Talk:Chin State

[Untitled]
the article is written in bad English and its neutrality is questionable. It should be rewritten. 88.248.113.212 (talk) 14:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

ARRIVAL’S NIGHTMARE

Fleeing conflict and persecution at home, the refugee in India finds a bureaucracy that only makes life worse. A report by Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar

Trauma: Myanmarese refugee Thetta found no institutional support after her child was molested Photos: fahad mustafa Over the years, regional politics and international relations have shaped India’s refugee policy more than anything else Than Mang was arrested on December 4, 2006, while he was on a hunger strike outside the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi, demanding to be recognised as a refugee. His appeal for recognition had been rejected twice before; with no other option open to him, Mang had decided to agitate for what he considered to be his right. To his horror, the same agency he had approached for safe haven reported him to the police, nearly leading to his deportation back to certain torture and possible death.

The son of a pastor, 19-year-old Mang was arrested in July 2003, while transporting Bibles from the Indian side of the porous Indo-Myanmarese border to his village in Chin state in Western Myanmar. In addition to the Bibles, an armyman’s photograph and letter, which he was carrying for some people in his village from relatives on the other side, proved incriminating. He was arrested and tortured on suspicion of being a supporter of the Chin National Front (CNF), a rebel group demanding a separate state. En route to the dreaded Lung Ler Army detention camp, the convoy he was in was ambushed by the CNF. He managed to escape in the ensuing fracas, and cross the border into Mizoram, where he joined 50,000 other Chin refugees living in make-shift camps. It was here that he received news from his father that the military had put out a warrant for him. The letter exhorted him not to return and to seek protection in India.

This story did not seem credible enough to the UNHCR; he was rejected for lack of documents to support his claim. “How can anyone force us into accepting refugees? There is a proper procedure for these things,” says Nayana Bose, UNHCR External Relations Officer.

When Than Mang was arrested, he was charged with being illegally present on Indian territory under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act. The Myanmar embassy was informed and an attempt was made to deport him. “I did not know what was happening to me. When I realised they were going to send me back, I cried and begged them to do anything but that. They would have killed me there,” says Mang. Fortunately, when he was taken to the Myanmar embassy, the official in charge refused to take custody of him and advised the police to deal with him according to Indian law.

Vulnerable: A family of Somali refugees in Delhi Indian law treats the refugee as ordinary aliens, making it impossible for them to integrate into society “We had no idea that he would be taken to the Myanmar embassy,” says Nayana Bose. “Earlier, they would simply round them up and take them away.” The ignorance is shocking. An organisation dedicated to “safeguarding the rights and well being of refugees” needs to be better informed of the laws related to them. The decision to report Mang to the police in the first place was a gross violation of trust that could also have proved fatal. Ironically, however, the danger that the UNHCR had put Mang into finally opened their eyes to his “legitimate fear of persecution”; he was granted refugee status on March 26, 2007.

Mang’s case is not an exception. The South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC), a human rights group that works with Myanmarese refugees, says that many of them receive rude treatment at the hands of the UNHCR’s legal officers and are refused recognition unjustly. “We could only conclude that interviews with many asylum seekers were conducted by under-trained staff, who work with a suspicious attitude and do not address the core reasons why an individual feels he could establish a fear of persecution,” says SAHRDC managing director Ravi Nair.

India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1968 protocol, the benchmark for all international refugee law, which recognises a refugee as “any person who … owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”. The official justification given by India is that the Convention defines refugees on an individual level, while India prefers to deal with them as a group. Over the years, regional politics and international relations have come to shape India’s ad hoc refugee policy more than anything else. Hence, Sri Lankan Tamils and Tibetans are recognised and supported as refugees by the Indian government, while other groups, like the Afghans and the Myanmarese, are not. The UNHCR itself was re-established in Delhi in 1981 with a limited mandate: to deal with the influx of Afghan refugees following the Soviet invasion, since India did not wish to upset the Soviet Union by dealing with the refugees directly.

Similarly, when Myanmar began its crackdown on suspected Chin National Front supporters in 1988, India set up refugee camps in Manipur and Mizoram to accommodate Myanmarese Chin refugees. However, with the normalisation of Indo-Myanmarese relations and with India looking to curb China’s influence in the region, India became warmer towards the Myanmarese regime and the camps fell into neglect.

Brave fight: Than Mang was nearly deported before he could get his UNHCR refugee certificate While 90 percent of the refugees are employed in the informal sector, they cannot negotiate terms of employment and often find themselves being exploited Delhi has 15,000 “urban refugees” under UNHCR care, including Afghans, Myanmarese, Sudanese, Somalis, Iranians and Iraqis. This constitutes one of the largest and most diversified urban-refugee populations anywhere. Most have fled violent, war-torn environments in the hope of finding a better future for themselves and their children.

Instead, they find themselves in a limbo in India. Indian law treats them as ordinary aliens, making it impossible for them to integrate into Indian society. They have no legal status and are forbidden to work, trade, set up businesses or own property. Their ambiguous legal status makes them subject to harassment by local authorities.

