Since the inception of Myanmar as a military-run state in the 1960s, this discourse has been a prominent symbol of Rakhine. The Tatmadaw has had a significant effect on the Burmese government, resulting in a high level of discrimination against the Rohingya population and near-complete marginalization in terms of resource allocations and growth.
The Rohingya have faced decades of systematic discrimination, statelessness, and persecution in Myanmar, and the forcible displacement of the community results from the waves of violence between 1978 and 2017. As of June 2021, Bangladesh harbours more than 1.1 million refugees – a significant fraction of this total are women and children – who crossed into neighbouring Bangladesh after a breakout of violence in August 2017 by the Tatmadaw, straining Bangladesh’s already limited resources. Refugees originating from Myanmar represent the fourth largest refugee population group by country of origin.
According to a policy brief published by the Yale Macmillan Center, a large number of Rohingyas who were present in Myanmar in 2017 (44%) and all other Rohingya refugees (38%) reported having a family member or a friend murdered in their lifetime. The Yale Macmillan Center also revealed that many respondents had experienced or witnessed loss of numerous family members, based on their open-ended questions. Female-headed families made up a quarter of all Rohingya households in camps, compared to 18 per cent in host communities and 12.5 per cent in Bangladeshi homes overall, indicating a significant percentage of male family members being lost during the systematic violence in Rakhine.
The effects of democratic vacuum on the Rohingya repatriation process:
Despite the Bangladesh government’s diplomatic push to repatriate the Rohingya, actions of both – Aung Sang Administration and the current military regime – prove that they have been hesitant. On the other side, there is no historical evidence that would provide sufficient reasoning that claims that the Tatmadaw ever looked after the well-being and safety of their Rohingya population. In the long run, the fall of Myanmar’s democratic system may perhaps worsen the repatriation process in Rakhine, highlighting deep concerns over regional peace and security.
The Rohingya crisis is not Myanmar-specific or just one of its internal issues; rather, it is currently one of the most important regional crises. The reality suggests that the presence of almost a million Rohingyas in such a small area has put local livelihoods, the environment, and socioeconomic conditions at risk. One of the most concerning signs of the recent political vacuum in Myanmar appears in the form of a steep rise in paranoia among the general Burmese population, and this sense of fear has been intensified by the Myanmar military’s revanchist thirst for power. It is not a matter of denial that Min Aung Hlaing’s regime is putting a strong pulse on Myanmar political elites’ power and is directly influencing Myanmar’s political ecosystem to decouple itself against the entanglement democratic governance.
The coup had caused a rising sense of the loss of control over Myanmar’s pandemic response, which in the long run, could lead to a surmountable spike in the country’s sequence of economic disasters. The international community had already reached negative conclusions about Aung Sung’s government because of her administration’s denial of the systematic oppression against the Rohingya community since the early-2010s.
Relocation of the Rohingyas to the Bhashan Char refugee settlement
In Bangladesh’s temporary refugee settlements at the Cox’s Bazar, the Rohingyas are being provided with necessities such as food and shelter, sanitation facilities and education. Human trafficking is a significant threat to Rohingya refugees in the camps, and some of the Rohingyas themselves are directly involved in the regional human trafficking groups and other severe crimes such as drug trafficking. In the temporary camps (Ukhia and Teknaf) where the refugees are staying, health and food security are growing concerns.
Since December 2020, the Bangladesh government has transferred nearly 20,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, an island in the Bay of Bengal. The Government has worked relentlessly to ensure that modern facilities are provided to the community. The 13,000-acre island has access to freshwater throughout the year, an uninterrupted supply of electricity, and all related necessities. The government ultimately aims to relocate 100,000 refugees to Bhashan Char.
Although rights groups and international humanitarian organisations condemned the relocation process of the Rohingyas to the Bhashan Char a few months ago; most recently Raouf Mazou, UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, opined that the Bangladesh government has made a very important investment by starting to relocate the Rohingya community to the island. Besides, Gillian Triggs, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, said that they fully support Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s policy on the Rohingya repatriation. However, international players, due to their geostrategic interests continue to subdue Bangladesh’s efforts in the repatriation process by supporting the Tatmadaw.
