Inability to send back Rohingyas is the government's diplomatic failure

The blueprint for the Rohingya genocide was drawn up in 1966 -- Maung Zarni, founder of the Free Burma Coalition, in an interview with Prothom Alo

Six years ago when over 700,000 Rohingya men, women and children were driven from their homeland in Myanmar and sought refuge in Bangladesh, the world was aghast at the brutality of the country's rulers. Alongside genocide, they burnt down the homes, shops and establishments of these people to annihilate them. They carried out killing and rape indiscriminately. Women, children, the elderly, no one was spared.

As a neighbouring country Bangladesh gave them shelter on humanitarian grounds and it was hoped that they would return to Myanmar within a short time. From even before that, there were already a few hundred thousand Rohingyas in Bangladesh.

It was not possible to send a single Rohingya back in the six years from 2017 to 2023. The Myanmar military junta in the meantime has grabbed control of the entire country, toppling the pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi from power. Even though Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy had won a landslide victory in the 2015 elections, they had to share power with the armed forces.

Then in 2020 the military took over power, alleging that the elections had been rigged. A large part of the country, though, is outside of the central government's control. A sort of civil war is being waged between the junta government and the rebels in those areas.

Towards the end of 2017, the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement for the repatriation of the Rohingyas. Many had questioned the justification of signing a bilateral agreement with a government that carried out genocide to evict an entire population.

Two initiatives for repatriation were taken in 2019 based on this agreement, but the Rohingyas refused to leave. In 2021 a tripartite meeting was held along with China and it was said that 7,176 Rohingyas would be taken back on a test basis. Not a single Rohingya could be sent back. Bangladesh now hopes that the pilot repatriation initiative may commence on 31 December.

Where over 1.1 million Rohingyas have been driven into Bangladesh, repatriation of 7000 is hardly a drop in the ocean.

The question has arisen as to whether the international quarters will eventually forget the sighs and sorrows of the Rohingyas as they have of the Palestinians and the Kurdish sufferers. Will they remain all their lives homeless, stateless people?

Even before 2017 many Rohingyas came and took shelter in Bangladesh. In the eighties and the nineties it was possible, by means of various diplomatic moves, to send a significant number of Rohingyas back, but after 2017, it has not been possible to send back even a single Rohingya.

According to international experts, there are around 3.5 million Rohingyas in the world, with the most living in Bangladesh, 1.1 million. There are 300,000 to 350,000 Rohingyas living in Myanmar now. There are also a significant number of Rohingyas living in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

It is unfortunate that the country where the Rohingyas have been living for centuries, does not recognise them as its own citizens. They are termed as 'other people' or 'Bengali Muslims'. Yet up until the military rule began in Myanmar in 1962, Rohingya would enjoy benefits and facilities like any other community, They even had representation in the country's central and provincial parliaments. The Rohingyas are now aliens in their own land.

Firstly, it must be said, Bangladesh failed to perceive the magnitude of the Rohingya problem. Secondly, they also failed to take a multilateral and all-out effort to resolve this problem. Thirdly, the geopolitical conflict has served to distract international attention from the problem. The government plans and policies regarding Rohingya repatriation are unclear. The inability to appropriately highlight the problem in the international arena is certainly a diplomatic failure.

We failed to garner support in this regard from the powerful countries or the world, other than the US and certain countries of Europe. Our close friends China, Russia, India and many countries adopted a stance contrary to Bangladesh in various forums, or abstained from voting.

The International Court of Justice too has failed to take any stern stance against the country accused of genocide. They have asked Myanmar for an explanation about the genocide there. The same court had issued a warrant of arrest again Russian president Vladimir Putin for the killing of children in Ukraine. That is why Putin could not join the BRICS summit in South Africa.

Presently the Rohingyas are the largest uprooted population of the world and a part of them are in Bangladesh. Yet the world community pays little attention towards them. There are geopolitical factors at play as well as excessive bias in favour of Myanmar by two large neighbours. When the western work imposed strong sanctions against Myanmar, China stood by its side with economic and military assistance.

China has huge economic activities in Rakhine from where the Rohingyas were driven out. China is constructing a deep sea port there so that they can have easy access to the Bay of Bengal. India is not far behind. They have stepped up their investments in Myanmar too.

These two large neighbours did nothing tangible for Bangladesh regarding the repatriation of Rohingyas. They have provided some humanitarian assistance. Bilateral meetings with the country that committed genocide to find a solution to the problem, simply benefits the Myanmar junta. They want to show the global community that Myanmar is sincere in wanting to resolve the problem.

In the six years of the Rohingya crisis, the policymakers have failed to offer the people of this country any good tidings. The Rohingya refugees have put much pressure on our economy. The entire environment and ecology of Cox's Bazar has been destroyed. The Rohingyas have spread out to other parts of the country too.

Most disturbing, though, is the booming narcotics and arms trade centring the Rohingya camps. At least six armed groups of Myanmar, including the Arakan Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) are carrying around armed activities centring the Rohingya refugee. The Rohingyas sheltered in the various camps are forced to take sides in fear of their lives. Those wanting to return to Myanmar are being targetted by these terrorist organisations. Rohingya leader Mohibullah had built up a movement to return to Myanmar. ARSA terrorists shot him dead.

Over the past six months a few hundred Rohingyas were killed in group conflicts. In 2017, it was the ARSA organisation that created the grounds for the Rohingyas to be chased out of their own country. After ARSA's sabotage of a number of police and army outposts, the Myanmar government took up the scorched-earth policy against the Rohingyas and launched an all-out operation against them.

Now if that same organisation carried out terrorist activities on Bangladesh's soil, that not only justifies the Myanmar government's operations, but also poses as a threat to Bangladesh's security. We have given the Rohingyas shelter on humanitarian grounds, that does not mean that their camps will be used as battlefields for terrorist organisations.

* Sohrab Hassan is joint editor of Prothom Alo and a poet. he can be contacted at [email protected]

* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir