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REUTERS: NEW ROHINGYA INFLUX AND UN



Subject: REUTERS: NEW ROHINGYA INFLUX AND UNHCR IN DILEMMA

	ASIA: NEW BURMESE REFUGEES POSE DILEMMA FOR UN AGENCY
BANGLADESH INFLUX (FEATURE)
   By Alistair Lyon of Reuters
   TEKNAF, Bangladesh, Reuter - Amid lush green fields in sight of 
surf pounding in from the Bay of Bengal, Jafar Ahmed explained why 
life in Burma had become unbearable.
	   "Twenty days before we left our village of Inn Chaung, the 
military took me for forced labour," he said. "They said it was for 
10 days, but they kept me for 16."
	   "They tax us and make us give donations, such as logs, to their 
requirements. If we can't pay, they take us to a Nasaka (border 
force) camp and torture us."
	   Ahmed, a 40-year-old labourer, said he had once spent 24 hours 
with his legs held in wooden stocks at a Nasaka camp.
	   The Rangoon military government has long denied reports of 
ill-treatment of minority Muslims, or Rohingyas, in its 
impoverished northern province of Rakhine.
	   Now Ahmed, his wife and three children are part of a group of 
six families sheltering in a hut on a Bangladeshi peninsula 
separated from their homeland by the broad Naf River.
	   They arrived in April after paying 500 kyat (about $A4.60) or 
seven times a day labourer's wage) a head for passage, including 
bribes to Nasaka border troops to look the other way.
	   The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 
5,500 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh since March, while other 
relief agencies say there may be up to 10,000.
	   The influx is something of an embarassment for the UNHCR, trying 
to meet its target of repatriating the last 50,000 of 250,000 
Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992.
	   The UN agency, keen to anchor the 200,000 returnees to their 
villages and head off any fresh exodus, fears that any move to help 
the newcomers would spur others to follow.
	   "If we give food to this group, we'll attract 50,000 more the 
next day," UNHCR representative Canh Nguyen-Tang told Reuters in 
Dhaka. "We don't want to create a 'pull' factor."
	   Yet the hardships cited by Ahmed and other new arrivals appear 
identical to those claimed by their fellow-Rohingyas who were 
accepted as refugees after the original mass flight.
	   Bangladesh, at first unwilling to admit the existence of any 
newcomers, now says they are illegal immigrants fleeing poverty, 
not persecution, and must be deported.
	   UN officials said economic conditions for Rohingyas, mostly 
uneducated farm workers, had worsened after a cyclone in November 
cut rice output by up to 20 per cent. Rangoon helped push up prices 
by demanding the same rice tax as before.
	   "This two-way traffic of influx and repatriation has created a 
very odd situation," said Dick van der Tak, representative of the 
medical relief agency Medecins sans Frontieres.
	   "We're afraid that if everyone classifies them as economic 
migrants, we'll lose sight of the context - the reasons for their 
poverty and the whole human rights situation in Burma."
	   The UNHCR, yet to define its policy on the newcomers, hopes that 
its staff stationed in mainly Buddhist Burma's neglected Rakhine 
province can intercede with its military rulers to ease the plight 
of Rohingyas and encourage them to stay put.
	   "We have organised an information campaign asking people to 
return to their villages of origin and contacted the authorities to 
provide transport back home," Tang said.
	   He argued that compulsory labour, while an issue of great 
concern to the UNHCR, did not count as persecution of Rohingyas 
because it was prevalent throughout Burma.
	   At the same time, he said, Rohingyas are not recognised as full 
citizens, but only as "residents" of Burma. And they do not have 
freedom of movement, needing permission from the military 
authorities if they want to leave their home villages.
	   The 50,000 remaining refugees live under UNHCR protection in 
camps run by Bangladeshi officials. They may not work, or leave the 
camps without permits, but are relatively secure.
	   The new arrivals must seek shelter where they can and are 
vulnerable to summary deportation and abuse.
	   In April, an attempt by a river patrol of the paramilitary 
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) to force a boatful of incoming Burmese back 
across the river ended in disaster.
	   The boatman jumped overboard in the dark, the drifting boat 
capsized after getting tangled in fishing nets and 15 people - five 
women and 10 children - drowned.
	   Anjuma, a 12-year-old Rohingya girl who arrived in the second 
week of May, said she had been gang-raped by three BDR soldiers who 
had previously ordered her family and six others staying in a 
village near Teknaf to return to Burma.
	   An examination by a doctor working for an international relief 
agency appeared to confirm sexual assault.
	   Major Lal Mohammad at BDR headquarters in Teknaf said a military 
investigation was under way. "If it is true that our soldiers were 
involved, they will be punished," he added.
	   REUTER bwl