Diplomacy: Myanmar has outsmarted Bangladesh

[Banglar Bir]

 

[Banglar Bir]

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[Banglar Bir]

Qamrul Islam
সাবেক রাষ্ট্রদূত ওয়ালিউর রহমান আওয়ামী বুদ্ধিজীবি। গতরাতে এশিয়ান টিভিতে ওয়ালিও বলতে বাধ্য হয়েছে- ১৯৭৯ সালে রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যা সৃষ্টি হলে বার্মার সাথে চুক্তি করে ৪ লাখ রোহিঙ্গাকে নিজ দেশে ফেরত পাঠানো হয়। তিনি নিজে নাকি তখন ঐ কাজের সাথে যুক্ত ছিলেন। তখন বর্মার প্রেসিডেন্ট নে উইন এবং আমাদের দেশে যিনি ক্ষমতায় ছিলেন (বেদ্দপ ওয়ালি রাষ্ট্রপতি জিয়ার নাম নেয়ার মত সাহস করতে পারেনি) দু’জনে একমত হয়ে রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যা সমাধান করেন। পরে ১৯৯২ সালে ফের রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যা সৃষ্টি হয়েছিল যেটা ৯৩ সালে বর্মার সাথে সমঝোতা চুক্তি করে তাদেরকেও ফেরত পাঠানো হয়। এটিও হয় বিএনপির আমলে, তখন প্রধানমন্ত্রী ছিলেন বেগম খালেদা জিয়া।

.........বর্মা-বাংলাদেশের অর্ধশতকের পুরোনা রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যা বিএনপির দু’আমলেই সফলভাবে সমাধান করা হয়েছিল। অথচ বাংলাদেশের অবৈধ হাসিনা সরকার এই রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যাকে জিইয়ে রেখে রাজনৈতিক সুবিধা আদায়ের চেষ্টা করছে, আবার বিএনপি এবং জনগনের ঠেলায় পড়ে রোহিঙ্গাদের আশ্রয় দিয়ে নোবেল প্রাইজের স্বপ্নে বিভোর! অথচ কিজূ দিন আগেও আল জাজিরার সাথে সাক্ষাৎকারে হাসিনা রোহিঙ্গাদেরকে সন্ত্রাসী বলে আশ্রয় দেয়ার বিরুদ্ধে শক্ত কথা বলেছিল। তাই রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যা নিয়ে নোবেল পুরস্কার দিলে সেটা বিএনপিরই পাওনা। রোহিঙ্গাদের রিলিফ ও সাহায্য চুরি করে, শরনার্থীদের নিয়ে সিন্ডেকেট ব্যবসা করে আ’লীগ আর যাই হোক, মানবিকতায় পদক আশা করতে পারে না।

 

[Banglar Bir]

Wake up Bangladesh, it’s time for a foreign policy!
by Taj Hashmi | Published: 00:05, Oct 03,2017 | Updated: 01:14, Oct 03,2017
TO SOME, the title of my column today might be utterly ridiculous, as it suggests it’s time for Bangladesh to have a foreign policy. They might raise eyebrows at my suggestion that, Bangladesh is going without any foreign policy, since 2009. To them, Bangladesh has a sound foreign policy under a seasoned career diplomat as foreign minister, and an internationally renowned scholar as the prime minister’s adviser in international affairs. So far so good! However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The subservience of Bangladesh to India, and its unconditional surrender to Myanmar, which has forced about a million Rohingyas as refugees into Bangladesh since 2012, don’t make the pudding any edible! Bangladesh is almost totally friendless.Most of its trading partners, China, Japan, Russia, and even India have been openly siding with Myanmar, the main adversary of Bangladesh. Whatever the Bangladesh government sells as its foreign policy is something phony, does not appear indigenous or made in Bangladesh.

