By FRONTIER
A cache of documents obtained by Frontier show that aid
officials believe that the government is focused on building permanent shelters
for internally displaced people (IDPs) – either in or near existing camps –
while ignoring community consultation and fundamental human rights issues, such
as freedom of movement.
YANGON — The humanitarian community – including senior UN
officials – have expressed serious concern over government plans to close camps
for displaced Muslims in Rakhine State and allegedly replace them with
permanent shelters, with some warning that the process appears to reflect “a
policy of apartheid”.
Alarm over the new settlements is such that a discussion
note shared between humanitarian groups has called for “drastic measures” to be
considered, such as withholding humanitarian support related to the camp
closures if “red lines” on human rights are crossed.
However, Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and
Resettlement Dr Win Myat Aye told Frontier that talk of continued segregation
was “totally wrong”. He said, “We are trying to have both communities living
together.” He said the government was also consulting closely with camp
residents and is “emphasising access to medical care, education, and livelihood
activities.”
He said freedom of movement for stateless Muslims would
be provided on enrolment into a National Verification process, which the
government claims is a pathway to citizenship. However, many Rohingya have
refused to participate in the scheme, suspecting it of being a government ruse
aimed at denying them full citizenship.
Making segregation sustainable
Communal riots in Rakhine State in 2012 forced more than
145,000 people from their homes, the overwhelming majority of whom were Muslim.
As of this year, 128,000 Muslims – mostly Rohingya, but some of Kaman ethnicity
– remain in 23 camps in central Rakhine, unable to make trips outside without
government permission, cut off from most livelihood and educational
opportunities, and dependent on aid from international agencies for their
survival.
The closure of these IDP camps was a key recommendation
of the advisory commission led by former United Nations Secretary-General Mr
Kofi Annan that was appointed by State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016
to propose strategies for addressing the root causes of conflict in the
ethnically divided state.
The government has been keen to exhibit progress in
response to international pressure over an army crackdown starting in August
last year that drove more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. A fact-finding
mission mandated by the UN Human Rights Council has recommended that senior
generals be prosecuted for genocide, but the government still defends the
campaign as a legitimate response to attacks on security posts by militant
group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Last month at the UN General Assembly, Minister for the
Office of the State Counsellor U Kyaw Tint Swe reiterated a government claim
that “we are now implementing 81 out of 88 recommendations made by the
[Annan-led] Commission.”
However, the documents obtained by Frontier show that aid
officials believe the closures are being implemented in a manner contrary to
the commission’s recommendations. International NGOs and UN agencies, driven by
a growing belief that humanitarian support since 2012 has helped make mass
confinement and segregation sustainable; are debating how to respond to the
government’s request to assist in the process.
‘A policy of apartheid’
Concerns over the camp closure initiative were shared at
the highest levels of the humanitarian community in Myanmar. A September 24 note sent to the government
from resident and humanitarian coordinator Mr Knut Ostby, the chief UN official
in the country, said that the process so far has been focused on the upgrading
of shelters within existing IDP camps or on adjacent sites.
“The steps taken to date have not yet addressed other
required elements of a comprehensive camp closure plan, including meaningful
consultation with affected people or allowing freedom of movement so that
people can access jobs, schools and other services,” the note said.
Ostby contends in the letter that the government’s
current approach “risks further entrenching segregation while denying IDPs many
of their fundamental human rights”.
He recommends “pausing camp closures and the construction
of permanent structures” to allow for the development of a “comprehensive
strategy” with more input from the displaced people themselves and guarantees
of freedom of movement, as well as access to livelihoods and essential
services.
Two days later, a “discussion note” was circulated among
an inter-agency coordination body headed by Ostby. The consultation paper,
aimed at provoking conversation within the humanitarian community on the issue
of camp closures, was prompted by a “recent request made by the Government to
the UN regarding the provision of assistance in some relocation sites.”
The anonymous author observes that, despite efforts to
engage with the government to improve the camp closure process, “the only
scenario that is unfolding before our eyes is the implementation of a policy of
apartheid with the permanent segregation of all Muslims, the vast majority of
whom are stateless Rohingya, in central Rakhine”.
“The humanitarian approach implemented since 2012 has
failed,” the author argues, suggesting that a policy of providing services in
camps, without robust advocacy, had betrayed some core principles. “The very
short-term humanitarian vision, despite being well-intentioned, resulted in de facto
support of the government’s policy of segregation and detention sites.”
With the humanitarian community at a “crossroads”, the
author says, “the humanitarian community should re-set its strategy for central
Rakhine and consider implementing drastic measures should the current situation
continue without any improvements in basic human rights for the people we are
here to serve and protect”.
