To

UNHCR
Office
New Delhi
India
Dated: 2001 May 15

Subject: Hunger Strike of Burmese Asylum- seekers in Delhi

Dear His Excellency

We are writing to you to express our serious concern for the 24 Burmese asylum seekers who have now started on a hunger strike in front of the UNHCR office in New Delhi.

They are prepared to die in order to draw attention to their plight. They are all facing long delays in the processing time of their individual applications for refugee status, and during this period of extreme uncertainty and hardship, even their basic needs such as food, shelter and sanitation are not being met. Some of them have experienced persecution in Burma for their political beliefs, others are victims of the government “forced labor” projects in Burma, the severity of both being well documented.

Their hunger strike poses questions about the effectiveness of UNHCR in safeguarding the rights and well-being of refugees. It questions the whole process of determining refugee status and UNHCR’s role in that process.

Surely persons seeking asylum are at their most vulnerable and most in need of basic assistance i.e., financial grants, food, shelter and sanitation- when they first arrive in a foreign country, and during the time that it takes to process their applications for refugee status. It is at this point in time that UNHCR could be effective in stepping in and providing the necessary assistance when governments of the country of asylum and other welfare agencies cannot. There needs to be some form of temporary protection available to all those wish to apply for formal refugee status.

UNHCR does advocate that individual governments adopt a fast, flexible and liberal process for determining refugee status. Also UNHCR recognizes how difficult it is to document persecution. But are these views being put into practice? Most of the Burmese asylum seekers have been waiting for months whilst their applications are being considered. Others have had their applications rejected without the option of submitting them for reconsideration. Some of the asylum seekers are coming from rural areas in Burma, from low socioeconomic backgrounds with little or no education. Is it at all easy for these people to provide the necessary documentation and evidence that they were imprisoned, tortured or victims of government “forced labor” projects?. They have been waiting for their applications to be processed without
it seems, any form of basic assistance from the UNHCR which purports to safeguard their rights and well-being.

Yours sincerely,

CCDB
POST: Pyone Cho
National League for Democracy (Liberated Area)
16/5 Gnarwyn Rd Carnegie , 3163 AUSTRALIA

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