07/22/2004

 Burmese Chin refugees in Mizoram state of India face the danger of being arrested, detained, and in some cases expelled back to Burma. Unlike refugees from Sri Lanka and Tibet, whom the Indian government does protect as refugees, or refugees from Afghanistan and Burma living in New Delhi, who are able to access the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Chin in Mizoram have the misfortune of coming under the jurisdiction of India’s Foreigners Act of 1946, which makes no distinction between illegal immigrants and refugees. India, although on the Executive Committee of UNHCR, is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, nor does the Indian Government have a domestic refugee law. The Government of India prevents UNHCR from traveling to Mizoram, leaving the Chin there completely vulnerable.

Refugees from Chin state in Burma have been fleeing to neighboring India’s Mizoram state since 1988, when a military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), came to power after brutally crushing the pro-democracy movement. The predominantly Buddhist SPDC has embarked on a campaign to "Burmanize" the ethnic minorities in the country and a large number of Chin have come to India to escape the religious, cultural and political persecution in their state, where the majority of the population is Christian. According to the Chin in Mizoram interviewed by Refugees International, since the SPDC came to power, construction of new churches has been prohibited. Other anti-Christian measures include preventing people from attending church, destroying crosses, and forcing Chin to build pagodas in place of churches. At the time of services, Burmese government troops come to the church area to collect villagers and take them away for forced labor. For religious gatherings permission in advance from the local authorities is required and permission is often denied for no stated reason.

Whereas before 1988 only one Burmese military battalion was stationed in Chin state, today there are as many as 10 battalions, and with the increase in number of soldiers, there has been a sharp increase in the abuse of the civilian population. People are forced by the military to act as porters and carry arms, ammunition and supplies. They are routinely called for forced labor on construction of roads and army buildings. Civilians, including pregnant women, are randomly selected at any time for combat training which goes on for weeks with no pay. Teachers are pulled out of schools for forced labor; as a result, the education system is in shambles. If the SPDC suspects a civilian of involvement with the democracy movement or the Chin ethnic army, arrest and torture are common practices.

When the initial influx of refugees came to India the government set up camps for them, but the camps were closed in 1995 as ties improved between India and Burma. Since then the Chin have been scattered all over Mizoram state and in the absence of any humanitarian support have been surviving by doing whatever work they can find. In early 2003 the number of Burmese in Mizoram was estimated to be at least 50,000.

Some of the Burmese in Mizoram say that they have come for economic reasons, not to escape SPDC atrocities, but when probed about the economic reasons, often an underlying case of persecution emerges. As a Chin woman told RI, "It is true that I have come to Mizoram to earn money. My son was forcibly conscripted by the Burmese army, I have not seen him for more than two years. My husband is sick and he cannot work. I try to earn enough to feed him and my three small children, and for my husband’s medical care, but each month, for many days, I am compelled to do labor for the SPDC. What alternative do I have but to come here, earn money and take it back with me to Burma? If I don’t come to Mizoram, my family in Burma will not survive."

At the best of times, many of the Chin have been able to live with the Mizo population and find some work to support themselves. At other times, however, they have been targeted by locals for being foreigners, harassed, and even deported to Burma. Most recently in July 2003, tensions between Mizo and Chin communities exploded following the rape of a Mizo minor girl, allegedly by a Burmese. A powerful youth group called the Young Mizo Association (YMA) began to go door to door telling the Burmese to leave their homes and warning landlords not to let foreigners stay on their property. A campaign was launched by the YMA, in collaboration with other organizations, to drive all Burmese across the border, actions carried out with full knowledge, and sometimes full cooperation, of state authorities. It is estimated that at least 10,000 Chin were evicted from their homes and the expulsion drive led to the forced return of over 5,000 Chin to Burma.

