Asia Watch
A DIVISION OF HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCH
October 9, 1993 Vol. 5 , No. 17
BANGLADESH: ABUSE
OF BURMESE REFUGEES FROM ARAKAN
Introduction
Beginning in late 1991, wide-scale
atrocities committed by the Burmese military, including
rape, forced labor, and religious persecution, triggered an exodus of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from the northwestern Burmese state of
Arakan into Bangladesh. Nearly
240,000 refugees, now housed in 19 camps in and around the Bangladeshi town of Cox's
Bazar, face the prospect of possible mass repatriation when the 1993 rainy
season ends in
October. That repatriation would be cause for concern on two grounds. First,
though talks have taken place between
Burmese authorities and Mrs. Sadako Ogata, head of
the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) to allow a
UNHCR presence inside Burma, no final
agreement has yet been reached, and grave concerns remain about military abuses
in Arakan and thus about the safety of repatriated refugees. Second, when mass repatriations took place in 1992, they became the
occasion for coercion and physical abuse of refugees by Bangladeshi authorities, raising serious doubts about
whether most returned voluntarily.
Asia Watch has not
been able to investigate abuses on the Burmese side of the border. But in April 1993, an
Asia Watch consultant visited the refugee camps in Bangladesh. He also met in Dhaka with officials in both
the Foreign Ministry and the Home Ministry, local government officials in the
Cox's Bazar area directly responsible for implementing policy with respect to
the Rohingyas, staff members of the UNHCR, foreign government officials, international relief workers, Bangladeshi human
rights monitors, and refugees. The Bangladeshi government was
cooperative in allowing the mission to take place.
The Asia Watch
consultant compiled evidence of verbal, physical and sexual abuse of refugees at the hands of Bangladeshi
military and paramilitary forces in charge of the camps. Those abuses
indicate the need for international agencies, particularly the UNHCR, to have full access to all camps to interview
refugees in confidence about their willingness to return, and for the Bangladeshi authorities to
investigate the pattern of abuse against refugees and bring those
responsible to justice.
Background
On April
28, 1992 after intensive involvement by Under-Secretary-General of
the United Nations for Humanitarian Affairs,
Jan Eliasson, Bangladesh
and Burma
signed a bilateral agreement for the "safe and voluntary"
return of the Rohingyas. The agreement provided for UNHCR
participation in the repatriation process, but contained no specifics. On May
5, the two governments signed a protocol which made reference to the April 28
agreement, but made no reference to "safe and voluntary"
repatriation. According to one source who requested anonymity, the protocol was simply a
''pact for picking people up and putting
them on the other side."
Both the agreement and the
protocol served to undermine what had hitherto been the
Burmese argument, that the Rohingyas were not Burmese but illegal immigrants
from Bangladesh,
and that they therefore had no right to return. A procedure was worked out whereby
the Bangladesh
government would submit names of potential returnees among the refugees;
the latter would not need to submit formal identity documents as proof of their
citizenship
but could just name their village headman in Arakan. Burmese authorities would check with the headman, and then let the
Bangladeshi authorities know which refugees they would accept back. But there
were no mechanisms in the agreement to monitor the safety of the refugees on return, and no screening
procedures to ensure that return would be voluntary. Human rights groups, including Asia Watch, argued that no
refugees should go back until those mechanisms were in place.
The first repatriation was scheduled for
May 15, but after widespread protests in the refugee
camps and an international outcry over the lack of safeguards, it was
repeatedly postponed. Finally, on September
22, 49 refugees were sent back from Rangikhali transit camp,
with UNHCR only informed after the fact by the Bangladeshi government. More protests broke out, which appeared to be both
spontaneous and encouraged by the two armed
guerrilla organizations, the Rohingya Solidarity
Organization (RSO) and the Arakanese Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF), operating on the border.
One, on September 25 in Dhoa
Palong camp, left three refugees dead and many others
injured; another, the following day in Teknaf, left 10 wounded.
Demonstrations in favor of repatriation were
staged by local villagers, organized into the Rohingya Repatriation Action Committee, which reportedly
had the support of local Bangladeshi officials.
The demonstrations
led to an order from authorities in Dhaka
that no foreign relief workers would be allowed to speak with
the refugees except in the presence of a Bangladeshi official.
Security forces undertook an intensive search for weapons in the camps, and
an unknown number of refugees were arrested under the Special Powers Act of
1974.
