Burmese refugee curbs shut resettlement office

Journalgazette.net

FORT WAYNE – One of Fort Wayne’s two refugee placement offices will close, a consequence of the federal government’s limitations on the number of refugees sent to the city.

World Relief, a faith-based international humanitarian aid organization, opened an office at Simpson United Methodist Church on South Harrison Street less than two years ago in anticipation of an increased flow of refugees.

The U.S. State Department resettled about 800 Burmese refugees in the Fort Wayne area the year before the office opened. Refugees have been fleeing persecution in Myanmar, as Burma is called by the ruling military government, for years.

The high number being sent here had social services agencies seeking help, and World Relief said it hoped to ease some of the strain on Catholic Charities of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the sole agency tasked with placing refugees in the area.

But the State Department has since severely restricted the number of refugees who can be sent to the Fort Wayne area, and World Relief’s local office has welcomed only about half the number of refugees for which it was approved.

Calls to World Relief’s headquarters in Baltimore and Midwest office in Illinois were not returned Thursday. Dan Kosten, World Relief vice president of U.S. Programs, said in a statement the organization has tried to have the restrictions loosened.

Without more refugees, keeping the office open isn’t viable, he said.

Officials at the non-profit’s headquarters told Jeff Keplar, executive director of the Fort Wayne office, on Oct. 15 that his office would close.

That evening, he went to the city’s airport to welcome the last refugee on behalf of World Relief Fort Wayne – a 75-year-old Burmese woman joining family here.

It’s a trip he’s made more than 100 times, and it was bittersweet to see the gratitude on the family’s faces, Keplar said.

“If you’ve been through what they’ve been through, knowing someone cares makes all the difference,” he said.

Catholic Charities Executive Director Debbie Schmidt said Thursday her organization has worked with World Relief in many ways over the past few months.

“They provided a great service,” she said.

Resettlement agencies, through a public-private agreement with the federal government, welcome refugees at the airport; assist with housing, food and basic needs; and coordinate their access to medical services, English classes, children’s schooling, government benefits and other needs.

For the service, the agencies are given a one-time grant per refugee. For many years, the grant was $900, until early this year when the State Department doubled that.

After World Relief Fort Wayne opened, the State Department limited refugee placement in the city to those who have parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren or siblings already living in the city.

Fort Wayne and Detroit were the only two cities to have such restrictions. In June, at the request of placement agencies, the State Department modified Detroit’s restriction to allow the placement of any refugees in the Detroit metro region who have ties there.

“This change should have the positive effect of strengthening family reunification and lessening secondary migration from other placement sites to the Detroit area,” a statement from the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration said.

Secondary migration occurs when refugees are resettled in one city and leave for another. That has contributed to a Burmese refugee population in Fort Wayne that has been estimated to be the country’s largest.

Keplar thinks the restriction did not lessen the influx of refugees; instead, it might have contributed to secondary migration of refugees who arrived in the city without the support system of a resettlement agency.

But he said he prefers to focus on the positive effects his agency had in such a short time. Being a bridge between new refugees and churches and people who want to helpwas a rewarding experience for all involved, he said.

“I’m going to miss that,” he said. “I can’t walk away from that.”

aturner@jg.net

Refugees, asylum seekers need mental healthcare too

Malaysiakini

In conjunction with World Mental Health Day, Health Equity Initiatives (HEI) calls for greater attention to the mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia.

There are some 15.2 million refugees worldwide and some 88,900 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Malaysia, as of end June 2010, the majority of who are from Burma. Malaysia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol and does not have a legislative or administrative framework for dealing with refugees.

The World Health Organization recognizes refugees as 'one of the most vulnerable groups of today's world' with special mental health needs. Mental disorders like depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder are high in prevalence among refugees and asylum seekers, because of their forced displacement experiences, including extreme levels of trauma, loss, insecurity, abuse, sexual violence, and torture prior to arriving in Malaysia.

Their mental distress continues even after arrival because of their insecure legal status and inability to engage in paid employment legally. Poor accessibility to health care further compromises the mental health of refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees in Malaysia experience many difficulties in accessing mental health services and health care in general.

