, writes William Ratliff
The explosive growth of China’s links to Latin America in recent years are but the latest developments in a history that reaches back to the Spanish colonial empire in the early-16th century.
In some ways the perceived benefits and liabilities have not changed much over the centuries, though they are now on a far grander scale. A Spanish padre wrote in 1669 that ‘one cannot imagine any exquisite article for the equipment of a house which does not come from China’. At the same time, however, Spanish barbers in Mexico City petitioned the government to relocate Chinese barbers to the outskirts of the city because they worked too much and that constituted ‘unfair business practice’.
Only during the militant Maoist decade of the early-1960s to mid-1970s was China’s primary interest in Latin America, which was marginal, to overthrow existing governments. Some in the United States and Latin America worry that this rapidly rising China poses or will pose a security threat to the United States and the region. Many also worry that the influx of Chinese, with their different culture and institutions, will reduce the prospects for Latin reforms that promote open markets, political democracy, and greater respect for human and civil rights, including the rule of law. Responses to these concerns depend on what the Chinese and Latin Americans want and get from their contacts and on a realistic analysis of Latin America and broader Sino-US relations.
China’s interests in the region include the following: to buy raw materials and foodstuffs and to invest in the production and transportation of those products to China; to export manufactures and other products to the region; to promote stability there so that business contracts will be signed and honoured by predictable governments; to support a subtle reduction of the ‘unipolar’ position of the United States in the world; and to win political recognition from the cluster of Latin American countries that still recognise Taiwan as the ‘one China’.
Latin American countries want to sell China raw materials and manufactures to guarantee their historically unstable economies a foundation of assured income; to receive foreign direct investment (FDI) in many fields, including infrastructure, without the ‘strings’ that are attached to funds from Western sources; to reduce economic and political dependence on the United States; and perhaps to get some Chinese ideas on how to develop a national economy under effective elitist leadership.
Drawing these interests together, Chinese Ambassador to Chile Liu Yuqin said in March that ‘Latin American countries and China ... must make joint efforts to face the great challenge of the globalised world’. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, speaking for many Latin leaders, told President Hu Jintao during a visit to China in April that her country and people realise that the 21st century is in the hands of Asia, and especially China. In 2006 Chile was the first country to sign a free trade agreement with China and in 2007 China replaced the United States as the major recipient of Chilean exports.
Relations between China and Latin America today have progressed beyond commerce, though trade and FDI are still primary objectives on both sides. According to statistics reported by Jiang Shixue, deputy director of the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), one of the most important think-tanks advising the Chinese government on Latin American policies, Sino-Latin American trade grew from $1.9 million in 1950 –- just after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was formed -– to $343 million in 1965. Trade expanded to $475 million in 1975, $2.572 billion in 1985 and $6.114 billion in 1995.
In November 2004, addressing the Brazilian legislature, President Hu predicted that Sino-Latin American trade would rise to $100 billion by 2010, but in fact it rose to $102.6 billion in 2007 with a surge of 42% over 2006. There are important differences, however, in the spread of benefits in Sino-Latin American trade. Some 60% is with Brazil, Chile and Mexico, and the latter has a large deficit.
The countries exporting raw materials and foodstuffs, from oil and copper to soya, are the ones with positive balances, while others –– including Mexico and some Caribbean countries that rely more on manufactures –- are being swamped by Chinese goods, limiting this lucrative relationship for some to a traditional focus on only a few export products.
In April a high-level Chinese official reported that by the end of 2006 almost $22.7 billion of China’s FDI had gone to Latin America. While it is true that billions in FDI has been promised to Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico and other countries, for exploration for and transportation of raw materials and foods that China wants to buy, and other projects, information on actual FDI paid out is ‘somewhat murky’, as Robert Devlin, a regional adviser for the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, puts it. A major portion of Chinese FDI in Latin America appears to be ‘round-tripping’, that is the funds are invested in tax havens in the Caribbean and then sent back to China to take advantage of preferences given to foreign firms.
The most debated issues with respect to China’s expansion into Latin America are (1) the security implications for the United States and the region, with sub-set questions on Cuba and Venezuela, and (2) China’s potential anti-democratic impact on Latin American governments and social systems.
For starters, unlike the United States and Europe, China has no history of invading and colonising other countries beyond its immediate border, what is today called Greater China. Also, China has publicly tried to avoid alarming the United States because of the critically important Sino-US relations. The deputy director of the ILAS has written that ‘China understands well that Latin America is the backyard of the United States, so there is no need for China to challenge the American influence’ there.
After US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon talked with Chinese counterparts in Beijing in 2006, a top Latin Americanist at the CASS in Beijing, Xu Shicheng, said Chinese policy ‘has no ideological colour nor is it directed against the interests of any other country’.
As analyst Gonzalo Paz has noted, China’s activity in the region ‘hasn’t sparked strong US reactions yet. Washington has either shown indifference or has considered such activity relatively inoffensive’. Indeed, in March, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Christensen said, ‘We believe that China can make positive contributions to economic growth [in the region] ... through increasing both direct investment and foreign assistance, and can serve as an exemplar of how pragmatic economic policy and trade openness can lead to increased literacy, managed urbanisation and poverty reduction’.
US policy itself has sometimes thrown the door open to China’s still restrained entry into military contacts in the region, prompting National War College Professor Cynthia Watson to remark, ‘If Washington is not interested in having a sustained, deep and satisfying, mutually respectful relationship with Latin America, the latter will turn elsewhere’. The security issue must, of course, be investigated constantly by intelligence agencies and other researchers, but conclusions must be drawn with balance and knowledge of broader issues of Chinese and Latin American history and politics.
