Transcript: Episode #161: The Rohingya Refugee Crisis (Bonus Shorts)
Below is the complete transcript for this podcast episode. The transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and has not been manually reviewed by a human reader. Consequently, there may be inaccuracies in the text as compared to the actual words spoken by the speakers. This is especially applicable to speakers with distinct accents, as AI may have difficulty accurately interpreting and transcribing their speech. As such, this transcript should not be referenced in any articles or documents without cross-referencing the timestamps to ensure the precise words spoken by the guest.
Host 00:05
If this is your first time listening to our podcast welcome. Our programming brings a diversity of voices connected to me and Mark to share their perspectives, thoughts and reflections about what has been happening there since the military coup in 2021. All of our guests share one thing in common, a deep personal stake in the ongoing crisis. And it is an honor for us to be able to bring their voices into your ear buds. But however difficult it may be to hear some of their stories, we hope that you will come away with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of what is happening there.
01:08
Ha, ha ha ha ha, ha, ha, ha. Gonna have a good day, today at least
01:27
for us.
Brad 01:43
And welcome back. One recurring theme of conflict around the world is that, as the story rose, individual groups and communities often get overlooked. And unfortunately, Myanmar has seen this repeat itself, again and again and again, in particular, with regard to the Rohingya community. And that's what we're going to be talking about today in a reasonably fast paced and condensed interview. So we're not going to waste any time. Let's just jump into it. My guest today is Dan Sullivan. Dan, would you like to introduce yourself to the audience?
Dan Sullivan 02:16
Yes, thank you. Pleasure to be with you. My name is Dan Sullivan. I'm the director for Africa, Asia and the Middle East at refugees International. We're a US based, independent advocacy group, a little bit unique, because we don't take any government funding, and we don't have operations on the ground in different refugee settings. So that allows us to be a little bit more independent. And I've been working on human rights and atrocity prevention and refugee issues for over 20 years. A large bulk of that has been focused on the Rohingya. And so I'm happy to be have the chance to talk about that with you today.
Brad 03:00
Thank you very much for being here with us. I know this is a very important topic, and one that sort of comes into the media and then falls out of media focus, and then suddenly reappears. And, and people are often just not aware of how long this crisis has been going on and how continuous the crisis is. The media representation is a patchwork, almost like a series of smaller crises. But this is a significantly larger issue. So can you can you sort of walk us through the history of let's say, from roughly from Independence, the the relationship that the Rohingya have had with the with the broader Myanmar? State?
Dan Sullivan 03:36
Sure, yeah, you can go. I mean, you can go back many, many decades, previous to independence, to the first time that the Rohingya, you know, are recorded and shown to be in the western part of Myanmar, in what's known as Rakhine State. But they have, you know, historically been marginalized. They stood out from the vast majority of other groups in Myanmar, largely because of their religion there, they're mostly Muslim. And whereas most of the other people in Myanmar are Buddhist. And so they're, you know, while while they were a part of society, and I've met Rohingya who had served in Parliament, for the most part, they were really discriminated against. They come from a part of the country where there are other groups, including including the Rakhine, who have also been marginalized. And there's been a mixed history there where, you know, the the Rakhine, and the Rohingya have worked together, but also have community tensions and you've had different groups that have exploited that. And so that yeah, that's kind of kind of the history of where it was, which led right up to you know, the after the middle Oteri ruling for a number of years, there was a democratic opening where Aung San su chi was released from house arrest and allowed to run for parliament. It's around 2010 2012. And we saw some what was first kind of communal violence between or kind of Rohingya breakout, which initially displaced over 100,000 Rohingya. Many of them remain in displacement camps in Rakhine State. But then we saw a real uptick in in the attacks on the Rohingya in August of 2017, when, when the Myanmar military had just blanket attacks across across Rakhine state against the Rohingya leading more than 700,000 of them to flee into Bangladesh, where they remain in what is now the largest refugee settlement in the world. And then, now we fast forward a little bit to two years ago, when Myanmar military carried out a coup, which has set the country on fire and makes it very unlikely that the Rohingya will be able to safely return anytime soon.
