Reflections on refugees – 1971 and 2017

When I was interviewed earlier this year by bdnews24.com, I spoke about the recurring nightmares of 1971 which I experienced last year. For about a month in June 2016, I would wake up at night, screaming. In my nightmares I would be standing in the mud of a refugee camp with a dead Bangladeshi baby in my arms. I sought psychiatric help and after a short holiday away from Dhaka, and, to my great relief was no longer affected by the recurring nightmare.

But now, seeing the tragic live news footage from Teknaf on the TV channels every day, my nightmares have returned. The lines of thousands of refugees coming from Myanmar to Bangladesh are very reminiscent of the scenes I experienced 46 years ago. The only differences between 1971 and 2017 seems to be that today's news is 'live' and in colour while in 1971 news took time to move from place to place, country to country and was, mostly, in black and white.

The words I wrote in September 1971, which was published in Oxfam's document "The Testimony of Sixty", about refugees from Bangladesh pouring across the Benapole/Bongaon border crossing could just as easily be about Teknaf today:

       "There are no walls to keep the rain from blowing in, nor any partitions except lines of washing to separate one family from the next. The thatched roof seems to sweat smoke, but just as the smoke drifts out the rain comes in at every pore, and the mud floor which is their bed gets wet and slimy.

       Regularly each hut disgorges a hundred refugees or more who form queues for their government rations, queues for the wells, queues for a place at the trench latrines. Those with dysentery seldom make it to the queue. The children form lines for their daily dollop of special nutritious food.

       This is the totality of life for nine million refugees-there is no work, there is no money. They knew what they were coming to. They knew, that despite everything, it was better than what they were leaving, for here there is a chance of physical survival.

       We shall go on trying to help them survive here. Please do not give up at your end. But above all, please push, press and persuade everyone with influence until the refugees are safe again. Get them out of these monstrous camps."

       (Julian Francis, September, 1971)                                                                                          

In 1971, we heard from the refugees about genocide, about villages being razed to the ground by the Pakistani Army and their collaborators. We saw people with bullet wounds and wounds caused by bayonet and knife stabbings. Nothing, it seems has changed from 1971 to 2017 except, perhaps, the reported brutality is far worse than in 1971.

I am amazed that the world's media has been giving far more importance to the hurricanes affecting Florida and the Caribbean where a few people have lost their lives, instead of a man-made humanitarian crisis which is costing hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. A recent unconfirmed report suggests that about 10,000 people have been killed by the Myanmar army and police. These two examples (in boxes) show the similarity between the tragedies of 2017 and 1971. A similar story is also told by photos of refugees taking shelter in concrete hume pipes.

June, 1971 Krishnanagar, West Bengal

September, 2017 Teknaf, Bangladesh

The story of one shy little girl in a torn pink dress with red and green bows has a peculiar horror. She could not have been a danger to anyone. Yet I met her in a hospital in Krishnanagar, hanging nervously back among the other patients, her hand covering the livid scar on her neck where a Pakistani soldier had cut her throat with his bayonet. "I am Ismatar, the daughter of the late Ishaque Ali," she said formally. "My father was a businessman in Kushtia. About two months ago he left our house and went to his shop and I never saw him again. That same night after I went to bed, I heard shouts and screaming, and when I went to see what was happening, the Punjabi soldiers were there. My four sisters were lying dead on the floor, and I saw that they had killed my mother. While I was there they shot my brother – he was a bachelor of science. Then a soldier saw me and stabbed me with his knife. I fell to the floor and played dead. When the soldiers left I ran and a man picked me up on his bicycle and I was brought here." Suddenly, as if she could no longer bear to think about her ordeal, the girl left the room. The hospital doctor was explaining to me that she was brought to the hospital literally soaked in her own blood, when she pushed her way back through the patients and stood directly in front of me. "What am I to do?" she asked. "Once I had five sisters and a brother and a father and mother. Now I have no family. I am an orphan. Where can I go? What will happen to me?"   (Julian Francis, Eyewitness account of June 1971 and reported in Newsweek at that time)

