Tony Waters :
Part-2
Providing safe havens to refugees may prevent war between home and host countries in the short term by permitting a “cooling off” period. Potential combatants include the home country, host country, third countries and the refugees themselves. But the longer-term presence of refugees also increases chances of war in the long term, perhaps making durable solutions less likely. Examples included the Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (since the 1940s), Afghanistan refugees in Pakistan (since the 1980s) and Rwandans in Congo (after 1994). Refugee camps are dangerous for the refugee victims, and risk escalation and renewed fighting for all. Long-term refugee presence can trigger new wars.
Out-of-date doctrine
Discourse about refugees is typically embedded in a legalistic rights-based doctrine in which rights are asserted, and fault assigned. But this oversimplifies the political, social, and even military nature of refugee situations. In the big picture, refugees are a tragic by-product of the modern state system which insists on borders, citizenship papers and an “us-them” dichotomy. There is a pretense that such a distinction is natural, and that humans are divisible into different species of human beings, each, like bees, with a home territory. But of course this is not natural; such categories have historical and legal origins. For example, in the case of the Rohingya, rights-and lack of rights-emerged from the detritus of colonialism in British India and British Burma, and were then leveraged by Burmese nationalists who asserted that the Rohingya could not possibly be “us.” Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government insists legalistically that Rohingya were from Myanmar and certainly not Bangladeshi. As for the Rohingya, like refugees everywhere, they were not really consulted in the legal maneuvering which involves a game of musical chairs between Myanmar and Bangladesh in which the refugees always lose. So, the next thing you know Rakhine is ethnically cleansed of Rohingya, and a million people face an indefinite stateless status in Cox’s Bazar.
Sitting at the center of the fight over refugee rights is the UNHCR. The UNHCR is a calming presence at the beginning of a crisis, because they offer potential sanctuary from on-going fighting. But when the UNHCR’s repatriation doctrine kicks in, resettlement in the host country and transfer to a third country are moved off the table for most refugees, and there is an insistence that the refugees go “home.” This is irrespective of the volatility of that home. Still host countries prefer the repatriation dogma because it appeases domestic constituencies and pretends long-term commitments can be evaded. Thus, Bangladesh assured citizens that the Rohingya foreigners will only stay temporarily and then return to Myanmar. This is what Bangladesh seemingly did after 1978, and 1991-1992. But as perhaps only the Rohingya themselves remember, this repatriation policy failed in the long run, at great cost, which is why the Rohingya are still in Bangladesh today, sitting in vulnerable refugee camps, rather than returning to Rakhine. For what it is worth, this is the same question Germany’s few surviving Jews wondered about after they were rescued from Nazi death camps in 1945. Few returned to Germany-most went to Israel (where ironically they displaced Palestinians, many of whom are still refugees), or one of the victorious Allied countries.
Admittedly, providing such resettlement opportunities is not a “just” solution; after all Myanmar’s generals are getting away with ethnic cleansing. Rather, at least for now, it is a best-case scenario. Sometimes, in the medium term the durable and just solution is having refugees move to a place where they can rebuild their lives in peace whether in Myanmar, Bangladesh, or elsewhere. The point is to close the temporary refugee camps. A just solution also may include an international recognition of a right of return to a future peaceful Myanmar, for those displaced from Rakhine. Oddly enough, this right was exercised by the current Bangladeshi Prime Minister herself after she was a refugee in the 1980s in India.
Importance of refugee policy
Of course, Bangladesh in its own way is right; the country is accepting a burden by welcoming refugees on behalf of the rest of the world, due to an accident of geography. Hopefully Bangladesh continues to provide haven; in the short term even lowland camps in a “typhoon alley” are better than returning to the unsettled territory of your nervous enemies.
But the real challenge for Bangladesh, the UNHCR, and the refugees themselves is still to close the Rohingya camps as soon as possible. No one wants the “temporary” camps in Cox’s Bazar to become more permanent. But the truth is, the international community and Bangladesh have no good quick solution to the “Rohingya Problem.” So policies instead need to also identify “least bad” alternatives. Settlement in Bangladesh and elsewhere are among the “least bad” alternatives, especially when return to Rakhine risks more war, and the status quo means radicaliaation of refugee youth in that ever risky “typhoon alley.”
Dramatic examples of how long-term refugee situations go wrong include the stateless Palestinian refugees pushed out of what is now Israel in 1948, and who continue to be spread across the Middle East; Afghan refugees in Pakistan; and Somalis in Kenya. Less dramatic but more successful examples come to mind only slowly. After all, successful integration does not make headlines. Successfully resolved refugee flights include Syrians in Germany after 2015, Burundians in Tanzania after 1972, Indochinese in Southeast Asia after 1975, and post-World War II refugees, including Jewish victims of the Holocaust, who spread across the world.
What will ultimately happen to the Rohingya refugees themselves will be responsive to the policies of outsiders, especially that of Myanmar but also the UNHCR, Bangladesh and others. These policies will not emerge from the vagueness of the UNHCR’s repatriation doctrine, but the sacrifices the international community takes on behalf of the least powerful, and most vulnerable.
(Tony Waters is Professor of Sociology at Payap University.
Courtesy: The Irrawaddy).
(Concluded).
