Refugee
Watch 22
In this Issue
Refugee and IDP Updates
Perspective
Refugees and
the Ethics of Public Solidarity: A Brief Overview
Special
Essay
Impact of
International Jurisdiction on Afghan Refugee Rights
Investigative
Report
Impact of
(Undocumented) Migration from Bangladesh To West Bengal
Reprint
The Lynching
of Persons of Mexican Origins or Descent in the United States, 1848-1928
In recent months the numbers game over illegal
immigrants has ensued in full swing in the Northeast and East of India. In
July this year the Chief Minister of
In
Population
movements in the region emerged as a security concern on the basis of two
developments. Their burgeoning numbers
was considered a threat and their ability to fill in any gaps within the
economic and social systems increased that threat and marked them as
dangerous. The sons of the soil
blamed them for their loss of control over resources. They allegedly established their control over
the economy through insidious practices such as money lending, providing all
kinds of services and even marrying indigenous women in matrilineal
societies. Then came the onslaught of
AIDS. This was also blamed on the migrants.
Either it was the prostitute who brought it from across the borders or
the migrant workers who preferred their services and then married into the
indigenous society. Therefore, it was
migration that needed to be controlled whether by monitoring borders through fencing
or pushing back victims of forced displacement into states that was responsible
for their displacement in the first place and most certainly would victimise them once again.
Persons were denied refugee status because they had been declared as an
outlaw by a State albeit draconian. All of it was done in the name of National
Security. This issue of Refugee Watch once again addresses these
questions of borders, cross border movements and security in the context of
migrations through
A fall
out of the concern over international border is that population movements
seemingly threaten no longer only international borders but also local borders.
Soon the same concerns that drive the National began to affect the local. Hence
even local borders were considered to be threatened. Slowly threat perceptions spread to ones own neighbourhood. The Meiteis seemed threatened by the Nagas, and the Nagas by
the Kukis.
People became refugees within their own countries. While the Mizos
were threatening the Reangs to go back to Tripura
from where they had come, the Bodos were threatening
the Muslims and the Santhals to leave their
land. Any migration after ones own was
considered a threat ironically in a region where even the so-called settlers
were migrants of previous years. Hence controversies over who represents the
indigenous ensued and local borders began to emerge as contested zones such as
the
Not
just practitioners of National Security understand this but interestingly
enough even human rights activists are giving legitimacy to claims made on the
basis of numbers. In recent times there is an increasingly vociferous debate,
particularly in the context of
Arrests and intimidation of Bhutanese refugees in Beldangi-I Refugee Camp in
On
As
there are no job and business opportunities in the camps, over the years, many
refugees have been forced to go outside in search of work. Those seeking higher
education also had to go out and get admission in colleges in Damak, Biratnagar or
Search, arrests and interrogation in Beldangi-I:
The Royal Nepal Army as a part of its counter
insurgency operations in Tarai (southern plains of
SAFHR
has learnt that on
However,
the army officer told the camp secretary that they information about the Maoists’s plans to attack the army outpost from inside the
refugee camp. The camp secretary was also told that the army was suspicious of
links between the Buutanese refugees and the Maoists. He was warned that the Maoists
could use the refugees as a “human shield” during the attack on the army
outpost. In the interest of security of the refugees, the camp secretary was
asked to facilitate search of the huts of the refugees by the army.
On
The
seven arrested persons were first taken to the army outpost for interrogation.
Later, they were taken to civil police headquarters in Damak,
from where they were released. Ms Parbati Kharka was released after
two days of arrest. Among others, Mr Gangaram Lamitarey, Mr Dilliram Rizal,
Mr Phulmaya Dahal and Ms Parbati Tiwari were released on June 8. Mr
Chandra Bahadur Parsai was
sent to Chandragadi
Jail. Mr Deoraj Pradhan is said to be
still in the custody of the district police office in Chandragadi.
According to information, the army has a new list of suspected Maoist sympathisers. The camp secretary of Beldangi-I
has been asked to inform the army of their whereabouts. The list included the
names of Mr Bhakta Ghimirey and Mr Hari Khannel,
both journalists, Mr Aitiraj
Baral, Mr Sanman Gurung and Mr Durga Neroula.
It is
also learnt that the Refugee Co-ordination Unit’s deputy supervisor of Beldangi-I had a meeting with the army in the outpost. The
camp supervisor in response to the request of the army has started searching
for the five suspected Maoist sympathisers. As these
persons were absent, the camp supervisor has cancelled their food ration.
According to information, the camp supervisor was planning to conduct such
checks in the entire camp and suspend supply of daily food rations of all those
who would be found absent at the time of the search. Apparently, the army has
declared the whole refugee camp a “sensitive” area and requested monitoring of
movement of all refugees. The story of Mr Gangaram Lamitarey, a Bhutanese
journalist living in exile in
Mr Gangaram Lamitarey,
a senior Bhutanese journalist and the president of the Nepali Bhasa Parisad (Nepali Language
Council) was arrested on June 3 by the army. He is also the editor and
publisher of Bhutan Jagaran, a weekly
magazine, which is popular among the Bhutanese refugees living in the camps. He
was accused of spreading Maoist ideology through his magazine and other
activities. He was interrogated by the army first in Beldangi
outpost and then by the police at Damak police
station. He explained that the Nepali Bhasa Parishad was a literary society and its main aim was
teaching Nepali language. As a trained and an experienced journalist on behalf
of the Nepali Bhasa Parishad,
he had been conducting regular classes in journalism for the refugee youths. He
also told his interrogators that the Parishad also
provided training to the refugees in the art of public speaking. As evidence of
his non-partisan position, he produced samples of the newspaper that he
published to show that it was not a propaganda organ of the Maoists. After
about three days, he was told that he would be released if the camp secretary
agreed to stand guarantee for him. Mr Lamitarey was released on June 8, after a member of the
executive committee of the Women’s Focal Point of Beldangi
Refugee Camp stood guarantee for him.