Six-year-old Hizbullah tightly grips his grandmother Shiriluk's hand. He is wearing a dirty white tee-shirt and no pants. He seems clueless, his eyes searching the swarms of bodies for a familiar face. He wears a look of absolute puzzlement. He doesn't have the capacity to understand why he is here. As I approach him, he looks up, a sudden shadow of fear falling across his face. It is evident that he has seen too much blood already. "This is my grandson," his 70-year-old grandmother informs. Where are his parents, I ask. "They are dead. They cut his father and threw his body on the barbed wire fence. I saw my son's body draped across the fence with my own eyes," Shiriluk says. She doesn't say this with tears in her eyes. She is all cried out. Her face is stony, shockingly impassive. "When I saw this, I ran back and took Hizbullah. His mother went to get the body and they shot her. So we ran and came here. We arrived here today. We don't know anyone here," she says. All Hizbullah is left with in this world is his grandmother. While his grandmother was narrating the tale, Hizbullah looked up at her. His expression didn't change. He seemed almost irritated. From his expression, I could guess that he didn't believe what his grandmother was saying. He might have thought that his parents were still alive. Hizbullah's father was a night guard. The military came for him at night when he was guarding the shops at the bazar. They slit his throat and left his body for all the village to see. A warning. "He was bleeding from the throat. I saw it with my own eyes," Shiriluk said, repeating herself. I asked if she wanted to go back for the body. She nods her head saying, "No. He is dead. But this one is alive. I have to protect him," she said, wrapping her wrinkled, weakened arms around Hizbullah.   ('Death, despair and destruction', Daily Star, 16 September 2017)

The horror of 2017 may be the same as 1971, but with instant news, live feeds and camera phones, the horror is far more 'in your face' than in 1971.

In a way, the planning in 1971 was easier than in 2017. After Sheikh Mujib's Mar 7 speech, many Govt of India and aid officials were fearing a possible exodus of "about 10 to 12 million Hindus". Therefore, when the exodus of Bangladeshis, Hindus and Muslims, started after Mar 25, 1971, contingency plans, already drawn up, were fleshed out and put into practice. In Bangladesh in 2017 such planning was not, and has not, been possible.

In 1971, we had no idea how long the Bangladeshi refugees would need to stay. It is the same for the refugees from Myanmar in 2017. Everyone caring for the refugees now, needs to very seriously prepare for the winter. In November 1971 about 4,000 children were dying in the refugee camps each and every day from illnesses compounded by the cold.

I have a number of comments and recommendations for those handling this crisis:

>> I believe that it is essential that the government of Bangladesh appoints someone of at least the rank of secretary to take civilian charge of the whole relief operation. It is not possible for a deputy commissioner to take care of such an enormous undertaking in addition to their regular duties.

>> I am concerned that the Bangladesh government is considering a plan to move the Myanmar refugees to a desolate flood prone island in the Bay of Bengal. I hope that this plan will be reconsidered carefully.

>> I would also question the government banning the use of mobile phones by the refugees from Myanmar. I understand that the Bangladesh is rightly concerned about security issues in the refugee camps, but members of refugee families have been separated while crossing to Bangladesh, and some have relations living and working in places like the Middle East and Malaysia. They must be allowed to contact their friends and relations.

A few days ago the prime minister of Bangladesh powerfully raised the Myanmar issue before the United Nations and it is hoped that the international community will, at last, take the Rakhine tragedy seriously. The very complex problems of the inhabitants of Rakhine have been there for at least the last 70 years, but have been completely ignored by nearly everyone. The United Nations should urgently ensure that a) the humanitarian catastrophe is handled efficiently and urgently and b) that a resettlement process should be started through which people can return to their homes in Myanmar, live there safely, and enjoy full citizenship of the country, something that has been denied to them for years. The members of the government of Myanmar should commit themselves to implementing the recommendations of the report by the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State published in August 2017 and entitled, "Towards a Peaceful, Fair and Prosperous Future for the People of Rakhine".