By THOMAS MANCH
He laughed and played in a safe place and a tale of
trauma just poured out of him.
The camps at Cox's Bazar are no a place for a child, let
alone 500,000 children who have fled bloodshed and rape at the hands of Myanmar
soldiers.
But it was the 11-year-old boy who stood out, like some
kids do, during Charlotte Glennie's time at the refugee camps in Bangladesh. He
was reminiscent of the children she sees when picking her own two boys up from
school.
Protective of his family – he was lucky to have both
parents with him he would haul water long distances. And under the tarpaulin of
one of the camp's child-friendly zones in September, he shared his story.
"He told us about the military killing people in his
village, burning the villages to the ground, taking women and girls away and
they were raped by the soldiers. And he also told us about seeing children, in
front of his eyes, being thrown on fires.
"And yet, he was just an 11-year-old boy."
Glennie, a Sydney-based UNICEF communications manager and
former TVNZ correspondent, is preparing for a second trip to the sprawling camp
built on clay, responding to a renewed sense of panic.
As a journalist, she beamed distressing scenes from the
Boxing Day Tsunami and China's earthquake-shattered Sichuan Province. "So,
I've seen a lot of things – but what I saw in Bangladesh was just on an
overwhelming scale," she says.
The monsoon is here, and with it 3000 flimsily-built
family shelters have been damaged by rain, landslides and flooding.
Most concerning is how the 500,000 children living in the
camp will cope, with fear many will be swept from family and caregivers. UNICEF
is handing out 250,000 identification bracelets so it is easier to locate
family members.
"Despite how dire it is, it's still a much safer
place for them to be living than Myanmar.
"If they do go back to Myanmar, which is what the
ultimate goal of many may be, it has to be a repatriation that's safe, that's
dignified, that's voluntary – and we're a long way from that at this
point."
A long way because Myanmar is often dismissive of
international efforts and denies claims of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
In the past week, Reuters published an investigation
detailing eyewitness accounts of villages being set alight, Amnesty
International released a report naming 13 Myanmar generals it says are
responsible for ethnic cleansing, and the EU and Canada imposed asset-freezing
sanctions on seven senior military officials.
This will be little peace of mind to Rohingya: Myanmar
has rejected a UN recommendation to reform its citizenship law which currently
excludes the persecuted minority.
LIVING ON THE EDGE
Across the border, New Zealand's ambassador to Myanmar
Steve Marshall knows what it will take to repatriate Rohingya, and knows
there's work to be done.
The gravel-voiced diplomat is a known quantity in
Myanmar, after spending almost a decade as Myanmar liaison officer for the
International Labour Organisation.
In a country under firm military rule, Marshall built a
network of informants across the country's rival ethnic groups, and helped
about 1000 child soldiers out of the army.
All while under the watchful eye of the secret police.
The military "wasn't too keen" on accepting him for the diplomatic
post, which he assumed in 2016.
Yangon is the country's commercial capital, where
Marshall is based. But when I visited in October, there was little word of the
carnage unfolding in the state of Rakhine, some 500km west, from which the
Rohingya were driven.
It was only when I befriended the young man who runs the
hotel, that I heard mention of the Rohingya. 'You know they're not Burmese,
right?'
Amid uniform rows of streets dedicated to genres of
useful items – one block for stacks of large brown paper sheets, another for
sharply coloured lights, yet another for coils of cable – a Westerner could
momentarily lull themselves into the expat life.
A small scene of English-speaking aid workers,
journalists, business suits and diplomats mingle in the few bars that wouldn't
look amiss back home.
But away from the momentary Western sheen, Myanmar's
position as a democracy in transition is apparent.
Marshall's mandate has changed since his days freeing
child soldiers; he is now tasked with working for New Zealand's interests. With
a nascent trade relationship between the two countries stymied by unrest, aid
and regional security is the primary focus.
Understand this: Myanmar has been in a perpetual civil
war for some seven decades, with diabolical trust issues between the country's
135 ethnic groups, military and civilian government.
As chair of 18-country effort to foster peace, Marshall
makes frequent visits to the Rakhine.
Things have worsened since October. Speaking to Stuff
last month, Marshall described sitting down with the state government officials
to discuss rule of law, protection of the population and express concern over
the potential closure of internally displaced persons camps which have been
home to Rohingya for many years.
"Of course, camps need to be closed, but the timing
of the closure of camps is really important. When you close a camp, the
environment needs to be ready to receive those people – and we've got some
concerns."
And he has direct dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the
beleaguered Noble Peace Prize laureate who led her National League for
Democracy party to victory in the 2015 election.
He counts her as a friend. They both share common
professional interests, and a personal relationship was a natural development
over years of working together.
"There are a range of areas where her strategy and
my belief of what the strategy should be, are very different. We don't agree on
everything, but that's okay."
Where they might agree: the impact of international
sanctions against the country.
The Rohingya crisis highlights the dire state of
accountability in the country, clear in the military's refusal to acknowledge
any wrongdoing. But Marshall says the best resolution would come from an
internal mechanism – not a punitive approach from the outside.
There is a "strong suggestion" that Suu Kyi is
trying to establish a credible, internal investigation, he says.
In a country that only recently emerged from 50 years of
military rule, democracy is slow-growing and peace requires care.
"What are the alternatives? If we take too strident
a line, there is the potential that we could do more damage.
"I'm not saying this as a friend of Aung San Suu
Kyi, the reality is: she's the only game in town."
ROHINGYA BY THE NUMBERS
702,160 new arrivals to Bangladesh since August 25, 2017,
379,166 children among new arrivals in need of
humanitarian assistance,
17,977 refugees affected by the first four days of
monsoon rain,
46 UNICEF-supported learning centres, three diarrhea
treatment centres and 10 women-friendly spaces damaged by rain and landslides.
*supplied by UNICEF