While
in custody of the army, Mr. Lamitarey had an
opportunity to talk to Deoraj Pradhan.
According to him, Pradhan
admitted that he had sold a pistol to Mr Chandra Bahadur Parsai for Rs 2,800. He had purchased the pistol from some person in a
nearby village. He admitted to Lamitarey that he sold
the pistol to Chandra Bahadur Parsai
for profit. According to Pradhan, Parsai
was not a Maoist, rather a petty criminal. Deoraj
felt he had purchased the pistol for use in his criminal enterprise.
However,
the Chandragadi and Damak
police have no record of Chandra Bahadur Parsai’s criminal activities. On the contrary, Deoraj Pardhan was known to be
involved in criminal activities. He was arrested by the local police two years
ago for his involvement in a robbery in Damak. Parsai, who has passed the School Leaving Certificate
examination this year, is known to be a quiet young man.
It
should be noted that most of the services being provided to the refugees in the
camps in eastern
SAFHR E – Brief, 2 (2)
Refugee Updates… Other Regions
The Brookings Institution
- Johns
Release Date: July 2004
The first regional seminar on
internal displacement in the
Email from: Charles Driest
While calm returns to Mogadishu,
displacement continues elsewhere in Somalia
Several weeks of the heaviest fighting in recent years
between rival militias in the Somali capital Mogadishu that displaced up to
7,500 families and killed more than 100 people, came to an end with the signing
of a ceasefire on 6 June. Many of the victims were among the 250,000 people
previously displaced by fighting who were trying to rebuild their lives in
squatter areas of the city. Elsewhere, the violence continued unabated. In the
south-western Gedo region, more than 3,000 families
were displaced and some 60 people killed in May due to a power struggle between
sub-clans of the Marehan. A further 2,000 people fled
to neighbouring
Global IDP Project
Further displacement in eastern DRC
Thousands of people have fled
fighting between a breakaway group of the former rebel RDC-Goma
faction and the Congolese army in the town of
Global IDP Project
A new proposal to end the conflict between
Georgia and separatist Abkhazia, with potentially far-reaching repercussions on
the rights of IDPs (and refugees), has been submitted to the Georgian National
Security Council by a group of local political and legal experts. The plan
would essentially create a two-member federal state, allowing Abkhazia maximum
autonomy. It also reiterates the right of IDPs and refugees to return to
Abkhazia, based on a joint Abkhaz-Georgian census to determine the numbers of
both groups living in Abkhazia prior to the conflict. The plan further sets out
the creation of a fund to compensate for the destruction of property during the
conflict. Tens of thousands of people displaced from
Earlier
this year, President Michael Saakashvili requested the
Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation to conduct a re-registration of IDPs in
the country in response to concerns that current figures may be inflated,
leading to a diversion of resources from the most vulnerable IDPs.
Global IDP Project
Refugees And The Ethics Of
Public Solidarity: A Brief Overview
At the outset of our
discussions, before we go into the legal intricacies of the status of refugees,
and discus their treatment by the media of mass communications, it may be useful
to recall some of the common conditions and predicaments of refugees and the
reporting on refugees. Although
The
conditions and predicaments of refugees in general can be summed up as follows:
- Refugees
have no rights. Their legal protection is spurious, if they have any such
protection at all. They are like wild animals that can be hunted, without
a license. The law, in practice, fails them.
- Refugees
have very few friends, because they are an embarrassment to most citizens
of the host state or a competing group in a situation of limited
resources. ‘Get off out backs’, seems to be the host society’s response.
- Refugees
are supposed to suffer in silence. They do, of course, have voices like
all other people, but they are silenced. Their voices are not supposed to
be heard.
- The
political and bureaucratic conditions involving refugees are such that
even if –a-rate ‘if’ – media wished to report on them, they, too, are
silenced by intimidation or by reference to the common national good.
- Refugees
are not only silenced but also hidden away in camps or settlements. They
are not to be seen, therefore not to be remembered. They are not supposed
to be part of any public sphere.
- They
are thus ‘non-people’, invisible and silent. In some respects,
particularly with regard to the
mass media world, Dalits, tribals and women are also ‘non-people’, but they are
at least voters, and therefore of some interest to politicians. Refugees
can’t vote, thus they are real non-entities.
Refugees,
of course, do talk among themselves, even if muted. Though living outside their
accustomed habitat, they tend to develop a culture of solidarity among
themselves, which has patters of rich interaction. In other words, we cannot
conceive of individuals and groups to be deprived of interpersonal
communication, although even that right may be curbed and limited on occasions.