On October 8, the Bangladesh
government and UNHCR reached an agreement whereby refugees would be
interviewed by UNHCR staff about their willingness to return. They
would be interviewed not only after they had arrived in the three transit
camps, Rangikhali,
Nayapara-2 and Jumma Para, but in the process of
moving from the 17 "camps of origin" to the transit centers. As a
result, UNHCR personnel were able to interview some of the refugees who
returned in the next two groups. On October 12, 63 refugees went back.
This time the protests were more violent, and in a clash
between Bangladesh
security forces and refugees, five refugees were killed and over 100
wounded. On October
31, 104 more Rohingyas returned to Burma.
UNHCR maintains that both groups who went back in October
did so willingly, although there appears to be some question as to how free
refugees felt to speak.
Nevertheless, the
protests continued: a little over a week after the October 31 group returned,
another clash led to eight refugees killed and over 100 injured. The incident, which
the Bangladesh authorities blamed on an attack from the refugee side but which
no human rights organization was able to investigate, led to
the deployment of police and the paramilitary force, Ansar, in all 19 refugee camps, and the effective closure
of the camps to outsiders.
As plans developed
in November for a major repatriation, protests broke out again. In the Shailer Dheba camp, eight
refugees were killed by security forces on November 9. The government claimed
that the clash broke out after security forces went into the camp to rescue a
woman who had been seized by Rohingya militants
opposed to repatriation.
Then, on November
25, over 900 people were sent back, to an even greater outcry. Again,
the Bangladesh
government claimed the violence was fuelled by "trouble-makers" who were
intimidating refugees who wanted to return. Refugees, on the other hand,
claimed the government was arresting people who refused to cooperate with the
return. Two men from Dhoa Palong camp, for example, were reportedly arrested for
refusing to give a Bangladeshi official a list of 500 "volunteers"
for repatriation. The refugees said those who had "volunteered"
thus far had either been bribed or forced. They claimed they were being threatened
by police, and that every time they spoke to journalists or foreigners, the
police came around immediately afterwards, demanding to know what they had
said. Independent
sources told Asia Watch that in five camps, refugee leaders were rounded up and
systematically beaten, that ration books were confiscated so that they had no
access to food, and that many refugees were simply given the choice of
repatriation or prison.
In retrospect,
observers traced the beginning of intensified coercion to the November 17 visit
to the Cox's Bazar area by Safiur Rahman, the
Additional Home Secretary in Dhaka. For
about two months after his visit, humanitarian workers in the camps were
confronted with daily incidents of physical abuse and threats by
police, the Ansar force, and local civilian
officials. Abuse included beatings on the soles of the feet, placing wet bags
on the heads of refugees to simulate suffocation, forced sitting or standing in
one position for hours, and at least one case of rape.
Because of these
reports and increasing evidence that the returns were not voluntary, the
UNHCR halted its operations after the November 25 repatriation. The pace of
forced returns, however, picked up, with 2,881 people being sent
back between December 1 and December 20. In a letter to Prime
Minister Zia on December 22, Mrs. Ogata complained
that some refugees had been subject to coercion by Bangladeshi
authorities and sent back against their will, and that UNHCR
was being denied access to returnees to conduct private interviews.
She referred to "strong evidence to suspect refugees are being coerced to
return, in some cases, having been physically assaulted, their
ration cards confiscated, with several hundred persons detained in
jail."
By the end of 1992,
some 900 refugees were reported to have been detained. Some had
committed acts of violence but many were detained because of their opposition
to repatriation. Most, according to one source interviewed by
Asia Watch, were arrested under Section 54 of the Penal Code
for "suspicious behavior." Others were arrested under the Special
Powers Act, which allows for indefinite detention without charge or trial, and
the Suppression of Terrorist Activities Ordinance of 1992.
Despite her intervention,
over 13,000 more refugees were returned between December 22 and January 15, 1993. On January 15, in the face of international
criticism and continuing refusal by the refugees to cooperate, Bangladesh
briefly suspended the repatriation. The government also
invited Mrs. Ogata to Dhaka to
formalize an agreement on UNHCR's role. Meanwhile,
repatriation resumed on January 31, when UNHCR was once again
allowed to conduct private interviews with returnees — but only in the transit
camps. When the interviews were conducted, it transpired that
nearly all the refugees in the transit camps were there against their will.
UNHCR intervened again, and the Bangladeshi government finally took
steps to curb abuses.
With the reduction of
abuse came reduction of repatriation: a total of 750 returned in
March 1993 as compared with 4,814 during the month of December 1992. Many of
the detained refugees were released (although an estimated 500
remained in detention at the end of March), and relatively few new
arrests had taken place when Asia Watch visited in April. Non-governmental
organizations, which had experienced obstruction and harassment from the
Bangladeshi government from mid-1992 on also saw most restrictions lifted on
their activities in April. Despite
perceptible improvements over the situation in December-January, however, it
was clear abuses continued in the refugee camps through April, as the case
studies attached to this report amply document.
