Adrift on cruel waters
By Subir Bhaumik
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MD09Ae04.html
KOLKATA and BANGKOK - Dubious agents are making huge profits from
smuggling Rohingya Muslims through the organization of risky boat
voyages from Bangladesh to destinations in Southeast Asia. The
underground racket has accentuated the plight of one of Asia's most
persecuted and desperate minority groups.
An Asia Times Online investigation based on interviews with recent
migrants has found that each Rohingya who takes to sea in one of these
often leaky and antiquated vessels piloted by unprofessional seamen is
required to pay between 30,000 to 35,000 Bangladesh taka (US$480) for
the perilous journey. This is
a huge sum for the impoverished Rohingya.
There is no guarantee that when they arrive in Southeast Asia, usually
in either Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand, that they will not be
arrested or forced back out to sea without adequate provisions. For
those that successfully slip past border police, they are often herded
onto remote rubber plantations situated along the Malaysian-Thai border.
There, the Rohingya are frequently pressured to call on their families
back in Bangladesh to send more money or face bodily harm. These rubber
plantations are usually either run or hired by the agents, who are often
religious leaders themselves from the Rohingya community. Many have
settled into Malaysia or Thailand where they themselves illegally migrated.
Only after the smuggled Rohingya are able to muster more funds - usually
between 5,000 to 10,000 taka - and transfer them to the agent's personal
bank account are they taken to certain safe house mosques in Malaysia.
From there, they are left to fend for themselves.
"These plantations are actually torture chambers," claims a researcher
based in Bangladesh who has closely tracked the human smuggling route.
'Musclemen hired by the agents beat, torture and threaten the Rohingyas
to shell out more money," he said.
The researcher spoke on condition of anonymity because he lives in the
same neighborhood as one of the trade's biggest agents, who he referred
to only as "Rahim", and fears reprisals for revealing the agents'
methods and abuses.
He claims Rahim owns a rubber plantation in Sungai Kolok, on the Thai
side of the border in the insurgency-plagued province of Narathiwat,
which is a key passage point in the smuggling route. Rohingya have in
certain instances been rounded up as part of military sweeps against
armed insurgents operating in the areas.
But Rahim and his smuggling associates continue to operate freely in
area, according to some Rohingya who now live and work in Malaysia and
are familiar with his smuggling activities.
Official contacts
Many smuggled Rohingya have been interviewed in detail by the Arakan
Project, a research-based advocacy group funded by Western donors to
monitor the situation of Rohingya in Myanmar and other countries and
promote their protection as legitimate refugees. In those interviews,
they claimed that smuggling agents maintained "good contacts" with both
Thai and Malaysian immigration officials.
"Our people are taken to this plantation in small groups but if we are
caught and deported by the Malaysians, the agents and their people catch
up with us because they seem to know exactly the point where we have
been deported," said one middle-aged Rohingya male working in Kuala Lumpur.
"They bring us back to Malaysia after a few days in the plantation, but
only after our families have transferred more money to the bank accounts
of the agents ... We are dropped in some mosques where we stay for a few
days before we land menial jobs in towns and then slowly make our way to
more populated centers where fellow Rohingyas find us jobs because we
have kinship networks," he said.
Not all Rohingya migrants smuggled into Southeast Asia are as lucky.
Many who have been illegally smuggled to Thailand have been rounded up
and deported to Myanmar through the land border crossing at Mae Sot.
Many subsequently sneak back to Thailand and are smuggled to Malaysia by
agents, according to a Rohingya woman who was once deported at Mae Sot
and now lives in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital.
Others organized by the agents have been pushed back to sea by Thai
naval authorities, in certain instances on boats without engines and
adequate food and water. The Thai military stands accused by rights
groups of forcing a group of 1,000 Rohingya back to sea in 2009. It's
unclear how many survived the ordeal, though some rights groups estimate
as many as half of them perished.
Earlier this year three boats with 91 Rohingya passengers destined for
Malaysia drifted onto a Thai beach and were pushed back to sea without
adequate provisions. They eventually drifted over 700 kilometers to
India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where upon landing they were
administered emergency medical treatment.
Last year Indonesia rescued over 400 Rohingya boat people who had
arrived in it's coastal waters in rickety boats. In a rare rebuke,
Indonesia criticized Thailand's practice of towing Rohingya back out to
sea and said it would consider giving those who arrived on it's shores
refugee status. (Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has said he
considers the Rohingya economic migrants rather than refugees.)
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, said that Rohingyas who
previously fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in their native
Arakan province of Myanmar previously often migrated onward to Pakistan
through India. Many of the women ended up in Karachi's flesh trade and
the men in the fishing industry, she said.
Lewa's research shows that over the past six or seven years Rohingya
migration patterns have shifted from east to west after Pakistan
descended into chaos and violence and India created a stronger, less
porous border fence along its shared border with Bangladesh. As a
result, many Rohingyas started to look east to Malaysia, Indonesia and
other destinations in Southeast Asia.
To meet that demand and profit off the desperation, smuggling syndicates
with increasing regional reach have developed and evolved in Bangladesh.
And all indications are that business will remain brisk for the
foreseeable future.
'Now as Bangladesh threatens to repatriate [to Myanmar] the Rohingya
refugees who have remained in that country, they get more and more
desperate to seek a safe and decent livelihood," said Lewa.
Subir Bhaumik is chief of news operations at a leading Indian TV channel
and a known specialist on Northeast India and Bangladesh.
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