Introduction:
The Rohingyas have been forced to migrate from Myanmar to Bangladesh since 1978. The Rohingyas are an ethno-religious and linguistic minority group in North Arakan state in Myanmar adjacent to Bangladesh. This ethnic group is one of the oldest indigenous races of the Myanmar who are Muslim by religion, with a distinct culture and civilisation of their own. They came to Myanmar during the early fifth century. Over the years they have been living in the southern part of Bangladesh at the two refugee camps where 29,000 Rohingyas have been stranded starting in 1992. (UNHCR country report 2011) The Government of Bangladesh (GOB) manages these camps temporarily with the assistance from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and several national and international organizations. There are also 300,000 undocumented nationals of Myanmar (Rohingyas) outside the official camps who are illegally staying in the Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban and Chittagong districts in Bangladesh.

Though the Bangladeshi government has no mechanism for receiving asylum applications and Bangladesh has not ratified the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 or its Protocol of 1967. Yet it is showing respect of international humanitarian laws and gave temporary refugee status to the Rohingyas through an executive order in 1992. Over the years, a significant portion of them managed to mix up informally with the local population in the greater Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and other coastal areas. Certain political and local organizations were instrumental for their de facto local integration.

This study is to find out the process that how the Rohingyas ethnic group expelled from Myanmar and entered into Bangladesh, as well as how they have been informally integrated to the host society gradually. Before discussing the main issues some important topics are discussed below:


Origins of Rohingyas
There are two basic concepts regarding the origins of the Rohingyas in Myanmar . One suggests that the Rohingyas are descendents of Moorish, Arab and Persian traders, including Moghul, Turk, Pathan, and Bengali soldiers turned migrants, who arrived between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, married local women, and settled in the region. They also trace their ancestry to Central Asians and some Indo-Mongoloid people. So, it shows that Rohingyas are the mixture of many kinds of people. The another concept suggests that the Muslim population of the Rakhine state is mostly Bengali migrants from the erstwhile East Pakistan and now Bangladesh, with some Indians coming during the British period. Most of them speak Bengali with a strong ‘Chittagong dialect’ as they went there from Chittaogong region. The government of Myanmar and the majority Burman –Buddhist population of the country subscribe to this position.

Rohingyas become refugees
The Rohingyas are victims of gross violations of human rights in Myanmar by the military regime who had been ruling the country since 1962. In 1978, the Burmese authorities undertook different tactics to oppress the Rohingyas. The “Dragon Operation” in 1978 launched by General Ne Win forced at least 2,00,000 Rohingyas to enter into Bangladesh. There are some specific factors that have been the driving forces behind the exodus of the Rohingyas. These are: denial of citizenship rights, denial of religious freedom ,denial of free movement, forced labour, forced relocation, arbitrary taxation, expulsion and other form of human rights abuses. Firstly, the amendment in the 1982 citizenship made the situation worse for the Rohingyas ethnic group who do not fall under the “citizenship category” of 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar. By denying their citizenship, the Burmese Government has deprived the Rohingyas of all of their national rights, prevented them from owning land and property title and left them vulnerable to forced labour, land grabbing and other forms of human rights abuses. It has also denied their rights to take recourse to the law. This is the first and foremost cause behind the exodus of the Rohingyas from Burma to Bangladesh and other countries. Secondly, the major cause that forced the Rohingyas to leave Burma is the lack of freedom of movement. It is well known that Myanmar is a country where travel and other restrictions are a part of common experience.

