'We have told the envoy that they (Rohingya) are your
people and by signing an agreement with us, you admitted that they are your
people'
Bangladesh has lodged a strong protest against Myanmar
for the derogatory remarks made by one its ministers about the Muslims living
in that country.
“We have told the envoy that they (Rohingya) are your
people and by signing an agreement with us, you admitted that they are your
people,” he said.
“After three, four, five decades in this Buddhist
country, the Buddhist community will certainly become the minority,” Ko said.
Rear Admiral (retd) Khurshed Alam, secretary, Maritime
Affairs Unit of the Foreign Ministry summoned Myanmar Ambassador to Bangladesh
Lwin Oo and conveyed the government’s utter displeasure at the irresponsible
and discriminatory remarks made by the Myanmar minister, Wednesday.
A top diplomat of the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry while
speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, said: “We made the ambassador know about our
strong resentment of their minister’s remarks. We also told him that such words
are not at all good for the relationship of the two countries, especially
repatriation of the Rohingyas,” adding that “Yes, the language used were pretty
strong.”
“While facing the whole Rohingya crisis, we have never
considered religion as a factor. Why will they make religion issue? It appears
to me that it is another Myanmar way to deter Rohingyas in Bangladesh to go
back to their homes,” said the diplomat.
Read also: Religion Minister Says 'Extreme
Religion' Remarks Aimed at Rohingya (Bengali): https://mirsdq.blogspot.com/2018/12/extreme-religion.html
“We also reminded him to give them citizenship along with
their homes and rights; all the Rohingyas will return spontaneously and that
Bangladesh is more prosperous than Myanmar, so no Bangladeshi has gone to
settle in Myanmar. No Rohingya is being radicalized here in Bangladesh,” he
added.
When asked about the ambassador’s reply, the top diplomat
said, “He was not in a position to say anything but an assurance of conveying
Dhaka’s message to Naypyidaw.”
On Tuesday, Myanmar’s Minister for Religion Thura Aung Ko
said Rohingya Muslim refugees living in neighboring Bangladesh are being
“brainwashed” into “marching” on the Buddhist-majority nation.
Ko also said Bangladesh was “not letting them return”,
referring to the Rohingya as “Bengalis”, a term commonly used in Myanmar to
imply that they are recent interlopers from Bangladesh. Rohingyas say they are
native to Rakhine state.
“If [they] release them, the population will drop,” he
said in a video shared by NewsWatch, a news website.
The Myanmar minister further went on saying:“And then,
they, at the camps, also feed and brainwash Bengali youths to truly march
towards Myanmar, which is the goal of the over populated Bengalis.”
In an oblique reference to Islam, Ko, a former general,
talked on November 27 about birth rates among members of an unnamed “extreme
religion” and the threat it posed to Buddhism in Myanmar.
“While we Buddhists practice monogamy and have only one
or two children, an extreme religion encourages having three or four wives and
giving birth to 15 to 20 children,” he said in a video published by Radio Free
Asia.
Source: Dhaka Tribune