At least theoretically, the right to communicate between individuals in the
form of inter-personal communication is generally recongnised,
though in practice that right is some times demurred. This tacit
acknowledgement of the individual’s right to communicate has its root in the
realization that communication is an essential human need, without which humans
cannot live as social beings as they are meant to live by virtue of their human
condition. Without interpersonal communication humans cannot develop their
intellectual, social and cultural potential. In other words, communication
makes us fully human (Traber, 1999:3). And if
communication is an essential human need- like food, shelter and clothing – it
is also a fundamental human right.
The
right to communicate, however, takes on a different dimension when we speak of
public communication. Why should anybody, least of all, strangers and
non-citizens, have a right to make themselves heard in public?
One
reason for this quandary lies in the historical reality of what can be called a
mass media culture. We have been conditioned to think that (a) public
communication is associated with the political, social and cultural elite of
society, that (b) ‘public social actors’ are persons vetted by the news value
‘prominence’, which includes the ‘stars’ of sport and entertainment (‘stars’
are largely a media creation). (c) Public communication in practice is the
prerogative of media professionals. ‘Common’ people, and still more
dangerously, refugees, may misuse the freedom and the power of public
communications. (The obvious of the power of the media in recent years has
been firmly in highly professional hands. Among the most glaring examples are:
The portrayed ‘techno’- war in the Persian Gulf (1991), the genocide in Rwanda
(1994), the war mongering of the media in ex-Yugoslavia (throughout the late
1980 and early 90s), and the military ‘embedding’ of journalists in the Iraq
war (2003)).
Advocates
of the right to public communication challenge the prerogatives of the
political and professional elites. Their model of communication is democratic
rather than authoritarian. They aim at the distribution of communication power
is society, both on the national and global levels.
Genuine
democracies require more than the election of representatives to a legislative
assembly in a multi-party system. More fundamentally, democracies are based on
people who can make their wishes known in public, and who participate in the
debate about the public realm.
But the
right communicate cannot stand in isolation. It is connected with other human
rights, particularly the right to education, the right to culture and the
entitlement to self-empowerment.
Among
the conditions of people’s self-empowerment is access to and use of resources
that enable people to express themselves, to communicate their expressions to
others, to exchange ideas with others. These resources includes knowledge and
skills, and the availability of media resources, viz. their technical infrastructure,
either their own or that of others.
In
the last twenty years it has often been said that the right to communicate is
the prerequisite for other human rights (Mac-Bride Report, 1980: 253). The
specific right envisaged here is the solidarity right. There is some empirical
evidence of the fact that most humans feel that they should, some would say
must, express their loyalty towards and solidarity with the weak and most
vulnerable is society, like the very young and very old (Christians,
1997:14-15). The solidarity right further includes an active commitment to
individuals and groups who have been relegated to the margins of society or who
have fallen off the map like refugees. (Communication rights belong what is
commonly referred to as the third generation of human rights. The first
generation of human rights refer to the freedom of citizens from state
interference (the classical civil and political rights). The second generation
of rights comprise economic, social and cultural rights. The third generation
of rights, which are still emerging, are collective and solidarity rights, like
the right to peace and security, the right of minorities and the right to
communicate (cf. Hamelink, 1994:59f). It is not
least a solidarity with those whose freedom has been taken away, or seriously
diminished, rendering them less than human. In these cases solidarity becomes
operational, transforming itself into concreate
communicative actions. “Ethics is [then] no longer a vasslas
of philosophical speculation, but is rooted in human existence. We seize our
moral obligation and existential condition simultaneously” (Christians in Traber, 1997:335). Active solidarity, including solidarity
with refugees, is one of the inescapable claims we make on one another, a claim
we cannot renounce, except at the cost of our very humanity.
Michael Traber
Impact Of International Jurisdiction On Afgan Refugee Rights
Since
that time, the Pakistani government has engaged in sporadic efforts to register
refugees and to provide some legal protection. In the early 1980s refugee
families were issued passbooks. (The issuance of Passbooks & Identification
documents was done according to Article 25 of Chapter 5 dealing with
Administrative Measures in the 1951 Refugee Convention. ) The passbooks
entitled refugees to receive assistance, and they were also used as identity
documents. On a sporadic basis for a few years thereafter, the government of
In
spite of the fact that it hosts the largest of world’s refugee population for
the past three decades,
There
are more than one hundred and fifty refugee camps inside
Source: United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees,
20021. (More than 20 years after the
The
government authorities responsible for promulgating laws and policies affecting
refugees in these camps and in urban areas often employ contradictory policies,
exacerbating the already hostile environment for refugees. For example, NWFP
government had been openly hostile to the presence of the refugees, while the
governor of Balochistan has been somewhat more
tolerant and cooperative with the federal government’s policies. Both of these
local authorities are expected to coordinate their policies with the Ministry
of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), and other federal government
departments, though the coordination between the federal government and the
provincial governments is often lacking. These layers of government are further
complicated by the fact that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has
a semi-autonomous legal status with the federal government. With separate
tribal leaders and security personnel located in FATA they are not legally
obliged to coordinate their policies with one-another, much less with the
governor of NWFP or with
Furthermore,
international refugee law includes provisions for screening and excluding
persons who pose a threat to national security and who are not entitled to
international refugee protection. International refugee standards also provide
for the separation of armed individuals and those who have not genuinely and
permanently renounced their military activities from civilian refugees, in
order to maintain the civilian and humanitarian nature of refugee camps and
asylum. These provisions must be applied in a fair, non-discriminatory manner
with full procedural guarantees and international monitoring. The Pakistani
authorities also refused to allow UNHCR to register new arrivals in new Jalozai camp in order to determine whether they were in
need of refugee protection. Without registration, assistance programs were also
stymied, since the registration of refugees establishes accurate numbers and a
system of documentation for the distribution of food and non-food items.
