The Rohingya refugee crisis is looming again in our eastern borders. If the walls break again, this will be probably the third time in the last four decades that we will be faced with a crisis that has a history of repeating itself.
I happened to be at the receiving end during the first crisis that occurred in the summer of 1978 as deputy commissioner of Chittagong.
In the beginning, it was only a group of families that had crossed the border near Ukhiya just across Naf River in then Cox’s Bazar sub-division. The border guards tried to push them back, but they would not budge. They complained of horrendous torture on their families by Burmese (now Myanmar) military. But they were not let in. So they stayed on the other side.
Soon, the number grew; more and more people converged on the borders with belongings that ranged from clothes and utensils to housing materials that were apparently taken down from existing homes.
It is at that point that the border guards got alarmed and sought the help of the civil administration to cope with what seemed to be a tide of people seeking to cross the border. The travelling would-be migrants had settled in makeshift huts across the narrow river on the Burmese side as they were still not allowed inside Bangladesh.
When I reached the borders after getting frantic calls from the SDO, I found already a few thousand people had camped out on the border. They looked very desperate, both in appearance and state of mind. There were men, women, and children of all ages in tattered clothes squatting on paddy lands, some of them had set up beds of straw under a hastily made roof of tree leaves and bamboos.
Some were cooking rice in tin cans and pots over fire made with twigs for the hungry children. Local people on the Bangladesh side were already offering food and shelter materials to the groups, some of whom had managed to sneak to Bangladesh land since it was impossible for the border guards to push a rising wave of people physically, without using force.
To push the migrants back to Burma, as it was known at the time, was difficult, as there were already more than a few thousand who had assembled in that location. The divisional commissioner, the GOC of the army, and police chief of the division were all there along with me. A decision had to be made on the spot so that the border force (Bangladesh Rifles) could officially allow the refugees on purely humanitarian grounds to enter Bangladesh territory for the time being.
It was decided that the refugees would set up camps within a mile of the border under police watch. Local administration would provide whatever relief could be arranged from local resources.
In reaching that momentous decision in the field, we were unaware what would entail. Although the home ministry concurred with the recommendations made locally, it was unknown to us how many more people would enter after the flood gate was opened in Cox’s Bazar.
Initially, relief was provided by the government, and our assumption was that the shelter for a few thousand would be temporary. But our assumption was proved wrong when the waves refugees continued, unabated.
In a few weeks, over 200,000 of uprooted people had entered Bangladesh.
What is unique for them, as well as for Bangladesh, is that Bangladesh is the only place they turn to when they face adversity
We started with two, but ended up with 13 camps spread all along Chittagong-Burma border, 12 in Cox’s Bazar sub-division, and one in Bandarban of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. It was a monumental effort to house, feed, and keep watch over 200,000 homeless people from the neighbouring country.
As the number of refugees increased, it became apparent that without international help, this massive human calamity could not be contained by a fledgling government. Initially, help came from UNHCR, International Red Cross, OIC, and some international NGOs. These agencies were later joined by bilateral assistance from several European countries, as well as Saudi Arabia.
As foreign help started to arrive and refugees started to receive generous relief in the form of food, medicine, clothing, and shelter materials, the inflow from across the border also increased.
Ironically, the new refugees did not show much sign of torture or suffering as the first arrivals had shown. I do not want to sound unresponsive to human desire for better living conditions, but the more comfortable the refugees became in their new shelters, the more publicity it received among the compatriots they had left behind.
This told us that the influx of refugees would not stop unless we took measures to repatriate them as soon as possible.
The strategy we recommended to our government in dealing with the crisis was twofold: Not to internationalise the issue so as not to displease the Burmese government, and to engage with the Burmese authorities in a bilateral discussion to repatriate the refugees. Meanwhile, we also requested the government to ask foreign agencies providing relief to work through the local administration.
Fortunately, the government of the period and the then Home Minister Mustafizur Rahman adhered to these recommendations.
Over the next six months, we had two successful meetings with Burmese authorities, one in Dhaka and the other in Arakan state where the Burmese officials discussed the refugees’ problem with an open mind, and later agreed on their return to Arakan state where they belonged.
In fact, before these official meetings, I escorted a team of Burmese senior officials (including Burmese home minister, director general of immigration, and senior foreign ministry officials) to several refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar where they saw the refugees and the shelters they were living in.
The first repatriation began in the summer of 1979 (in less than a year of arrival of the first group), and it ended in about four months. I myself escorted the first batch of approximately 40 repatriates as a token across the Gundum outpost in Cox’s Bazar.
Then the flood would begin. We closed all 13 camps by the end of 1979.
The relatively unknown Rohingyas of the 70s are a globally recognised oppressed group and therefore what is happening to them in Myanmar now is also global news.
What is unique for them, as well as for Bangladesh, is that Bangladesh is the only place they turn to when they face adversity. This is partly because, as Muslims, they think of the nearest Muslim neighbour, but also because of historical reasons, Bangladesh is close to them.
In dealing with another impending crisis, Bangladesh will probably not be able to deflect a possible influx without using force, but what it can do is to engage early with Myanmar in resolving the crisis.
Myanmar has a leader who is more receptive to international concerns than her predecessors. Bangladesh needs to initiate discussion urgently before it becomes a crisis. In the interim, Bangladesh can offer to help Myanmar build temporary safe havens for the Rohingyas who are converging on the Bangladesh border with international help (UNHCR, ICRC) in the border area, but inside Myanmar.
There is nothing that discussions cannot solve between two countries. Let us hope we can avert another crisis.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the USA.