The laundry list of failures in Bangladeshi diplomacy is long. I’m going to mention some unresolved issues between Bangladesh and two of its immediate neighbours, India and Myanmar, in this regard. It’s strange but true, not only its powerful immediate neighbour India frequently coerces Bangladesh into submission, but of late, it’s not-so-powerful neighbour Myanmar has also started browbeating Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has nothing to be proud of its relationship with India, which is both a bully, and an undesirable hegemon for it. However, sections of Bangladeshis consider India as the bandhu rashtro(the friendly state). The rationale for their unconditional support for India is possibly also because of the latter’s support for the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. Nevertheless, the Indian support was never unconditional or altruistic, as it also benefitted from the disintegration of Pakistan.

The avowedly pro-Indian elements never mention India’s hegemonic and intrusive behaviour, and its ulterior motives against Bangladesh. The pro-Indian elements in Bangladesh enjoy the best of times when people and parties of their liking are in power. These parties and individuals at times suspend the constitution, and depend on the South Block of New Delhi to run the ‘foreign policy’ of Bangladesh. Whenever such people are in power, the country of 160 million people behaves like tiny, land-locked Bhutan vis-à-vis India. This happened during General Ershad’s illegitimate rule, and is happening again since 2009.

Despite many blunders and hiccups during the formative phase of Bangladesh in the early 1970s, the founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brave and wise enough not to allow India a freehand in running the foreign and domestic policies of Bangladesh. Soon after his freedom from Pakistani incarceration in January 1972, he made it clear to the Indian PM Indira Gandhi that Indian troops must leave his country, as soon as possible. Although Henry Kissinger used obnoxious expressions against Bangladesh and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — he called the country a ‘basket case’, and its leader ‘an inordinate fool’— but for Mujib’s assertive and bold foreign policy, Bangladesh earned some respectability in the arena of international politics.

One admires Mujib’s mottoes with regard to Bangladesh’s foreign policy: a) ‘Friendship to all, and malice to none’; and b) ‘Bangladesh will be the Switzerland of Asia’, in regards to maintaining a positive neutrality in the arena of international politics. However, thanks to the exigencies of the Cold War, and Bangladesh’s over-reliance on the geo-politically inept and economically bankrupt Indo-Soviet block to formulate its foreign and domestic policies during the tenure of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country was not in the good books of the west, the Muslim world, and China. China and Saudi Arabia did not recognise Bangladesh up to August 1975.

After August 1975, it was time for Bangladesh to face the hostility of the behemoth India, which not only sheltered and armed hundreds of Mujib loyalists, who regularly attacked Bangladeshi border outposts from across the border, but it also started depriving Bangladesh of its due share of the Ganges waters. Until Morarji Desai became the prime minister in March 1977, at times it appeared that India would turn Bangladesh into another Kashmir or Sikkim. Meanwhile, through adept diplomacy under the leadership of president Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh defied Indian hegemonic design and became friends with the west, China, and the Muslim world.

However, the rot in the realm of Bangladeshi diplomacy set in with the illegitimate military takeover of General Ershad in 1982, which was definitely a handiwork of the hegemonic Indira Gandhi regime.

The end of pro-Indian Ershad regime in 1990 didn’t signal the end of Indian quest for establishing its hegemony in Bangladesh. Up to the election of Sheikh Hasina as the prime minister in 1996, India ceaselessly tried to destabilise Bangladesh by stirring up a section of ethnic minority communities in Chittagong Hill Tracts. It armed, trained, and infiltrated members of the Shanti Bahini into Bangladesh to ‘liberate’ Chittagong Hill Tracts in the name of creating a homeland for the Mongoloid Chakma, Marma, and Larma people, touted as the subjugated aborigines of Bangladesh. The ‘Hill Tribes’ of Bangladesh are the descendants of Myanmar refugees who came to Bangladesh after 16th century.