In
August 2001, there were signs of improvement. The government of
The
first category encompassed all who would be afforded continued international
refugee protection in
Any person who is outside his/her country of origin
and who is unwilling or unable to return there or to avail him/herself of its
protection because of (i) a well-founded fear of
being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion. Or (ii) a threat to life or
security as a result of armed conflict and other forms of widespread violence,
which seriously disturb the public order. (From Human Rights Watch Report,
Closed Door Policy: Afghan Refugees in
These
criteria generally adhered to international standards, and in fact represented
a potentially marked improvement for the legal protection of Afghan refugees in
Under
the relocation aspect of the program, refugees in need of international
protection (category one) and some of those found to be particularly vulnerable
(category two) were to be relocated to new Shamshatoo
camp, and to other camps located elsewhere in the NWFP. It was not finally
decided what would happen with those vulnerable refugees who would be put
further at risk if they were moved to a new camp. The third category would be
deported from
Although
not perfect, the agreement provided for improvements in protection for Afghan
refugees; however, these were soon lost. UNHCR and the government of
Inside
The
lack of legal status for Afghan refugees in
The
frequent incidences of violence during distributions made Afghan refugee women,
already unaccustomed to appearing in public places, deeply afraid to go to the
distributions in order to collect food. Other refugees in urban settings,
particularly in
One
of the few international human rights treaties that
However,
refugee families also often chose not to send their children to school,
especially when the only schooling options required paying fees. Families
explained how they had to send their male children to work as opposed to school
in order to supplement the family’s income. Girl refugee children were usually
kept at home with their mothers. In
Implications of 9/11 & Refugee Influx on
The collapse of Taliban regime close at the heels of
September 11 terrorist acts and the consequent potential for peace and
stability led to a shifting priority for
The
establishment of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan in June 2002 encouraged
closer ties between
Soon
after UNHCR opened voluntary repatriation centers in March and April 2002, hundreds
of thousands of refugees came forward to register for assisted return. To
accommodate the growing number of requests for assistance, UNHCR opened centers
in
As
mentioned previously,
With
Soviet pullout from
From
the very beginning, the local population had problems accepting adjusting and
integrating with the newly arriving refugees. Where a fair number of refugees
remained confined to their camps, and were issued passbooks to validate their
refugee status, a good number spread into big cities, aspiring to Pakistani
citizenship, which given the inept bureaucratic system was not too difficult to
achieve. Once they acquired the citizenship of the country, it was not too
difficult for them to purchase land, real estate and set up their own business,
which adversely affected local interests. The refugee population also started
to seek menial jobs and the local domestic labor market was negatively
impacted. The Afghan laborers would work for very minimal wages that were much
below the fixed cost of an average laborer, and would work in the most adverse
conditions.
With
the Soviets still occupying Afghan territory, and a constant flow of Afghans
entering
As
soon as the situation stabilized in
Conclusion:
As mentioned above, in spite of not being a signatory
of the Refugee Convention, owing to its domestic constraints,
Protecting
refugees is a shared responsibility, with States having the primary duty and
the NGOs, international organizations, agencies and other political entities
sharing this task. Although the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol are
global instruments setting out the core principals on which the international
protection of refugees is built. Though their legal, political and ethical
significance goes well beyond their specific terms, ultimately the full
realization of the international protection regime hinges on the ability o the
international community to find durable solutions of forced displacement
situation, whether these are voluntary repatriation, resettlement in a third
country, local integration or a combination thereof. The challenge is how to
realize solutions of individuals, as well as for refugee groups, which are both
lasting ad protection based. International responses to the problem of forced
displacement have evolved steadily over the last 50 years, and they will
continue to evolve.
The
legal framework and institutional arrangements for protecting and assisting
refugees and other displaced people have developed and improved with time. It
is our collective responsibility now to learn from the lessons of the past in
developing new mechanisms for responding effectively to the challenges of the
future. Meeting the needs of the world’s displaced people—both refugees and the
internally displaced—is much more complex than simply providing short-term
security and assistance. It is about addressing the persecution, violence and
conflict, which bring about displacement in the first place. It is about
recognizing the human rights of all men, women and children to enjoy peace,
security and dignity without having to flee their homes. This is the task ahead
for governments, international organizations and the people of the world in the
new millennium.
Salma Malik
Impact Of
Undocumented Migration From
[Below we present a reply to Subhendu
Dasgupta's article "Questioning a
Questionnaire" published in RW, no 18, 2003 - Ed.]
Introduction
A qualitative survey was conducted by the Population
Studies Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata to obtain perceptions of
individuals with respect to consequences of illegal migration from
The
illegal migrants are defined in this study as those who have entered
Peak period, migration and religion
The general impression of the respondents about the peak
period of migration was that though
Bangladeshi migration is a continuous process
peak period was during and after
liberation war of
Since
a) Up to 1971, the political factor was the main reason for migration. Migration caused by political factor forced Hindu migration most.
b) But both political and economic factors were the underlying causes of migration for post 1971 period, particularly the period in 1990s.
c) In the period 1996-2001(regime of Sheikh Hasina), the flow of migration was minimum and occurred mainly due to economic reasons, which caused both Hindu and Muslim migration.
d) From mid 2001 onwards, the reason for migration again has been political including insecurity of life and property of the minority community and this led to the Hindu migration more. When the reason has been economic, the migrants were both Muslims and Hindus.
