The world is failing on Myanmar
The comment from a senior United Nations official made headlines in the media outlets across the world last month.
The UN assistant secretary-general for human rights Andrew Gilmour said that Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing continued. He made the comment based on his interview of Rohingyas during a four-day visit to refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar.
The fact that the genocide which began in August last year and continued till March this year is appalling.
One month has already passed since the comment of this top UN official and we are yet to see any effective response from the international community.
Instead, we have seen many United Nations bodies putting pressure on Bangladesh which is overburdened with nearly one million Rohingyas, to take the vulnerable refugees to safer ground before the monsoon.
It seems to me that the international community has no idea about this poor country of 160 million living in a very small area of 144,000 square kilometers. If they had any idea about the condition of Bangladesh, they would put pressure on Myanmar instead.
In the meantime, as the international community is reticent, the arrogance of Myanmar and its security forces touches new heights every time.
We saw military build-up with heavy arms and ammunition along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border for at least twice last month and they reportedly also opened fire along the border.
And we have seen two journalists of Reuters news agency facing trial for reporting on Rohingya refugees. The response from the international community in this regard is inadequate.
On Monday, news agency AFP reported that Myanmar authorities have lured dozens of mainly Buddhist Bangladeshi tribal families to cross the border and resettle in the Rakhine state. Such a measure will create tension in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar and Chittagong Hill Tracts area.
We have seen that the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma has been barred from the country and humanitarian non-governmental organisations involved with the Rohingya have been banned from Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Most importantly, Bangladesh officials have expressed their concern about the sincerity of the Myanmar government in the repatriation deal.
Despite these audacities on the part of Myanmar, the international community is waiting for Myanmar to take back their Rohingya nationals one day and abide by international norms.
We do not know about the present condition of the Rakhine state as access to this area for aid organisations, the international community and media is limited.
We can only assume that the condition is no better than what the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights Andrew Gilmour said last month.
As genocide is going on for the last eight months and continues till today, this is a big failure for the United Nations, the international community and as a whole every conscious human being in the world.
We have witnessed a community being systematically wiped out but we are not doing anything. This is against the very claim some of us try to make that we are more civilised now than in any other age in human history.
Most importantly, the Rohingya crisis is the failure of the United Nations. By its acts against the Rohingya community, Myanmar has violated several articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
We cannot be convinced by the way the UN and the international community are responding to Rohingya crisis.
The crisis is a test for the United Nations, the international community and the whole world as to whether they are able to stop any genocide and any human rights violation or whether these international organisations are nothing but mere formality.
Time is running out fast for the United Nations, the international community and for us to pass the test.
Mushfique Wadud is a journalist. He can be reached at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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