Brad 06:13
So that I mean, there's a lot there, we we've opened quite a lot of doors. And I think I think it's worth wandering into those just to examine them a little bit more deeply. So the one thing that I think is important to clarify is that a lot of texts for historical reasons are going to use the term or icon either for the region or for the ethnic group, which is largely used interchangeably with Rakhine today, but so the Rakhine or American people. Where do they sort of fit with this? Because they're not. They don't identify as Burma and they're not aligned to the Burmese military. And in fact, they've been in conflict with the Burmese military, but they also seem to have a seething hatred of of the Rohingya population. Is that Is there any particular relationship or any particular history between those groups?
Dan Sullivan 07:09
Sure, you know, I touched on that briefly, but it's, you know, it's a complicated history where there are years where they have worked and traded together in Rakhine State or Archon. State. But there have also been, there's also been a history of tensions, which, you know, it's a slightly overgeneralize, but I think that what it comes down to most basically is the the religion aspect where, you know, where the the Rohingya are seen by the Rakhine, as, as outsiders, many, many in in Myanmar, Burma, and particularly among the Rakhine see them as what they call them, as Bengalis, you know, coming from across the border in Bangladesh. And so they, they see the different religion and this, this narrative, this false narrative that they, you know, they're not, you know, from that, that area, and that they're foreigners that are coming in. And then we saw their, you know, that's been stoked further by a group of Buddhist nationalist extremists, bombing extremists who, like the, you know, somewhat infamous monk Wirathu, who, you know, stoke this narrative that the Rohingya RNA existential threat to everything that's good about the bombing culture, about Buddhism, and just really expanded that to a whole narrative of a crescent of Muslim countries in populations taking over and that, you know, really depicted the Rohingya as the frontline for them. And so a lot of dehumanizing language and, and threats and things that you helped to lead up to a real boiling point between the two groups.
Brad 08:59
So I want I want to just take a step back that because there's something that you that you specifically mentioned the false narrative that they are outsiders and so the Rohingya people as an ethnic group, they, they live, for those who are not as geographically sort of familiar with it. They live towards that northwestern part of Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh. Their their skin color is darker, their physical features resemble those that we would see in the Indian subcontinent. And not only are they Muslim, as the majority of people in Bangladesh, ah, but also the language they speak is an indo European language that is related to the languages that we find in the Indian subcontinent. So taking this into consideration, we could maybe understand where this narrative that all their Bangladeshi immigrants comes from. But what's what's the actual truth of the matter here? What's what's the history here?
Dan Sullivan 09:59
Yeah, as you said, There's a there's, the language has an affinity with the Ciccone and dialects in Bangladesh, just across the border. And there's that religious, you know, the really the same religion going on, but it is a part of the world, you know, that saw a lot of movements of people over several, you know, several centuries. And, you know, there's, you know, while you could go back hundreds hundreds of years and say well, they were Angel weren't there at that time. They've been there as long as many of the other groups that have come through, and certainly have been there since since Burma's independence. So there's yes, there's a history of different groups moving and there's a reason why they have the language and culture and religion that they have. But, you know, this is this is the kind of the way modern borders have been drawn. And it's more about in the recent decades, where despite the fact that Rohingya have been in that area for at least 100 years, there's this narrative that, unlike others, particularly those who are Buddhist Obama, and they're they're not seen as being, you know, meme citizens of Myanmar. And there was even a in 1981, I believe it was a citizenship law, which identified over 100 ethnic groups that were considered to be citizens of Myanmar in the Ranger were left out at that time, although they had been well established. So that once again, was just like the result of that narrative, rather than the looking at the real facts.
