I am Diaspora; The Challenges and Consequences of Displacement

In recent weeks, the New York Times and Amnesty International have been reporting on the plight of Rohingyan refugees seeking asylum in neighboring countries. The Rohingya people live in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar and have been effectively denied citizenship and civil rights; often subjected to forced labor and forced evictions. Myanmar itself suffers from severe underdevelopment while its people live under the constant shadow of conflict and dictatorial repression. The military junta (the State Law and Order Restoration Council) that has held power since 1978 is no stranger to human rights violations of the most egregious kind. This minority at risk has become a stateless diaspora, forced to flee their native land in panic, pleading with Bangladeshi, Thai and Malaysian officials to grant them refugee status and protection, joining so many others in the painful pages of history. The team at The Human Trafficking Project has dutifully followed this story, exploring the intermediary and often fatal role human traffickers play in the clandestine transportation of these Rohingya refugees. Upon reading this story and conducting some research on the matter, I was reminded of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, whose oppression lead to the creation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), a terrorist organization that has been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland and found a Sri Lankan blogger from the Forgotten Diaries project who examines the heavy consequences of conflict on a fractured society. Both communities exist as less than human beings in their nation state, and are often forced to leave everything behind in the hopes of merely surviving and leading a dignified life. Happily, I found two blogs that deal with this issue from different angles, bringing unexpected nuances and questions to the very complicated issue of displaced persons. One author looks at a humanitarian crisis making headlines today, while the other examines the social repercussions of one that has been raging for decades on end. Both examine and humanize the experience of displacement.

Comment: “MPs blame human Traffickers for Rohingya”

Your post explores the overlooked role that human traffickers play in the midst of this chaotic displacement of the Rohingya from Myanmar into neighboring states. Present day repression of the Rohingya minority is only the latest development in the government’s attempt to homogenize in the hopes of strengthening their threatened power. I find that it has been helpful to contextualize this current targeting and abuse of an ethnic minority by taking a look at the government’s consistent history of such behavior in order to gain some insight as to the possible outcomes of this scenario. In the 1990s, faced with several secessionist movements in outlying areas of the country the government engaged in brutal tactics to repress and eventually co-opt various groups' attempts to secede. The SLORC went so far as to legalize opium productions fueling rebel movements so that their income be cut, thereby flooding the global market with heroin, which became the "it" drug of the decade throughout Europe. The Christian Karen group near the country’s border with Thailand has been under siege for decades. The public repression of Buddhist monks last year decidedly reveals that this government will not respond to pressure be it internal or international. Amnesty International has published a letter encouraging increased demands on Myanmar to cease its violent policy towards the Rohingya, but I would argue that this is clearly not the avenue through which consequential action will be engendered. The government views its projects of eradicating “non Burmese” elements as a road to peace and development when in reality they are little more than ethnic cleansing campaigns. The problem becomes more complicated when already impoverished countries like Bangladesh are faced with a massive influx of refugees, placing incredible strains on an economy still recovering from a cyclone that killed 140,000 last spring.

Given the complete economic degradation of these states, I would venture to say that the human trafficking element of this story will not be dealt with. However, perhaps the Rohingya will not feel the need to seek the services of such East Asian coyotes if international organizations step in to
provide the necessary space and provisions for their survival. Dhaka fears that inviting such help from the UN would threaten diplomatic relations with neighboring Myanmar. Although I believe that Amnesty’s call to respect human rights will fall on the dictatorship’s deaf ears, the call for neighbors who are party to the Land of the Sea Treaty to rescue people fleeing on flimsy rafts is an interesting way to make a potent case for regional involvement. The two hundred plus deaths of refugees forcibly deported from Thailand could not showcase this more clearly. Perhaps if Bangladesh is fearful of alienating its neighbor and trading partner, then more stable nations like India, Malaysia, and even Thailand, can ask the UNHCR for support in order to protect these people not only from their government, but from the risks of fleeing from its oppression as well. Those depraved enough to seek profit from such misery may not be thwarted by moral arguments. It is therefore crucial to ensure that those fleeing from violence are not desperate enough to fall into their hands.

Comment: “On Distrust, Suspicion and Personal Friendships: Understanding the Effects of a Socially Protracted Conflict”

Aacharya, I was both intrigued and moved by your post. What you write resonates in conflict-ridden nations around our planet, where war and alienation become the defining characteristics of life. I am reminded, for example, of Colombia where guerrilla and government have fought inconclusively for over forty years, with the ideological call to battle that urged the FARC and others forward a distant and irrelevant theme. And yet the conflict rages on unabated, claiming lives and making living unbearable. The Democratic Republic of Congo as well is under constant siege, its citizens beleaguered by almost twenty years of ethnic conflict fueled by the lucrative economic opportunities that can exist amid such chaos. People fight because it becomes more profitable than peace. People kill because of positions that have been senselessly ingrained in them, without ever really knowing why they fight at all. Children are born, grow up, and know nothing but the savagery of war.


