Month: May 2008

UNHCR wants Rohingyas repatriated to Myanmar (Burma), but Canada taking some

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago we reported to you that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, was traveling to refugee camps in Bangladesh to try to sort out the Muslim Rohingya refugee situation.  Here is a short article (posted in its entirety) in which Guterres told the press he wants to attempt to repatriate the Rohingya, something we should all cheer about.

However, when asked about third country resettlement the UNHCR chief does say there is resettlement on-going with Canada taking the most Rohingya so far.   We still have no confirmation that they are coming to the US. 

DHAKA, May 27 (Xinhua) — Bangladesh and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Tuesday agreed to reestablish trilateral mechanism with Myanmar to repatriate remaining 27,000 Rohingya refugees here back to Myanmar.

“Our intention is to reestablish the trilateral mechanism between Bangladesh, UNHCR and Myanmar to create condition for voluntary repatriation of the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar,” visiting UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres told reporters after meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Advisor Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury.

According to the UNHCR, over 250,000 Bengali-speaking Myanmar Muslim ethnic minorities, popularly known as Rohingyas, took shelter in Bangladesh in 1991 following alleged atrocities by the Myanmar junta.

Bangladesh, UNHCR and Myanmar signed a trilateral agreement in Dhaka in 1992 to send back the refugees.

Presently some 27,000 refugees are still staying in makeshift camps in Bangladesh’s southeastern coastal district of Cox’s Bazarand hill district of Bandarban bordering Myanmar.

But the trilateral agreement is not working now.

Replying questions, Guterres said the UNHCR has resettlement program for the remaining refugees to third countries, and presently Canada is the highest recipient of the Rohingya refugees.

“Our preferred solution is to create the possibilities for the people to be able to go back to their home in safety, in dignity on a voluntary basis and to be able to be part of construction of their own country,” he said.

See our category “Rohingya Reports” for all the information we have on this Muslim refugee group.

Sudanese family in the Quad-cities—Part II

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is the more indepth story about African refugees having a difficult time in a black American neighborhood.   See my post yesterday from the Quad-City Times, Part I here.

A refugee agency spokesperson quickly tells us that this isn’t a hate crime (of course we all know that hate crimes can never be black on black).  By the way, the conflict in Roanoke started with kids too. You can be sure they are hearing things at home which they then take to the streets and schools.

Most of the fighting happened in Rock Island, when the kids were on their way home from school.

Some even categorized the black-on-black fighting as hate crimes. On one side are African refugees and immigrants who have moved to the Quad-Cities legally. On the other side are American-born blacks.

For reasons that no one can explain with certainty, the two sides frequently collide.

“It bothers me tremendously that we can’t figure out what to do about this — find out what upsets one culture about the other,” said Ann Grove, affiliate director of World Relief in Moline.

As the children’s conflicts began to escalate last fall, grownups began to notice.

“In the beginning, I think it was blown out of proportion,” said Connie Hayes, executive director of the Community Caring Conference. “After an investigation, it was found these were not hate crimes. It was young people who were fighting, which happens on a regular (basis).” 

How could this be, two “cultural groups” clashing? 

The question of why two specific cultural groups were routinely clashing became the focus of several local agencies, including World Relief, CCC, Rock Island-Milan Schools, the Rock Island Police Department and the Rock Island Housing Authority.

Some in the groups theorized on the reasons for the conflict before recently coming up with ways to repair the stressed relationships.

Here is a fact we know so well, the community was not sufficiently prepared (because the volags bring the refugees in to communities quietly). 

Rock Island Police Capt. Scott Harris reasoned that longtime residents of Rock Island weren’t sufficiently prepared for the newcomers.

“We, as police officers, get very limited training on different cultures, such as why some people don’t look you in the eye or how some need more personal space,” he said. “But nobody bothers to tell the neighbors. They don’t realize that when the new guy doesn’t look you in the eye, it’s not because he’s deceitful.

“The community has come together to look at ways to bridge this.” 

Oh, it’s only turf protection (ONLY!)    Whether neighborhoods or nations this is a fundamental aspect of human nature that multiculturalists never get.   See South Africa and Switzerland, or Italy.

Grove speculated that some of the battles were based on a sort of turf protection.

“In many cases, you have several generations of Rock Island families that feel a certain ownership of their community, which normally is a good thing,” she said. “But the sense that the territory is theirs isn’t always good, and the newcomers need to pick up the unwritten rules very fast.”

They’ll solve it with a task force!     They will start an adopt-a-family program which sounds vaguely similar to how refugee resettlement used to work before all these volags got paid to resettle refugees and the idea of family sponsors was dumped.    But, notice the last line, its always about the immigrants and refugees never about the comfort of the community in which they have been brought.

