A Research paper on “Do refugees create internal conflict

and if it does so, is it protracted in nature?” from

perspective of Rohingya refugee issue

Introduction: Most of scholarly literature and public discussion about refugee flows treat
population movements as a consequence of conflict rather than as a possible cause (see, e.g.,
Azam andHoeffler 2002, Davenport, Moore and Poe 2003, Schmeidl 1997, Weiner 1996,
Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo 1989). However in this research paper, we will try to look for
possibilities of refugees as a factor creating conflict in a host country. And as a case, we have
decided to analyze it from Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. The movement of hundreds of
thousands of Rohingya in Bangladesh in a short span of time, who are driven by the torture and
killing of Myanmar, is causing great damage in every aspects of Bangladesh. As of now in 2018,
an estimated 850,000 Rohingya refugees have taken shelter in Bangladesh to avoid ethnic and
religious persecution by Myanmar security forces. Although Myanmar government is putting a
fake story of taking back Rohingyas who have proper documents to prove they are nationalities
of Myanmar but it is well known by all that Rohingya have never been allowed any national
recognition through any national ID card or documents. So its just a play by Myanmar
government to delude the attention of International Community. However in this process, the
ultimate damage is silently occurring in our country in the pretext of security issue. The
campaigns in Cox’s Bazar are now overpopulated by Rohingyas, which is disrupting the normal
ambiance, also the scarcity of water, food, sanitation, health services, livelihood etc. is slowly
creating conflicting zone in those areas of refugee camps. The lack of basic human needs can
push them to engage into illegal activities without any remorse. In this paper, we will try to look
at the possibility of rising conflict from Rohingya refugee issue and also is there any chance that
it will turn into internal conflict in Bangladesh which will be protracted in nature.

Research Hypothesis: A research hypothesis transform research questions into the outcome
of the study. So for this, research paper our hypothesis will be:

“Do refugees create internal conflict and if it does so, is it protracted in nature?”

Research Question: The research question acts as a plan for any research project. It
determines the type of data to be collected and the methods to be used. So, research question is
an integral part of a research. The main research questions for this paper will be:

i. Is the high flow of refugees in a host country creating internal conflict?

 ii. Is the duration of incoming refugees has an impact on creating internal conflict?
iii. Is there any chance of organized crime group incoming with the refugees creating
internal conflict?

These research questions will determine the authenticity of our research hypothesis after giving
necessary data on behalf of the research hypothesis or against it.

Background of the study: The Rohingya refugee issue is decades old problem for
Bangladesh. Since 1970’s Rohingyas of Myanmar has been coming to Bangladesh. In 1990’s,
almost 250,000 refugees took shelter in camps of Bangladesh. Though 20,000 were repatriated
by government but again in 2015 and 2017, an estimated 500,000 Rohingyas crossed Naf river to
flee from Myanmar government atrocity. The reason behind this terrible persecution and killing
of Rohingya is they are Muslim minority in Myanmar and are regarded as illegal migrants from
Bangladesh. But this is totally wrong thinking of Myanmar government because from centuries,
Rohingya Muslims have been living in the Rakhine area for generation to generation. But they
have been denied any kind of recognition from state and denied access to other parts of the
country without any permission. They have been suffering from poverty, health problems, lack
of education, livelihood. From time to time Myanmar government initiated operations to drive
Rohingyas out of the state. Lastly in August 2017, huge influx of Rohingya refugees in
Kutupalong, Nayapara camps has broke all past records of this long lasting refugee crisis. They
are now living in different parts of Cox’s Bazar like Teknaf, Ukhiya. At present majority
refugees are living unregistered and there is no sign of repatriation initiative by Myanmar
government. Although a memorandum has been signed between Myanmar and Bangladesh in
November, 2017 on repatriation of Rohingyas but no progress has been made on this regard.
From here on, we need to look at the negative impacts of this crisis on the internal stability of
Bangladesh. So this paper will focus on this aspect of the Rohingya issue.