As if Farakka wasn’t bad enough for Bangladesh, India erected another barrage across the Teesta! And yet another (Tipaimukh) is under construction across the Barak. Nothing could be more abysmally erratic than Bangladesh’s disastrous ‘foreign policy’ since 2009. The government since 2009 is unwilling even to protest India’s taking undue advantages from Bangladesh. India’s successful arm-twisting of Bangladesh — which seems to be the most willing victim — is worse than America’s gunboat diplomacy in the Third World. Thanks to Bangladesh’s ‘foreign policy’, India unilaterally enjoys transit rights through Bangladesh territory; denies Bangladesh similar rights to trade with Nepal and Bhutan; its BSF kills Bangladeshi nationals at the border with impunity; and last but not the least, India denies Bangladesh its due share of the Teesta waters.

Both Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi not only duped Bangladesh by lying in defence of New Delhi’s bona fides, but they also coerced the latter into submission. In late 2011, PM Hasina’s international affairs adviser told me about the ‘impending’ signing of the Teesta waters sharing agreement between India and Bangladesh. In hindsight, it appears that Oxford-educated Manmohan Singh simply duped Oxford-educated Gowher Rizvi! Manmohan Singh conveniently singled out Paschim Banga’s chief minister Mamata Bannerjee as the main obstacle to the free flow of Teesta waters into Bangladesh. Same theatrics happened again under Narendra Modi, who also used Ms Bannerjee as the scapegoat.

So much so that PM Hasina, who Modi outwitted totally, out of sheer frustration, said something publicly in New Delhi — which was grossly unbecoming for a head of government: ‘Didi se pani manga, pani nahi mila, bijli mila. Chalo achcha hi hua, kuchh to mila’ (‘We asked for water to sister [Mamata Bannerjee], but only got electricity. Anyway, it’s not that bad, we at least got something’)! Despite Bangladesh PM’s stooping down to the level of an Indian chief minister, her ‘foreign policy’ or ‘hilsa diplomacy’ (she carried Bangladeshi hilsa fish as gift for Ms Bannerjee) didn’t work at all.

Last but not least, not only an Indian chief minister became an imaginary adversary of Bangladesh or an important factor in Indo-Bangladesh relationship, but in the recent past, India’s foreign secretary, Sujata Singh — who was a government servant, not a politician — also played a decisive role in legitimising the farcical parliamentary elections of January 2014 in Bangladesh. She came to Dhaka, met Ershad (who had earlier said he wouldn’t take part in the elections) and soon afterwards, like a subservient subject the latter changed his mind, took part in the so-called election, and legitimised the Hasina government.

Bangladesh Government’s latest ambivalent statements, gimmicks, and self-congratulatory delusional assertions can make people laugh and cry at the same time. Soon after the Myanmar government’s crackdown on Rohingya minorities in Arakan on 25th August, which soon turned genocidal, forcing more than half a million Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh, the Hasina government behaved in the most unbelievable manner.

Sheikh Hasina offered Aung San Suu Kyi, her Myanmar counterpart, joint Bangladesh-Myanmar military operation against Rohingya ‘terrorists’, and instructed the BGB not to let any Rohingya enter Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, various ministers in charge of foreign affairs, finance, roads and bridge, industries, and even the DIG Police of Chittagong division have come up with some weird suggestions/opinions about the Rohingya crisis. While foreign minister Mahmud Ali has considered the Rohingya refugees a terrorist threat to Bangladesh, the finance minister has blamed Myanmar for waging an ‘undeclared war’ against Bangladesh. The DIG beat them all. In his speech at a public gathering in Chittagong he singled out Pakistan’s military intelligence ISI for stirring up Rohingyas against the Myanmar government. His version isn’t that different from the Myanmar government’s wild allegations against outside forces for the ongoing carnage in Arakan. It might be unthinkable elsewhere, but police officers in Bangladesh also give speeches in public rallies, and give their opinion on various domestic and external issues, well-beyond their expertise and jurisdictions!