If “red lines” on human rights are crossed, the note
asks, “Should humanitarian assistance be phased out?”
Tactical concessions
An in-depth internal humanitarian analysis seen by
Frontier also raised the issue of disengagement. The document, written in
September, examined how the government had fared in implementing 44 of the
Annan commission’s recommendations, finding that there was “there was little or
no progress” on two-thirds of the actions analysed.
While progress was identified in some areas, the study
found that there was a lack of substantial action on human rights. The
implementation process in its current form amounts to “a tactical concession
meant only to relieve international pressure”, it concluded.
In such a situation, it asked whether international
actors “should continue working with the government in Rakhine” and “if so, how
they will mitigate the continued rights violations committed by their
government counterparts, as well as how to reduce the harm they themselves
cause by remaining”.
The current method of closing camps in central Rakhine
State was identified as one of the processes most at odds with the commission’s
recommendations.
The paper’s authors assert that the government has
"pressed forward with an extremely problematic strategy of
‘village-ification’ in which it will ‘close’ camps by building houses and
facilities within the same camp area without allowing [IDPs] to return to their
areas of origin or to a third location [...] or making any provisions for
increased freedom of movement”.
“The government’s current strategy would essentially
formalise and entrench a system of segregation that would perpetuate human
rights violations for years to come," it concludes.
‘An excuse to create ghettos’
Four aid officials who spoke to Frontier on condition of
anonymity doubted that Nay Pyi Taw had any intention of ensuring that the human
rights of the Rohingya were upheld, even as they moved ahead with relocation
plans for displaced Rohingya. Two were willing to be quoted anonymously.
A senior official in the aid and development community
said that there was “no sign at this stage that the government plans to deliver
on freedom of movement”.
“If people are moved into better accommodation, even
provided with electricity, but they still cannot leave, then we have just
established permanent camps,” the aid official said. “The international
community has to ask itself how long they are willing to be enablers of what is
essentially an apartheid regime.”
Another senior aid worker, who also asked not to be
named, said, “The way camps are being 'closed' is just an excuse to create
ghettos. The only difference between those 'closed' camps and the ones that are
still classified as open is the individual housing. No rights have been
changed."
“We can already see the effects of segregation happening
with the new generation of Rohingya young people speaking less and less Rakhine
language. The separation is going to get worse and this just fuels the fear of
the other ethnic group,” the aid worker said.
UNHCR spokesperson Ms Aoife McDonnell told Frontier on
the subject of camp closures, “The serious risks involved, the biggest of which
is the permanent segregation of all Muslims in central Rakhine, have already
been raised with the Government and other key stakeholders in Myanmar and
outside”.
“The core of the issue remains freedom of movement.
Without freedom of movement, displaced Muslims, the vast majority of whom are
stateless, do not have access to livelihoods and basic services, in particular
health and education,” she said, adding that UNHCR is “strongly advocating”
with the government to lift movement restrictions as a precondition for durable
solutions.
McDonnell acknowledged that “the humanitarian imperative
versus do no (further) harm principle dilemma has been a very challenging one
for all humanitarian actors in Rakhine, including UNHCR,” and that the agency
was considering how to strike the right balance.
An emailed statement attributed to Ostby read, “The UN
would support a consultative, voluntary resettlement of IDPs that addresses
human rights, pathway to citizenship and freedom of movement for these
communities.”
Dr Ko Ko Naing, a director-general at the Ministry of
Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement involved in implementing camp closures,
told Frontier that the ministry had “received feedback and comments” from UN
agencies about the government’s camp closure strategy, and that they would hold
workshops with the UN agencies and international NGOs to discuss it further.
He said the government’s approach was “in line with
international standards and practice” and that they are “providing assistance
to everyone without discrimination”.
Win Myat Aye told Frontier, “We are working towards
harmony between the two communities [Buddhist and Muslim]. We are also holding
many dialogues between communities, administrators and other [project]
implementers.”
“The difficulty is in building trust and confidence
between communities. Rakhine people and Muslims have little confidence and
trust in each other,” the minister added.
He said his ministry would try to return camp residents
to their original homes and lands but that, in many cases, this was “difficult”.
He said, where this was not possible, they would be returned to “a place close
to their place of origin.”
“We always discuss with them. With their agreement, we
proceed,” he said, stressing the government’s consultative approach, in direct
contradiction to the claims of humanitarians who spoke to Frontier.
Despite repeated calls, senior government spokesperson U
Zaw Htay could not be reached for comment. He had earlier told Frontier that he
would only take questions during fortnightly press conferences in Nay Pyi Taw.