The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) after 1988 decided to set up a number of new military cantonments in the Rakhaine state, particularly in the North, where the muslims are majority. The authorities took the lands belonging to the Muslims without any compensation; rather they were told to be relocated in an unsuitable mountainous region. The Government of Myanmar has also restricted the Rohingyas to travel anywhere within Arakan as well as to other parts of the country. They are not allowed anywhere beyond their village boundaries without permission from the Local Peace and Development Council (LPDC) Chairman. While contact with the Rohingyas minority group at Maungdaw city in Myanmar they describe the same thing. It is an official and unofficial rule to pay bribe to the local authority to get the travel permission. NaSaka (Myanmar’s border security force) usually extorts money from a school boy at Maungdaw in Arakan state. For example,

On November 28, 2009, a class three student named Md. Idris (10), son of Tazer Muluk was killed by a buffalo while he was feeding cattle in the compound of his house. When the boy was feeding the cattle, the buffalo suddenly struck the boy with its horn and gored his stomach. The child died on the spot. However,the parents of the boy had to pay kyat 500,000 to the court of Maungdaw town ,TPDC (Township Peace and Development Council) office, District Peace and Development Council (DPDC) office, and District police officer of Maungdaw, on allegations that the parents did not take care of their son. (Monthly Arakan ,December ,2009 )

Besides, the Myanmar Government imposes high tax exclusively on the Rohingyas Muslim community for all kinds of activities, such as marriage, business, using mobile phones, traveling, education etc. Furthermore, the military imposed a great deal of restriction upon non –Buddhist religious activities. In Arakan the Rohingyas are warned not to grow beards and not to dress in Islamic outfits. The military authorities have banned and locked up many mosques and religious schools. Third, the Rohingyas have been victims of rape and sexual harassment. The interviews with the documented and undocumented Rohingyas from Bangladesh and some Rohingyas from Myanmar confirmed this issue. In some cases Rohingya women have been raped by NaSaKa soldiers, and in other cases by Rakhine civilians. One book states the Rohingyas condition in the following terms:

In Myanmar the Rohingyas were vulnerable to violence, negligence, exploitation, and abuse in a variety of forms. They were denied citizenship rights in their homeland. They were severely restricted in their movement in Arakan, not to mention in the whole Myanmar or abroad. The Rohingyas had been victims of rape and sexual violence. They had been subjected to systematic eviction campaigns in Myanmar for decades. They were forced into labour. They did not have religious freedom in Myanmar. They faced a financial coercion imposed by the GOM in the forms of extortion, arbitrary taxation and charges. The security forces, particularly NaSaKa, regularly traumatise both men and women. As a result, people have lost their self esteem and find themselves frustrated by inaction and powerlessness. (Imtiaz Ahmed ,(2010) , The plight of the stateless Rohingyas , The University Press Limited, Dhaka.)

A number of factors linked to legal, political, economical and social aspects have influenced the Rohingyas to cross the Bangladesh –Myanmar border to other countries. Out of about the 2.5 million Rohingyas, two million are now claimed to be living outside their country of origin, Myanmar. Facing all kinds of ill treatment and odd situations, millions of Rohingyas are now living scattered throughout Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and in different Middle Eastern and European countries.

The Major Rohingyas Exoduses and Repatriation

There were two major Rohingya exoduses from Arakan into Bangladesh, one in 1978 and another in 1991 , each with more than 250,000 refugees. Most of the Rohingyas went back to Myanmar in 1979 under an agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh in 1978. After their return to Arakan they once again faced forced labour, lack of freedom of movement, periodic displacement, whimsical arrest and killing, and other forms of human rights violations, including torture and rape. Due to continued persecution, there have been ‘new arrivals’ in Bangladesh. Along the border that number is more than 200,000. Another influx occurred in October 1992, when approximately 260,000 Rohingyas entered Bangladesh. Again Bangladesh took initiative to repatriate the Rohingyas refugees and the government of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement in April 1992 for the ‘safe voluntary’ return of Rohingyas refugees. Apart from that agreement the repatriation of Rohingyas from Bangladesh to Myanmar started by the end of 1995 but unfortunately many of the repatriated refugees returned to Bangladesh between 1996-1998 with thousands of new arriving Rohingyas. The Bangladeshi government officials named the Rohingyas people as ‘economic refugees’ and thereby treated them as illegal immigrants, refusing to give them refugee status. After that government showed very strict position towards Rohingyas refugees, and as a result many of them were arrested and sent to jail, while some others were deported instantly. The rest of the Rohingyas managed to escape and settle in Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar areas as well as in the two remaining refugee camps.

