The New Nation - Internet Edition

Sheikh Rakib Uddin

History does not offer any exact date, year and even a century when the refugee problem, now one of the burning global issues, began in the world which saw the movement of the human beings first along the banks of the river Tigris in Mesopotamia, now known as Iraq in 1,000 BC. But it is generally accepted the issue--the displacement of the human beings from their hearths and homes?-originated when they, split into classes, started to live in separate regions and zones. Throughout the history people hade to abandon their homes and seek safety elsewhere to escape persecution, conflict and political violence. This has happened in every region of the world in all ages and centuries. Now a number of countries including Bangladesh across the world have been tackling the problem, one of the human issues, arising out of the inhuman acts and brutality. The scenario is painful and tragic. The lives of the million people around the globe continued to be blighted by violence. In some parts of the world states have collapsed as a result of internal conflicts depriving their citizens of any effective protection. Elsewhere the human security has been jeopardised as the authorities concerned have refused to act properly in serving common interest. This is a clear picture of the present state of the world refugees who are forcibly displaced from their homes. The problem of the forced displacement is one of the pressing challenges now confronting the United Nations.

The refugee problem was first internationally taken up by the League of Nations after the first World War. Before that the problem was locally managed. The situation aggravated during the second World War when the situation forced by the millions of people in almost all the continents to abandon their homes and leave their countries.

The turning point came in 1950-51 to deal with the problem in a global manner when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was established with its headquarters in Geneva. Now the UNHCR looks after about 20 million of the total 22 million displaced people in the world. Some eighty percent of them are in the civil war-torn African countries.

The UNHCR which in cooperation with the host governments provide the refugees with safety, security, housing and food, also negotiate their voluntary repatriation process when it is requested for. Of the quarter million Rohingya Muslims who from Myanmar came to Bangladesh in 1991 because of the state persecution, 2,30,000 have returned voluntary to their motherland according to the tripartite agreement--UNHRCR, Bangladesh and Myanmar--signed in Dhaka in August this year. The rest are still living in the camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf in Cox's Bazar of Bangladesh as the Myanmar government have refused to take them back. The government has renewed its gesture to settle the human problem once and for all when the UNHCR High Commissioner visited Bangladesh about two months back.

Who are refugees? According to 1951 UN Convention on the State of Refugees, refugees are those who owing to well founded fear of being persecuted, for reasons of race, religion and nationality and members of a particular political party flee their homes and take shelter in other countries for safety, security, food and lodging. During the war of liberation in 1971 more than 10 million people from Bangladesh who were forced to leave the country and take shelter in West Bengal of India were treated as refugees. A quarter million Rohingya Muslims from Arakan state of Myanmar who fled to Bangladesh in 1991 are refugees.

There are three ways, as laid down by the Geneva Convention, to solve the refugee problem. First, is their voluntary repatriation to the country from where they have been evicted, the second local integration in the country where they are staying currently and third is their resettlement in a third country.

To conclude here, I quote a historical comment on the refugee problem by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, 'None should be oblige to flee from their own country in order toi stay alive. None should be displaced because others want to seize their land, occupy their homes and control their territory."