Brad 11:43
I'm glad that you brought that one up. Because the fact of the matter is, if you examine the citizenship law that was passed, it doesn't just enumerate, you know, the 135 identified ethnic groups, it actually lays a framework Myanmar for that, for those who are not familiar, ma'am actually has a multi tiered citizenship system. You have naturalized citizens, and you have associate citizens and you have all these sorts of things in different colored ID cards. And it's not just a simple dichotomy between inside and outside. But the actual framework that was presented was a framework based on the history of the presence of a group of people within the contemporary borders of Myanmar, regardless of what that territory was considered to be in history. groups that are native to specific territories that are currently within the contemporary Myanmar borders, and were already present by a certain date, were automatically considered to be citizens of Myanmar, the Rohingya have passed that metric, the Rohingya can prove archeologically presence in what is today Myanmar territory in Rakhine State. And yet, despite this, they were deliberately excluded, even though they've met the metric that the citizenship law itself proposed. And I wonder if you could, you could broaden this. I've heard many allegations, I've heard many stories of Rohingya, basically just having their citizenship denied or their citizenship revoked after it had already been granted. Again, for those who are not aware. Citizenship documentation has to be updated periodically. In Myanmar at specific years of age, you have to go back and you have to fill out the paperwork again and have the documentation re issued. And so there are people who were issued documentation at say 18 years old. And then some years later, when they had to reissue the documentation they were denied. So we've we've heard very widespread rumors of of, or allegations of a campaign by the apparatus of the state to deny the Rohingya any attempt to apply for citizenship and to revoke citizenships. Once those citizenships have even been guaranteed or provided. And I wonder if you can you can tell us anything about that particular phenomenon going on?
Dan Sullivan 14:06
Sure, yeah. There's there's a whole history of different kinds of identity identity kind of documents. There was the so called white cards and different things that kind of proved Rohingya citizenship or at least gave them some their Rohingya identity because that's it goes beyond just denying that Rohingya are not citizens to claims that the range of just don't exist as a people, they're illegal Bengalis they're not there is no Rohingya. That is the argument. There's a really good kind of history of this at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and they have a an online exhibit as well. So you know, for anyone really interested in getting diving deeply into that they have these, these various documents, in ID ID markers that over the years have been changed and but again, it goes to that and it also goes to now Well, you have the dynamic that we've seen in other parts of the world when people are forced to flee and mass very rapidly. You know, a lot of people now don't have certain documents, and that that will complicate any future. repatriation. You know, hopefully, we'll get to a point eventually, where this isn't, you know, a country that's terrorized by the military, and that a more inclusive government comes into into power, but it's going to create problems in the future, too, because people don't have all those those kinds of documentations.
Brad 15:36
Absolutely. And so speaking of fleeing, like we're about to talk about, obviously, the, the 2017 genocide, but they were, I believe, already significant numbers of Rohingya refugees living across the border in Bangladesh. Prior to that genocide, how, how bad was the scale of of the refugee crisis at that point?
Dan Sullivan 16:00
Yeah, so I've been traveling and visiting those camps in Bangladesh, since before the, the the genocide that occurred in August 2017. And there were already, you know, estimates, estimate estimates ranged because not all Rohingya were registered. In fact, Bangladesh is not a not as is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention. They did allow the UN refugee agency to register about 30,000 refugees, this is going back to the early 1990s. So there's, there have been other waves in the past of attacks on the Ranger, which caused them to go across to Bangladesh. But so prior to the mass exodus, in 2017, there were probably about 300,000, of which some 30,000 were registered with the UN Refugee Agency. And a lot of those lived in these these camps. And, you know, at that time, it was not, not great conditions, but particularly the ones who were registered had some access to education or livelihoods. There were a lot of the same kind of concerns you see with other places, or the refugee settings were some restrictions on rights and things like that. But it's, it's gotten, it's gotten a lot worse, just both both in terms of scale, because after, after August 2017, you had another 700,000 Plus, so that the total is around a million refugees there now. And, you know, I don't want to get too far ahead in the conversation but but the conditions over the past five years, as this this has become now what the UN defines as a protracted crisis have also deteriorated in several ways.