To help mend whatever misunderstandings exist between the two cultures, plans are in the works to introduce them before things have a chance to go sour.

“We’re meeting with the schools in a kind of task force to come up with ideas,” CCC neighborhood organizer Tonya Davis said. “We’re beginning to have welcoming committees for immigrants. We hope to eventually have an adopt-a-family program in specific neighborhoods.”

The idea, she said, is to pair up existing families with those who are new to the country. A Sudanese-born refugee, for instance, would be paired with a Rock Island-born youngster, and the two would walk to school together.

“We want everyone to feel more comfortable,” she said. “I know it has to be an overwhelming transition for the immigrants and refugees. 

As Mark Krikorian points out in his new book, the one Judy posted on over the weekend, immigration is differant today for one primary reason.   We have a welfare state and when long time citizens see newcomers getting things they aren’t getting (and they know they are paying for it), resentment builds.    And, the head of steam against immigrants builds even more when communities feel that something is being shoved down their throats by an outsider do-gooder crowd—that response is just human nature.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees visits Bangladesh to discuss Rohingya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Antonio Guterres is arriving in Bangladesh today to attempt to resolve the Rohingya Muslim refugee “crisis.”  Many Rohingya fled Burma (Myanmar) in the 1990’s and are camped in Bangladesh.   We have written many times on the Rohingya because there is political pressure on Western countries to accept the Rohingya for resettlement.

The UN’s refugee agency chief António Guterres will arrive in Dhaka Monday on a two-day visit to primarily deal with Rohingya crisis, reports bdnews24.com.

“During his two-day visit, Guterres will hold talks with government officials to find a solution to some 27,000 Rohingya refugees,” a statement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Dhaka said Sunday.

The UNHCR chief is expected to pass a day at a camp and talk to the refugees, the statement said.

The refugees have been languishing in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar for 16 years, as they are not willing to go back to homeland Myanmar, fearing persecution by the military junta.

Bangladesh is concerned since it often struggles to maintain law and order in the camps in the coastal district. But a host country cannot force the refugees for repatriation because of the UN-backed practices. They can be repatriated only if they voluntarily return to their homeland.

In the early 1990s, a huge number of refugees flooded Bangladesh as the military regime in Myanmar carried out a massive crackdown on the Muslims living in the Arakan state of the Southeast Asian country.

[…]

Currently some 27,000 Rohingyas live in Bangladesh’s camps while the rest returned to Myanmar under the UNHCR sponsorship. But there are some 10,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees without water supplies and basic sanitation facilities. They have shelter in a reserved forest in Cox’s Bazar district.

Bangladesh has refused to entertain a request by the UNHCR to give the unregistered Rohingyas a refugee status.

See our category called “Rohingya Reports” here to learn more about this issue.

A tale of a Sudanese family in the Quad-cities–Part I

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

First I came across this article from the Quad-City Times about a Sudanese refugee family who came to America in 2004.    The next day Chris sent me an article that actually preceded it which I’ll post on in Part II.

Both articles are so instructive on an important theme we’ve been writing about in recent days:  anger against immigrants and welfare.    But, this one also demonstrates once again how those resettling refugees are largely responsible for some of the troubles refugees are having.

The article starts out describing how on their first 4th of July, the father came home to find his wife and children huddled in the basement thinking war had broken out due to the loud fireworks going on outside.  My first thought was, once again the volags, who are paid to resettle refugees, are falling down on the job.  Does no one teach new Americans about our traditions?

The article discusses the good things in the Agok family’s life.  People are helping them and the kids are getting an education.    Then, when  reporters are truthful as this one is, comes a section about the things that have gone badly.  And, in this case it is not unlike what is happening in S. Africa except that American blacks aren’t killing black immigrants.   Well, maybe nearly killing them,  see this earlier post by Friends of Refugees Chris Coen. 

But their resettlement has not been seamless. Not everyone welcomed them, and they learned that the U.S. is not always a place of peace. The family’s small apartment in Rock Island’s Lincoln Homes housing project is not the safe haven they sought.

“Hearing the shooting and violence, it really scares us,” Michael said. “I ask myself, ‘Am I in the wrong place again?’ I don’t want more conflict. What I have been through is enough.”

Some of the conflict is directed squarely at his family, which frustrates, scares and saddens him.

“People can be aggressive and cruel,” he said. “They become angry when I mispronounce a word. Our neighborhood in the complex here can be frightening.” 

