Are We Witnessing Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar?

A few days ago I blogged about the flood of Muslim Rohingya refugees out of Myanmar (Burma) into Bangladesh. Since then there has a been a storm surge of refugees--more than 370,000 according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. At issue is the fact that these people are seemingly not wanted in Myanmar, despite having lived there for a long time. The Guardian reminds us that:

Rohingya people have been systematically persecuted for decades by the Burmese government, which, contrary to historical evidence, regards them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and restricts their citizenship rights and access to government services.

Myanmar’s treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority appears to be a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing, the top United Nations human rights official has said. In an address to the UN human rights council in Geneva, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein denounced the “brutal security operation” against the Rohingya in Rakhine state, which he said was “clearly disproportionate” to insurgent attacks carried out last month.

And he wasn't the only one with this sentiment:

On Sunday, Bangladesh’s foreign minister accused the Myanmar government of committing genocide against the Rohingya. Analysts said that AH Mahmood Ali’s language was the strongest yet from Myanmar’s neighbour, and reflected intense frustration in Dhaka at the continuing influx of Rohingya refugees.

In the meantime, Myanmar's de facto leader (and that "title" tells you something about the state of the country), Aung San Suu Kyi, has canceled her trip to the United Nations' General Assembly meetings next week in New York.

On the other hand, India had been set to deport thousands of Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, but has announced instead that it will send relief materials to Bangladesh to help that country deal with a problem that nobody really seems to want to deal with.

Europe is Paying to Keep People in Africa--Is it Working?

The number of migrants heading to Europe from Africa has apparently been considerably less this summer than last summer, according to a story in this week's Economist. While the reason for this is not known with certainty, one of the explanations is that European countries are, in essence, paying to keep people in Africa. 

Italy has provided equipment and training to Libya’s coastguard, which has stepped up patrols. The seas have also been rough. But two militias in the western city of Sabratha, thought to be behind much of the people-smuggling, have a different explanation. They claim that Italy offered them money and equipment to stop migrant boats from setting sail.

Italy denies that it is talking with the traffickers. But it does work closely with Fayez al-Serraj, the head of the UN-backed government based in Tripoli, the capital. The EU has given him tens of millions of dollars to improve the coastguard and provide new jobs for those involved in trafficking. Mr Serraj, in turn, reportedly struck deals with the militias and brought them onto the government payroll. “I don’t think anyone came from Europe with a suitcase full of money and gave it to Libyan warlords,” says Mattia Toaldo of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank. “It’s more complicated than that.”

This current issue of Foreign Policy has a story by Ty McCormick that helps us to understand the complexity. When the government of Libya collapsed in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring, the political vacuum allowed human traffickers to flourish, aided by payments to a variety of army, police, and militia units. 

In 2015, as the European Union was struggling to cope with what would amount to a record 1.3 million asylum-seekers that year--a 122 percent increase from 2014--EU officials held a series of emergency talks with African leaders. In November of that year, they announced a $1.9 billion EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa designed to combat the root causes of migration, including poverty and conflict. The EU also struck bilateral agreements with several African countries that migrants depart from and travel through on their way to Europe, aiming to strengthen border controls and disrupt smuggling networks.

As McCormick points out, the migrants themselves have a strong incentive to get to Europe not just for themselves, but in order to send remittances home. And, of course, this gets us back to the issue of rapid population growth throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where women are having more children than the economy can cope with. The world could be doing more to help provide family planning services, but the U.S. under the Trump administration has been slashing funding, rather than trying to help countries out. So, women have children whose fate it is to head north hoping to reach Europe, and in the process of trying to get there it is especially the younger migrants who are abused like slaves, as reported yesterday by Reuters.

Will Hurricane Irma Cause Retirees to Rethink Moving to Florida?

My first teaching job many years ago was at Michigan State University. It seemed to me and my wife that every one of the "locals" in our neighborhood in East Lansing knew people of Florida because Michiganders liked to retire in Florida. Indeed, we heard stories of entire groups of people relocating there together, often living in mobile homes because that's what they could most readily afford.

Currently, nearly one in five Floridians (19.1%) is aged 65 and older--the highest percentage in the country at the state level and, not surprisingly, the top two counties in the U.S. in terms of the percent aged 65 and older are in Florida (Sumter County--NW of Orlando--at 53% and Charlotte County--NW of Fort Meyers--at 38%). Both counties are very much today in the path of Hurricane Irma. If this were just a one-off event, you might not think about it, but the evidence suggests that global warming is likely to increase the frequency and intensity of these kinds of storms.