Brad 17:54
And if so let's sort of jump forward because this narrative of the false false migrants all other illegal migrants thing, which like this is a narrative that we see played out everywhere in the world, like we see groups that one part of society wants to eliminate, often characterized as not having a right to a specific place characterized as unlawful, subsequent waves of migrants. And it's just a very easy way to dehumanize people but the extent of this in Myanmar is is big. I remember a few years back, I was talking to a journalist, friend of mine, who wrote about the report that Amnesty International prepared by the Ranger and under Section 66 D of the Communications Act, and for those who are not familiar with it, 66 D basically guarantees limitless censorship capabilities to the central government in any published media. They were rejected twice. And then the second rejection, they were simply told point blank the word Rohingya cannot appear in the reporting, they have to be referred to as as illegal Muslim migrants. And, and I think it's worth talking about in 2012. So 2010 There's the Election Day insane pseudo civilian government comes into power 2012, they insane announces that he has a plan to send the Rohingya to Bangladesh. And we see Ashin Wirathu, who subsequently becomes this nationalist leader of Mamata this this violent nationalist Bama Buddhist gang back then, joining the 969 movement in response and pushing for the exodus of the Rohingya. So what was the what was the tipping point where they stopped being? Rakhine people don't like the Rohingya people and started being Myanmar have used them as an existential crisis? What What triggered that?
Dan Sullivan 19:56
Yeah, it's, you know, it's a good point. I remember I, if I remember directly saying actually approached the UN or sent a letter requesting their help in sending the Ranger back to to Bangladesh, or back as he described it, but yeah, I mean, part of it was the was that democratic opening, right. And there was, you know, the military had less of an iron grip, or at least, they had left the outright blatant use of use of cracking down in force to sort of take off their uniforms, but remain in power under that setting. So, you know, I think it's important to stress that was not a that was no kind of perfect setup. You know, there was the military still had a veto over any changes to the Constitution. So but they were they had, they were more operating behind the scenes. So that opened up the ability for actors like we were off to, to, you know, to carry out this this, this negative narrative narrative and to scapegoat Rohingya and that it went beyond the Rohingya as well, to all Muslims across the country. We had, you know, there were some some really egregious attacks in in central Myanmar as well. And there was a real worry at the time that this would continue to escalate. But I think there were there were various efforts done that helped to tamp down the outright targeting of Muslims across the country. But but the Rohingya continued to be a, an easy scapegoat and something that the Buddhist extremists nationalist, targeted, and then that the Rakhine targeted and that other groups, kind of, you know, fed into the narrative at that time, and even even groups that had been attacked by the military and persecuted felt, you know, and I remember traveling to Kachin State and visiting displaced people there. And they just, they really just saw the rainbow was something on the other side of the country was not something they were familiar with, or that they empathized with. So I think they were more than willing to go along with the false and negative narrative. And so yeah, so I think that's why it kind of opened up the rising targeting of Rohingya that we saw, you know, in 2012, and then escalating through 2017.
Brad 22:37
And so, so 2017 crisis, not not necessarily focusing too heavily on the atrocities themselves, because they are very, very extensive, and we don't have that much time. But let's focus on the end result like this is a this is a genocide, this has been recognized by the United States as one of the fortunately few instances of genocide in modern human history. And we see, I believe more than a million refugees from Myanmar now living in, in Bangladesh, and in what you said, was the largest refugee encampment in the world. So what is what is the net result of that? Because the it feels like yesterday, almost, but but it was actually quite, like five years ago, that that was happening and time has passed, but those refugees are still stuck there. And the conditions are pretty bad. So what is what is the end result for the victims of this, of this atrocity? And what is life like for them now?