In one disturbing development, newly arrived refugees began
to be arrested for "loitering." A. Mohammed Noorkari,
Assistant Secretary at the Gundhum I refugee camp, told
Asia Watch that on March 18, 1993, six Rohingyas were arrested in his camp for
"loitering" because they had come to the camp without any
identification or "valid papers." On March 19, they were
arrested under the Passport Act as "infiltrators." The six were
members of a family, a mother and five children. Noorkari
explained that these people were not refugees, but were in the camp illegally:
"Refugees are people who come when recognized by the government
as such. But if you come now you are not
a refugee; you are an infiltrator, because you are not recognized by the
government." The family is being held at Police Station Naikoncherri, in Bundarban
district.
Noorkari
said that another family was arrested on March 19, also in Gundhum
I and also charged with loitering without identification papers. They had never
come to the camp before. They came from the village of
Nakayan Buthidaung, Akyab District in Burma. Upon
arrest, they were sent to Ukhia Police Station, Cox's
Bazar District. Noorkari said he had personally
"interrogated" both families and had made the decision to arrest
them.
Throughout March and
April 1993, negotiations went on between UNHCR and the Bangladesh
government over procedures for "safe and voluntary" repatriation. On
May 12, a "memorandum of understanding" was signed by Mrs. Ogata in Dhaka,
finally allowing the UNHCR to conduct confidential
interviews to ensure that coercion was no longer used. The MOU
also gives UNHCR free access to and a presence in all refugee camps in order to
carry out their humanitarian mandate. On June 29, UNHCR wrote to
Asia Watch noting that the "atrocities against individual
cases reported by the Asia Watch mission have been brought to the
notice of our Representative in Bangladesh, who is aware of the need for
continuing vigilance to avoid any deterioration of the situation
the camps." UNHCR also said its
office in Cox's Bazar detected a "marked improvement" in the camps
since the MOU was signed in May.
The Burmese military
junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council or SLORC,
has thus far rejected any international monitoring in Arakan. Prof. Yozo Yokota, Special Rapporteur of the
UN Commission on Human Rights for Burma, in his report to the Commission
on February 17, 1993, recommended that "...in light of the seriousness of
the refugee and repatriation problem, an international human
rights monitoring team, in conjunction with the mandate of the
Special Rapporteur (should) be allowed access to the border areas...(and) to
the sites of repatriation within Myanmar." He suggested it be composed of independent
experts and selected representatives of agencies with the appropriate
expertise.
Absent such a monitoring
team, and without adequate safeguards and international monitoring
on the Burma
side of the border, it was not surprising that many Rohingya
refugees continued to be fearful of going back.
In May 1993, an interagency
technical mission led by Michael Priestly, an aide to Under-Secretary-General
Jan Eliasson, visited Burma to
discuss the possibility of an interagency UN presence in Arakan. On
the basis of this mission, Mrs. Ogata visited Burma in
a "private capacity" on July 26-31 for high-level talks with
government officials. A UNHCR technical mission visited Burma in
mid-September for further discussions.
If an agreement permitting UNHCR to have a permanent presence
in Arakan is signed, the Bangladeshi government would almost certainly
increase pressures on the refugees now in Cox's Bazar to return home
as quickly as possible. As of August 1993 approximately 33,000 refugees
had reportedly returned to Burma,
but the vast majority — approximately 217,000 — remained in the
camps.
The
Abuses
The cases described
below indicate the gravity of the abuses that were taking place in the
camps as late as April 1993. They are taken from interviews conducted by Asia
Watch in visits to three camps of origin (Gundhum
I, Dechua Palong and Balukhali II) and one transit camp
(Jumma Para) in April. We document them here as a
reminder of what can be taking place, even as an unacceptable situation
is widely held to have "improved." These abuses took place before the
UNHCR had access to the "camps of origin", but because they were taking
place out of sight, UNHCR officials were, for the most part, unaware that they
had occurred. By the terms of the new memorandum of
understanding signed in May, UNHCR has full access to those
camps, although not a 24-hour presence. Abuses can still occur, and we welcome
UNHCR's acknowledgement of the need for vigilance. While fully recognizing the
social and economic burdens that the refugees have placed on the Bangladeshi government,
we also reiterate our call to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to fully investigate these incidents and ensure that
those responsible are brought to justice.