In countries like your own when the engine behind conflict is an ethnic and/or religious divide, the consequences are, as you so aptly note, absorbed into the very social fabric of the culture. A divide is always there, as people define themselves in terms of their differences instead of their commonalities. As positions become increasingly extreme, they also become more entrenched, making negotiation and sustainable peace that much more difficult to secure. I would argue, however, that much hope is to be found in the young and future generations. Such optimism is of course contingent on the development of serious negotiations that yield satisfactory results, providing the Tamil and other minorities equal rights under the law and repealing the problematic Sinhala Only legislation. If and when such progress is made, then perhaps the secessionist cause can be slowly abandoned. An implication of the point you make in terms of social distrust, however, would become increasingly relevant in such a scenario, for peace is not something that is brokered by authorities, but can only truly flourish when it is in the hearts of the people invested in it. This is something that, indeed, takes a paradigm shift, a reconstruction of the most basic perceptions of the “self” and the “other”. The fruits of multi-track diplomacy however, teach us, that bringing children together in something as obvious as a soccer team has very positive repercussions in the long-term peace process because you have a chance to build from the ground up and create, if not unity, at least friendship and understanding in the place of suspicion and fickle bonds. I would point you to a fantastic book entitled Peacemakers in Action that shares the stories of committed and ordinary people in conflict zones that approach this difficult subject in innovative and truly moving ways, bringing beauty and hope to lands so wrecked and hearts so ravaged and renewing that driver of human spirits: hope.

Let the Children Die; The Girl Soldiers Who are Left Behind

As the once invincible structures of western capitalism verge on collapse, some industries are thriving. Human trafficking rakes in about seven billion dollars annually and continues to see healthy increases in its profits. Last week, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published a report on Trafficking in Human Persons that offers some disturbing insight into this rampant phenomenon. Sexual exploitation accounts for 79% of human trafficking, though, as the UNODC report acknowledges, this may well be simply because prostitution is the only visible face of this chimera. The rest happens in the fog of war or in countries where there is neither legislation nor enforcement capacity and where social stigmas prevent victims from persecuting offenders. The recruitment of child soldiers is one of the forgotten facets of this tragedy. Even more overlooked are the cases where young girls are recruited, becoming both victim and victimizer. It is estimated that there are over 300,000 girl child soldiers throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and East Asia.

Children of both genders are abducted, ripped away from screaming mothers or dragged away from their lifeless and violated corpses. And then they themselves are turned into ruthless killers. As induction, it is common practice to have the new arrivals kill other children who are tied helplessly to a chair. Those who refuse are used as target practice for the rest. In P.W. Singer's haunting book Children at War he records the confession of a boy, aged six, who along with his brigade tied two "women down with their legs eagle-spread and took a sharpened stick and jabbed them inside their wombs until the babies came out on the stick." This story is not exceptional. Child soldiers quickly become the most brutal fighters; violence is the only thing they know. The younger the child is, the easier it becomes to erase all sense of morality. So young, they know no fear, no wrong and are therefore often more daring and less forgiving than the adults they fight with. Such frenzy is fueled by rampant drug use.

For girls, the trauma is two fold. In battle, they too are soul-less killers. In the camps, however, they are taken as sex slaves and turned into "war wives." Should the daily violations they endure result in pregnancy, the girls are forced to abort using sticks and guns. If not, they continue to be sent into battle, with infants strapped to their back. The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka were the first to establish "Baby Brigades" made up of children sixteen and younger; roughly half of these forces are female. The Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda are also notorious for targeting young girls. In the remote instance that international peacekeeping forces intervene to remove children from conflict zones, the girls are left behind, claimed by their husbands and denied the psychological counseling they would require in order to, perhaps, reclaim their stolen humanity. Should they be lucky enough to escape the battlefield, they become ostracized members of society; even relatives will not take them back, labeling them as "unclean and promiscuous."

In unraveling this bloody Gordian knot, we are faced with a multiplicity of problems. The United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example, is a feeble attempt to curb this supreme violation of human rights. It is however, a first step, a well-guided attempt to alleviate the ills of conflict. The United States is, shamefully, not signatory to this treaty, which seeks to remove child soldiers from conflict and attempt to rehabilitate these broken souls. Current programs lack funding and people, and though governments may be party to this agreement and refuse to enlist any soldiers under the age of eighteen, the true perpetrators are beyond their control. Heavy recruiting often happens in anti government guerrillas and militias. Recent reports find that in nine countries both government and guerrillas recruit children. Non-state actors are three times as likely to induct children into their ranks.