Those who had come mainly for economic purposes or had some hope of being able to survive in Burma went back at the time of the evictions and push backs, leaving behind in Mizoram those who could not return due to the danger to their lives in Burma. In Lunglei, Mizoram’s second largest city, 80% of the Burmese have gone back to Chin state; the refugees still there told RI that they had fled Burma for reasons such as deserting the army after being forcibly conscripted or being tortured by SPDC on fabricated charges of providing assistance to the ethnic Chin army. They would rather suffer at hands of YMA in Mizoram than go back to Burma where they could be killed by the SPDC.

Although tensions have subsided somewhat since July 2003, life for many Burmese in Mizoram remains an ordeal. The biggest problem facing the Chin is that of protection and they live in daily fear of the YMA. Every few days, they are visited by YMA cadres, on occasion accompanied by local police, who tell them to pack their belongings and leave the area. When they refuse, they are assaulted, and in certain instances, put in jail overnight to "teach them a lesson." Sometimes when the Burmese hear reports of the YMA coming to their locality, they flee their homes and hide in forests, where they eat mice and roots for survival. Once they perceive the danger to be over, they return to their homes only to find them ransacked and their belongings destroyed by the YMA.

Other difficulties facing the Chin at present include refusal of Mizo landlords to rent rooms to them as they have been warned by the YMA not to let Burmese stay on their properties. If the Burmese manage to find homes, they can be evicted at any time. The Burmese face exploitation by Mizo employers who give them the most menial and dangerous labor, the kind of work no Mizo wants to do, with minimal pay. They have limited access to heath care. When AIDS awareness activists try to go to areas where groups of refugees live, so as to educate them about the spread of AIDS, they are prevented from doing so by the YMA. Even in death the Burmese are not spared. In Lunglei district, the Mizos do not permit dead bodies of Burmese to be buried in the village graveyards; the Chin have to bury their dead in separate "orphan graveyards."

Despite all the hardships in Mizoram, most of the Burmese living there cannot imagine going back to Burma until there is a change of government. A small population of Burmese has been able to gather sufficient money to make the expensive trip to Delhi to seek asylum with UNHCR, but for most that is not possible. In the words of Pa Thang, a Chin who was picked up by Indian police for being illegal, handed over to Burmese authorities, then tortured in a Burmese jail for many months before he was finally able to escape back to India, "For us, living in Mizoram is hardly an option, but going back to Burma is no option at all, so we will just continue to stay here and suffer day after day. Sometimes we feel we are no better than wild animals tracked and hunted by the YMA."

Amidst this misery, there are a few signs of hope largely due to kindness of local people in certain districts in Mizoram. For example, in one part of Lunglei district, a sympathetic police superintendent is interviewing Chin in the area and if he believes they came to escape persecution, he is offering them temporary permits to stay there; in another part of Lunglei, recognizing that the Burmese are doing the most menial jobs that Mizos don’t want to do, local officials are allowing them to apply for authorization to stay in Mizoram, provided they have a Mizo employer who will validate their employment.

Refugees International, therefore, recommends that:

The Government of India

• Recognize that the Foreigners Act of 1946 is an archaic law and enact a national refugee law to ensure that all genuine asylum seekers who have fled to India are offered equal protection and are not treated differently based on their nationality.
• Allow UNHCR access to Mizoram, if not to set up permanent offices, then to conduct periodic fact-finding missions during which UNHCR staff have direct access to Chin asylum seekers.
• In the absence of UNHCR access to Mizoram, assume responsibility for providing protection and assistance to Burmese refugees, as was the practice from 1988-1995.

• Acknowledge that many Chin cannot return to their country until there is a change of government, and conduct public education campaigns among the Mizo people to help them understand that the Burmese have come to escape persecution, rather than for economic reasons.
• Prevent organizations like the Young Mizo Association from taking law into their own hands and attacking and harassing Burmese refugees.
• Create systems whereby Burmese with local employers can obtain authorization to stay in Mizoram and receive protection from local authorities.

• Encourage the Government of India to permit the agency to access all Burmese asylum seekers in the country and not just the handful who are able to make the journey from India’s northeastern states to Delhi.