It is important to
note that high-ranking officials in Dhaka
denied that local camp authorities had ever engaged in
systematic verbal and physical coercion of the refugees, despite
the overwhelming evidence of past abuse. They also insisted — despite the
absence of any independent verification — that conditions in
Arakan have improved in the past year such that any continuing
refugee concerns about returning were not legitimate. Finally, government
officials suggested that much of the violence in the camps was the product of
"terrorist" or "fundamentalist" organizations' pressure on
the refugees to remain in Bangladesh.
There is no question that Rohingya militants were
responsible for some incidents of violence, which, on at
least two occasions, may have included murder. But there is also ample evidence
to suggest that security forces engaged in a systematic pattern of abuse
and torture as a means of coercion, and that they have not been held
accountable for their actions.
The U.S.
government, which had been publicly critical of Bangladesh's
use of coercion, should encourage a full investigation of these
reported abuses.
However, a State
Department official told Asia Watch that the U.S. had
"very little influence" to press for action by Dhaka on
these cases and saw no point in focusing on "past abuses" when there
had been improvements in camp conditions.
There should also be
continuing pressure on Burma
for an end to human rights abuses in Arakan and access to the area
by international human rights and humanitarian organizations. It is imperative
that any final agreement between UNHCR and the Burmese government
include provisions for more than a token presence for the international body in
Arakan, and that UNHCR personnel be guaranteed freedom of
movement and ability to hold confidential interviews with the
repatriated refugees.
INDIVIDUAL CASES
M.A., 37, religious
teacher
MA is a resident of Gundhum I, who originally came from Badana
village, Buthidaung, Burma,
with five family members. He came
because the Burmese military had beaten him and forced him to
serve as a porter. M.A. crossed the border at Teknaf, where Government
of Bangladesh (GOB) officials found him and sent him to Gundhum. In early April 1993, M.A. was at a
mosque about to call people for prayer when two local police officers
approached. One asked who he was. MA. said he was the local imam. One officer then cursed him and
kicked him three times.
Shortly afterward, about
nine police officers went to the nearby shed of F.K., 35, a widow
who had come with seven children to Bangladesh
from the village Chingri Phara,
Maungdaw in about April 1992. She
left Burma
because her eldest son, aged 15, was forced to be a porter for the
Burmese army. In April 1993, when the police officers came to her shed, they
said her son had gone back to Myanmar but
had returned. They wanted to know where her son was. She said her son was outside. One of the officers struck her twice with a stick
on her lower back. They told her they would come back; she gave one of the
officers 100 taka ($2.50 US)
not to come back, and they did not come back looking for the son after that. [In December 1992 to January 1993 F.K.'s ration book was confiscated and she was told she
would be sent back to Myanmar. At
that time she paid 70 taka ($1.75 US) to a local policeman and she was
not sent anywhere. She got her ration book back when the UNHCR resumed
participation in the interviewing process in late January.]
The day after the
April incident, MA. and the imam went to the Camp in Charge (the
highest government official in the camp administration; herein thereafter, the
CIC) of Gundhum I
to complain about the police beating. The following day, two police officers came
to M A.'s shed and accused him of living on
international food, and told him he should go back to Myanmar.
Also in early April 1993,
about ten days before the April incident relating to MA, three policemen came
to the Gundhum I shed of M.K., 50, who had come with
her husband and four children from village Loundhum, Bolibazar, Maungdaw, Burma. The
police asked where her son, F.U., was, but she told them he had run
away. The police said they had information that F.U. had gone back to Myanmar and
returned illegally to Bangladesh.
The police told M.K. to turn over her son. She insisted that he
had run away. One of the officers
then struck her on the back and arms with a stick. She began to cry. The
officers then screamed at her and called her "whore" and
"bitch" before leaving the shed.
C. M.S., 28, teacher
A resident of Jumma Para transit camp, he came to Bangladesh
with his family and several relatives from village Loudeadhung,
Buthidaung, Burma. He and family left Burma
when a military camp was established near his house, and he was told by Burmese
soldiers that he and his family would have to leave the village. He and family left the house and lived
in the jungle for a while; at times he went into the village to construction
work on what was formerly his 50 acres of land for the Burmese army. After
crossing at Teknaf, he and his family were sent first to Balukhali
I camp, then to Dechua Palong
II still in March 1992. At DP II, M.S. was beaten by local police and
camp officials three times from October 1992 to January 1993, twice
in the CIC office and once in his house. On one occasion four to
five BDR soldiers beat him with sticks on all parts of his body, and kicked him
on and off for about an hour.
During each of the three beatings, he was asked, "Do you want to go
back or not?" Each time he said he did not want to
return.
