Editorial Desk :
At a press conference held at the Foreign Ministry last Thursday, our Foreign Minister is reported to have stated – following latest diplomatic developments Bangladesh was ‘quite evidently’ moving towards the next step to come up with a permanent solution to the plight of Rohingyas. First of all, needs a clear understanding that Rohingyas are not our problem but their unexpected influx to Bangladesh through the sea and border is. Second, strengthening border securities on both ends of Bangladesh and Myanmar is understandably not a solution but a preventive approach to even more restrict the movements of an oppressed ethnic Muslim community. Third and most evidently, instead of looking for a pragmatic solution by engaging the international community to put pressure on Myanmar, our diplomatic efforts are seemingly diverting towards a ‘Pushback policy’ coupled with a tendency to gamble with the collective fate of a large group of powerless refugees. Moreover, the FM’s proposal to form a proper body to verify the citizenship of Rakhine people who took shelter here sounded more than just comically quixotic, since the thousands of refugees did not flee Myanmar carrying all national ID cards and travel documents. Their spoken lingo and the condition of statelessness is enough to speak for themselves. The point is simple – why should Bangladesh have to burden the perils of an
internal communal conflict happening in another country.
Responding to a question, the FM reportedly said: Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar are extremely important for Bangladesh’s tourism development activities and the presence of refugees is of no help for terrorism. Adding further, forests are also being destroyed in the said areas. Such blatant attempt to divert the main focus surrounding the Rohingya crisis is unprecedented, at least at the diplomatic levels from our end. The outcome of the recent dialogue between our foreign office high-ups with Myanmar’s special envoy and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, however, once again clearly proved that we lack both expertise and astute diplomatic skills, in terms of solving a bilateral and a regional crisis.
Our FM should help his Myanmar counterpart to address the “root cause” of the problem in Rakhine so that Muslims there need not be desperate to seek shelter across the border.
More than tightening border securities, assisting Myanmar to fight terrorism by sharing intelligence information, and talking about destruction of forests and hampering of tourist development activities, we expected our FM to concentrate on other crucial facts. For instance – the economic pressure for accommodating thousands of refugees, condemn Myanmar government’s oppressive treatment shown to its Muslim minority, therefore portray the international community’s collective denunciation of Myanmar government’s mistreatment of the Rohingyas. Most crucially, the repercussions suffered by another country for a home-grown tale of communal hatred in another.
Nevertheless, as a united effort due to mounting international pressure on Myanmar, the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are scheduled to come together in Kuala Lumpur on January 19 to discuss possible solutions to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. This is going to be an ‘extraordinary’ meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers. We want to see, our foreign minister to play a landmark role in changing Myanmar government’s overall outlook on Rohingyas, and for that matter to all its Muslim subjects.
We don’t know, what ‘sincere efforts’ to solve the crisis the FM has seen in Myanmar’s end, but one of our main diplomatic goal at Kuala Lumpur should be to actively engage both the international and Muslim countries to make Myanmar realise that what it is doing to the Rohingyas is a wrong that they are doing against their own people.
Bangladeshis have no intention of going to Myanmar. So the government of Myanmar should be sincere in taking their people back.
At a press conference held at the Foreign Ministry last Thursday, our Foreign Minister is reported to have stated – following latest diplomatic developments Bangladesh was ‘quite evidently’ moving towards the next step to come up with a permanent solution to the plight of Rohingyas. First of all, needs a clear understanding that Rohingyas are not our problem but their unexpected influx to Bangladesh through the sea and border is. Second, strengthening border securities on both ends of Bangladesh and Myanmar is understandably not a solution but a preventive approach to even more restrict the movements of an oppressed ethnic Muslim community. Third and most evidently, instead of looking for a pragmatic solution by engaging the international community to put pressure on Myanmar, our diplomatic efforts are seemingly diverting towards a ‘Pushback policy’ coupled with a tendency to gamble with the collective fate of a large group of powerless refugees. Moreover, the FM’s proposal to form a proper body to verify the citizenship of Rakhine people who took shelter here sounded more than just comically quixotic, since the thousands of refugees did not flee Myanmar carrying all national ID cards and travel documents. Their spoken lingo and the condition of statelessness is enough to speak for themselves. The point is simple – why should Bangladesh have to burden the perils of an
internal communal conflict happening in another country.
Responding to a question, the FM reportedly said: Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar are extremely important for Bangladesh’s tourism development activities and the presence of refugees is of no help for terrorism. Adding further, forests are also being destroyed in the said areas. Such blatant attempt to divert the main focus surrounding the Rohingya crisis is unprecedented, at least at the diplomatic levels from our end. The outcome of the recent dialogue between our foreign office high-ups with Myanmar’s special envoy and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, however, once again clearly proved that we lack both expertise and astute diplomatic skills, in terms of solving a bilateral and a regional crisis.
Our FM should help his Myanmar counterpart to address the “root cause” of the problem in Rakhine so that Muslims there need not be desperate to seek shelter across the border.
More than tightening border securities, assisting Myanmar to fight terrorism by sharing intelligence information, and talking about destruction of forests and hampering of tourist development activities, we expected our FM to concentrate on other crucial facts. For instance – the economic pressure for accommodating thousands of refugees, condemn Myanmar government’s oppressive treatment shown to its Muslim minority, therefore portray the international community’s collective denunciation of Myanmar government’s mistreatment of the Rohingyas. Most crucially, the repercussions suffered by another country for a home-grown tale of communal hatred in another.
Nevertheless, as a united effort due to mounting international pressure on Myanmar, the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are scheduled to come together in Kuala Lumpur on January 19 to discuss possible solutions to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. This is going to be an ‘extraordinary’ meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers. We want to see, our foreign minister to play a landmark role in changing Myanmar government’s overall outlook on Rohingyas, and for that matter to all its Muslim subjects.
We don’t know, what ‘sincere efforts’ to solve the crisis the FM has seen in Myanmar’s end, but one of our main diplomatic goal at Kuala Lumpur should be to actively engage both the international and Muslim countries to make Myanmar realise that what it is doing to the Rohingyas is a wrong that they are doing against their own people.
Bangladeshis have no intention of going to Myanmar. So the government of Myanmar should be sincere in taking their people back.