A commenter named Boomette hits the nail on the head.  The volags who resettle refugees must be looking at the color of skin and just making assumptions that a black American community will welcome their black African brothers (see my post on the same problems in Roanoke, VA).  Or, they are just looking for cheap housing.

This family has sponsors in New Windsor, Moline and Orion, and they end up in a Rock Island housing project? If you’re going to sponsor a family, you should not be dumping them somewhere where they will be surrounded by hostility.

And local black people make fun of this family’s mispronunciation of words? The irony. I hope the immigrants don’t end up speaking the way many of the locals do.

I wish the Ayuen family much success in their new country. 

Mr. Agok wonders if he is experiencing threats because he is too black! 

Rock Island Police have investigated several conflicts, including violent ones, between refugees and immigrants from Africa and American-born blacks.

“I don’t understand their thinking,” Michael said of some American blacks who he said have been “aggressive” toward the Africans. “Is it because we are more black?

“My family does nothing wrong. Why can’t they be welcoming to us? We are your visitors. We don’t come illegally.

No, Mr. Agok,  it’s the same around the world.  It is not the color of your skin.  It is partially cultural, you aren’t like them.   And, it has to do with welfare and work and a fear that you will take their jobs and that you are getting something they aren’t—special help as a refugee.  

See Judy’s post yesterday on Mark Krikorian’s new book.   I haven’t read the book but the discussion of his main point, that immigration is differant today not because of the immigrants themselves, but because we now have an extensive welfare system.  Local people see refugees getting all sorts of special things and resentment builds, unlike the old days when immigrants were just like the citizens—scratching out a living and trying to give their children a better life.  Everyone was in the same boat then.   Today we have special boats for immigrants.

Now to Maryland…our home state

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For the last few days I’ve written about immigration hot spots around the world (Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, and shortly I’ll tell you about Scotland), but now to Maryland, my Maryland.  

This is part of a story from a man who demonstrated recently at one of several Motor Vehicle Administration offices in the state.  Here is part of what he says:

I’m at the rally because Maryland is one of only four states that give drivers licenses to foreign nationals who are illegally in the United States. An illegal alien can get a Maryland driver’s license simply by having a foreign driver’s license – that’s all! Or, an illegal alien with merely a foreign birth certificate, an auto registration card, and an apartment rental contract qualifies for a Maryland driver’s license. There’s no requirement to prove legal presence in the U.S.; and needless to say, I’ts relatively easy to forge an apartment lease.

Maryland MVA is giving drivers licenses to foreign nationals as fast as it can – 1,700 a week according to officials (if we can believe them they have the authority to give as many as 5,000 a week)! Maryland even pays Spanish translators to help illegal aliens apply for driver’s licenses and offers a Spanish version of the driver’s test to license applicants all at taxpayer’s expense!

Now 5,000 a week totals 1.3 million in 5 years about of the State’s population! Why on Earth does Maryland’s government want to give drivers licenses to that many foreign nationals?

I bet  you are thinking he is some rightwing xenophobic racist redneck.  He isn’t!  Here is the opening paragraph of his narrative: 

This morning, I participated in a citizen’s rally at the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) facility near my home in Maryland. A group called Help Save Maryland had arranged these rallies at three different MVA sites for the same day – May 17th. Now you have to understand, I am 57, a professional manager, and haven’t participated in a demonstration since college. I’m politically progressive and adopted my son from Guatemala.

I’m not saying we are going to end up in flames like France, or Italy or South Africa, but I am saying that the heat is turning up.  Just this last week when Senator Diane Feinstein successfully attached an amendment to give amnesty to farm workers on an Iraq funding bill those of us concerned about uncontrolled immigration got in gear and defeated it (again!).  I can’t tell you how furious people are getting over these maneuvers by many in government to defy the will of the majority of Americans.

When 50 year-old self-described progressives like this fellow, Bob Fireovid, are willing to stand outside a Motor Vehicle office holding a handmade sign things are getting bad.

So what does this have to do with refugees?   You are saying refugees are legal!  The demonstration was all about illegal immigrants.  Yes, and so far that has kept the spotlight off refugees for the most part.   Most of those active in pushing for border control readily say, “I’m not against legal immigration.”  That is going to change as time goes on and there is growing resentment about out of control immigration shoved down our throats by governments.

To prove my point check out the agenda for a meeting coming up in Maryland in which a government supported agency teaches participants how to sell refugees and immigrants on communities or how to find an asylum lawyer or how to get a drivers license. 

Read about this June workshop of the Maryland Coalition for Refugees and Immigrants (MCRI) and see what your tax dollars are doing for you.