Frequently, while at Dechua Palong II, police and camp
officials would come to his and other families' sheds at night
saying that they would have to go to the transit camp. On or about December 25, 1992,
the CIC of Dechua Palong II
confiscated his ration book; his family received no rations
for 15 days, until he agreed to go to the transit camp.
On January 10, 1993, he
and his family were sent from Dechua Palong II to Jumma Para
transit camp.
On April 19, 1993,
he and his wife were beaten. At 2:30
p.m., he was at the nearby medical facility, while his
wife and two children were in their shed at Jumma
Para. He saw the
CIC, several police and local camp officials enter his shed. He came to the shed and saw the
CIC order his wife turn over the family sewing machine. She said she would not.
The police used bamboo sticks to strike her five or six times on
the back. Her husband came inside and started to open the trunk which contained
the sewing machine — to give it to the police -- when the police
struck him five times with sticks on the upper back. The husband then
turned over the sewing machine. He was
later told by the CIC that he could have the sewing machine back
upon payment of 1,000 taka. The CIC told him he could also have the sewing
machine back if he told the UNHCR that his family would consent to going back
to Myanmar.
D. A.S., 25
D. A.S. is a resident
of Jumma Para camp.
In early 1992, he and four family members left Khumar Khalo village, Buthidaung, Burma, crossed the border at Teknaf and was
sent to Dechua Palong II
camp. He was sent to Jumma
Para camp on January
15, 1993.
[He originally left Burma because he had been forced
to serve as a porter for the Burmese military more than 200 times
for up to 15 days each time, and had been beaten by the Burmese
military],
On April 19, 1993,
the CIC and a few camp officials went from shed to shed confiscating fishing
nets and other personal items. The CIC
asked A.S. if he wanted to go back to Myanmar
and he said he did not. [In March 1993,
A.S. was interviewed by the UNHCR and told them he did not want to
return to Burma.]
The CIC deleted A.S.'s son's name
from the family ration book, so the son could not receive rations. The CIC then
struck A.S. six times on the backs of his hands with a
bamboo stick.
[During this interview,
several persons in the shed with us reported that camp officials
had demanded the payment of money if families wanted to avoid arrest of sons
who were suspected of involvement in the Rohingya
Solidarity Organization. International
relief officials confirmed that extortion is widely reported in the
camps.]
E. M.H., 50
E. M.H. is a
resident of Jumma Para. In early 1992, he came to Bangladesh
with his wife and eight children from village Nsekaizdaung,
Buthidaung, Burma,
when they were told to leave their home by Burmese army soldiers. After
crossing the border, then were first sent to Dechua
Palong II, where they stayed for 11 months. In December 1992, the CIC of Dechua Palong II told him that
his family had to return to Myanmar,
and they were sent to Jumma Para transit camp
at that time.
In or about February 1993,
he was interviewed by the UNHCR at Jumma Para, and he
said that he did not want to go back to Burma.
That same afternoon, after the UNHCR had left the camp, he was
gathered with about 100 other refugees who had all been interviewed
that day and expressed their desire not to return. The CIC of Jumma Para, the acting CIC of Dechua Palong II, and two Jumma Para camp officials came by and forced the 100
refugees to sit in a line, one behind the other. Over the next half hour, the
officials, together with Ansar (the
Paramilitary force), struck each of the persons in the line with bamboo
sticks. The Acting CIC of Dechua Palong
II and several Ansar police then took M. Hossain and 13 other refugees and
put them into two vans. While they were waiting in the vans
in Jumma Para, M.H. saw other camp officials line up
the 90 or so remaining refugees into three lines. Camp officials screamed at the 90 or so
refugees to place their hands on their ears and to say that
they wanted to go back to Myanmar.
The refugees yelled again and again together, "We will go
back," "We will go back." When one of the refugees stopped yelling,
an official would come over and hit him with a bamboo stick. Altogether, six of
the camp officials had sticks.
Members of the local population were there as well. The refugees
continued yelling their desire to go back for about 10 minutes, before M.H.'s van drove away from Jumma
Para.
The van drove to Dechua Palong II, where M.H. and
the other 13 refugees were made to sit down in two lines. The camp
officials forced the refugees to lean their heads forward
as far as they could. Then the officials beat the refugees with bamboo sticks
on the arms and back for about a half hour. Two refugees had their
arms broken. Later that night, M.H. and the 13 other refugees
were sent back to Jumma Para. One or two days later,
the CIC of Jumma Para told M.H. and others that if
they reported to foreigners what had happened, they would be
sent to jail.
