Rohingya crisis is only aggravating with incredible deception and outmaneuvering tactics of the Myanmar government to delay repatriation and eventually not to take back the refugees to their homes in the Rakhine State.
The Rohingya population growth sheltered in the camps is phenomenally high creating a big challenge for our future as to how they will grow and add to their existing 1.2 million population, of which over 7 lakhs arrived in a single year from August 2017 to exacerbate crimes and other socio-economic problems.
WHO estimate suggests over one lakh children w ill born in 2018 and if the number exponentially grow every year Cox’s Bazar region will become a Rohingya state within the state to suggest how tactfully Myanmar has pushed its ethnic problem on our shoulder.
Rohingyas remembered the first anniversary of their exodus on August 26. Meanwhile results of the Rohingya repatriation is just zero-not a single refugee Myanmar accepted during this time as per the memorandum of understanding Bangladesh signed with Myanmar on September 17, last year.
The UN fact finding mission on Monday has called for investigation and prosecution of Myanmar army chief and five top Generals for genocide and war crimes against the Rohingyas. It has also called upon the UN Security Council to set up an ad hoc tribunal to try the suspects or refer the matter to International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Australian government and the British government have also called for prosecution of the perpetrators. Over 50 Asean law makers have called for quick resolution of the Rohingya problem.
But we don’t know what the Bangladesh government is doing and how it is going to use these international move to its favour. It is totally confusing in the face of the Myanmar government endless blackmail and particularly how our Foreign Ministry is handling the issue is now open to question.
Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali visited Myanmar early this month but there is no tangible progress to break the impasse. He came back empty handed while Myanmar supreme leader Aung San Suu Kyi last week blamed Bangladesh for the delay. But the Foreign Ministry even failed to make a strong reaction to such claim.
Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Kazi Reazul Hoque on Monday has rightly raised question over the activities of the Foreign Ministry saying he was frustrated over its failure to send back a single refugee so far. He doubted how effectively the Foreign Ministry officials are pursuing the issue.
Many believe Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali is quite ineffective and incompetent to organise effective diplomatic assault on Myanmar. Timidity of the government is shameful for any sovereign country. The other countries are mobilising international pressure on Myanmar but not our government. Our government is busy enjoying useless foreign trips at the cost of huge public money.
We do have no diplomatic role for the Foreign Mimistry, we have generous policy for others in the government not to miss any foreign trip for pleasure.
The miseries of Rohingyas in Bangladesh is sopathetic and the government is so helpless to organise real help to them that as a nation we cannot go on tolerating Myanmar’s deliberate military operations violating international law to force their own people to cross the borders saying they are ours.
No country is friend for ever and in our case both India and China have demonstrated that in our own difficulties with Myanmar they cannot be helpful. They have their interest to think of. It should also be natural for us to seek friendship and support of others who are already playing an active role to put pressure on Myanmar. Sleeping and snoring is not diplomacy and we must seek new friends knowing the government has failed to persuade China and India to play an appropriate role for saving us from the burden of huge population belonging to Myanmar.
The government is appearing to be ineffective to have friends on our side and telling them how urgent it is to force Myanmar to take back their people under international supervision.
We have no policy for meeting the challenge from Myanmar. We have waited too long and the miseries of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh have become too unbearable.
Military junta in Myanmar must be delivered a lesson, together with other countries, that modern world is not ready to tolerate a brutal regime to create human miseries to their own people and feel safe in causing problems in other countries.