However, the repatriation process did not move after 1998 as it encountered different troubles, firstly, it was voluntary repatriation but it turned into ‘involuntary’ in nature. Secondly, there are many previously repatriated backed with stories of persistent tortures and abuse. Thirdly, Rohingyas refugees observed a 14 month long strike to show the protest against ‘voluntary repatriation’ and even they boycotted humanitarian services for several months. And finally, by October 1998, Bangladeshi security forces regained control in the camps and arrested hundreds of male refugees, many of whom remain in prison for a long time and the repatriation was halted. Besides, the last repatriation took place in 2005 when only 92 Rohingyas were repatriated. Now most of the Rohingyas are more interested in resettlement in third countries than repatriation.

Table 1: Year Wise Repatriation from 1992 to 2008 (May)
Year No. of people repatriated Year No. of people repatriated
1992 5962 1999 1128
1993 46129 2000 1323
1994 82753 2001 283
1995 61504 2002 760
1996 23045 2003 3231
1997 10073 2004 210
1998 106 2005 92
Total 236,599


On the issue of resettlement, from 2006-2010, more than 900 refugees were resettled to third countries. However, in November 2010 the Bangladesh authorities suspended resettlement pending the formulation of a refugee policy.

Involvement of UNHCR
When the repatriation process became slower and the government of Myanmar did not show interest in the repatriation of Rohingyas refugees in the early 1990s, the government of Bangladesh made a request to the UNO on the 13th of February, 1992 to help her financially to tackle the situation of Rohingyas refugees. As an immediate response to the request, the UNHCR stepped in the refugee relief and repatriation operation in Bangladesh together with the Government of Bangladesh and many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which has been going on till date. On 8th October, 1992 Bangladesh reached an understanding with the UNHCR where this international organization carried out two important components of its mandate: protection of the refugees in the camps, and voluntary repatriation, guaranteed by private, individual interviewing.

Consequences of the Influx
Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world where more than 40 percent of the population live on less than one dollar per day. The influx of Rohingyas has added with some extra pressure on the overall environment in the area including its social, economic and political aspects. There has been heavy depletion of forest resources of Cox’s Bazar areas due to construction of camps and use of forest wood as firewood by Rohingyas refugees. It is also recorded that a group of Rohingyas refugees involved in border smuggling and other illegal activities, have been deteriorating the law and order situation of Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts. Besides, as the Rohingyas refugees frequently used to go outside to sell their labour which was making the wage rate of the local labour cheaper. Thus labour market grew imbalanced due to the influx. The influx is adding the grave problem to the already population explosion in Bangladesh and creating tremendous social problems, such as theft, robbery, terrorism etc.

The Refugee camps
The GOB had originally built twenty camps for the Rohingyas refugees in Cox’s Bazar area in 1992. Currently, there are two registered camps for the documented Rohingyas refugees. 29,000 documented refugees have been living in the two registered camps which are divided into 11,500 in Kutupalong and 17,500 in Nayapara. Most of them from families who did not repatriate during the large scale returns to the late 1970s and early 1990s. The GOB maintains the camps with the help of the UNHCR, Bangladesh is supposedly responsible for ensuring safety and security of the refugees both inside and outside the camps, whereas the UNHCR coordinates the humanitarian sides of the camp.
There are four ministries maintaining the Rohingyas camp and this issue: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, Ministry of Health and Family welfare and Ministry of Home Affairs. There are some responsibilities discharged by the GOB staff in the camp.
The camp –in-charge is the full official responsible of the registered camps of both Kutupalong and Noyapara. The Camp-in-charge is the assistant secretary to the ministry of food and disaster management in Bangladesh. He also takes care of the non –registered camps.

(The writer is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Studies ,Shahjalal University of Science & Technology,Sylhet.)