Incident at Gundhum I Camp
On April 21, 1993,
the Asia Watch consultant and UNHCR staff arrived at Gundhum
I camp. As their van pulled up alongside the shed housing
the camp administration, they saw several uniformed Ansar members walking toward the shack. One of the police was holding
one end of a thick white rope. In front
of the police was a man around whose waist was secured the other
portion of the white rope.
As they walked into
the camp administration shed, where the CIC, the assistant CIC and other
camp officials were seated, Asia Watch and the UNHCR asked what had happened with
the man out front. Mr. Noorkari, the Assistant Secretary of the Camp, informed
them that he had ordered the arrest of the man out front earlier
that morning, because "he was saying loudly that he was
not going back to Myanmar,
that no one was going back to Myanmar.
That is a crime." Another camp official explained, "He was spreading
rumors --rumors that the refugees would not be going back." Noorkari then said that he had ordered the man detained for
his "crime," but that he had then decided not to have the police take
the man to jail, but rather to release him on the condition that he not
"spread" similar "rumors" in the future. But if the "crime" were repeated, Noorkari said, the refugee would be
arrested and jailed.
G. K.B., 30
G. K. B. is a resident of Dechua Palong I camp. She came to
Bangladesh
with her husband and four children from Areahea
Phara village, Maungdaw, Burma.
The family left Burma because
her husband, M.Y., and elder son were being forced to serve as porters for the
Burmese military. After crossing at Teknaf, the family was sent to Dechua Palong II camp, where they
were for one year.
After four or five
months in Dechua Palong II,
M.Y. was arrested — he was accused by police of having a fake
ration card. He was jailed for 3 months
and 8 days, and was then released. He
was never convicted of a crime. He was
then sent back to Dechua Palong
II (this was in October or November 1992). At some point
following M.Y.'s release, the leaders of
refugees at Dechua Palong
II were called into the CIC office there and told that all the refugees
would have to go back to Myanmar. During the same period of time, camp
officials sent large numbers of refugees to the transit camps without
the refugees' consent.
A month after his
release from jail, M.Y. was sent alone to a transit camp. He escaped from a truck which
was bringing him to the transit camp and returned to Dechua
Palong II. Upon M.Y.'s return
to DP II, the entire family agreed to go to a transit camp. They were sent to Nayapara transit camp, where they were for two months. The
family had no problems there. After two months, the family
(probably just M.Y. - the practice is to interview only the male heads of
families, who are presumed to speak for the family as a whole)
was interviewed by UNHCR. The family indicated they did not want to return to Burma.
They were sent to Dechua Palong
I.
On April 14, 1993,
K.B. sent her son, aged 15, outside the camp to buy some salt. On
his way back from the market, the son was captured by police, beaten and taken
to CIC office. After learning that her son was at the CIC office,
K.B. went there with the mothers of five other children who
were being held. (The Asia Watch
consultant saw one of the children -- an eight-year-old girl named
T.B., who had two six-inch long black lines on her back running parallel about
one inch apart. The girl said the lines came from beatings with bamboo
sticks at CIC office on or about April 14).
Upon arriving at the CIC office, K.B. saw her son and five
other children seated in front of the CIC office, with ten to twelve camp
officials and one policeman nearby. Three to four officials were asking the
children where they had gone, what and how much they had bought, and
so on. After some questioning, the policeman held one child's head to the
ground while another child, on the policeman's instructions,
struck the first child on the back five or six times with a bamboo stick.
This process was repeated with all six children.
After the beatings,
K.B. and three other mothers were called inside the CIC office. One
of the other mothers -- D.B. -- was asked why she had sent her son out of the
camp. She said she needed salt. The CIC struck her with a bamboo
stick on her leg. Then the CIC asked K.B. where her husband was. She said her husband was in the camp. A
policeman then asked why her son had told them that his father was not
here. The police then pushed K.B.'s son's head down, and the CIC struck him once with a
bamboo stick. When the CIC asked K.B. why she had sent her son out of the camp,
she said she needed salt. The CIC then
struck her twice on the legs with a bamboo stick. The children and the mothers
were released thereafter.
H. MA., 30
H.
MA. is a resident of Dechua Palong
I. In 1992, he left with his wife and three children from Baelena village, Buthidaung, Burma. He
left because he had been beaten when serving as a porter for
the Burmese military.
He and family have been
living in Dechua Palong I
since February 1993. He had been
previously in Jumma Para transit camp for about two
months. Two days before he left Jumma
Para, MA
was interviewed by UNHCR and said he did not want to go back to Burma. The
same afternoon he was interviewed by UNHCR, he wa
sitting outside the UNHCR tent at Jumma
Para camp following his interview. He
was with about 150 other refugees. After UNHCR left the camp, CIC and other
camp officials approached the refugees and announced that the
foreigners had left. "So," the
CIC said, "If we beat you, no one will save you."