Literature review: To better understand the depth and necessity of this study, we need to
evaluate some previous workings of different authors and organizations. These publications will
definitely increase our knowledge on the area of internal conflict issue. Below are some
references of past working papers:

 A research work done by Idean Salehyan and Kristian Gleditsch from University of
California and Centre for the Study of Civil War, International Peace Research, Oslo
named “Refugee Flows and the spread of Civil War” has worked on their hypothesis
that presence of refugees and displaced populations can increase the risk of subsequent
conflict in host and origin countries. But this can be mitigated with effective political
institutional mechanisms if taken seriously.1
 An article titled “Conflict is Key to Understanding Migration” by Jean Marie
Guehenno, published from Carnegie Europe in May 2016, had the idea that deadly
conflicts in different parts of the world is creating and driving massive exodus of
 refugees. Wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia are alone responsible for more than
half of the world’s total refugee population. But the main concern is that refugees create
risk factors for new cycles of conflict which can make host country vulnerable,
breakdown of International conflict management system and ultimately the global order.2

Conceptual Framework: This part provides a description of the principle concepts and
constructs and describes how they are related to each other. To conceptualize the study of our
paper, we need to first define relations among all concepts. At first we need to understand the
real meaning of “Refugee”, ‘A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her
country because of the fear of persecution, war, violence as for membership in a particular social
group, race, religion, nationality, political opinion. 3 By “Internal Conflict”, according to
Michael E. Brown, we understand violent or potentially violent disputes whose origins can be
traced primarily to domestic rather than systematic factors and where armed violence takes place
or threatens to take place primarily within the borders of a single state. For example, internal
conflict can happen in various forms like power struggles involving military or civilian leaders,
armed ethnic conflicts, secessionist’s campaigns, armed ideological struggle, criminal activities
threatening state sovereignty etc.4 And by “Protracted social conflict” we refer that conflict
which is unresolvable, prolonged in nature and its underlying causes are the denial of social
human needs which is why they are difficult to mitigate. 5 Here on, we can build a conceptual
framework with establishing inter-relation among all these concepts.

High flow of refugees

Refugees incoming for longer period

Incoming of ‘crime group’ with refuge

Creating instability in host country [deforestation, fuelwood shortage, water scarcity]

& ground for violence [decreased land,imbalanced social relations, economic crisis]

Ignition of internal conflict

Protracted conflict

Methodology:

A research approach/paradigm significantly influences the data gathering strategies so we should

carefully choose it. As our study will focus on ‘how’ refugee creates conflict in host country and
is it protracted in nature, it will explore it deeply and the approach will be constructivist in
nature. That means we need to gather qualitative data to explore the study. The reason of
choosing qualitative research approach in this study specifically is the need of deep analysis of
secondary data sources. As we do not have any experimental, numerical data involved here we
cannot employ quantitative approach here. The data gathering strategies will be adopted here are
---

i. Strategies:

1. Analysis of secondary data.

ii. Reasons of choosing: Analyzing secondary data sources like newspapers articles is the main
strategy of qualitative data gathering which we will use here. It is very important part of this
study as main base of it will be build on it only. By employing this method we can easily get
needed information within less time, cost and also cover wider range of information. Because of
lack of excess and time, we cannot employ many other data collecting methods such as archival
data, experimental or quasi-experimental etc which are also very useful methods of data
collection in qualitative research.

Data Collection and data analysis: As we said to use newspaper articles as main data
gathering method, these articles will be chosen from August, 2017 to present time. Now we will
analyze such articles in below:

 On 12 November 2017, ‘Bangladesh Post’ published ‘Rohingyas in criminal activities’

