Rohingya repatriation: Ramifications of bilateral arrangement with Myanmar

The Rohingya crisis is the most serious one that Bangladesh has faced in its 45 years of independence. A million Rohingyas are now on Bangladesh soil, all forced to flee their native Rakhine state in Myanmar because of ethnic cleansing/genocide by the Myanmar military. The number alone should make it the biggest man-made disaster in recent times. That is not all.

There have not been too many helping hands from the international community/international organizations to come to Bangladesh's assistance to bear what would be humungous costs for looking after these refugees. And to top it all, international strategic analysts fear that unless resolved - and resolved soon, the Rohingya crisis could make Bangladesh and the region the next "hotbed" of international terrorism.

Therefore, a great deal of hope and expectation was placed on the deal that Bangladesh reached on November 23 with Myanmar for repatriation of the Rohingyas. The Bangladesh Foreign Minister stated in a press conference that the deal would protect Bangladesh's interests. That seemed to be a misplaced confidence as the details of the arrangement were revealed.

There are two curious aspects of the deal that did not make many share the FM's confidence. First, the deal was not disclosed to the media by Myanmar where it was signed. Bangladesh revealed it only after questions were raised in the media following the FM's media briefing. Second, the deal was officially named as an arrangement on the return of displaced persons from Rakhine state.

The fact that the deal was called an 'arrangement' and not an agreement raised many eyebrows. It downplayed and undermined the dangers that the Rohingya crisis, if unresolved, could cause Bangladesh. In 1979 and 1993, the deals that were concluded to repatriate the Rohingyas when the numbers were far less and the potential dangers also equally so, were officially called 'agreements'. On both those occasions, the agreements specified a time frame for the repatriation of the Rohingyas and the overwhelming majority of them went back.

This time when the gravity of the problem is far greater, no time frame has been set within which the Myanmar side would be obliged to take the refugees back. The arrangement merely mentioned that the repatriation would start in two months' time. The keys to executing the arrangement have also been retained by the Myanmar side. They would allow the Rohingyas to return only after thorough verification by them where the returning Rohingyas must produce requisite documents to establish they were residents of the Rakhine state.

If these flaws in the arrangement were not bad news for Bangladesh, there were worse ones. The one million Rohingyas in Bangladesh are languishing in miserable conditions. The arrangement only extended to 630,000 of them who entered after the latest ethnic cleansing that had followed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)'s terrorist action killing 4 Myanmar soldiers. The 400,000 that had entered earlier as a consequence of the Myanmar Government's active policy of ethnic cleansing that has been going for decades did not even figure in the arrangement.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has stated emphatically that the arrangement does nothing to change the conditions in the Rakhine state to encourage the Rohingyas to return. The Rohingyas themselves thought that the arrangement would not change the ground reality in the state and that they would not go back to die.

Myanmar was under tremendous international pressure since its latest killing spree on the Rohingyas following the August 25 terrorist act of ARSA. All western countries, the world media and the UN got together to put Myanmar on a spot in a manner that it appeared that it would finally be made to answer for its inhuman actions on the Rohingyas that they had been carrying out for decades. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights described the cruelty of Myanmar upon the Rohingyas whose only fault was in their Muslim background, as a "textbook case of ethnic cleansing." Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who sensitised the plight of the Rohingyas and the predicament of Bangladesh to the international community successfully, called the action of Myanmar, genocide and many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, agreed with her.

Unfortunately, some of Bangladesh's best friends rescued Myanmar from its worst predicament ever with the Rohingyas. India, China and Russia backed Myanmar for their own interests and were not bothered either for Bangladesh or the Rohingyas. India justified Myanmar military's brutality arguing that it was acting against terrorists. China and Russia called the Myanmar military's brutality Myanmar's internal affair.

That notwithstanding, the international wrath against Myanmar's brutality made it to the floors of the United Nations. A UN resolution critical of the Myanmar military titled "human rights situation in Myanmar in regard to the Rohingya Muslim minority" was voted upon on November 16. Ten countries, including China and Russia, voted against the resolution. Twenty-six countries, including India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Japan, abstained and 135 voted in favour. In the 31st ASEAN Summit in the Philippines, from November 10-14, the Rohingya issue was ignored totally.

Thus, at a critical time for the country, Bangladesh has been let down badly by its closest friends. It was unbelievable that these friends of Bangladesh stood against it and on the side of the perpetrator of ethnic cleansing/genocide. It was even more unbelievable that the mandarins of Bangladesh Foreign Ministry were unable to do anything but watch like innocent bystanders as Bangladesh's closest friends went against it in its hour of crisis.

There was byplay in the way the arrangement was reached. China, after going against Bangladesh, played a role in it as the go-between. In doing so, it upped on New Delhi that now finds itself as having gone against Bangladesh totally on the Rohingya crisis. But China did not go far enough to help Bangladesh because the arrangement does not look like one that would encourage the Rohingyas to go back to any significant number. It has not even scratched the surface of the Rohingya problem that lies in the way Myanmar has systematically carried out a policy of making the country free of the Rohingyas by ethnic cleansing. That problem is still as strongly present in the Rakhine state and in the policies of the Myanmar military as ever, the bilateral arrangement notwithstanding.

In the envoy's meeting now taking place in Dhaka, Prime Minister Hasina told the mandarins of the Foreign Ministry emphatically that they must pursue negotiations bilaterally with the Myanmar government for the resolution of the Rohingya problem while at the same time continue to keep international pressure on Myanmar. The Prime Minister has apparently taken a realistic view of the bilateral 'arrangement' with Myanmar.

The writer is a former Ambassador.

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