China has become deeply involved in Cuba as the island’s second-most important trading partner after Venezuela, but also to some degree in intelligence gathering, at a level, however, that does not seem to greatly upset Washington. Without pushing, it also offers an adaptable model for carrying out productive post-Fidel economic reform while leaders retain their political power.
Yet in the words of Mao Xianglin, an ILAS Cuba specialist, ‘Socialist Cuba can catch up with and surpass others only by moving rapidly to break out of its intellectual straitjacket and intensifying its reforms’. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has tried without success to get China to join an anti-American front. Though it is exploring oil and other matters, on balance China has more to lose than gain from Venezuela’s efforts to destabilise the region and promote economic ideas that will certainly only make countries poorer and more unstable.
Does or will China undermine democracy in Latin America? This is a hard case to make because Latin Americans have had almost 200 years of independence to establish truly representative democratic governments and productive market economies if they wanted them, but they have only rarely and incompletely come close to doing so. Even though a slight majority of Latin Americans say democracy is the best system of government, a considerable majority say it does not work for them.
Thus, much of Latin America today is again flirting with caudillo (strong-man) populism, exemplified by Chavez in Venezuela, but also by his acolytes in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. When one recalls that Mexico and Peru also very nearly went ‘Chavista’ in their last elections, and Argentina is semi-Chavista today, you see the strength of this Latin love affair with paternalism and Messiahs who promise to right the innumerable ‘wrongs’ that have characterised Latin society since even before colonial times. China’s preference lies with governments that succeed, and thus their relations have developed most rapidly and smoothly with Chile, and secondarily with Brazil.
Word has seeped out of Washington that at the Shannon meetings in 2006 the Chinese promised not to meddle in Latin politics. Last year the author asked a top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official working in international affairs if China wanted to get involved changing political systems in Latin America. He said ‘No. Why should we? We are perfectly happy with a system controlled by elites that keeps real popular involvement to a minimum, so long as they do not crash and continue to enforce the agreements made with us.’
If Latin leaders, however, ask the Chinese for ideas, Chinese leaders will certainly accommodate them. Indeed, the Chinese make it a point of developing party and legislative connections with leaders of all political inclinations in all countries, if possible. As Jiang Shixue has noted, Chinese and Latin political leaders ‘exchange views on strategies to improve governance, the management of party affairs, political modernisation and socioeconomic development’.
The challenges for Latin American countries in the years ahead include investing the profits from China trade and FDI, and using the inspiration of the Chinese example, to lay a long-term foundation for national well-being, cultivating whatever traditional cultural and civic values do not prevent the development of broadly based economic progress. This will mean both rejecting the temptations of hopeless and disruptive Chavista populism and carrying out more than half-hearted reforms, both changes that would also benefit China and the United States.
China needs to reduce logistical problems of long distances, perhaps in part by more joint Latin ventures for the United States and Latin markets, cultivate greater common cultural ground, not least by increasing cultural institutes, and the like. Assuming the continuation of something like China’s current development trajectory, and a lasting major US role in the Western Hemisphere, the two large nations could work together to promote a more stable and prosperous region that would benefit themselves and Latin Americans as well.
Traditionally, it has been easier to blame someone else for the region’s seemingly intractable and widespread poverty and inequalities and today many Latin Americans have made the Chinese their ‘favourite villain,’ as Korean analyst Won-ho Kim wrote in a Mexican paper in 2004. In the end, Latin America’s failure to develop more responsive political –– and more productive economic –– systems was not Britain’s or America’s fault in the past, and it is disingenuous at this stage to suggest that it will be China’s fault in the future.
The Asia Times/HK Online, May 30, 2008. Dr William Ratliff is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Independent Institute.
Who boycotts dialogue is
not important!
I congratulate Hossain Zillur Rahman for making such a bold statement. For, evidently, politicians in Bangladesh never learn and will not learn; moreover, given a chance, they would revert to same old style of unapologetic, destructive, irresponsible, and crime-prone politics. The only remedy, therefore, is imposition of an awareness upon them that they must obey institutional code of conduct and that the nation would not care or wait to listen to their quibblings. Simply, the incumbent government must pursue take-it-or-leave-it policy and sow the seeds of destruction of autocratic politics of our politicians.
Shibly Azad
New York city
* * *
Does Hossain Zillur Rahman himself believe what he says? I don’t think so, because in the May 31 issue of newspapers reported him mentioning that the government had been trying heart and soul to bring the main political parties to dialogue. If his government doesn’t care then why this effort?
A citizen
On e-mail
* * *
What nonsense! If the major political parties of the country don’t join the dialogue then what’s the point of holding it in the first place? People really don’t care whether petty parties like LDP and others join the dialogue and discuss about the future of the nation. Without the Awami League and the BNP, this dialogue is futile and advisers like Hossain Zillur Rahman, if he posseses minimum political sense, should realise it and control himself from making stupid comments.
Zahirul Alam
Dhaka University, Via SMS
* * *
With days passing by Hossain Zillur Rahman is acting more and more like Barrister Mainul Hosein — making all sorts of controversial comments, revealing his lack of understanding of the politics of the nation and expressing his government and his own disregard about the general people’s sentiment.
What a disgrace.
Shahnoor Alam
DU, Via SMS
South African violence
Nice to see that racism is still evident all over the world! Anybody who has been to South Africa would know that this situation has been festering for years. If there are 3-5 m immigrants from Zimbabwe, this might give a clue to the root of the problems.
Sarah Chowdhury
USA
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