Rohingya refugees sit as they wait to enter the Kutupalang refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh on November 21, 2016 (File).
A political solution, involving India, China, Thailand, Malaysia and the United Nations, to protracted Rohingya crises in Myanmar is essential for long-term regional stability, experts said.
Talking to New Age, they said that the government should formally raise voice among international communities, including the United Nations, and involve the members of the ASEAN and Indian Ocean Rim Association to put pressure on Myanmar to resolve the crises.
‘Resolving Rohingya crises in Myanmar is essential for long-term regional stability from political, humanitarian, security and economic aspects,’ a diplomat involved in the process said.
‘Involvement of India and China will have positive impact in resolving the Rohingya issue as these two countries have huge economic and strategic interests in Myanmar,’ the official said, adding that Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia should also be included in the process as Rohingyas took shelter in these three countries fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar.
Rohingya crises, a protracted irritant in bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar, got worse with the recent influx of at least 10,000 Muslims of Rakhine State who had been forced to take shelter in Bangladesh amid allegation of killing of scores, arson and rape by the Myanmar military and their cronies.
Myanmar military was asserting its political clouts on the Aung Sun Suu Kyi-led government, a foreign diplomat in Dhaka said quoting reports from their embassy in Yangon, to uproot minority Muslims in Rakhine State by killing, depriving them of citizenship and all civic rights, pushing them into long-term economic hardship by burning down crops and houses and raping many female members of the community.
Suu Kyi should absolve herself from responsibility of indiscriminate murder, arson and rape by Myanmar military and their cronies on minority Myanmar nationals, the foreign diplomat said on Saturday.
When contacted, former ambassador Afsarul Quader said that the government should raise voice in all international platforms including the United Nations, the ASEAN and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation so that powerful countries could take initiative to forge an effective mechanism to stop ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State.
About 33,000 registered Myanmar refugees and 3-5 lakh illegal Myanmar nationals have been living in Bangladesh for about three decades fleeing long-drawn process of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, Renata Lok-Dessallien, who was also UN resident coordinator in Dhaka, could also be included in the process for resolving the Rohingya crises, said a diplomat in Dhaka quoting diplomats in Myanmar.
Kofi Annan, who is leading Arakan State Advisory Commission on Rohingya issues, is in Myanmar after the recent launching on attacks on the religious minority community by Myanmar military.
The United Nations is likely to dispatch an assistant secretary general to visit Myanmar amid the crisis.
The Bangladesh authorities attempted to build rapport with the Aung Sun Suu Kyi-led government of National League for Democracy, which took over power in February, for improving bilateral relations on the whole, keeping the repatriation of refugees on the back burner. The effort is yet to yield any result, officials said.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina at a press conference on Saturday stressed the need for ‘resolution of the Rohingya crises’ in Myanmar, not only keeping the problem limited to their repatriation from Bangladesh.
The government refrained from participating foreign-office-consultation, a foreign secretary-level annual meeting with Myanmar, scheduled for November in Nay Pyi Taw, amid fresh Rohingya influx as the government thought that the meeting was likely to produce no constructive outcome.
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Source: New Age