Dan Sullivan 23:40
Yeah, well, if I can, just for a moment, just before jumping ahead of that, I mean, you're right. It's been well documented and recognized, but I think it is worth just taking a moment to just, you know, recognize the extent of, of the violence that happened. And I was in the camps a couple of weeks after that Exodus started and just saw the people streaming across and I remember talking to people, and it was just kind of eerie. Sense of, of, of how of consistency in the stories that you would hear from different people about soldiers surrounding villages, setting them on fire, shooting at people as they fled, shooting them in the back. And this was just so widespread that, you know, if you ended up having, like I said, over over 700,000 people fleeing across to Bangladesh, and, and it wasn't recognized right away as genocide. And that's something that refugees International and other groups, we led a campaign in the United States called College genocide, where we worked with legal and human rights experts to send letters in have petitions signed and held various events with celebrities and things like that to try to keep up the pressure first on the Trump administration. And then on the Biden administration, and some of the people who went into the Biden administration had signed those lows, people like Samantha Power. And it continued to take a big push. So we're really glad that finally, the United States did recognize for what it is for what was doc well documented by the UN fact finding mission that looked into this and by several other groups. So I just wanted to touch on that. And you know, the in the struggle continues to address the accountability and other other aspects of this. But to your to your question about where where we are today where all this brought us. You know, I've been, as I said, I've been visiting the camps from before, from right after and then over the over the last five years at different times. And seeing sort of the progression in talking to Rohingya refugees, some of the same ones, some others and humanitarians working with them. And you know, that what you've really seen is a, there was a real emergency at the beginning, really rough conditions and difficulties with coordination. Five years later, five plus years later, a lot of that's been addressed in terms of the coordination in terms of on the surface, right, you see, there had been huge deforestation because people were taking whatever they could to burn fires, there's been replanting, and greening of the camps, you see, like, on there on the rooftops, there's gardens and they're using liquid gas and different things so that things can be revived, the roads have been, have been reinforced, you know, with drainage so that you still have damage from from the rains. But there's there's a little bit better ability for a to continue to get in. So you've seen that on the surface. But what you see underneath when you talk to the Rohingya refugees, is there really is this growing sense of despair and hopelessness. And, you know, in talking to a health worker who focuses on mental trauma, talked about how, at the very beginning, what they were seeing was the immediate trauma of what people had seen in fleeing and being attacked, shifting now to this more longer term trauma of sense of like, no future, right? Or they don't, they don't see how they can go back, especially since the coup by the by the military. But they also see restrictions, increasing within the camps in Bangladesh, where they have not had access to quality education or any education for a while. It was just the local communities that were in the Rohingya that were trying to provide education, or access to livelihood opportunity. So a real sense of not having that future. And then the other major thing that has changed is, the insecurity in the camps has really increased, I'd say, especially over the past year, but there's, you know, I'm a murky network of different groups. You know, there's the group Arsa, which is Rohingya militant extremist group. There's rival factions, and there are criminal elements that are, you know, since well, before the Rohingya were there, there have been that's been a corridor for for drug trade. And so we're seeing more and more particularly local Rohingya camp leaders, the so called modules that have been attacked and killed over the past year and, and then also prominent civil society leaders. So a real tamping down on the ability for them to speak out and growing fear that adds to that sense of hopelessness.
Brad 28:59
And I'm, I'm actually curious about this. I don't know whether you you can really speak to this. It's not directly related, but the conflict, I mean, the genocide happened notionally under the watch all the other theoretically democratic government, this is under the NLD controlled government. And we're in power from 2016 to 2021. And this has been the obviously debated to the nth degree, but I'm wondering how how did the Rohingya view that government did they have hope that if the if the NLD controlled pseudo democratic government continues that there would be a pathway for for repatriation, because you say they feel quite negative and despondent following the military coup, which is quite understandable. But were they holding out hope that political winds would change? Or were they basically assuming that as long as as things remain as they are in Yama, they'll never be able to return?
