Collective initiative and regional collaboration among ASEAN nations is important to end the Rohingya crisis. Its focus on economic collaborations and non-intervention policy in internal issues is making the Rohingya crisis the worst disaster in our time.
The three-day conference of Global Forum on Migration and Development in Dhaka participated by over 600 representatives from at least 130 countries took place early this week when the influx of Rohingya refugees into the country from Myanmar is at its peak.
The participants include ministers, UN and government officials and civil society organizations who work on human rights and migrants’ safety.
But like the ASEAN countries, they also skipped any meaningful discussion on Rohingya crisis when Myanmar is destroying the ethnic Muslim minority in systematic violence evicting villages, raping women and killing people as part of ethnic cleansing.
Participants rather brought pressure on Bangladesh to keep the border open for Rohingyas to escape from the genocide. Needless to say that Bangladesh does not need outsiders’ advice on such humanitarian issue, we are already giving shelter to fleeing Rohingyas and providing them food, medicine and access to education and other health services.
What was expected on this occasion is that such international conference will seriously weigh on crucial diplomatic and other means to bring pressure on Myanmar government to stop the genocide and take back the displeased people.
But the delegates find it easier to tell Bangladesh that international organizations and aid agencies will provide all humanitarian help to the Rohingyas but Bangladesh should shelter them until their rehabilitation can be arranged in other countries.
We must say such pressure on Bangladesh is unwanted and unbecoming since Dhaka is already sheltering over 500,000 Rohingyas and any permanent resettlement of such ill-fated people so far is not in sight while the new exodus is poising to create here bigger socio-political crisis.
Summarizing the outcome of the conference International Organization on Migration (IOM) Secretary Lacy Swing said they are jointly working with ILO and International Organization for Employers to set up a series of standard for rehabilitation of migrants in host countries as legal workers.
Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said the conference has agreed to develop a global migrant compact which may be binding or may not be to address the growing refugee crisis.
But in our view such policy approach appears to be outwardly a fantasy because it will not bring any foreseeable relief to Bangladesh. Nobody has so far taken any Rohingya from Bangladesh to resettle them outside Bangladesh.
What makes many wonder is that in Rohingya issues why the international community or the IOM as such is not bringing direct pressure on Myanmar to stop the genocide to stop making more people homeless migrants who are frantically trying to take shelter in Bangladesh, in addition to Malaysia and Thailand.
The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network made a sensible dispatch Sunday as carried out by The New Nation laying emphasis on the collective initiatives and regional collaborations of South East Asian nations to stop the violence against Rohingyas in Myanmar
It said, “As the main political and economic regional grouping in South-East Asia — ASEAN seems to prefer to focus on its economic functions, while turning a blind eye to more pressing political and human rights issue like the Rohingya crisis.
“This principle needs re-evaluating now that the Rohingya crisis has directly impacted ASEAN member states. It has to step up pressure on the Myanmar government to stop the persecution of and discrimination against the Rohingya people through persistent diplomacy.
“A stronger diplomacy is also needed to allow and ensure the admission of humanitarian aid agencies into the Rohingya area. Moreover, a legal system to deal with the refugee issue in the region should be put into place. It is no longer sufficient or morally justifiable for ASEAN to cite its non-interference principle as a buffer to shirk its responsibilities.”