Impact on demography
The study reveals proportion of working age males
increased since they migrated in search of jobs. Illegal migrants having poor
academic background are mostly engaged in informal sectors of
It cannot be denied that
a) Since single income is not enough for the poor family, females tried to look for job in unorganized sector.
b) Easy availability of part time work as maid servant in households
c) Easy
availability of information for job from those who already work in
d) They could engage themselves as flowers and vegetables sellers
e) They could be engaged at lowest possible wage.
Migrants
contributed to population growth of
Impact on Economy
The primary sector including agriculture, and forest was overcrowded by this inflow of low skilled labour. Unemployment, number of agricultural labour and general labour force increased. Water resources were also affected since migrants had fishing as occupation. Mining has not been affected since the migrants were not skilled required for this sector.
The major
occupation of Bangladeshi population
have been agriculture. Being hardy and labourious and more efficient than population of
Household
industry in
Most of
the respondents believe that problems
are multifaceted in informal sector. But
the basic problem stems from the overcrowding in the unorganised
sector of the economy resulting from ceaseless flow of illegal migrants and it
has aggravated the unemployment of West Bengal.Migrants
are responsible for deforestation, land grab, trade grab, illegal occupancy of
footpaths and railway platforms, though local resident population also has been
creating the same problem. Continuous inflow of migrants increased number of
slums, and the density of occupants in certain areas which negatively
influenced the water supply, health and education facilities.
Illegal Migrants and Vote Banks
Illegal migrants are illegally enrolled in voter list and used as vote banks. Indian politicians have often encouraged Bangladeshi migration to garner their votes.
The political parties try to encash migrants’ wretched condition by providing patronage from their end. To enrich vote bank political leaders help them to avail ration cards. Ration card is thought to be the proof of citizenship. And it can help in getting government jobs, purchasing lands, etc.
They are
forced to involve in various unconstitutional activities at the time of
election. Due to lack of good will of political leaders it is not possible to
separate them from original citizens of
Push-pull Factors
The economic push factors that motivate illegal
Bangladeshi migration are instability and economic depression poverty, lack of
employment opportunity, struggle for
livelihood, forced grabbing of landed property from minority groups and lack of
industrialization in
Among the
demographic factors population explosion in
Political
instability, fear of riots and terrorism in
About 59 percent of the respondents are of the opinion
that domination of religious fundamentalists / insecurity of the minority group
/ discriminating law and order against Hindus may be the factors that motivated
migration of Hindus from
In terms of “ethnic cleansing” one can witness elimination of groups of minorities, by dominant ethnic groups, curbing their rights controlling their influence in a state system. Double standards are observed in punishing criminals. Police officials do not record complaints from minority communities.
According
to 85 percent of the respondents economic opportunity in terms of job
opportunity, economic security and political stability prevailing in
Policy Issues
Regarding policy issues respondents argue that the entire issue of illegal migrants should be judged humanly since they are forcibly uprooted from their residence by some political, religious, social and economic forces prevailing in the home country or region.
About seventy six percent professionals believe that fencing and border security force cannot stop infiltritation with limited resources. Negative attitude of corrupted BSF often help the illegal migrants to cross the border. It requires proper implementation and monitoring of fencing with efficiency, transparency, political commitment and strong goodwill. Thirty five percent support Illegal Migration Determination by Tribunal (IMDT), eleven percent think it to be temporary solution, twenty six percent infer it as no method of solution since it is a time consuming process. According to some professionals no method of solution has as yet developed. Only a few recommended that increase in public awareness is required for the law to be effective. Some support resident permits system for genuine uprooted people. Some comment that they should not be issued ration cards. Besides all these, change of citizenship law/second citizenship to identify them, political goodwill, boldness, removal of religious fanaticism etc were recommended by few individuals.
Our government has decided to issue multipurpose photo identity card.
Providing support to the migrants is not a solution though it is needed at some stage.
Policies
should be related to protection of human rights, humanitarian assistance,
security of minority communities,
demographic measures, bipartite agreement with respect to trade, development, cooperation, and exchange
programmes for certain target groups from countries
of origin, and destination.
Pranati Datta, Swati Sadhu,
B.N.Bhattacharya, and P.K.Majundar
The Lynching Of Persons Of Mexican Origins Or Descent In The
The dead man, Rafael
Benavides, had been admitted to the hospital with a serious gun wound less than
twenty-four hours earlier. His wound was
inflicted by a sheriff’s posse pursuing him for an assault upon a farmer’s
wife. According to one newspaper, “the
fiendishness and brutality of his acts were such that the postal laws will not
permit us to print them”. The abduction
and execution of Benavides therefore elicited the approval of many local
citizens relieved at the removal from their community of this dangerous
menace. In the frank opinion of one
newspaper editorial, “the degenerate Mexican got exactly what was coming to
him.” Others were nonetheless more
circumspect in their assessment of the lynching.
