Opinion by The
Nation
With the one-year
anniversary nearing of the Kofi Annan report recommending solutions to the
Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the international community needs to send Nay Pyi
Taw a clear and strong message that it’s had enough of investigative
commissions. Diplomatic niceties have been emanating from this catastrophe for
far too long. Asean foreign ministers at their annual meetings have formally
“welcomed” in turn the establishment of each new panel to probe the crisis.
Hands are wrung but nothing gets done.
Politics and
delaying tactics have gulled those who were earnest about ending the crisis
It should be
abundantly clear by now that the committees set up to resolve matters achieve
next to nothing. The Myanmar government has inked vague agreements with the
United Nations Development Programme and its human-rights agency, but what’s on
paper does not adequately address realities.
One reality is that
the benighted Muslim-minority Rohingya driven from their homes in western
Rakhine state have nothing left to return to there. The authorities have
basically paved over the area, bulldozing away all evidence of atrocities
committed by security forces and hateful, xenophobic Buddhist zealots. With no
assurance they will be able to resume life unmolested, the Rohingya are
unwilling to leave even the meagre comforts of the refugee camps along the
Bangladesh border. A temporary camp waiting for them in Rakhine, paid for by
China and India, remains empty.
The latest committee
to be established, just weeks ago, is scrutinising the Arakan Rohingya
Salvation Army (ARSA), a little-known militant group blamed for the August 2017
attacks against 30 military and police posts just hours after Kofi Annan
unveiled his recommendations. The committee is tasked with assessing ARSA
atrocities – not those of government soldiers, police and rabid civilians.
Nay Pyi Taw cannot
be allowed to continue buying time and hiding behind investigative commissions
and advisory boards. Apart from humanitarian prerogatives, there are serious
political and security repercussions for Southeast Asia the longer the problems
are left to fester. The international community must be united in demanding
more serious engagement from the Myanmar government. It should no longer accept
the authorities’ promise that matters are being addressed.
De facto leader Aung
San Suu Kyi has claimed that 81 of the 88 recommendations made by Kofi Annan’s
commission have been “implemented”. This probably means that boxes on a to-do
list have been ticked. Certainly we have seen no independent verification of
improvements made in Rakhine itself. Meanwhile, Thailand is steadfastly lacking
in empathy, its interest in the crisis piqued only by the involvement of former
foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai, who Suu Kyi chose late last year to
lead yet another advisory board. The panel doesn’t have a stamp of approval
from the Thai military, so Myanmar’s generals aren’t about to take it
seriously.
The Thai junta dares
not endorse Surakiart’s board lest it upset bilateral ties, currently as warm
as they’ve been in decades. The Myanmar military is no ally of Suu Kyi, though,
and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing refuses to meet Surakiart.
Surakiart’s
continued presence not only helps the government with its delaying tactics, but
it could also create confusion about Thai policy – and Thailand will in a few
months be taking its turn chairing Asean, potentially giving it an even
stronger role in what happens in Myanmar.
For the sake of
clarity and progress, Surakiart and his board members from Britain, Sweden and
South Africa should immediately resign to make way for fresh and more effective
means of forcing the Myanmar government to resolve the problem.