The CIC told the refugees, "When the foreigners come here, you think Allah
has come here."
The CIC gathered MA.
and 13 other refugees and pushed them into two camp vans. As he was in one of
the vehicles waiting to leave Jumma
Para, MA.
saw the other refugees remaining at Jumma
Para lined up, shouting, "We'll go back, We'll go back!" Those who
did not shout were beaten by camp officials. MA. and the 13 others were then taken to Dechua Palong II
camp. There he and the 13 others were made to sit in two lines, and place their heads on the ground. As they did so,
four camp officials struck the men with sticks all of the body
except on the head. The CIC kicked MA in the forehead. Camp officials shouted at the
refugees, "You refused to go back!
If the foreigners feed you, why don't they take you to their
country? You cannot stay in this country!"
I. AA., 39
I. AA. is a resident
of Balukhali II camp, he came to Bangladesh
from Singdaung village, Buthidaung, Burma.
On April 20, 1993, at
about 5:45 pm,
the acting CIC of Balukhali II called a meeting of
all majees (local community leaders), about 400,
including AA. The Acting CIC said that if he saw any human
excrement near the sheds, he would make the majees
eat the excrement. AA asked, "If we see anyone leave excrement,
should we force him to eat it?" [AA explained that people
prefer not to travel to the latrines at night.] The Acting CIC struck
AA. once with an iron rod on the right shoulder. AA was then made to bend his knees
into a sitting position for the rest of the one-hour meeting.
The Acting CIC said
that everyone would have to go back to Myanmar
and asked all majees
who wanted to return to raise their hands. Only one man did so. The Acting CIC said
that, if the refugees talked with the UNHCR, they would be shot. While saying
this, the Acting CIC raised his hand and pulled his trigger finger as
if firing a gun.
J.
S.K.,
22
J.
S.K. is a resident of Balukhali II. She left village Barchara, Maungdaw, Burma in
early 1992. She came as a widow -- her husband, a porter for the Burmese army,
was taken about six months before she left, after which time she heard
that he had died. She came to Bangladesh
with two children.
On April 20, 1993 at
about 11 am to noon, one camp official -- named
Iddris -- came to her shed and entered. The
official touched the aluminum roof of her shed and said, "It's not
hot, it's cold. If it's not hot, you
will not return to Myanmar."
Then the official grabbed her breast and said, "You are Urdu but you have
a big stomach." S.K. used her arm to push the policeman away. He told her he wanted to have intercourse
with her. S.K. said she had come to Bangladesh to
save her honor. The official said if she did not have intercourse with him,
he would take action against her. Then he left.
The following day,
April 21, two policemen came to S.K.'s shed at about
9 or 10 am. She
was standing at the entrance when she saw them approach, and she went inside.
One of the policemen came inside after her and shouted at her, "Take your
knife and cut down the trellis!" Then, as S.K. went to
get her knife to comply with that order, the policeman struck her
with a stick on the back and then pushed the stick hard against her groin area.
S.K. got her knife and started cutting down the trellis in front of
her shed. The policeman then began to take firewood from S.K.'s shed. She protested, saying she was a widow. The policeman
then asked if she would marry him, and asked how many children she had. She said
two. The policeman said he would arrange a man for her.
S.K. still had difficulty
walking on April 23 from the pain in her groin area.
K. K.B. (19?)
K. K.B. is a resident of Balukhali II. She came from village Tambezar,
Buthidaung, Burma in
1992 with brother and father and sister in law.
In Balukhali II for the past month and a
half. Previously she was in the Ukhia transit camp for one month.
On April 19, 1993, at
about midnight, several policemen and three local villagers (not refugees) came
to her shed and called out for her brother, M.K. (20) [who described his own capture]. M.K. came out, and two policemen took him to
a nearby water pump. He asked what
he had done wrong and said he had nothing illegal in his shed. At the water
pump he was struck with a wooden stick several times. One policeman
took 200 taka from M.K. The police told M.K. that, if he told anyone about
this, they would take serious action. Then they released him and he
returned to the shed.
After M.K. had been
taken away, but before he had come back, three other policemen came
into the shed and forcibly took K.B. to the woods near the camp. K.B.'s mother and sister-in-law
protested. In the woods, the police
grabbed a piece of jewelry from K.B.'s pierced
nose, as well as a watch she was wearing on her wrist. Her nose was bleeding. The three
policemen then each raped her in succession. Two of the policemen had a knife, which
they showed to her while telling her that, if she attempted to resist, they
would use the knives against her.