While they did not
dispute the guilt of the dead man, they contended that his due punishment could
only be determined by a court of law.
The Santa Fe New Mexican responded to the precipitous action of
the mob by stating that it would “take San Juan Country a long time to live
down the bad name received by this lawless act.” Such an opinion reflected a new racial
sensibility among many Anglos in the Southwest.
For decades lynch mobs terrorized persons of Mexican origin or descent
without reprisal from the wider community. …
Historical and Comparative Contexts
Between 1848 and 1928, mobs lynched
at least 597 Mexicans. Historian
Christopher Waldrep has asserted that the definition
of lynching has altered so much over the course of time as to render impossible
the accurate collection of data on mob violence. It is therefore essential to familiarize the
reader from the outset with the interpretation of lynching used to compile the
statistics in this essay. The authors
regard lynching as a retributive act of murder for which those responsible
claim to be serving the interests of justice, tradition, or community
good. Although our notion as to what
constitutes a lynching is clear, it is still impossible claim to be serving the
interests of justice, tradition, or community good. Although our notion as to what constitutes a
lynching is clear, it is still impossible to provide a precise count of the
number of Mexican victims. We have
excluded a significant number of reported lynchings
when the sources do not allow for verification of specific data such as the
date, location or identity of the victim.
The statistics included in this essay should therefore be considered a
conservative estimate of the actual number of Mexicans lynched in the United States.Between 1882 and 1930, it is commonly noted that at
least 3,386 African Americans died at the hands of lynch mobs. Our research reveals, that the danger of
lynching for a Mexican resident in the
Comparative
data on Mexican and African American lynching victims are unavailable for the years
between 1848 and 1879. However, it is
still possible to place the number of Mexican victims during this time period
in context. Between 1848 and 1879
....The growth of the Mexican population at the turn of the twentieth century
and a decline in white-on-Mexican violence led to a substantial decline in the
lynching rate after 1880. Nevertheless,
the figure of 17.4 Mexican lynching victims per 100,000 of population for that
period exceeds the statistics during the same time for black victims in some southern
states and nearly equals that in others.
(Further information on how these statistics were calculated can be
found in the Appendix.) Statistics alone can never explain lynching in the
… Another crucial factor
to consider is that only a small number of Mexican lynching victims – 64 out of
a total of 597 – met their fate at the hands of vigilante committees acting in
the absence of a formal judicial system.
Most were summarily executed by mobs that denied the accused even the
semblance of a trial. These mobs acted
less out of a rational interest in law and order than an irrational prejudice
towards racial minorities. Their members
expressed contempt for the due process of law by snatching suspected Mexican
criminals from courtrooms or prison cells and then executing them. In June 1874, Jesus Romo
was arrested for robbery and attempted murder near Puente Creek in
The
reality is that the legal system not only failed to protect Mexicans but served
as an instrument of their oppression. Only under pressure from the federal
government were local and state authorities willing to investigate acts of mob
violence. Even when these investigations
were carried out, they inevitably failed to identify those responsible. As a result, almost no white man was ever
made to stand trial for the lynching of a Mexican.
Race and Conquest
… U.S. Mexican War had an enduring
legacy long after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established nominal
peace. Well into the twentieth century
the majority white culture continued to utilize extra-legal violence against
Mexicans as a means of asserting its sovereignty over the region. The lynching of Mexicans was one of the
mechanisms by which Anglos consolidated their colonial control of the American
West. Mob violence contributed to the
displacement of the Mexican population from the land, denial of access to natural
resources, political disfranchisement, and economic dependency upon an Anglo
controlled capitalist order.
The
racial identity of Mexicans was to a considerable degree determined by their
class status. The earliest Anglo
settlers to the Southwest saw the native ruling elite as a superior racial
group to the mass of Mexican labourers.
Travellers such as Richard Henry Dana asserted that the ruling class
could trace a direct line of descent from the Spanish colonists of the
seventeenth century. Their racial purity
elevated them to a position of social superiority over the majority of the
Mexican population. A small minority were therefore able to secure the social
racial subordination, a small minority were therefore able to secure the social
advantages of whiteness.
In
contrast to the elite, lower class Mexicans were classified as a distinct and
inferior racial other. Mexicans lynching
victims were overwhelmingly members of the impoverished labouring class. The majority of Mexicans occupied a liminal position within the racial hierarchy of the southwestern states.
The law classified them as white.
However, the social antipathy of Anglos undermined their de jure status. The contemporary discourse on race relations
perpetuated the notion that lower class Mexicans were a hybrid of Anglo, Indian,
Spanish and African blood. Their impure
status pushed them to the margins of whiteness, precluding their entitlement to
many of its social privileges.
Mexicans
found themselves dispossessed of their land by a combination of force and
fraud. The new urban economy of the late
nineteenth century afforded them few opportunities, confining them for the most
part to poorly paid manual labour. The
combined forces of economic discrimination and racial prejudice in turn
restricted Mexicans to their own ethnic neighbourhoods, or barrios, which
became breeding grounds for poverty, disease, and crime. This spatial separation from Anglos
compounded what the sociologist Roberta Senechal de
la Roche describes as the cultural and relational distance between Mexicans and
Anglos. The two peoples spoke a
different language and practiced different forms of religious worship.
