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With the insurgent ethnic armed group of Myanmar, the Arakan Army (AA), gaining full control of Maungdaw township on the bank of Naf river that separates Bangladesh from the Rakhine state of Myanmar, it appears that the Myanmar junta has finally lost its westernmost state to the armed rebels. The development calls for cautious monitoring by the government as it is directly linked to the country's border security as well as the issue of repatriating more than a million Rohingya refugees now staying in different camps in Bangladesh. Notably, following a pogrom carried out between October 2016 and August 2017 by the Myanmar junta on the Rohingya people in the Rakhine state, which is their ancestral abode, close to a million Rohingya men, women and children fled to Bangladesh to save their lives. But even after seven years of parleys with Myanmar authorities, no meaningful progress could be made about repatriating the Rohingya to their homeland, the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Now that the Arakan Army (AA) is the de facto ruler of the Rakhine state of Myanmar, Bangladesh should align its Rohingya policy to the emerging realities by establishing contact with AA. Since the AA now controls their side of the entire 271-km border with Bangladesh, they (the AA) are also our neighbour in the present circumstances. And as the situation in the Rakhine state is still fluid and AA is a non-state actor, the interim government will have to tread carefully on the subject.
In this connection, the interim government is learnt to have taken the initiative to communicate with the AA. And the Chief Adviser's Special Representative on Rohingya issues, Dr Khalilur Rahman, told a recently-held discussion meet that as the AA has seized about 80 to 85 per cent area of the Rakhine state and Rohingya-populated areas are among them, the situation demands due attention. But he was for handling the matter with caution. However, initiative has meanwhile been taken to engage with AA for managing security of the border between Bangladesh and the Rakhine State of Myanmar.
And so far as the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees is concerned, the issue has become further complicated due to AA's strained relation with the Rohingya community.
Last May, after AA's capturing Buthidaung, a Rohingya majority township in the southwest of the State, a mass expulsion of the Rohingya population and widespread arson attacks on their homes and properties took place. Since July, about 60,000 members of the Rohingya fled the Rakhine state and took refuge in Bangladesh adding to the existing population in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. There are also allegations from the Rights bodies that Rohingya civilians were massacred in Maundaw in August, which AA denied. However, AA at the same time claimed that Rohingya insurgents are fighting against them alongside the Myanmar military. There is truth in AA's allegation since the Rohingya insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), is reportedly fighting the AA. There are also others who have reportedly been press-ganged into joining the Myanmar military to fight anti-junta rebels. Members of the Rohingya community who have joined or have been forced to do so say they have no other choice.
One might recall at this point that during the massacre of the Rohingya between October 2016 and August 2017, their (Rohingya community's) Buddhist neighbours actively participated in the pogrom by killing, setting fire to Rohingya houses and plundering their properties. The Arakan Army (AA) is essentially a Buddhist-dominant rebel outfit that won't simply tolerate the Rohingya in their midst. Which is why some Rohingya fighters are of the view that the Myanmar army won't recognise them as citizens of Myanmar, but the AA won't even allow them to exist. So, the Rohingya are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Understandably, the Rohingya repatriation issue is indeed getting thornier by the day. The sensitivity of issue would, therefore, require those in the repatriation talks to have special talent in the art of negotiation.