So, how do we control forces that are battling against everything a sitting government stands for? They will not follow any protocol imposed by UN resolutions or any other such measure. This means nothing to them. In countries that are drowning in bloodshed, where is the space to provide the necessary help, even with all the money in the world backing programs and professionals willing and capable to save the innocent? Where do you begin to rebuild when all is torn asunder, when war is the only reality? In Liberia and Sierra Leone, where child soldiers made their entrance into the global consciousness, there is some semblance of stability. But the question remains, even in peace, how do you rebuild a shattered soul? When these kids have been utterly dehumanized, when their every instinct and reflex is violent, do you risk the well-being of classmates? Do you isolate them? After years of committing unimaginable atrocities, how do you bring them back into society when many times, society refuses them? How do you counsel girls who fear coming forward as rape victims? They all become an intractable part of a vicious, demonic cycle of violence that makes true development unattainable. In places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, conflict simply sees no end. A land so rich in resources, so poor in infrastructural and human development is raped time and time again; looted so that I can write this post on my laptop computer. As long as there is war, there is rape, there is abuse, and amidst all this suffering there is precious little room for hope and progress. Every survivor is left with the ghosts of loss and guilt to lead hollow lives. How do you end such a war?

These children are in desperate need of help from local peers and elders. In many countries women's organizations are forming, encouraging victims to congregate and share their stories, so that they might at least find solace in the company of others. In Uganda, a UNICEF sponsored organization has taken root and flourished. Empowering Hands creates awareness about the plight of child soldiers and helps to deconstruct the problematic social stigma surrounding female abductees. Through dance and musical performances, they raise money to help members start small businesses, allowing many women the economic empowerment to emancipate themselves and find hope. Over two thousand former child soldiers have been saved through this program and others like it. (see bottom, right)

Child soldiering has been in vogue in the West for some time, featured in the movie Blood Diamond, in novels, and magazine articles. So perhaps a few wealthy westerners will donate money, shed a tear and then move on. But nothing changes. We have become experts at pretending to care, and yet miserably and shamefully fail to provide the necessary action. We do nothing, or just enough to ease our own conscience and then turn the other cheek. If we do not stand up for the rights and protection of children, then how can we call ourselves civilized? Stealing a child's innocence and ripping his or her human dignity to unrecognizable pieces is the most despicable act. We must take the work of effective organizations seriously and support their efforts with funding and personnel. If enough people are trained and can participate in the rehabilitation of their destroyed society, then perhaps a road for peace can be cleared out of the indiscriminate wreckage of war.

Welcome to Witness: Introducing Resources, Establishing Direction and Encouraging Action

A professor once asked me, how many people died on September 11, 2001? About three thousand, I replied. No, he said, over seventeen thousand people died that day from malnutrition. I do not, by any means, intend to mitigate the horrors of that particular day, or any other traumatic and violent event like it. Merely, I hope to excavate the tragedies that we have grown immune to and accept as the collateral damage of the status quo. In a world of informational ADD, it is solely the crises exploding into chaos that are recognized by the press and given credence, often addressed once possible solutions lie within a range of terrible and unsatisfactory options. Our planet is in its eleventh hour, its survival contingent on the choices our generations make. Ninety six percent of the conflicts raging on today are waged with small arms and light weapons that cost less than a loaf of bread. Terrorist networks and organized crime are joining forces to fund activity through illicit drug trade and credit card fraud. The earth’s lakes and rivers are turning to desert. People are hungry and homeless, while world population goes nowhere but up. The state is losing power to all of these forces, and it is therefore up to global civil society to take action. That is you. The first step towards action is knowledge. Here you will find the disregarded stories of struggling diasporas, unending warfare and genocidal practices that are the daily realities of millions around the world as my upcoming posts will show.

In order lend legitimacy to my impassioned argument I will supplement my own relevant coursework and research with current and compelling online resources ranging from personal accounts of women in conflict zones, to the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. The work of committed NGOs such as Amnesty International and CARE will reinforce the action-focused element of this blog and provide respected and recognized information. The task of mending this broken planet cannot be undertaken faithfully without the voices and participation of the local individuals and communities most directly impacted by poverty, war, and environmental decay. To this end, I search through websites like Jeunafrique and blogs such as Forgotten Diaries. In assessing the relevance and credibility of the websites I will be looking to for guidance and support throughout my blogging ventures, I have followed the Webby Awards criteria that evaluate the content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity, and overall experience of a site. When searching through the blogosphere, I abide by IMSA criteria and consider who the blogger is, what type of materials he/she is referencing, whether or not the blog is established as part of an online community, if the content is covered thoroughly, how sophisticated the writing is, the currency of the posts and whether or not there is a clear bias or position that is taken. These sources and many more can be found on my Linkroll.

It is in the interest of the powerful to subjugate; and subjugation can only happen when there is silence, complicit ignorance and passivity. I am here to make some noise and hope that you, too, will fight the good fight in whatever capacity moves you in order to–finally–heal, develop, and move forward in our shared humanity.