AP, Yangon :
Myanmar and UN agencies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that might eventually lead to the return of some of the 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled brutal persecution by the country’s security forces and are now crowded into makeshift camps in Bangladesh.
The MOU signed on Wednesday promises to establish a “framework of cooperation” that aims to create the conditions for “voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable” repatriation of Rohingya refugees.
Myanmar’s security forces have been accused of rape, killing, torture and the burning of Rohingya homes. The UN and US have described the army crackdown that began in August last year as “ethnic cleansing.”
Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in November to begin repatriating Rohingya, but refugees feared their lives would be at risk in Myanmar without involvement of UN agencies and international monitoring.
Meanwhile, local news agency reports said the outgoing USAID mission director has called upon the donors not to get distracted from the basic development problems of Bangladesh as they focus on the Rohingya problems.
Janina Jaruzelski said that assistance for the Rohingya refugees should be an additional support, which is what the US administration is doing now.
She said the US has made available an additional $70 million to fund the humanitarian assistance for the Rohingyas and the local host community in Cox’s Bazar on top of its annual $212 million development assistance to Bangladesh.
She said the American support to Bangladesh’s overall development remained “consistent” despite the change of administration in Washington.
The US is the single largest donor to Rohingya refugees.
“While we have to respond to the Rohingya crisis, at the same time we need to keep our eye on the ball and not get distracted from the basic development problems of Bangladesh,” she said in an interview on Tuesday before leaving Dhaka.
“Our main development trajectory needs to be sustained. We need to maintain and be focused and not allow this emergency to consume all of our time and attention and money,” she said, adding that Washington is not allowing that.
“Money for Rohingya has to be additional. It’s not to be taken away from the basic development programmes,” she said.
The exodus in last August has pushed the number of Rohingya refugees taking shelter in Bangladesh to over 1 million.
The US has issued strong statements and maintained that the problem created in Myanmar has to be solved in that country.
The US government, through USAID, has provided more than $7 billion in development assistance to Bangladesh since 1971.
In 2017, USAID provided over $212 million to improve the lives of people in Bangladesh through programmes that expand food security and economic opportunity, improve health and education, promote democratic institutions and practices, protect the environment, and increase resiliency to climate change.
Jaruzelski, a member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of career minister, has served USAID since 1995 in both Washington, D.C. and overseas posts. She has been Mission Director in Bangladesh since January 2014.
Her mission was a “very rich” one and full of experiences, she said as she spoke about a whole range of issues the USAID is engaged with in Bangladesh.
She has visited nearly 50 districts.
“It’s extremely positive both on a personal and professional level,” she said about her mission.
She admitted that professionally this was the “most rewarding” job she has ever had.
“In a lot of places we spend a lot of time, a lot of money, but do not really see any results. Here in Bangladesh we see results,” Jaruzelski said.
She said Bangladesh had gone through a lot of changes in a short period of time since independence.
She attended the initiation of its transition from an LDC to a developing country in March this year.
Jaruzelski came to Bangladesh during the Obama administration and has worked more than a year with the Trump administration.
“The interesting thing is there is not a lot of differences. Rhetoric is very different. You see a lot of volatility in the discussions in Washignton.”
But she said the reports people have seen about funding cuts is “actually misunderstanding”.
“What they see are the proposals. Those cuts have not actually happened.”
She said the funding decision in Washington is a shared decision of both the executive and legislative branches. Legislation branch does not support any of those funding cuts.
Some executive branch may come up with proposals, and legislative branch would say ‘no, we are not agreeing with that’. In some cases, they rather increase the funds.
The outgoing mission director said Bangladesh is the largest programme in the region compared with India, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. “One of the reasons was that Bangladesh programme is famous for its successfulness and effectiveness. We make good use of money and we get good results here.
“People are willing to invest here because the money gets well used. That’s one big reason,” Jaruzelski observed. Besides, she said, Bangladesh is “important” because it is one of the largest countries in terms of population. With the US, Bangladesh has an important commercial relationship as well.
All these reasons make a lot of sense but there are a lot of unrealised potentials, according to Jaruzelski.
Governance is an area where there is a room to work for sustainable growth.
Citing the poor ranking of Bangladesh in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, she said the government has already started taking some measures. But more needs to be done.
On democratic institutions such as Parliament and Election Commission, she said in a developing society, there are challenges, which is a normal thing. “There is nothing to be concerned about that. One has to work with it. One has to focus on it. It’s not surprising. I am an optimist.