The Myanmarese Chin are the most disadvantaged. Their physical traits, rural background, religious and cultural practices and inability to speak local languages, makes it difficult for them to blend in, leaving them more vulnerable. Most of the 1,800 Myanmarese Chin refugees in Delhi live in overcrowded rooms, have no means of supporting themselves and are routinely abused and harassed by locals.

On the other hand, Afghan refugees have historical roots here and find it easier to blend in, while most Iranians and Iraqis receive financial support from relatives settled in the West. Somalis form a small group in Delhi; most of them prefer to live in Hyderabad where they have a large support structure in the form of religious institutions and a significant African population.

Myanmarese refugees are mostly settled in West Delhi, an area almost entirely composed of internal refugees and economic migrants who resent the extra pressure on resources and jobs. Xenophobia and racism are a fact of life here.

“I thought India meant democracy and freedom. However, I do not feel free. Only more depressed and exploited,” says Thetta, a Myanmarese Chin refugee. In Delhi since 2002, Thetta brings up her three children in a small room in Jivan Bagh. In June 2006, her seven-year-old daughter, Bawi Lang, was molested and forced into oral sex by her neighbour’s teenage son. The child went into severe depression; she does not speak and constantly washes her hands and mouth. Although the police arrested the 14-year-old assailant, they subsequently forced Thetta into a “compromise” as the accused was a minor and, more importantly, a local. After the incident, the hostility towards the family increased — people threw garbage at Thetta’s children, abused them verbally and even beat up her husband. The derogation eventually forced them to shift their home. “Nobody knows our reality,” says Thetta, nearly in tears. “People and the environment here harm us even more”.

Thetta was a schoolteacher in Myanmar, and wants to send her daughter to school to help her get over her trauma. However, the small sum she gets for her children’s education, in addition to the Rs 1,300 subsistence allowance and the Rs 3,000 that her husband brings home thanks to the UNHCR’s Basic Salary scheme, is barely enough to meet monthly expenditures.

Most refugees, however, are not fortunate enough to receive these benefits. Budget cuts in the UNHCR’s global operations forced the Delhi office to gradually withdraw its permanent Subsistence Allowance to refugees from 2003. The allowance is now only given for the initial year after refugee status is granted and is revoked thereafter, except in some cases when the UNHCR subjectively considers a person an Extremely Vulnerable Individual — mostly denoting female heads of households, the elderly and the disabled.

The UNHCR’s mantra for refugees since then has been a self-reliance programme that provides refugees voluntary education and then finds them suitable jobs. Minimum wages are ensured for refugees by the Basic Salary schemes under which the income of two members per family is complemented by the UNHCR to meet minimum wage levels under Indian law.

The success of the programme is, however, limited. The lack of legal status for the refugees makes economic self-sufficiency unrealistic. Employers, too, are not comfortable hiring refugees; most simply do not trust them. While 90 percent of the refugees are employed in the informal sector, they cannot negotiate terms of employment and often find themselves being exploited.

Additionally, the programme only benefits those who already have some sort of skill. For others, especially those from rural backgrounds, it is nearly impossible to find a job. Although linguistic and vocational training is provided by partner ngos, the infrastructure and funds are inadequate to make a real impact.

Hence, for most refugees in Delhi resettlement to a third country is the only viable option for a secure future. This, again, is not guaranteed. It requires third countries to be willing to open their doors to foreign refugees. Despite the recent success of having 200 Afghan refugees resettled in New Zealand, the UNHCR agrees that the prospects of resettlement as a durable solution might be dwindling.

India has consistently maintained that although it has not ratified the 1951 Charter, it has done more for refugees than most countries. While this may be true of politically important groups like the Tibetans and the Sri Lankan Tamils, the claim ignores the plight of refugees of other nationalities. The 1,800 Myanmarese in New Delhi are living an urban nightmare. Another 50,000 languish in the Northeast. By denying refugees legal status and the right to work and refusing to grant the UNHCR access to other parts of the country, the government hinders any effective refugee protection. Jun 09, 2007

Flag
http://www.wikivoyage.org/de/Bild:Flag_of_Chin_State.svg looks quite different. I don't know which flag is correct, perhaps someone knows :) --UnreifeKirsche (talk) 10:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Chin Hills was never a tributary to any kingdom
This article is biased. It does not cite a good resource how Chin state became a tributary to Burmese kingdom. This cannot be true. Chin state was never a tributary or a subjugated region under Burmese Kingdom. Instead, Chin Hills was living in peace with Burmese Kingdom side by side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralliantu (talk • contribs) 01:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Cleanliness
The top clause "Not to be confused with Chinland (Lairam), the Laimi-inhabited areas of Bangladesh, India and Burma (Myanmar)." should be removed from this article page. It does not serve any purpose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralliantu (talk • contribs) 01:20, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

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