news where it is written that almost 10 lakh Rohingyas are --- i. spreading crimes of arms
smuggling, drug trading in Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban. ii. Many incidents of
Rohingyas attacking, killing local people are increasing. iii. Rohingya women are slowly
taking prostitution as their occupation for maintaining families. iv. Rohingyas are using
Bangladeshi SIM cards for communication illegally which is a dangerous threat for our
security issue. So it is very evident that when a huge population remains workless for a
long period of time, they surely engage into illegal activities and while doing so they do
not care for maintaining law and order as filling their empty stomach is the prime
concern.6
 ‘Radio Free Asia’ On 6 November 2017 published news article titled “Bangladeshi
Authorities arrest 5 Rohingya on suspicion of robbery, kidnapping”. RAB arrested 5
Rohingya from refugee camps bordering Myanmar for robberies, kidnapping for ransom.
They mainly targeted refugees who brought cows, gold, money with them and have
relatives settled in abroad. They had five ramadas with them but they were not members
of Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army insurgents. As a sea of refugee poured in
Bangladesh it was impossible to check them all and this is definitely breaking down law
and order of camp areas.7
 On 30 June 2017, The Asian Age had article named ‘Rohingyas allegedly involved in
crimes in Chittagong’. 12 yaba smugglers with 5 Myanmar people were selling 15lakh
 pieces of yaba tablets through engines of buses, trucks, wooden boat for quick delivery.
These drugs, wine and medicine are then exported to Thailand, Myanmar and Nepal by
air route. After committing crime they hide into the hilly and remote places of CHT and
Chittagong. This is how Rohingyas are getting involved into criminal activities and
causing harm to the country and its peoples.8
 On 6 December 2017, ‘Yaba smugglers entering Bangladesh in disguise of displaced
Rohingyas’ in ‘Dhaka Tribune’ reported that 500 yaba smugglers have entered
Bangladesh from Myanmar with the influx of Rohingyas in August 25. According to
Association for the prevention of Drug Abuse (MANAS), 90% of yaba tablets enter
Bangladesh through Naf river and 45 yaba factories are identified in border area which
produce 13 kinds of yaba. Cox’s Bzar district police sources told that in the last three
months total 92 cases were filed against 195 Rohingyas from Ukhiya and Teknaf in
smuggling. It is suspected that additional 1000 people are working as mules for these
drug smugglers in Bangladesh.9
 ‘Several suspected Rohingya insurgents in custody: Bangladesh officials’ published in
‘Radio Free Asis’ on 18 April, 2018 which reported that many suspected group members
of Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) are roaming in Bangladesh and they were
accused of carrying sub-machine gun, ammunition. But government official said to have
increased security to not allow any kind of insurgency in the soil of Bangladesh.10
 ‘Bangladeshi man killed in attack by Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar’ by bdnews24.com on 28
October, 2017 published that a guard of Forests Department was killed by two Rohingyas
over a land dispute which was belonged to Forests Department but previously to other
person. That previous owner allowed Rohingya family to settle there by taking money.
But later upon argument, they killed that guard with a sharp weapon.11

Data analysis: While most researches are based on how and why insecurity produces conflict,
we will try to look at it from the opposite direction that is how refugees produce conflict,
dilemma and insecurity in their host country. So as a case we have discussed the crisis of
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Our study is on the preposition that Rohingya crisis is no
longer a humanitarian calamity but a potential threat to the internal stability of Bangladesh and if
neglects for a while it can take the shape of internal conflict within Bangladesh. As these
Rohingya people are both stateless and homeless, they are very easily available to do any kinds
of illegal, bad works. Its quite natural that being trapped in such worse degrading situation,
people can commit worst heinous act just for survival. From the context of ‘Human Needs
Theory’ by Abraham Maslow, we understand that fulfillment of physiological, security-safety,
love & belongingness, self-steem, self-actualization are some hierarchical human needs. 12 One
who cannot fulfill physiological need will not thrive for self-steem. When these basic needs are
not fulfilled, people use violent ways to achieve them. Now we can easily connect the Rohingya
crisis with Maslow’s needs theory and the possibility of rising internal conflict in future if not
handled tactfully. Again from analyzing Homer-Dixon’s ‘Environmental conflict theory’,
deforestation, fuel wood shortage, water scarcity, decreased land, imbalanced social relations,
economic crisis etc are crucial factors in inducing internal conflict in a country. 13 From above
data collected from different newspapers of Bangladesh, it is quite evident that the huge bulk of
Rohingya refugees is creating extra burden in the barometer scale regarding demography,
economy, environment, ecology, landscape, nature and above all social security. The above
mentioned data of Rohingya involving criminal activities, fast depletion of natural resources are
alarming indicators of the upcoming conflict, when local people and Rohingyas will violently
engage in a conflict for securing their basic human needs. Also the feeling of relative deprivation
between local people and Rohingyas can play as a cabalistic catalyst here. We already know that
when conflict is about human needs, identity etc, it becomes protracted difficult to resolve. As
Rohingya people are incoming in Bangladesh for a long period of time now starting at 1970s,
1990s, early 2000s and lastly in 2017, almost 10 lakh refugees are living here. The feeling of
deprivation, lack of needs fulfillment, increase of criminal activity issues, insecurity etc
altogether can play vital roles in creating internal conflict in Bangladesh.