Dan Sullivan 29:58
Yeah, it's a good question. I You know, I can't speak for the I don't know what the majority are of Rohingya worth were have felt, but I can just say different conversations I've had over the years, I think there has been at least for some, there's been a shift where there was hope that the NLD and others would would help to bring them back. But there was a, you know, I think that turned into disillusionment, particularly when Aung San su chi went to The Hague, to defend the military and the government, by extension of against the charges of genocide that were brought it the International Court of Justice. So I think, but I think certainly they they see the remnants of the what you could say, of the of the former quasi civilian government, and particularly the, you know, the national unity government that's been set up, you know, I think they do see hope. And one of the major thing shifts that happened after the coup is that we saw various groups within Myanmar starting to express some empathy for the Rohingya, you know, for the first time kind of saying, seeing the the military for what it was, and, and seeing that, you know, all these things we heard about the Ranger, we're seeing them now are seeing some aspect of them right now, where the military is attacking, you know, any citizens who, who stand up and say that, you know, this day, they're in favor of democracy, and let alone the the minority ethnic, other minority ethnic groups that that have been persecuted by the military. And so we've seen with the national unity government and ug, that they've, they've put out a pretty progressive policy on the Rohingya. And so that's, that is encouraging. I mean, I think we need to continue to see push that push the and ug and others in the opposition to make sure that they're inclusive and, and do backup the Rohingya. So if, hopefully what, you know, one day in the not too distant future, the military is replaced by a more inclusive government that that includes the Rohingya and a path for them to return as citizens with with the accompanying rights.
Brad 32:25
And another element of this that we often sort of overlook, like we focus heavily on the the Myanmar component of the crisis, but the place where the Rohingya have have found themselves, largely seems to be around Cox's Bazar. And Cox bazar is not only a major tourist attraction in Bangladesh, but just you know, looking it up on Wikipedia. The population the permanent population of Cox's Bazar seems to be hovering around the 300 and something 1000 Mark, whereas the Rohingya refugee population is multiples of that number. What is what is the impact been on the Bangladeshi state and the Bangladeshi people from this?
Dan Sullivan 33:12
Yeah, it's been massive. You know, I talked about the the massive kind of deforestation that happened in that area. You know, the UN UNDP development program put out a study on kind of the effects of on the on the labor market on the on, you know, on the schools were initially some of the schools were being used to store to store supplies to use for the humanitarian work. And so it has had a massive effect. And, you know, I don't want to downplay at all the the huge role that Bangladesh in the Bangladeshi people played in welcoming in providing refuge to the Rohingya. And in that is something I think is very ingrained in the humanitarian response. If you look at the humanitarian response plan, year to year, there is a section that talks about the host community. And so there is there is a lot of effort being into to recognize that where the problem is, is where there's there's some restrictions that are unnecessarily being put on the Rohingya and that are adding to this the sense of hopelessness I talked about. And I think, on the positive side that there have been some shifts and some openings. There is now a Myanmar curriculum, a program that the Bangladeshi Government has rolled out with UNICEF, that is expanding to, you know, the majority of of, of children in the camps now have access to that. The problem is it's, you know, when you talk to the range of themselves that the quality of that education is still there's a lot lot to be done. And at the same time that that's rolled out the government's crackdown on some of the home based private efforts done by the Rohingya community themselves. else rather than trying to tap into that, that network and bring them in and bring them into this, this effort. So, too often we're seeing that sort of one step forward, two steps back. And same thing with movement towards allowing livelihoods. There's, there's no formal allowing of Rohingya to work. There are. But there are some, there's some ability of volunteers to work with humanitarian groups, and to receive stipend stipends. And same with teachers. But again, it's not it's not not enough, and it doesn't, it's not something that's available to enough people. So you've got that mix of mix of things where there is, it's good to see there is an opening, there is some recognition that, you know, this is five plus years, you it's not in the interest of Bangladesh or anyone to have, you know, this idle, desperate population, they need to see some kind of hope and be empowered to, to, you know, work towards a future where they're educated or have job opportunities. So that's the that's really the the crux of things right now. And but as I said, the host community has been largely affected and absolutely needs to continue to be a part of the overall response.
Brad 36:19
Absolutely. And so let's let's look at the contemporary situation. So, this is, this is as close as you can get to the analogy of a rock and a hard place. The conditions that the range of suffering currently in Bangladesh are poor, although as you say, there is some ray of hope, but on the whole, they are poor. And for reasons that are to a degree understandable, the host communities is growing quite weary of the situation. Myanmar is not a safe place for them to return to and as far as internal politics are concerned, the Arakan army have remained neutral in the ongoing conflict. And although they've made overtures towards reconciliation with the Ranger, very few people are taking those seriously. So the Ranger don't really have much of a tenable situation, they can't really sustainably stay where they are currently. And they don't have an immediate pathway to return to their homes in Myanmar, so many of them are trying to get out and get away. And can you can you talk to us about what we're seeing in the news reported basically as a boat crisis?