K.B. was also told that if she told anyone about the rapes, they would
use their knives against her. After raping her, the police left K.B. in the
woods. She cried out for help, and her brother rescued her.
L. N.Z., 28 (mother), from village Khar
Khali, Maungdaw; S.K., 15
(daughter) (also from Khar Khali);
S.K.II, 18 (neighbor) (also from Khar Khali)
They are all residents of Balukhali II. On April 20, 1993, at about 9-10 am,
the CIC, accompanied by several camp officials and police, came
to N.Z.'s shed, and asked to have
the family sewing machine. At the time, N.Z., S.K. and S.K.II were inside the
house. N.Z. refused to give the sewing machine. The officials shouted at N.Z.,
calling her names, and hit her once. They asked for her ration book. N.Z.
said she would not give it to them. One official called the CIC
over. The CIC then grabbed S.K.'s wrist. Another camp
official came over and fondled and pinched S.K.'s
breasts. The CIC and the other official said that the
family ration book was hidden in S.K.'s clothing. The
CIC and the other official put their hands inside S.K.'s
clothing and touched her all over her body, including her vagina.
The CIC and the
other official then tied N.Z.'s arms in front of her,
and did the same to S.K. S.K.
asked S.K.II to get S.K. another cloth to cover S.K.'s
head. When S.K.II came to give S.K. some cloth, one policeman
fondled S.K.II's breasts and struck S.K. on the back
of the neck with a stick. (S.K. had a
two-inch-long scar on the back of her neck when Asia Watch
saw her.). The police then brought N.Z. and S.K. to a nearby latrine at the
bottom of the hill on which their shed is perched. N.Z. and S.K. were told that, if they did not
give up the sewing machine, they would be tortured. N.Z. then said that the
sewing machine was in the house of a local villager (not a
refugee) who lived next door to N.Z. and S.K. The police then went to the house of the local
villager and repeatedly struck the thatched roof with sticks,
damaging the roof. The police took the sewing machine from the villager's
house.
[In the middle of
our interview, a man identified as an Ansar official
dressed in civilian clothing came by and, according to persons
near the shed where we were conducting the interview, told them,
"Well, they're telling everything to the UNHCR -- so I'll come by tonight
and get them."]
G.B., 30
G.B. is a resident of Jumma Para. She and her husband, R.A., 35, who owned 28
acres in Burma,
came to Bangladesh in
January or February 1992. They are not residents of Jumma Para transit camp. They were sent to Haludia Palong for several months
until about October 1992, when they were sent to Jumma Para transit camp.
While in Haludia Palong, R.A. was one of
the majees. Early in the morning of the day R. and G.
were sent from Haludia Palong
to Jumma Para, her husband went with four other
local leaders to the office of the CIC of HP to lodge a complaint. G. was in her shed later
that morning when she was told that her husband and others were being beaten.
She went to the CIC office. In the office she saw the CIC, about
20 police officers, her husband and five or six other
refugees. All the refugees were seated with their hands tied behind their
backs with nylon rope. The police were beating her husband and the others with bamboo
sticks. This went on for several hours off and on from mid-afternoon to the
early evening. G. and the wives of the
other local leaders were at the CIC office during this period
of time.
Finally, G. and the
other wives told the camp officials that their families would return to Myanmar. At
that point, the beating ended, and the five or six families all were sent to Jumma Para at about midnight. (Previously, they
had been told by camp officials that they would have to return to Myanmar,
but they had refused.)
On April 18, 1993,
R. was arrested — a camp official came to their shed at Jumma
Para and took R. to the office of the CIC. G. shortly
afterward came to the CIC office where she saw R. seated on the floor of the
office. The CIC was beating R. with a bamboo stick for more
than one hour on the balls of his feet, the knees, chest and face. There was
blood on R.'s
face. At one point, the CIC made R. turn over onto his stomach, and the CIC
continued to strike with the bamboo stick all over the back of R.'s body. The CIC was yelling at R. that he
should go back to Myanmar. Later on, R. was taken to Cox's Bazar
jail. He remained under
arrest as of April
21, 1993.
Z.H.,
20
Z.H. is a resident
of Balukhali II camp.
In 1992 she came with two children and her mother and brother from a
village in Buthidaung, Burma.
She had previously been arrested in Burma and
spent 18 days in jail before being released four days before crossing the
border to Bangladesh. Her husband had been jailed in 1991 for
murdering a village leader in Burma who
had confiscated the family's property.