Finding: From all the above data and analysis we can reach to a conclusion that there is a great
possibility of the rise of conflict in a country with huge number of refugees who are living for a
long period of time in that host country. As they gradually involve themselves with criminal
activities with the possibility of organized criminal group coming in disguise of refugees. How
and why these conflicts will arise is explained precisely in the data analysis section with proper
scholarly theories. Now on which hypothesis our study is based on is proven that is ‘refugees can
create internal conflict in a host country which can be protracted conflict too if not addressed
earlier.’

Conclusion: Rohingya Muslims as a minority group of people in Myanmar is the most

persecuted people in the world. They are constantly denied of their identity, their existence, and
their rights and being tortured, killed for no reason by the Myanmar state. But the issue has
crossed its state boundary with their taking shelter in neighboring country, Bangladesh. Though
such philanthropic action of Bangladesh to give shelter all Rohingyas is a noble act but it is high
time that we need to address this issue as soon as possible. It cannot happen that Rohingyas will
stay here for their rest of lives, their immediate repatriation is now times demand to maintain
security and stability of Bangladesh itself. Their recent activities are the sign of it, if it continues
for some more time, we have to face the aggression from both Rohingyas as well as local peoples
too for neglecting their rights of security. Our study has the proves which confirms our
hypothesis that yes, if refugees come for a long period of time frame with a huge population
coming altogether and also incoming of many organized crime group in disguise of refugees can
transform into potential protracted internal conflict.

Limitations: Our knowledge base is built on uncovering each piece of puzzle one at a time
and no one’s study is beyond limitations. Rather limitations show us where new efforts need to
be made. The study conducted here may certainly have some limitations as we cannot always
have access or scope to get all information related to the research problem. This limitation on
data collection has restricted us to decrease many effective data gathering methods suitable for
this study. If we had proper excess to certain networking system we could have easily employ
archival data, experimental or quasi-experimental methods etc. By using all these data gathering
methods we could have certainly upgrade the value and quality of this research paper.

References:
1. Salehyan I. and Gleditsch K. Refugee Flows and the spread of Civil War. University of
California and Centre for the Study of Civil War, International Peace Research, Oslo.
2. Guehenno J. (2016 May 13) Conflict is Key to Understanding Migration. International
Crisis Group. Retrieved from https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia-conflict-
key-understanding-migration
3. UNHCR. What is a Refugee? Retrieved from https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-
facts/what-is-a-refugee/
4. Brown E. M. (1999) The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict.
5. Edward E. Azar. Protracted International Conflict: Ten Propositions.
6. Online desk (2017 November). Rohingyas in criminal activities. Bangladesh Post.
Retrieved from http://www.thebangladeshpost.com/editorial/13877/pdf
7. Online Desk (2017 November) Bangladeshi Authorities Arrest 5 rohingyas on suspicion
of robbery, kidnapping. Radio Free Asia. Reteieved from
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/rohingya-arrests-11062017144916.html
8. Shyamol N. (2017 June) Rohingyas allegedly involved in crimes in Chittagong. The
Asian Age. Retrieved from https://dailyasianage.com/news/70532/rohingyas-allegedly-
involved-in-crimes-in-chittagong
9. Mahmud T. (2017 December) Yaba smugglers entering Bangladesh in disguise of
displaced Rohingyas. Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved from
https://www.dhakatribune.com/banglades/crime/2017/12/06/yaba-smugglers-entering-
bangladesh-disguise-displaced-rohingyas/
10. Online Desk (2018 April) ‘Several’ suspected Rohingya insurgents in Custody:
Bangladesh Official. Radio Free Asia. Retrieved from
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/bangladesh-arrests-04182018161609.html
11. Cox’s Bazar Correspondent (2017 October) Bangladeshi man killed in attack by
Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar. bdnews24.com. Retrieved from
https://m.bdnews24.com/en/detail/bangladesh/1413800?
12. KA-K Havva (2007) Reducing Violence: Applying the Human Needs Theory to the
conflict in Chechnya. The Journal of Jurkish Weekly.
 13. Thomas F. and Dixon H. (1991) Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict.
International Security. Volume 16, no. 2

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