Some of the factors that limit accessibility to health care are lack of finance, ongoing security threats of arrest, detention and deportation, lack of recognition of their refugee status and language barriers.

In line with the World Health Organization's position to incorporate the special mental health needs of refugees, and to give due regard for equality and non-discrimination in the development of mental health policy and service provision, Health Equity Initiatives calls on the Malaysian government to provide universal access to mental health care, including for refugees and asylum seekers.

We ask that rates for patient care applicable to Malaysians in state-run health facilities also apply to refugees and asylum seekers because they require treatment and do not have the resources. In addition, it is important that the status of refugees is recognized, and they are allowed to work in order that they can finance their health needs and enjoy access to the determinants of health including food, housing, sanitation, and education for their children.

The writer is director, HEI.

'Happy tears' as sisters meet

The Nelson Mail

REUNITED: Thluai Par Chun of Nelson, left, meets her sister Dawt Iang Lianching after she arrives at Nelson Airport.

Two sisters were reunited for the first time in five years when 18 new refugees arrived at Nelson Airport yesterday.

Two families of six, a married couple, a father and son, and two orphaned young women from Myanmar's Chin state will start new lives in Nelson.

With her husband and four children, Dawt Iang Lianching joins her older sister Thluai Pai Chun, who has been living here since 2005.

The sisters exchanged tearful hugs and were soon joking with each other.

"She looks different – younger," said Mrs Lianching. "She looks different – older," shot back her older sister.

Speaking through Refugee Services cross-cultural worker Sui-Ting Cinzah, Mrs Lianching said she was happy to be in Nelson.

"I missed my sister, and I was so happy and my tears came down. These are happy tears."

Myanmar, formerly Burma, has spent decades in the grip of a military junta. Mrs Lianching had spent time in an asylum in Malaysia.

Mrs Chun said she had missed her family but was happy with her new life in Nelson. However, she had been so nervous before her sister's arrival that she couldn't sleep the night before.

"She was still in my mind. I can't forget her.

"I like Nelson. All the people are very nice to refugee people and we have lots of support people," she said.

She said the most difficult thing was the language barrier and "culture shock", but she was slowly overcoming them. "When I first got here, I really wanted to talk to other people but I couldn't speak, so I was really isolated. But I feel better now and I'm very happy now."

Refugee Services volunteer Anne Cameron said settling in was a difficult time.

Another intake of refugees is due in December, and Refugee Services needs new furniture for them. Call 5484978 if you can help or would like to be part of the new volunteer intake in February.

Generals' sham elections put safety of Burma's exiles at risk

National Times

There are those in our society who are blase about their democratic voting rights. Mark Latham provided a classic example when he urged Australians to vote informal in the August 21 elections.

But on the Thai-Burma border live a group of Burmese asylum seekers who know better. People who are prepared to endure - and have endured - jail in the name of democracy.

Right now those people, ex-political prisoners of Burma, are living in terrible fear and uncertainty about what awaits them following their country's first elections in two decades, to be held next month.

Advertisement: Story continues below This week the Thai Foreign Minister, Kasit Piromya, said Thailand was preparing to forcibly repatriate Burmese asylum seekers back to Myanmar - the military junta's name for the country that Australia still calls Burma - after the November 7 elections. The ex-political prisoners - there are more than 100 of them living in camps and illegally in towns in the border areas - know they face almost certain return to jail if they are sent home. And they are terrified.

One of them is Aye Min Soe, a video journalist who was twice jailed by the Burma military, in 1988 and from 1989 to 1992. He fled his country after filming the 2007 ''Saffron Revolution'', in which dozens of peaceful protesters were killed. He now lives illegally with his wife and two sons in the Thai town of Mae Sot. He is forbidden from leaving; he is not allowed to work and has no identity papers.

Despite his history, Aye Min, and others like him, have no hope of their refugee claims being heard. The Thai government is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and sets its own rules.

Until 2005, Thai government provincial admission boards made decisions on the refugee status of asylum seekers from Burma. This was an essential step for a refugee to be able to apply to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for resettlement. No registration, no resettlement. So when the Thais suddenly stopped registering Burmese refugees in 2005, UNHCR resettlements stopped, too.

