Campus Life :
Center for Peace Studies (CPS) under the South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG) at North South University (NSU) organized a webinar titled “Myanmar Election 2020: Impacts on Rohingya Crisis” held on 10 November 2020 on zoom platform. Distinguished panelists from Bangladesh, India, and Canada discussed Myanmar’s recent parliamentary election and its impact on the Rohingya crisis.
The stateless Rohingya, who have been living in Bangladesh for more than four decades, came into the forefront when the exodus of Rohingya took place in 2016-2017, fleeing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar.
The Coordinator of CPS, Dr. Ishrat Zakia Sultana, while delivering her welcome speech mentioned that when a country that excludes 2.6 million people from its national election, it raises concerns whether this county would show any interest in resolving the Rohingya crisis.
Against India’s failure to deliver its expected role, Professor NehginpaoKipgen of O. P. Jindal Global University, India, said that India itself had failed to repatriate 40000 stranded Rohingya in Myanmar. Regarding Bangladeshi stranded Rohingya, he also said that India has always been a champion of Myanmar because of its economic growth, trade interests, and border security. At the same time, India does not want to worsen its bilateral relations with Myanmar because of its geopolitical strategy.
Professor A. S. M. Ali Ashraf at the Department of International Relations at the University of Dhaka said it is obvious that Myanmar’s election was a farce. In resolving the Rohingya crisis, China’s role must be considered. China’s establishment of a deep seaport in Rakhine, we can assume that the chances of Rohingya’s sustainable return is all but slim.
In his discussion on the role of Myanmar’s election on the Rohingya crisis, Brigadier General (Rtd) Dr. Sakhawat Hussain, Senior Fellow, SIPG, said the election commission could not work independently in Myanmar. He thinks that due to the absence of dominant oppositional political parties, Myanmar’s result was quite expected.
Dr. M Jashim Uddin, Associate Professor of NSU said that Myanmar election would not be playing any role in resolving the Rohingya crisis or Rohingya repatriation.
Dr. Kawser Ahmed, Executive Director of the Conflict and Resilience Research Institute Canada, said, it is hard to expect anything in the development of geo-politics centered around the Rohingya crisis because of indirect support to Myanmar from China and India. The relationship of Myanmar with India, Thailand and Japan also shows no hope in resolving the crisis due to their existing mutual interest. Therefore, there is no alternative of keeping the global pressure on Myanmar, he added.
Lead strategist of Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative and student of the University of Toronto, Mr. JaivetEalom, said like the Rohingya, other minority Muslim communities in Myanmar could not participate in the election. Myanmar government tactfully kept them away from the election.
SIPG’s Senior Fellow and former Ambassador Shahidul Haque moderated the discussion. He mentioned it is understandable how far the election has been transparent when a large section of its population could not participate in the election. He also addressed the issues, whether Myanmar follows a real democracy, failure of India and China in resolving the crisis and the silence of the global community.
Professor Atiqul Islam, Vice-Chancellor of NSU and the Chair of the webinar said that despite perceiving the importance of the problem, if the whole world does not help us, we have to find out an alternative and to do that, we need to continue our robust coordination taking our real friendly countries with us with a realistic strategy. However, we have to be pragmatic to move ahead.
Center for Peace Studies (CPS) under the South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG) at North South University (NSU) organized a webinar titled “Myanmar Election 2020: Impacts on Rohingya Crisis” held on 10 November 2020 on zoom platform. Distinguished panelists from Bangladesh, India, and Canada discussed Myanmar’s recent parliamentary election and its impact on the Rohingya crisis.
The stateless Rohingya, who have been living in Bangladesh for more than four decades, came into the forefront when the exodus of Rohingya took place in 2016-2017, fleeing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar.
The Coordinator of CPS, Dr. Ishrat Zakia Sultana, while delivering her welcome speech mentioned that when a country that excludes 2.6 million people from its national election, it raises concerns whether this county would show any interest in resolving the Rohingya crisis.
Against India’s failure to deliver its expected role, Professor NehginpaoKipgen of O. P. Jindal Global University, India, said that India itself had failed to repatriate 40000 stranded Rohingya in Myanmar. Regarding Bangladeshi stranded Rohingya, he also said that India has always been a champion of Myanmar because of its economic growth, trade interests, and border security. At the same time, India does not want to worsen its bilateral relations with Myanmar because of its geopolitical strategy.
Professor A. S. M. Ali Ashraf at the Department of International Relations at the University of Dhaka said it is obvious that Myanmar’s election was a farce. In resolving the Rohingya crisis, China’s role must be considered. China’s establishment of a deep seaport in Rakhine, we can assume that the chances of Rohingya’s sustainable return is all but slim.
In his discussion on the role of Myanmar’s election on the Rohingya crisis, Brigadier General (Rtd) Dr. Sakhawat Hussain, Senior Fellow, SIPG, said the election commission could not work independently in Myanmar. He thinks that due to the absence of dominant oppositional political parties, Myanmar’s result was quite expected.
Dr. M Jashim Uddin, Associate Professor of NSU said that Myanmar election would not be playing any role in resolving the Rohingya crisis or Rohingya repatriation.
Dr. Kawser Ahmed, Executive Director of the Conflict and Resilience Research Institute Canada, said, it is hard to expect anything in the development of geo-politics centered around the Rohingya crisis because of indirect support to Myanmar from China and India. The relationship of Myanmar with India, Thailand and Japan also shows no hope in resolving the crisis due to their existing mutual interest. Therefore, there is no alternative of keeping the global pressure on Myanmar, he added.
Lead strategist of Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative and student of the University of Toronto, Mr. JaivetEalom, said like the Rohingya, other minority Muslim communities in Myanmar could not participate in the election. Myanmar government tactfully kept them away from the election.
SIPG’s Senior Fellow and former Ambassador Shahidul Haque moderated the discussion. He mentioned it is understandable how far the election has been transparent when a large section of its population could not participate in the election. He also addressed the issues, whether Myanmar follows a real democracy, failure of India and China in resolving the crisis and the silence of the global community.
Professor Atiqul Islam, Vice-Chancellor of NSU and the Chair of the webinar said that despite perceiving the importance of the problem, if the whole world does not help us, we have to find out an alternative and to do that, we need to continue our robust coordination taking our real friendly countries with us with a realistic strategy. However, we have to be pragmatic to move ahead.
