Category: Rohingya Reports

Are Rohingya refugees already here?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Talks continued today between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Gutteres, and representatives of the government of Bangladesh about how to resolve the Rohingya “crisis” according to this report in a publication from the Rohingya Youth Development Forum.

These few lines caught my eye indicating that the US has already admitted Burmese Muslims perhaps mixed in with the Burmese Christian Karen people. 

The UN high commissioner for refugees also mentioned that the UN refugee agency is in talks with several countries that are interested to allow Rohingyas into their countries for ‘resettlement’.

“We don’t think the resettlement programme is sufficiently developed and we will be advocating in relation to other countries to increase the quotas of Rohingyas in the future,” Guterres said.

Canada by far accepted the highest number of Rohingya refugees, with countries such as the United States, Britain, Australia and the Scandinavian countries also high on the list. However, the number of ‘resettled’ Rohingyas still remains low.

See our category “Rohingya Reports” here for all the background on this controversy.

A Rohingya defender speaks out (and calls us names)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

See my post of April 24th that prompted this post and the belated response by temme.

We’ve been following the public relations efforts of Rohingya refugee advocates to convince the United Nations that 20,000-30,000 of these Burmese Muslims should be resettled in the West.  Canada has already taken some.   Just 10 days ago UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres visited camps in Bangladesh and urged repatriation of Rohingyas to their homeland. 

Here is what Time magazine said about the Rohingya in Bangladesh a few years ago (read our whole post here): 

Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese military junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi training camps. And one former Burmese guerrilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them.

Here is what a blogger, temme at the rahrahparty, in Malaysia says about us in a post entitled “I need to punch someone“: 

The site, https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/ is run by bigoted people who does not give a flying [editor: F-word deleted] for anyone but themselves. Don’t they realise that there are bigger threats to their safety running around in their own country compared to the handful of refugees resettled in the US? Don’t they realise that the biggest terrorist in the world is their own country with all its intervention activities and sanctions? Don’t they realise that refugees have bigger threats to fear if they are not resettled than the Americans have to fear of those refugees? Come on la, do you honestly think that refugees fearing for their lives have all the time in the world to plot random conspiracies against the US? All they want to do is just lead a life where they are not constantly afraid. F….ing [edited] xenophobia, it ruins the advancement of man, I tell you.

I am so angry and disturbed, I am going to punch the toilet walls. ARGH 

My question for temme (an obvious love and peace to all person) is why do so many refugees want to come to the US if we have big threats to our safety here and are one of the biggest terrorist countries in the world? 

To learn more about the campaign to admit Rohingya into Western countries read our whole category entitled “Rohingya Reports” and make up your own mind.   

Also, I urge everyone to watch (or re-watch) the Numbers USA film linked at the top of our blog.  I viewed it again the other day and it is a reminder of how futile it is to attempt to save the world, dragging down America in the process.  

Bangladesh: Rohingya can go home to Burma, but refuse

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In the wake of a visit to Bangladesh last week by UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, according to this report a stalemate seems to have been broken about the repatriation of the final 27,000 Muslim Rohingyas back to their homeland in Burma (Myanmar).   However, they say they will go only when democracy is established in Burma.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, the chief editor of a Burmese news agency based in Bangladesh said that Bangladeshi authorities are asking the refugees—who are almost entirely ethnic Rohingya from Arakan State in western Burma—to return home voluntarily. However, he said, the majority would refuse due to fears of reprisals from the Burmese military regime and the worsening economic crisis in the country.

The Bangladeshi government agreed to a proposal on Monday by UNHCR to reactivate a 1992 tripartite agreement to repatriate the remaining 27,000 Burmese Rohingya refugees to their homeland, said UNHCR Commissioner António Guterres on Wednesday.

Guterres said the intention of re-establishing a trilateral mechanism involving Bangladesh, the UNHCR and Burma was “to create the conditions for voluntary repatriation of the Rohingya refugees to their homeland in safety and dignity.” 

Here is what doesn’t make sense.  If 237,000 have voluntarily returned to Burma, then what is the hold up for the final 27,000.   Only a few things seem logical.  They could be troublemakers who fear to return, or they could be enjoying the care and attention they get from the UN and humanitarian groups while begging to be resettled in the West.

Around 258,000 ethnic Rohingya people from Arakan State fled to Bangladesh in 1991, following a campaign of human rights abuses by the Burmese junta. They were registered as refugees by the government of Bangladesh, but without any proper legal status.

By 2006, around 237,000 refugees had returned to Burma. Most of the remaining refugees live in two camps in Nayapara and Kutupalong in Cox’s Bazar, where they receive assistance from the UNHCR and World Food Programme.

See our category “Rohingya Reports” for our archive on the Rohingya efforts to be resettled in first world countries.

P.S. Based on his efforts here, I like Guterres for trying to solve this problem without automatically whisking more Muslim refugees to the US and the West.

Rohingya really want to be resettled in a third country

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is additional news on the visit to Bangladesh by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that I reported on earlier this a.m.    Antonio Guterres says that he would like the Rohingya Muslims to return to Myanmar (Burma), but it looks like many are saying ‘no thanks’. 

The repatriation program for 27,000 refugees has been unsuccessful to date because the refugees are unwilling to return to Burma out of fear of persecution by the authorities, a refugee source said.

A refugee source added that many refugees in Bangladesh are willing to resettle in third countries rather than go back to Burma, but only a few refugees were given the chance to resettle in third countries such as Canada last year.

The UNHCR has also arranged for the resettlement of these remaining refugees to third countries, and currently Canada is receiving the highest number of Rohingya refugees. UNHCR is also in discussion with other countries, including some South American and Southern European countries, about resettling refugees. 

I suppose if Rohingya are going to Canada and South America they will soon be in America too whether we like it or not since our borders are wide open.    As for a southern European country, I bet it won’t be Italy with the mood they are in!

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.