By Dhaka Tribune
Myanmar continues to burn Rohingya villages even after
agreeing to take them back
On November 23, the civilian government of Myanmar and
the government of Bangladesh signed a well-advertised agreement to begin the
resettlement of Rohingya refugees who have fled over the border to Bangladesh
in the wake of the Myanmar army assaults on their villages since August.
I have argued before that this was nothing more than a PR
ploy by the government of Myanmar, and one with potentially dangerous
consequences if the Bangladeshi authorities get over-zealous and start actively
pushing individual refugees to accept the offer of resettlement.
Now, Human Rights Watch has obtained satellite footage
indicating that the Myanmar Army was destroying villages as late as December 2.
It is as many of us in the international community have suspected: There was no
serious intent to the resettlement offer from Myanmar.
In the most generous interpretation of events, this
contradiction between the offer of resettlement extended to the Rohingya by the
Myanmar government in the agreement, and the subsequent behaviour of Myanmar
authorities in Rakhine state can be explained by the ongoing conflict between
the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the army establishment
which maintains full autonomy from the government and claims a great proportion
of the sovereignty of the ostensibly “democratic” state.
But even under this most generous assumption, the
civilian government must know it has no power to protect any of the Rohingya
that still remain in Rakhine state, let alone any of the returning refugees.
My contacts in Myanmar tell me that there is hardly any
contact between them and the military leadership.
They cannot possibly entertain the notion that they hold
any sway over how the generals will conduct themselves towards the Rohingya.
Their agreement with the government of Bangladesh is of no substance. So if
they had any concern for the lives of the Rohingya, Ms Suu Kyi’s government
would tell them to keep safely away in Bangladesh.
Maybe even give Bangladesh financial compensation to help
with providing facilities for the refugees.
The only saving grace of the agreement is
that any resettlement is supposed to be voluntary. And the Rohingya in Cox’s
Bazaar are sufficiently politically aware to know better than to take the offer
of resettlement at its face value
Unfortunately, not only the conducts of the Myanmar
military, but also the conducts of its civilian government do not support the
generous interpretation. The casual way in which the civilian government is
making grand offers of resettlement even as the military continues its assault
on Rohingya settlements, shows that they have no real regard for Rohingya lives
and safety.
The more likely scenario is that the agreement signed
with the government of Bangladesh was not intended for the Rohingya themselves:
It was intended for the consumption of the local electorate in Bangladesh —
which, of course, excludes the Rohingya — and the consumption of the
international media.
Here is Aung San Suu Kyi, hero of Myanmar democracy, and
Sheikh Hasina, hero of this crisis, “sorting out” this humanitarian mess. Or so
they would have us believe.
Doing damage to the Rohingya
The only saving grace of the agreement is that any
resettlement is supposed to be voluntary.
And the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazaar are sufficiently
politically aware to know better than to take the offer of resettlement at its
face value. They are not queuing up to fill in the resettlement forms offered
by the Bangladesh authorities.
But the agreement nevertheless does damage to the
Rohingya. In the wake of the massive influx of refugees since August — 655,000
and counting — attitudes towards the Rohingya have hardened in Bangladesh.
Increasing numbers of native people and certainly
increasing numbers of politicians are loath to accept that the roughly 1
million Rohingya now in the country are no longer a “temporary problem.” That
instead, they are going to be a permanent part of Bangladesh and must start to
be integrated into Bangladeshi society.
Agreements such as the one signed with the civilian
government of Myanmar allows Bangladesh to cling on to the “hope” that the
Rohingya will one day stop being its problem. And this allows them to keep the
Rohingya as a marginalised population.
This is not good for the Rohingya. Hopefully, the leaders
of Bangladesh will soon realise that both morality and pragmatism require that
they start embracing the Rohingya in their midst even if they do not seem to be
there quite yet.