Marshalling pressure on Myanmar

The persecution of the Rohingyas by Myanmar has only been met by sparse and feeble condemnation by the international community, and consequently we have not seen any attempt or even intention by Myanmar to put an end to what has been described as an ongoing genocide. What we are witnessing today is just the latest of a systematic ethnic cleansing that has been going on in that country for decades. That every few years the violence, arson, rape and torture flare up and a new batch of refugees risk their lives to cross over to Bangladesh points towards the failure of regional and international diplomatic efforts to pressurise the Myanmar government to ensure the fundamental human rights of the Rohingya community.

Despite hosting Rohingya refugees in the country for four decades, we have failed to engage with Myanmar about the issue seriously. These episodic efforts have faded every time the situation returned to a semblance of normalcy, and therefore, there has been no meaningful resolution to it. As experts pointed out in a roundtable conference on Saturday, Bangladesh must now launch a big diplomatic push. A major part of this would be to explain the humanitarian as well as regional security concerns that the persecution of the Rohingya entail for South Asia. Getting China and India on board is crucial in this regard.

It is also important to set right the Myanmar narrative of Rohingyas as non-Burmese or as militants. The militancy, in whatever form it exists, is a by-product of the persecution of the community and not the cause. By pushing this narrative and terming the reports of persecution as "fake news", Myanmar is trying to evade its responsibility. Diplomatic efforts must set this right. Bangladesh needs to play the host as long as necessary, as it has been doing out of humanitarian concerns. Proper documentation should be ensured here, not only for future repatriation but also for presenting the records to international courts if the matter needs to go that far. But the long process that is ahead of us for ensuring the rights of the Rohingya as citizens of Myanmar, free of persecution, needs to start with a diplomatic offensive by Bangladesh and the world.