Myanmar has thrown out Rohingyas like animals, butchered them, raped their women forgetting the history that Rohingyas were owning Rakhine as a free state. So the truth is Rohingyas have been driven out from their own State. Rakhine was a free Muslim country until it was occupied illegally by Burma. Myanmar has no claim over Rakhine and the international community must divide Myanmar to return Rakhine state to Rohingyas.
Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque’s disclosure on Sunday that Myanmar is not coming up with expected response for a repatriation process of Rohingya refugees clearly shows that our foreign ministry was wrong to make the silly conclusion that the problem will be solved because Bangladesh so wants.
From the beginning we have been trying to draw the attention of our government that it was foolish to expect the task would be easy for us alone. What the Foreign Secretary is doing is nothing clever but frankly admitting his failure. We are not blaming Mr Haque so much for not understanding the determination of the Myanmar government. The main drive should have come from the political leadership and that was not coming for our diplomats to be active along a clear policy line.
The government was happy to think that China and India would help Bangladesh for the return of Rohingyas to their Rakhine State. We have shown ourselves helpless in the face of aggression by Myanmar. To appease them we did not speak about the cruelty of ethnic cleansing of Muslims by Myanmar military. This was not humane or dignified for our foreign ministry.
It should have been clear that Myanmar is taking full advantage of our weak leadership. As per media reports the Foreign Secretary aired his disappointment while talking to reporters after a programme held in a local hotel in the city. In his view there is no short cut to resolve the crisis although mass exodus of refugees continues.
Yet another setback surfaced when he said Myanmar is apparently drifting away from its commitment on implementation of the Kofi Annan Commission report; which called for stopping repression, removing restriction on citizenship of the Rohingyas and allow their freedom of movement in the Rakhine State.
The activities of our government are limited to meeting local diplomats and writing letters of appeal to world governments, but nothing shown about the urgency for a solution. The foreign ministry itself says there is no short-cut for makings a safe return of the refugees.
Myanmar has created an impossible human crisis for us and our government is saying there is no immediate answer to the problem. Whether easy or not, we have to have some hard policy for quick solution.
The Rohingyas in their desperate plight are already engaging in criminal acts destroying forest and environment and aggravating the local law and order situation. Their presence is creating tension socially and we are deeply concerned about the consequences. But there is nobody to impress upon the United Nations and leading countries that the crime committed by Myanmar cannot go unpunished.
Myanmar had no hesitation to ignore international law to force their people to come to Bangladesh and create problem for us. We must be strong in organising international pressure with tough but logical ideas.
We should also find some way to create problem for Myanmar’s brutal government with the help of the international community. We are inactive in the front of international diplomacy.
