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6 years ago

Where did equality go?

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At least from a perspective of words all nations are equal for the United Nations. But the bloated bureaucracy that only Donald Trump has taken on face-to-face doesn't act like it. Nine out of ten times the agency is slow and sluggish to respond to humanitarian crises, never have budgets for exigencies and essentially go around with begging bowls. The world hasn't reacted any better in tackling the root problem and the spillover succour required for over half a million Rohingya refugees that now constitute the biggest refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

Given half of these poor sods are children, many separated from their parents one would have expected UNICEF amongst others to cut corners elsewhere and divert attention to these tiny impressionable minds to prevent trauma driving them to radicalism and fundamentalism; worse still a major blow to Bangladesh's otherwise successfully moves against two of the biggest threats to our social fabric.

It became obvious with the pack of lies peddled by the United States where they used the 'best' of technology to give truth to falsehood thereby destroying Iraq for good , all in the spirit of democracy as they saw it. And the honourable British were left red-nosed, if tight-lipped when their famous covert operation in Libya blew up in their faces. And there is the instance of the famous and superbly failed Arab Spring. When politicians scratch their knees rather than their heads the results turn out similar to what has swept Europe and the US. Fed-up electorate make choices that are theirs but not necessarily fortuitous in end-results. Perhaps that's why the Lionel Ritchies of the world can't come up with even music to highlight the plight of the poor Rakhine Rohingyas.

Forget them, Aung San Suu Kyi still hasn't found out or if she has, let it be known 'what the problem really is in Rakhine', promised months ago. It's not geo-political but more 'eco-political' to coin a new phrase. Rakhine land is earmarked for big Chinese development and hence the silence of the second largest economy of the world. Joining them are Russia and India - seeking a piece of the Myanmar cake - and a US whose policy is as dense as its President's next step.

The dimension of the Rohingya crisis goes far beyond the immediate distress of food, water, clothing and sanitation. As happened in the Jewish ghettos during the world war, the refugee camps in India in 1971 and more recently in Europe, social threads emerge, new forms of education evolve as does the unfortunate inevitability of crime and illicit trade. These have the potential to penetrate the already delicate social fabric of Bangladesh, with rumours floating that there are more refugees than citizens in the area.

 Incidents with potential for tragedies are being played out. It's time for a full-fledged sub-ministry to take hold of matters from resuscitating the diplomatic failure to coordinating relief. There too we have a problem. We might be a role model for development but when it comes to relief and rehabilitation, our credibility sucks. Why else would a stream of envoys come on a see-for-themselves visits, take the short flight to Napidaw and let the world go its way.

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