The last one was held on October 5.
Model townships
Concerns among humanitarians over continued segregation
also suggest that the government may be deviating from a blueprint for the
reintegration of communities put forward by the Advisory Board for the
Committee for Implementation of the Recommendations on Rakhine State, which
called for displaced people in camps to be “resettled back in their places of
origin”.
The 10-member advisory board, chaired by former deputy
prime minister of Thailand Mr Surakiart Sathirathai with mixed Myanmar and
foreign membership, was appointed in December with a one-year extendable
mandate. Its credibility was badly damaged by the early departure of member Mr
Bill Richardson, a veteran US diplomat and politician, and the head of the
secretariat Mr Kobsak Chutikul, a retired Thai ambassador and parliamentarian,
both of whom criticised the board’s lack of independence. In August the
government asked the board to issue its final report and disband.
The report, seen by Frontier but not yet public,
recommends the designation of “model townships” in central Rakhine State where
“freedom of movement, access to healthcare, education and livelihood
opportunities” can be extended to all communities in a pilot fashion, to meet
the recommendations of the Annan commission, before being scaled up to cover
the rest of Rakhine.
Chutikul and board member U Win Mra, who also sat on the
Annan-led commission and currently chairs the Myanmar National Human Rights
Commission, both told Frontier that the reintegration of Buddhist and Muslim
communities was at the heart of this recommendation, which was accepted by the
government.
Chutikul said the idea for model townships was put to
them by an international NGO working in Rakhine State, and “the idea was not to
have any segregation”.
Win Mra said that, if successful, the model township idea
could provide “a strong pull factor” for refugees in Bangladesh.
So far, no Rohingya refugees have officially returned via
a repatriation process agreed between Myanmar and Bangladesh in November last
year, despite the establishment by Myanmar of two processing sites and one
transit camp near the border.
Creating a context in which Buddhists and Muslims “can go
to school together and go to market together” would help “entice people to come
back” from Bangladesh to Myanmar, Win Mra said.
However, he admitted that, with the current plans for
camp closures, “what the government is doing is not in the form of a model
township”. He added that he did not know the details of the current process,
and suggested that the government might win greater trust by being more
transparent.
‘Not a random menu’
A progress report released in June by the Committee for
Implementation of Recommendation on Rakhine State, chaired by Win Myat Aye,
explicitly tied the lifting of movement restrictions to enrolment in the
National Verification Process.
Ko Ko Naing from the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief
and Resettlement told Frontier that, for displaced people living in camps,
“there are no legal restrictions on movement, only social restrictions”,
referring to the mutual hostility that remains between communities.
He said that, like everyone else in the country, “people
have to hold identity cards to prove residency” in order to travel freely. For
stateless Muslims, he repeated that cards received on enrolment into the
National Verification process would provide this freedom.
Win Myat Aye said holders of the cards in central Rakhine
would be able to travel freely throughout Rakhine. For travel outside the
state, they would have to “inform” local authorities, he said.
However, many Rohingya have rejected the National
Verification process because it requires that they state their ethnicity as
“Bengali”, imputing foreign origin, rather than Rohingya; and they believe it
could confine them to an intermediary legal status that falls short of true
citizenship. It is also governed by the 1982 Citizenship Law, which
discriminates against groups like the Rohingya that are considered non-native.
Reuters reported in June that Win Myat Aye told Western
diplomats at a meeting in Denmark that a review of the 1982 law, as recommended
by the Annan commission, could not be implemented along with seven other of the
commission’s 88 recommendations.
Retired Dutch diplomat Ms Laetitia van den Assum, who
served on the Annan commission, told Frontier, “It is important that the
integral nature of the Annan recommendations is properly understood. The 88
recommendations are not a random menu. Their success depends on their full and
joint implementation.”
Asked about the camp closures, she quoted the
commission’s report: “The question should not be whether Rakhine and Muslims
will live together, but rather how they will live together. Reintegration, not
segregation, is the best path to long-term stability and development.”
Mr Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for advocacy
group Human Rights Watch, told Frontier, “If anything has been learned since
June 2012, it's that there is no such thing as separate and equal in Rakhine
state. By isolating the Rohingya and Kaman in locked down settlements, the
authorities have impoverished, demoralized and destroyed these communities.”
“Without government commitments to address freedom of
movement and associated protection concerns, in a way that liberates rather
than restricts the Rohingya and Kaman, nothing is going to improve,” he said.
“International humanitarians, and the donors in governments that fund them,
should not shy away from taking a tough, principled stand on these issues.”