Dan Sullivan 37:30
Yeah, absolutely. And this is something that, you know, that we've been covering. And, you know, we recently did a virtual event where we featured a Rohingya in the camps who had a sister who was on one of the boats and a niece, who, thankfully after after several weeks, did make it eventually safely to Indonesia. And then some other experts from from the region to talk about this. Because, you know, as as the UN Refugee Agency has recently reported last year, there's a huge spike in the number of people leaving the camps by boat and, and leaving Myanmar as well. There's, you know, people are leaving from both places, Rohingya. And they, they estimated that at least, and these are just the numbers that they can try to guess. So it's probably higher that 3500 Rohingya to the boats last year, and of those, at least, around 350 died on those journeys. And, you know, so this is that we've seen this as, as you said, the big driver of this has been the conditions both in the camps, in the sense of desperation. And then in, in Myanmar, the conditions there under the coup, also driving people to to seek other places where they, they hope they can have a better life. But yeah, there's a there was a big uptick in that in the end of the end of 2022. And that has continued into 2023. And so there's a, there's a real need for the region, to to figure out how to respond to this. And it's unfortunately it's not it's not a new phenomenon. It's it certainly has spiked for the highest numbers. Last year since probably 2015, when we saw you know, the there was a another boat crisis, where a crackdown on some of the trafficking networks led them to traffickers to abandon boats at sea. And there were 1000s of both Rohingya and Bangladesh that were stranded at sea and that led regional leaders to come together and try to think of think of some some solutions and they actually did put out some, you know, some good ideas about creating a regional task force and creating, making sure that there was safe disembarkation points that there was supposed to be a trust fund to help deal with these emergencies. Unfortunately, you know, none of that really came, came together. And so we're back to where we are now where we're seeing these larger numbers of people taking to see either many of them dying on those voyages. And even those who make it ashore are either while either countries are either pushing them back out to sea so that another country can deal with them, or they're throwing those people in detention, or there have also been cases where Rohingya have been returned to Myanmar, where they're then then detained. So this this, it's a real problem. And it's something where there are solutions out there, you just need the political will, of the regional powers to to tackle this.
Brad 40:50
Because these are things like we've seen a lot of this link, Australia has been notable for the use of what are called tow backs. They basically pull boats back out to sea and hope that Indonesia deals with them. We've seen a lot of people who, who tried to find refuge by boat, being effectively used as slave labor for extended periods of time, because they obviously exist outside of the scope of, of legal protections. And as you say, like we've recently seen, I believe it was Thailand, who returned these refugees to Myanmar. And I'm the it confuses me. I'm wondering whether you can shed light on this because it appears to me that these Rohingya meet every possible internationally recognised standard for genuinely fearing for their lives, genuinely facing persecution, and therefore would genuinely qualify, having crossed an international border for refugee protections, is it? Is it lawful for countries to refuse to allow them to enter into refuse to allow them to stay to process a asylum application?
Dan Sullivan 41:58
In a word, no. I mean, you have it pretty clearly, this is a group that's been targeted with genocide, and the group that was responsible for that genocide is, is now has now taken over the country and in a coup. So yeah, I'd absolutely, you know, there's this this international concept of principle of non refoulement. And that, you know, it's, you know, that no country should return anyone to a place where they have a real credible fear of persecution and abuse. And that's I Yeah, it's, it's hard to see a more clear example of that then, with the Rohingya right now.
