US Official Sought To End Aid For Rohingyas

The United States administration official overseeing the dismantling of the main US foreign aid agency has proposed phasing out help for crisis-torn Lebanon and the Rohingya, the world's largest stateless population, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.

The email, which was written on February 16 by Peter Marocco, the acting deputy administrator of USAID, provides a window into some of the thinking behind the administration's drive to terminate aid programs that it does not believe benefit the US.

“The US should procure some type of consideration or good faith from the recipient populations to the American people,” Marocco said.

In it, Marocco appeared to want the Rohingya and Lebanon to express their gratitude for US support.

The email directed Tim Meisburger, the head of USAID's humanitarian affairs bureau, to draft an “action memo” drawing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's attention to “the odd dependency” of Lebanon and the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on US aid.

It should outline options for “how we recommend, immediately, sending the signal, that though we have compassion, people had the warning on November 5, and things will have to change," Marocco wrote, referring to Trump's 2024 re-election.

"Please propose the best method and timeline of weening this dependency and what we might seek, from them – or partners. Nothing is owed,” he wrote, apparently meaning an absence of any US obligation to provide further support.

A source with knowledge of the issue confirmed the authenticity of the email and that Marocco sought to phase out aid to the Rohingya and Lebanon.

Marocco "is not convinced these people need more aid," the source said.

The State Department declined to comment. Marocco and Meisburger did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters could not determine whether Meisburger sent the requested memo to Rubio or how much US aid continues to flow to Lebanon or the more than 1 million Rohingyas who have fled violent persecution in Myanmar that the US in 2022 declared a genocide.

The United States provides military, humanitarian and other assistance to Lebanon.

Marocco sent the email as he and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were launching a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department.

They have fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depend. Rubio on Monday said more than 80% of all USAID programs have been canceled.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described them as "one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world".

The Rohingya are one of Myanmar's many ethnic minorities with their own language and culture. But Myanmar does not recognise them and denies them citizenship. It excluded them from the country’s 2014 census, effectively refusing to recognise them as people.

Although the Rohingyas say they are descendants of Arab traders and other groups who have been in the region for generations, Naypyidaw insists that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.2 million Rohingyas, the majority of whom have fled their homes in Myanmar since late August 2017. The UN described the Myanmar military offensive, which sparked the exodus, as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" while other rights groups called it "genocide".

Bangladesh spends an estimated $1.9 billion every year on forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.

Many Rohingyas have gotten involved in crimes in the camps. Dhaka says repatriation is the only solution to the protracted crisis, but a lack of cooperation from Myanmar has dogged the process.

Thousands who fled military crackdowns in 1978 and 1991 were repatriated, only for Bangladesh to see larger numbers return because no measures were taken to ensure their safety in Myanmar.