By Mir Aftabuddin
Ahmed
Sovereignty is
sometimes an overused yet largely exploited concept in the world of
international relations. In its truest sense, sovereignty is a fundamental term
designating supreme authority over a certain policy. Sovereignty has been used
by some as a tool to continue the activities of authoritarian regimes, whilst
others have sought to celebrate it through the practice of democracy. The
practical implications of misusing sovereignty as an international norm, the
global powers initiated a 21st-century political commitment called the Responsibility
to Protect (R2P), with the Rohingya crisis spiraling into a disaster of
magnanimous proportions; this may be an appropriate time to invoke R2P against
Myanmar.
In 2005,
member-states of the United Nations endorsed R2P to prevent four types of
humanitarian crisis: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity. The Rohingya crisis has been recognised by the Bangladesh government
and many global institutions as being under the category of ethnic cleansing.
So, what does R2P entail? As a norm, it demands that national governments
essentially do not take sovereignty for granted. R2P is based on the principle
that sovereignty requires a responsibility to protect all populations from mass
atrocity crimes and human rights violations. Myanmar government's failure to
protect a large proportion of the Rakhine-based Rohingyas makes a strong case
for an intervention by the international community, either through taking
measures stated in the R2P framework or by involving regional powers such as
China or India to achieve a solution to an ever-growing problem.
Consider the case of
Libya in which R2P was invoked to make a military intervention. However, one
may be prompted to think that R2P automatically means direct military
intervention on the part of the global powers. That is not the case. The basic
tenets of R2P also involve measures such as mediation, diplomatic cooperation
and economic sanctions as part of a mechanism to ensure that sovereignty is
respected within a certain nation. According to the R2P doctrine, “The primary
purpose of the intervention, whatever other motives intervening states may
have, must be to halt or avert human suffering. Right intention is better
assured with multilateral operations, clearly supported by regional opinion and
the victims concerned.”
But “there must be a
reasonable chance of success in halting or averting the suffering which has
justified the intervention,” it states, “with the consequences of action not
likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.”
Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina has already made it clear that her government has taken in
Rohingya people purely on humanitarian grounds, nothing else. The Rohingya
crisis ensued after the Myanmar government failed to exercise its
responsibility to protect its own people from the horrors of ethnic cleansing.
Considering that, many nations have initiated diplomatic efforts to pressure
Aung San Suu Kyi into recognising the severe failures of her government with
regard to Rakhine and the outflow of migrants towards Bangladesh.
R2P also covers an
interesting point that makes it even more applicable for the Rohingya crisis.
Its coverage is extensive in the sense that R2P recognises the fundamental rights
of all people, whether one is a citizen or not—aliens or stateless. The fact
that the Rohingyas are now stateless and being subjected to mass atrocity
crimes means the R2P-bound international community has no option but to
intervene to address Myanmar government's lack of accountability and action. It
also means that the international community has a moral and legal obligation,
as per international law, to pressure Myanmar into taking action to prevent
ethnic cleansing and simultaneously support Bangladesh in its effort to ensure
the survival of the refugees.
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Interestingly, it
was a Bangladeshi—Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury—who helped shapes many tenets of the
R2P. Chowdhury, who served as the Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Caretaker
Government of 2007-08, had worked as a diplomat to negotiate several paragraphs
of the R2P norm. It is now up to Bangladesh to persuade the global community to
act immediately based on those tenets.
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Foreign Minister
Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali has suggested that Bangladesh is pushing for placing
the Rohingya agenda at the UN Security Council, although it is unlikely that it
will result in quick action thanks to the council's history of bureaucratic red
tape and veto politics. However, the European powers have supported Bangladesh's
stance on the crisis, with UN-based organisations asking nations to provide
concrete support to the Hasina government. While it is disappointing to observe
India's lack of condemnation towards Aung San Suu Kyi, one hopes that both
India and China will eventually overcome the practical impediments holding back
a formal condemnation, and intervene to pressure the Myanmar government into
ending what surely qualifies as ethnic cleansing.
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Myanmar is a proud,
sovereign nation with a rich history. The same nation is now ignoring the
plight of its people, and pushing the country to the brink of unrest by
facilitating the massacre of one of its own ethnic groups. Identity politics
and the politics of power cannot, and should not, be used as a basis for
perpetrating ethnic cleansing. Myanmar cannot hide behind its sovereignty
status to cover up state-supported crimes. The international community should
seriously consider going for soft R2P interventions such as mediations and
sanctions, and this seems to be the only way to convince a Nobel Peace icon
that the path she and her government have taken is morally, legally and
constitutionally wrong.
Aung San Suu Kyi's
chapter in history began with her bold, courageous and symbolic effort to
institute democracy in her country. That she was able to do to some extent. But
the world is getting increasingly disillusioned to see one of its greatest
champions of democracy tread a dangerous and morally unacceptable path. She
cannot hide behind the curtains of sovereignty and democracy any more, as the
R2P demands that she take action to resolve the crisis that her government and
the military have undoubtedly aggravated.