PM's five-point solution

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's five-point recommendations to protect all civilians in the Rakhine State should resonate well with all peace-loving people of the world. Her speech at the UN General Assembly not only exposed the underlying causes of the problem, but implementing the recommendations in it in the manner that the prime minister has suggested will also help to resolve the long-standing manmade problem in Rakhine State.

The suggestions stem from our own experience of persecution and exodus to a neighbouring country. Bangladesh has unreservedly chosen to serve the cause of human rights and justice than go for expedient and motivated options. It has opened its doors to a persecuted people despite its many constraints. It therefore cannot be a problem that Bangladesh can afford to see left in limbo without a solution.

We should take comfort in the fact that we are no longer alone in this issue. The world leaders, with a very few unfortunate exceptions, have given their verdict on the matter. The UN in no uncertain terms has recognised the killings as ethnic cleansing; France has recognised it as genocide; and public opinion in many Western capitals recognises it as such. And Great Britain has even snapped its training programmes with the Myanmar military.

These are all very positive steps. And it's time to follow through the censure of the regime in Myanmar with concrete actions to force the military, the real institution that calls the shots in that country, to give up its idea of making the State of Rakhine free of the Rohingyas. The world community must now move beyond the talk and forge a coherent and time-bound plan of action to restore the country to a people that have been illegally and brutally forced out of.