When asked recently about the future of the Burmese asylum seekers - despite examples over the past two years of the Thai government, in defiance of international law, forcibly repatriating other at-risk asylum seekers - the UNHCR dismissed any concerns.

"We do not see any evidence that the Thai government plans to forcibly return refugees or asylum seekers to Myanmar," a spokeswoman said.

Piromya's statements suggest a rethink of this position is urgent.

"I am going back to Bangkok and one of the first things I will be doing is to launch a more comprehensive program for the Myanmar people in the camps … to prepare them to return to Myanmar after the elections," Piromya said in New York.

Aye Min says he and his fellow former political prisoners are "ignored and forgotten people". They are seemingly without rights, invisible, a problem that nobody, no government, wants.

Aye Min emailed me a couple of days ago, and his words were full of desperation. "Thai police are everywhere. We are worrying about arrest and repatriation," he wrote.

Since Piromya's announcement, Thai police had begun arresting Burmese migrants in Mae Sot, he said. "We are living very carefully, like a crow."

Aye Min explained, in broken English, what he meant. The crow, a common bird in Burma, has a "very suspicious manner". "Especially, when they see their food, they never eat at once. They check the surrounding with suspicious manner before they eat. In Burmese community, someone who is feeling unsafe and afraid of something, used to say like a crow."

But the international community's eyes, for the moment, are focused on Burma's elections, not on people like Aye Min.

Burma, because of its location, ports, natural resources and relationship with North Korea, is of immense strategic interest to powers such as China and India.

There are some in the West who believe, whether the generals intend it or not, that the new parliamentary structures being put in place might disperse power from the military and lead eventually to a more democratic style of government. Presumably the generals would like the world to think this.

But the elections themselves can hardly be called fair or democratic: 25 per cent of the seats in national and local parliaments have been assigned to the armed forces, which will also hold key ministries. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the last democratic elections in 1990, has spent most of her life since in jail or under house arrest. She remains there today, barred from running, as are another 2000 political prisoners who are in jail.

This week a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade described the elections as an "opportunity" for Burmese authorities, and noted a few of the parties registered for the elections were not affiliated with the regime.

Nick Clegg, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, was more critical in an opinion piece at the weekend: "These elections will be little more than a sham to perpetrate military rule."

He warned against the temptation for the international community to overlook the "deep flaws" in the electoral process because it was more convenient "to quietly agree that any election is better than no election".

Whether Burma's elections are a faltering step towards a more democratic future, or a decoy to distract from what is actually the political entrenchment of military rule, this should not divert world attention from what may be a human tragedy about to unfold. Burma's former political prisoners are begging for help. The international community should not ignore the pleas of those who have been fighting their whole adult lives for democracy in Burma.

You're a racist, Jenapala tells Azmin

FreeMalaysiaToday

PETALING JAYA: PKR deputy presidency hopeful PS Jenapala today called vice-president Azmin Ali a "racist" who is unfit to be elected as the party's deputy president.

"A few years ago, he (Azmin) called N Gopalakrishnan a 'pariah' at a supreme council meeting at the party headquarters here," Jenapala told a press conference here.

He demanded Azmin publicly apologise to all Malaysian Indians for what he said.

"We will never forget what he said,” said Jenapala, a former PKR deputy secretary-general.

He said those present at the supreme council meeting who heard what Azmin said were blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, former secretary-general Mohd Anuar Mohd Tahir and human rights activist Irene Fernandez.

However, Jenapala said he was not in the room when Azmin made the derogatory remark.

When contacted, Gopalakrishnan refused to comment. Fernandez said she could not remember but doubted that Azmin had uttered such a remark as he was a "credible" leader.

"What he said was something very disgraceful for a leader, especially one that aspires to be deputy president, and possibly a deputy prime minister later," said Jenapala.

On his purported sacking, he said the party has not provided any proof until today.

He also said he has received two nominations from two divisions in Sabah, which qualifies him to contest the deputy presidential post.

"Now that I qualify, what is PKR's stand? The party should do what's right... apologise, withdraw my 'sacking' and send me a consent letter for me to contest. If not, I will go to every member and explain what the party did to me," he said.