Role of the International players in consolidating the Rohingya crisis
A firm and unambiguous position from the Bangladesh government would make it far more likely that the United States and other European nations would accelerate their efforts to begin working on solutions to Myanmar’s democratic vacuum. Bangladesh is a democratic country that embraces and respects democratic values. Thus, the Government of Bangladesh should adopt a dynamic, active, and coordinated position to stem the illegal influx of Rohingyas. The United Nations has backed the repatriation procedure, but the entire process of Rohingya repatriation is now at risk of being blocked until a stable democratic ambience persists in Myanmar.
Bangladesh has made every effort professionally to leverage regional and global influence to bring a peaceful resolution to this growing catastrophe, despite China and India’s support for Myanmar on the Rohingya problem. Both, China and India are quite interested in Myanmar from a geostrategic and economic standpoint. In reality, even with the best diplomatic niche, the Government of Bangladesh may not be able to return the all of Rohingya minority to Myanmar in a single attempt. As a result, the government may need to identify long-term, sustainable ways to cope with the large number of Rohingya citizens who are presently seeking shelter in Bangladesh’s territory.
To some extent, Russia appears to be sympathetic to Myanmar’s plight. Although Myanmar does not have much weight in Russian diplomacy, thus no major geopolitical interests are at stake – Moscow’s stance on the matter at the United Nations might upset its Muslim allies, such as Iran. The US government had removed sanctions on Myanmar based on its substantial development towards democratic governance. The present situation has halted Myanmar’s full integration with the global institutions.
As Bangladesh and India continue to strengthen their political, economic, commercial, and cultural ties and develop a comprehensive institutional framework to promote bilateral cooperation, India must step forward to cooperate with the Government of Bangladesh to expedite the return of Rohingya refugees. US sanctions on Myanmar were lifted as a result of the country’s significant progress toward democratic governance. Thus, the reversion of going back to a military-run administration has halted democratic development in Myanmar for an indeterminate period, necessitating a full re-assessment of potential US sanctions against Myanmar by the Biden Administration.
International diplomats also have a responsibility to echo their own international consensus capacity to appreciate Bangladesh’s remarkable contribution to housing the displaced Rohingyas. The countries in Asia and beyond should stand with Bangladesh. The international community should show solidarity with Bangladesh and make efforts to repatriate Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, while also exerting pressure on Myanmar’s military government to restore democracy.
Today, the huge presence of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh is a challenge from both security and economic standpoint. The United Nations along with other international stakeholders should exercise their responsibilities for leading international coordination of protection for the Rohingya community under the cluster system, and ensure that the Rohingyas can access a safe, voluntary, and dignified solution to their displacement. The proposed framework should have the potential to ensure that the Rohingyas enjoy their human rights without discrimination on account of their displacement once they are safely repatriated to Myanmar.
Finding durable solutions to the Rohingya refugee crisis should be treated as a core objective of UNHCR’s work. This particular aim must enable millions of displaced Rohingya people around the world to rebuild their lives with dignity and safety back in their homeland. This requires a collective commitment from all relevant stakeholders. The international community should construct a framework for voluntary repatriation of Rohingya refugees, instead of thinking for other plausible options like resettlement.
The UN should act according to the recommendations laid out by the Annan Commission through the application of diplomatic pressure on the Tatmadaw. To establish a safe and dignified repatriation process for the Rohingya population, the de-facto authority in Burma needs to be pressurized to build ‘safe zones’ for the population in conflict-ridden parts of their country, as proposed by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. To reduce the risk factor of the Rohingya people taking journeys by land or sea to find a solution elsewhere, more efforts must be undertaken by the international community to ensure that the Rohingyas live with hope in Bangladesh, and look forward to a future back home, where civil rights and constitutional arrangements are thoroughly upheld, embraced and respected.
Md Nazmus Sakib Khan is an Incoming BSc Economics student at the University of Warwick and is working as a Research Assistant at the Institution of Need-Led Innovation at Oxford. He is one of the founding members of the international project, ‘Shapers and the Solvers’, launched by Global Shapers Dhaka Hub of the World Economic Forum.