By Tino Calabia
This August marks a
year since a military crackdown forced at least 700,000 Rohingya to flee
Myanmar for Bangladesh, joining hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who had already
taken refuge there, totaling 1.1 million people encamped in Cox’s Bazar,
according to a Bangladesh count done this July.
But you would never
know from the Trump White House about this enormous influx of people escaping
from Myanmar to Bangladesh, as President Trump remains mute on the subject. On
Capitol Hill, however, a few lawmakers — mostly Democrats — have been
spotlighting the horrendous problem.
Unable to safely
return to their homes, the Rohingya are packed in sprawling camps in
Bangladesh, many living in flimsy tents on tree-stripped hilltops that are
vulnerable to wind, flooding and mudslides. Heavy rains early this month
signaled the beginning of monsoon season, which typically runs from mid-June
through October.
Writing in The
Washington Post shortly after visiting with refugees in early July, United
Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described the atrocities that drove
them from their homes in the first place: “Small children butchered in front of
their parents. Girls and women gang-raped while family members were tortured
and killed. Villages burned to the ground.”
In June, Eric
Schwartz, the president of Refugees International, a nonprofit group based in
Washington, D.C., told a gathering in the Senate that people fleeing on foot
from Myanmar had been gunned down and that Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors
Without Borders, estimated deaths at upward of 7,000. A recent report by
Fortify Rights, a nonprofit human-rights group, based on testimony by survivors
and others, supported arguments that Myanmar’s military planned genocide to rid
the country of Rohingya.
But if the mainly
Muslim refugees are counting on significant help from Washington, they will be
disappointed. President Trump has said nothing about the plight of the Rohingya,
never mind responding to charges of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar. Two bills
aimed at addressing the crisis never made it to the Senate floor — the majority
leadership blocked them.
The administration
has made no secret of its disdain for refugee assistance, whether in Bangladesh
or in the United States. To fill the State Department’s top position on
refugees, it has nominated Ronald Mortensen, a vocal opponent of immigration.
Worse, the State Department bureau that manages the refugee flow in the US may
soon be closed.
During an observance
of World Refugee Day, June 20, the co-chair of the Senate Human Rights Caucus,
Chris Coons (D-Delaware), told the audience that he and Senator John McCain
(R-Arizona) had urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to withdraw Mortensen’s nomination.
Fifty-seven Democratic members of the House of Representatives made the same
request on July 17. Additionally, human-rights and faith groups have campaigned
against his candidacy.
Most recently,
rumors circulated that the Trump administration was planning to make the
Mortensen nomination moot by shutting the refugee office and shifting policy
responsibility on refugees to the White House, which has not been sympathetic
to their plight.
Relatedly, in 2017,
the White House proposed to eliminate the bureau and transfer its overseas-aid
role to Usaid and the refugee work to the Department of Homeland Security. Rex
Tillerson, the secretary of state at the time, rejected the plan, but the
“future of the bureau absolutely remains under threat given the ongoing
reorganization review” of the State Department, said Ann Hollingsworth, a senior
policy adviser for Refugees International. She said a recommendation by
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due imminently.
Moreover, other
possible changes may be afoot in the humanitarian aid arena, with the White
House proposing, among other reforms, to “improve the efficiency and
effectiveness” of the government’s humanitarian assistance across the State
Department and Usaid. That includes increasing “burden-sharing” and pushing for
reform at the UN regarding such aid.
Refugees
International has given the Trump administration an F for failing in its
policies and performance regarding refugees.
During the caucus
event, Senator Coons noted that Myanmar first stripped the Rohingya of their
citizenship in 1982 and has periodically harassed them with military
crackdowns. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), a member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, who visited Myanmar and Bangladesh last November, said
during the caucus that drawing the world’s attention to the magnitude of the
continuing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya would require an American president
to speak up and lead an international response. When he asked if anyone could
remember President Trump ever uttering a word about the Rohingya crisis, the
room was silent.
In the chaos of the
refugee camps, women seem particularly hard hit. Francisca Vigaud-Walsh, a
senior advocate for Refugees International, told the caucus about a team visit
during which refugees pleaded for protection against gang rape and torture.
They pressed for job training for women, many having lost their husbands or
other breadwinners.
Help has been slow.
Vigaud-Walsh, an expert in gender-based violence, said that some humanitarian
organizations found the Bangladeshi government’s registration process so
difficult and time-consuming they had to give funds for gender-based violence
assistance back to their donors. Groups that were finally registered and funded
were unprepared to provide the specialized critical care needed by women who
had been sexually assaulted.
Taking the lead on
the ground is the UN Refugee Agency, which monitors the Myanmar-Bangladesh
border and tries to provide shelter for refugees, especially 6,000
unaccompanied or separated children.
Jana Mason, a senior
adviser for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, speaking at the World
Refugee Day observance in Washington, praised the Bangladeshi government for
opening its borders and noted that since August 2017, the United States has
contributed $200 million to the relief effort, through the State Department and
Usaid.
That amount is aside
from the $951 million urgently needed this year to assist the refugees and
their host communities, the UN said in March.
In June, the UN
Refugee Agency, the UN Development Program and Myanmar signed an agreement to
establish conditions that could enable the refugees to return voluntarily and
safely. This would hinge on the UN gaining access to the Rohingya places of
origin so they could assess the situation and assure refugees of safe passage
and respect for their rights.
Based on a recent
visit to the camps with leaders of humanitarian organizations, UN officials concluded
that it would be dangerous for refugees to attempt repatriation anytime soon.
Bangladesh gave Myanmar a list of 8,032 Rohingya refugees prepared to
repatriate, and Myanmar has since cleared about 2,500 of them for return. No
one has done so yet. Bangladesh said it would send a delegation to the Burmese
capital, Naypyitaw, in August to follow up.
For now, the UN
refugee agency has its hands full in the camps. Monsoon season has begun.