KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 – As many as 1,000 unregistered Myanmar Chin refugees live in fear of police harassment in primitive jungle camps within 8km of the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya, according to US diplomatic cables leaked today.
The camps, located on the fringe of palm oil plantations, were set up as far back as four years ago and some are known to the police who have carried out regular raids, threatening the unregistered refugees with arrests and deportation while allegedly extorting money in exchange for letting them go.
According to the leaked cable released on Malaysia Today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have been unhelpful in registering the Myanmar Chins, deeming them to be “on-emergency” cases and leaving them more vulnerable to exploitation.
The UNHCR registration provides the only form of protection to refugees, including children. Without it, they are unable to have access to legal medical care and education and risk being shipped home if caught by the authorities.
While Malaysian law forbids refugees from working in the country, many at the Putrajaya camps were employed illegally as day labourers in the palm oil plantations for RM25 a day, but were often denied even that pay for one reason or another.
The cable noted that as of July 1, 2006 only 7,805 Chin had been UNHCR-registered as “persons of concern” in Malaysia, a moderate increase from 6,566 at year-end 2005.
However, unofficial US sources in the cable put the number of Chin refugees in Malaysia much higher, at about 20,000.
“Working on the plantations for little money and uncertain payment of wages, receiving access to medical care only in some emergency situations, and facing arrest and deportation if captured by Malaysian authorities, unregistered Chin refugees living in the jungle remain among the most vulnerable and exploited refugees in Malaysia,” the cable said.
It added that one Chin told its translator: “We would rather die here than go back to Burma”; it added that the refugees “remained unaware that the United States planned to resettle thousands of Chin refugees from Malaysia”.
The lives of refugees in Malaysia have come under the spotlight since Putrajaya admitted to a human trafficking problem and signed a deal with Canberra to exchange refugees.
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| A young Myanmar refugee waves as he arrives for a demonstration outside the UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur December 3, 2008. — Reuters pic |
The first boatload of refugees held on Christmas Island were set to be shipped to Malaysia as early as next week, but the deal, known popular in Australia as the “Malaysian Solution”, has crumbled after an Australian High Court deemed it illegal two days ago.
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