The
physical and psychological boundaries between the two races therefore resulted
in mutual misunderstanding and suspicion....The primacy of racial prejudice is
underlined by the acts of ritualised torture and sadism that accompanied the
lynching of Mexicans. As Table 1 shows, 52 of the Mexican lynching victims
recorded in our data suffered some act of physical multination. The most common
forms of maiming were the burning and shooting of bodies after they had been
hanged, although there were more extreme examples. By contrast, in turning the
lynching of Mexicans into a public spectacle, Anglos sent a powerful warning
that they would not tolerate any challenge to their cultural and political
hegemony.... A similar conclusion can be made with regard to the high number of
multiple lynching cases.
Table 1
Crime of
Mob
… The dominant discourse of the
nineteenth century drew distinctions between “masculine” and “feminine”
races. Mexicans were classified
according to the latter category. Anglo
stereotypes of Mexican males therefore emphasized their supposed lack of
traditional masculine virtue. Mexican
men were denied the attributes of honour, honesty, and loyalty. Instead they were defined as unprincipled,
conniving, and treacherous. “The men are
tall and robust,” wrote Theodore T. Johnson in 1849, “but appear effeminate in
their fancy serapas, under which they invariably
conceal their ready and cowardly knife.”
The effeminization of Mexicans encouraged
Anglos to accuse them of such crimes as cheating at cards or cowardly acts of
murder. At the same time, it also
diminished their sexual menace to whites.
As the economist Paul Schuster Taylor observed, Mexicans were less
commonly seen as carnal predators than were African Americans.
Mexican
women as well as men suffered from racial stereotyping. Anglos drew distinctions between Mexican
women on the basis of class and race.
The earliest Anglos settlers to the Southwest sought to increase their
access to political control and possession of natural resources through
intermarriage with the native ruling class.
In order to encourage social acceptance of such unions, Anglos claimed
that elite Mexican women were the racially pure descendants of the Spanish
conquistadors. This emphasis upon a
shared European cultural and biological heritage allowed Anglos to claim the
social privileges of whiteness for their Mexican spouses. Popular literature romanticized elite Mexican
women as uncommonly beautiful, graceful, and sophisticated.
Racism
was also inter-wined with another determining factor in mob violence against
Me3xicans, economic competition. Anglos considered
Mexicans an innately lazy and unenterprising people
who had failed to exploit the rich natural resources of the Southwest. Thus it was the manifest destiny of the
superior Anglo to develop the economic potential of the region. Mexican rivalry for land and precious metals
was therefore considered an unacceptable challenge to the proprietary rights of
Anglo pioneers.
The
most striking illustration of this is the California Gold Rush. According to one estimate, as many as 25,000
Mexicans migrated to the mining regions of
Mob
violence became a common method of Anglo settlers as they sought to secure
their control over the incipient capitalist economy of the southewestern
states. The Texas Cart War of 1857 is a
potent example.
There
is one further factor that accounts for the phenomenon of mob violence:
diplomatic hostilities between the
After
a period of relative stability during the American Civil War, the 1870s
witnessed a renewed era of conflict.
Much of the cause rested with the creation of a free trade zone. Smugglers and cattle raiders from both sides
crossed the border in blatant defiance of the law. Mexican raids culminated in March 1875 when a
large band of outlaws crossed into
A
similar situation arose during the Mexican Revolution. Between 1911 and 1920, Anglos lynched at
least 124 Mexicans. The resurgence in
mob violence resulted from incursions into
Table 2
Lynchings of Mexicans by Decade
Mexican Resistance to Mob Violence
… Mexicans implemented
numerous strategies of resistance that challenged the legitimacy to mob law in
the southewestern states. … Without recourse to local or state
authorities, it was inevitable that Mexicans should themselves assume
responsibility for avenging the victims of mob violence. Frustration at the indifference and delay
that dogged official investigations fuelled the thirst for vigilance
justice.
Most
acts of armed resistance were localized and ephemeral. Once the perpetrators had accomplished their
purpose to correct an abuse of justice, their forces dispersed and the social
order was restored. Yet occasionally the
cumulative impact of white violence stirred such bitter resentment as to incite
a coordinated counter-offensive. The
conflict between Mexican outlaws and Anglo authorities in particular assumed
the characteristics of a race war. While
his actual historical identity is still contested by scholars, the most
infamous of these outlaws was undoubtedly Joaquin Murietta,
Murietta was one of the thousands of Mexicans driven
from the gold mines of
The
confrontational tactics pursued by Mexican outlaws proved
counter-productive. White authorities
utilized the full enforcement power of the law in response to these raids,
beating, arresting, and murdering suspected criminals. This in turn strengthened the bitter resolve
of the outlaws. A vicious circle of
violence and retribution was therefore created.
Although brutally repressed, the actions of
Mexican outlaws served an important psychological purpose. The mere existence of men such as Tiburcio Vasquez and Juan Cortina
constituted a direct challenge to the legitimacy of white mob rule. In the words of one Angle, Cortina “was received as the champion of his race as the
man who would right the wrongs the Mexicans had received.” While perceived as ruthless and unrepentant
criminals by Anglos, Mexicans therefore hailed the “bandits” as folk
heroes. Their lives became immortalized
through the corridos sung on the southwestern
border. These tales of heroism enabled a
disempowered Mexican population to strike back at least rhetorically against
those who sought to crush ethnic dissent.
