Thank you, members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, for inviting me to testify here today.
I was born in a town called Buthidaung, in Arakan State, Burma, but raised in various other cities as my parents were transferred from town to town as government service holders. My mother was a high school teacher her whole life, and my father was a government bureaucrat until 1995, when the Burmese government dismissed nearly all non-Buddhist officers from every government service.
I came to Canada in 2007, and since then, I have been living in Kitchener, Ontario. Since the very first week of my arrival in Canada, I have been engaged in community work, helping the newly resettled Rohingya brought from Bangladesh refugee camps under government sponsorship. They share with me the painful experiences they have been through, both in Burma and Bangladesh, and they live and relive them.
One particular issue I would like to address here today is about the faulty repatriation process. Repatriation of Rohingya refugees always brings flashbacks of horrors and nightmares. Many of my close relatives and neighbours, as well as my husband and in-laws, were survivors of the 1978 refugee crisis and were repatriated in 1979. The situation for Rohingya inside Burma did not change. Many Rohingya I have helped in Kitchener were tortured by the Bangladeshi authorities during forceful repatriation of the 1990s. Many had broken bones from beatings, while some lost their loved ones.
A man named Mohammed Ayub lost his right eye when authorities fired at the crowd with live bullets. In another incident, a bullet pierced through the body of a woman and hit a child behind her. The child died on the spot. Luckily, that woman is one of the government-sponsored refugees who were brought to Canada in 2007, and she now lives in Vancouver.
Refugees were coerced to go back days and nights and weeks and months. Similar to the 1978 crisis, the real issues were not addressed, nor were security and safety concerns taken into consideration in the 1990s repatriation scheme. The process was carried out in such a brutal way that many a time returnees were chased, loaded into trucks and sent back without even checking if the entire family was together. Many, many parents and young children were separated forever as a result.
Now, again, the refugees are being haunted by the repatriation nightmare. Although the Bangladeshi government has been saying that there is no forceful repatriation and no one would be sent back against their will, many shed leaders, majhis, have been called on and tortured for not being able to provide a list of returnees. There are several instances of family members taking poison with distress, saying they would rather die in the camp than be repatriated. My own niece told me, “If I have to go back, I will take poison, rat-killer.”
The following points prove that Burma is not honest in repatriation talk. All those displaced since 2012 in Sittwe, Kyauktaw, and Minbya are still in concentration camps.
I would like to conclude with a quote from Professor Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur:
Myanmar...failed to provide guarantees they would not suffer the same persecution and horrific violence all over again.
Thank you.