Brad 42:41
So I mean, that's, that's horrifying. But so the Okay, the, this is the big lingering question right now. Everything seems to be up in the air, like the the, the international community's pressures are probably flying back and forth, the Western Community is probably saying look there and you have to be given asylum, but the actual local community, you know, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, they are responding to this quite differently. things within Myanmar are very volatile. If the energy succeeds, and God willing, they will, then there might be a pathway for Ranger repatriation, but there's no guarantee of that in the our economy is is a, an obstacle yet to be overcome. They have not openly allied themselves either to the military or to the N ug and, and there are very legitimate concerns that even after a Democratic victory, the Arakan army would not be welcoming of a resettlement program. So the big question that lingers is what is the way forward? Is Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Do we have things that we can put into place to try and achieve positive outcomes? Or is everything just up in the air? And we're just hoping for the best?
Dan Sullivan 43:57
Yeah, There absolutely are things that we can be doing. But you're absolutely right to say that even even if we can get past this park where, which, again, it's not, there's no clear path right now on how to create the conditions that would be safe and conducive to the voluntary return of Rohingya to to Myanmar and those those words I just use our the game the definition guiding star for the UN refugee agency on what how return should happen, you know, that they should be voluntary and sustained. And yeah, so there's there's no guarantee or we don't know how we're going to get to that point. But even if we get to a point where the military is no longer directly in charge, yeah, you have that element of art, the you know, the the Rakhine and Archein. Whether they would welcome them they, as you said they've made some overtures. And then you also have even within the opposition, you know, put the military aside, there are those who in the past have very publicly espoused negative views of the Rohingya. So I think one of the things that can be done now and that has been done is that it's, it's been raised with the N ug and other opposition groups that they need to be inclusive of inclusive of the Rohingya. And we've seen public policy statements and positions out to that effect that they do support the Rohingya that they will support the case before the International Court of Justice. This is the you know, that the MDG does. And so I think that's, that's where it's really important, what can be done now is to make sure that the groups that would be responsible for making sure the Rohingya can return safely, are that they make commitments now, and that they're held to those commitments. But that's, you know, that's later on. For now. It's, you know, it starts with just continuing to rally international pressure and, you know, and coordinating things like targeted sanctions and pushing for arms embargoes and things like that to to pressure the military and then find ways to support the opposition you know, in in as was stated in the recent Burma Act passed in us in non lethal ways. So, there's, there's a lot more that can and should be done in the near term. But you're absolutely right to point out the fact that, you know, there's, there's, there's gonna be more more barriers, even even once you get past the the military obstacle, which is a huge one.
Brad 46:49
Okay, and so I, I promised this episode was going to be reasonably compact and, and fast paced, and I'm conscious of your time. So I think we've covered quite a lot of bases here. But as, as he's our customer, I want to just leave us with any final thoughts that you might have something that you want the audience to mull over and consider or just that that key piece of information that you want them to keep in mind as they as they go forward? about their day?
Dan Sullivan 47:16
Yeah, thank you. Um, this has been a great discussion. And, you know, I think I just leave with the, you know, what the, what the what the way forward is, I think in on basically three different levels. One is, you know, with this boat crisis that's going on, you need the immediate use of search and rescue and safe disembarkation of, of people and, you know, guarantees or pressures from other countries like the United States for those countries not to detain or send back Rohingya to this genocidal regime. So that's the, you know, the first immediate thing in the interim, you know, there needs to be continued humanitarian support for the Rohingya who are throughout the, you know, throughout the region, and particularly in Bangladesh, but they're also Rohingya in Malaysia, some in Thailand and in India as well. And then trying to find interim solutions. And you know, I mentioned in Bangladesh providing education and livelihood opportunities, there could be creative ways to work throughout the region to allow for exchanges temporary work or education exchanges with Rohingya refugees. And then a small but very important part of it is resettlement. We saw an opening at the end of last year of 2022, where Bangladesh after many years, agreed to resettle some Rohingya to the United States. And so those that's something that's, that's ongoing, and again, it won't be a solution for the vast majority of people, but for those people who are resettled, it will be really important. And then the last thing is to to continue to keep up the pressure on on Myanmar the global pressure and coordinate coordination to get at the root causes of this crisis so that eventually we will have that those conditions where they are conducive to a safe and voluntary Return of the range to their homeland, which is which continues to be what what the what, pretty much every every Rohingya refugee I speak to their their ultimate goal.
Host 49:27
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52:38
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