Armed
resistance was not the only means by which Mexicans sought to counter Anglo
aggression. Spanish-language newspapers
such as El Clamor Publico
and El Fronterizo published numerous anti-lynching editorials
that articulated the anger and frustration of their readers. The white mainstream press continued to
accept the actions of lynch mobs largely without question. Mexican American newspapers therefore
provided an important counter-narrative to the conventional discourse on ethnic
violence.
It
was not until the early twentieth century, however, that Mexicans organized in
formal defence of their civil rights.
One incident in particular appears to have provided the catalyst. In 1911, Antonio Gomez, a fourteen-year-old
boy, was arrested for murder in
…
In 1929, Mexicans founded another defence agency, the League of United Latin
American Citizens (LULAC) organizer underline the difficulties of mobilizing
Mexican Americans, especially in small towns and remote rural areas. Like many of his colleagues, the organizer
was confronted with paradoxical problem.
The only way to prevent further lynchings was
for Mexicans to rally in protest. Yet it
was the very fear of mob violence that frightened them into silence. “The Mexican people were afraid of coming into
town for a meeting,” observed the organized, “because they thought they were
going to be shot at or lynched if we have our meeting at the courthouse. The courthouse to them was just a medium or a
means of being published. Most of the
time, even when they were innocent of what they were being accused of the time,
even when they were innocent of what they were being accused of, somebody would
just find a goat for something, and the goat would be a Mexican.”
It
was not until the 1890s that the protests of Mexican officials finally started
to receive a positive response from the State Department. On
…
The diplomatic protests of the Dfaz administration
must also be seen as a response to growing grassroots pressure from the Mexican
people. By the early twentieth century,
the regime faced rising criticism for allowing the massive investment of
The
lynching provoked a storm of protest throughout
…
The persistence of international protests undoubtedly played a key role in the
eventual decline of Mexican lynchings. At the same time several other forces
conspired to facilitate change, not only in
Acts
of racial violence against Mexicans continued sporadically throughout the
1920s. Yet where earlier administrations
had signally failed to secure justice for the families of Mexican lynch
victims, the federal govern now took tough interventionist action.
William D. Carrigan
and Clive Webb
(Courtesy,
International Journal of Social History, 2003)
Refugees and Their Right to Communicate:
What began as a series of papers presented at the South
Asian Consultation on refugees and their right to communicate held at the
The
book ‘Refugees and their Right to Communicate: South Asia Perspectives’ is a
collection of essays which discuss various experiences of protection of
refugees in South Asia, their powerlessness, absence of their right to
communicate and the torture, brutalities and indignities suffered by women in
particular, who form the majority of the refugee population.
Though
The
book begins with an introduction to the right to information by Dr. Michael Trauber. He sums up
the condition and predicaments of refugees in general. Though they become
‘non-people’ – invisible and silent, the author advocates that communication bieng an essential human need becomes, therefore, a
fundamental human right, to be enjoyed by ‘non-people’ too. It is only when the ‘non-people’ have their
voices heard that democracies can said to be genuine democracies.
Dr.
Pradeep Thomas then introduces the whole scenario of
refugees in South Asia, their problems and issues such as causes of forced
migration, the rights of refugees and limitation of these rights, repatriation
etc. In particular the author focuses on
the right of refugees to communication, which among others, is inclusive of the
right of these people to have access to and control over their own media.
The
second part of the book focuses on the state of refugees in
Samaddar also draws attention to the gender specificity of
current protection regime in the region.
Paula Banerjee takes up this point later. She argues that both displacement and asylum
is a gendered experience based on the fact that women and children form 76% of
total refugee population in
She
presents some select cases from
A
similar argument is put forward by Paul Newman in the Chapter ‘Refugees in
Their Own Land – Forced Migrant Women in
S.B.
Subba’s essay on Bhutanese refugees amd Dr. Bhumitra Chakma’s essay on the experience of refugees in Bangladesh
sum up the situation of different categories of refugees in the region in a
very concise manner. Jagat
Mani Acharya in particular
emphasizes the fact that it was media restriction and complete blanketing of
media, which can be said to have helped in generating refugees from
The
book concludes with a lively discussion by Max Martin’s ‘Norms Barrier:
Reporting on Forced Migration in times of Globalisation’ on the selectivity of
the media in publishing news, on what it feels constitutes as news and how
creative writing can go a long way in highlighting issues. The book has a brief
message from Lennart
Kotsaleinen on ‘Refugees and their Right to
Communicate’, in which he very briefly outlines the role of the UNHCR in
Aditi Bhaduri
Neither here nor there…
Sulekha Biswas
is young, pretty and holds a well-paid job.
Yet, she can’t find a husband.
It’s not that she is extremely choosy, it’s simply that there are very
few eligible bachelors in her community.
Sulekha belongs to a Bengali family from
Kolkata but she herself has never been to the city. Her parents met and married in
Sulekha’s brothers were lucky to have been able to
return. For there are thousands of
persons of Indian origin who have been living in Myanmar for over four
generations and yet “belong” neither to the host country nor to India. The last
official census in
According
to this report – the Singhvi Report – though the
exact size of the community is a matter of conjecture, there could be about 2.5
million PIOs living in
The
Indian diaspora would like their children to be
educated in Indian schools so that they imbibe “Indian” values. However,
Excerpt from Sudeshna
Sarkar's report,
The Statesman,