It is important to remember as well that population growth in hot states like Florida owes a lot to the advent of air conditioning. Beginning especially in the 1950s, commercial establishments were able to afford air conditioning--so you could leave your hot house and go to the air conditioned restaurant or movie theater. By the 1970s, the price of air conditioning had come down to the point that people were able to install it in their homes--first with window units, and then with larger compressor units. So, we shouldn't be surprised that between 1950 and 2015, as the population of the entire U.S. doubled in size from 152 million to 321 million, the population of Florida increased more than seven-fold, from 2.7 million in 1950 to 20.3 million in 2015. It vaulted from the 17th most populous to the 3rd most populous state--behind only California and Texas (both of which have also benefitted from air conditioning). The only states to have grown at a more rapid rate than Florida, in percentage terms, between 1950 and 2015 are also beneficiaries of air conditioning--Nevada and Arizona.

But, back to the older population more specifically, Florida has a high percentage of older people because people move there to retire. The other top states in terms of the older population--Maine, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Montana, are states where youthful populations are exiting the state, in the process leaving behind the older population to age in place. Thus, the decision of people to migrate from wherever they are (e.g., New York) to Florida to retire may increasingly take into account the potential for deadly storms. Arizona is currently 12th among states in terms of the percent aged 65 and older. Will that increase at Florida's expense?

UPDATE: Here's an example of why air conditioning is a key to well-being in Florida, as reported by CNN:

At least eight nursing home residents have died in Hollywood, Florida, according to city officials. The deaths may be due to the loss of the home's air-conditioning after Hurricane Irma struck Sunday, according to CNN affiliate WPLG.

The Drop in Child Mortality Helps Explain the Population Explosion

Many people in the world have the view that the population explosion is a thing of the past. After all, the world's rate of growth is lower now than it was back in 1968 when Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb was published. Indeed, the rate of growth peaked at about that time...but not the number of people being added each year. The 84 million people being added to the world each year right now is a greater number than were being added when the rate of population growth was nearly twice what it is now. We're building on an ever bigger base of people, so even a low rate of growth adds a lot of people. Figure 2.3 in my text gives you this information graphically.

Why do I mention this? Because Max Roser at Oxford has put together another really informative and useful (and interactive) graphic on child mortality (deaths to children under age 5) over time. The increasing survival of children is the single most important cause of population growth in the world, since it almost never is accompanied early on by a compensating drop in fertility. Everyone wants children to survive--not everyone wants to use birth control. Here is the graphic:

You can see that Sweden and France experienced long-term and relatively slow declines in child mortality. In the 19th and early 20th centuries Europeans, in particular, were figuring out the value of vaccinations and, on top of that, incomes were generally rising so people were eating better and living in cleaner environments. It was only after WWII, however, that death control technology was actively spread around the world, and child mortality rates responded quickly. This graph shows Ghana (where I am currently analyzing child mortality at the neighborhood level), Iran and South Korea. You can modify the map yourself if you go the website. 

These very rapid declines in child mortality were eventually met by rapid drops in fertility in South Korea and Iran (both of which are currently below replacement level) and a considerable drop in Ghana as well--even though still well above replacement level. The gap between when child mortality drops and fertility responds with an equivalent drop is what generates the population explosion--and it's still happening, folks.

Muslims Not Wanted in Myanmar--The Rohingya Refugee Situation

It has been more than four years since I mentioned Myanmar in this blog. At the time the country had transitioned from a military dictatorship to a democracy and there was general optimism about the country's future. However, there was one issue that stood out--violence by the Buddhist majority against the minority Muslim population (Rohingya) in the country. I ended that blog post with the comment that the situation "seems like a recipe for even more disaster." To be sure, last year there were as many refugees from Myanmar (Burma) into the U.S. as there were from Syria. 

This situation has hit the headlines again this week as nearly 125,000 Rohingya fled violence against them in Myanmar and sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh. NBC News notes that:

Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state since the violence began on Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive have killed at least 400 people. 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to Myanmar authorities on Tuesday to end violence against Rohingya Muslims in the country's Rakhine state, warning of the risk of ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization.

Taking a page seemingly from Donald Trump's playbook, the leader of Myanmar--Aung San Suu Kyi--"on Wednesday alleged a “huge iceberg of misinformation” was distorting the picture of the Rohingya crisis, which has forced 125,000 of the Muslim minority to flee to Bangladesh." 

In her first comments since Rohingya militant attacks sparked unrest on August 25, Suu Kyi said fake news was “calculated to create a lot of problems between different communities” and to promote “the interest of the terrorists”. 

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has come under intense pressure over her refusal to speak out against the treatment of the Rohingya or chastise the military. 

Analysts say her obduracy despite the years of pressure from rights groups is a sop to the still powerful army and surging Buddhist nationalism in the Southeast Asian country.

And the problem is greatly exacerbated by the fact that Muslim-majority Bangladesh doesn't really want the refugees, as NBC News indicates:

Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest and most crowded nations, plans to go ahead with work to develop an isolated, flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal to temporarily house tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in neighboring Myanmar, officials say. 

Dhaka says the Rohingya are not welcome, and has told border guards to push back those trying to enter the country illegally. But close to 125,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh in just 10 days, joining more than 400,000 others already living there in cramped makeshift camps.

Once again, this seems like a recipe for even more disaster...