Surprisingly, there are no signs of Bangladesh government’s taking any concerted and cohesive policy yet to address the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. Soon after PM Hasina had abruptly ‘met’ president Trump on the floors of the UN General Assembly on September 18th and talked with him for less than 20 seconds, Bangladesh’s foreign secretary told the press: ‘Trump told prime minister Sheikh Hasina, on Myanmar issue (Rohingya issue) we’re with you’. And we know he didn’t tell the truth, because soon the PM told the press in the most undiplomatic language: ‘Trump is not going to help Bangladesh to resolve the Rohingya problem’.

Now, Bangladesh seems to have no Myanmar/Rohingya Policy, which would have been there had the country formulated a foreign policy of its own, in accordance with its own needs and priorities.

Bangladesh was never in such a dire situation diplomatically — totally friendless in its immediate neighbourhood and abroad — not even during the turbulent days of early 1970s, when not only Kissinger but others also considered the country a ‘basket case’.

Bangladesh government’s over-reliance on India at the cost of not maintaining a balanced relationship with the US, Western Europe, China, Pakistan, Japan, and the Middle East since 2009 is mainly responsible for this awkward situation. It’s time to have a foreign policy for Bangladesh, run by professionals keeping in view the best interests of the country, not for the benefit of others.

Dr Taj Hashmi teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in the US. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014).
http://www.newagebd.net/article/25304/wake-up-bangladesh-its-time-for-a-foreign-policy

 

[Banglar Bir]

Let Bangladesh tell China: former Indian envoy
চীনকে বলুক বাংলাদেশ
কূটনৈতিক রিপোর্টার | ৬ অক্টোবর ২০১৭, শুক্রবার | সর্বশেষ আপডেট: ৯:৫১

রোহিঙ্গা ইস্যুতে ভারত যে অবস্থান নিয়েছে, তার একটি ব্যাখ্যা দেয়ার চেষ্টা করেছেন ঢাকায় দায়িত্বপালনকারী দেশটির সাবেক হাইকমিশনার পিনাক রঞ্জন চক্রবর্তী।

বিবিসি বাংলার সঙ্গে আলাপে তিনি স্পষ্ট করেই বলেছেন, এ ইস্যুতে মিয়ানমারের ওপর কোনো রকম চাপ প্রয়োগ করা ভারতের উচিত হবে না। কারণ হিসেবে তিনি বলেন, মিয়ানমারের সঙ্গে ভারতের একটি ‘নিজস্ব সম্পর্ক’ রয়েছে।

চীনের সঙ্গে বাংলাদেশের ঘনিষ্ঠতার বিষয়টি উল্লেখ করে মি. চক্রবর্তী বলেন, ‘চায়না (চীন) ওদের (বাংলাদেশের) বিশেষ বন্ধু হয়েছে এখন। চায়নাকে জিজ্ঞেস করুক। ওরা কিছু করুক।

যখন দরকার হয় তখন তো চায়নার কাছে ছুটে যায় ওরা (বাংলাদেশ)। ...কিছু রোহিঙ্গা চায়না নিয়ে নিক না।’ দীর্ঘদিনের এ সংকট বিষয়ে মি. চক্রবর্তী বলেন, ‘রোহিঙ্গা তো আমাদের প্রবলেম নয়। এটা তো বিটউইন মিয়ানমার ও বাংলাদেশ।’

দিল্লির জ্যেষ্ঠ ওই কূটনীতিক এ সংকট উত্তরণে চীনের সহায়তা নিতে বাংলাদেশকে পরামর্শও দিয়েছেন। রোহিঙ্গা ইস্যুতে চীন সরাসরি সমর্থন জানিয়েছে মিয়ানমারকে। অন্যদিকে চীন ও ভারত পরস্পরের প্রতিদ্বন্দ্বী।

বিবিসি বাংলার রিপোর্টে বলা হয়- মি. রঞ্জনের কথায় চীনের প্রতি এক ধরনের নেতিবাচক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি প্রকাশ পাচ্ছে। ভারতের কাছে বাংলাদেশ ও মিয়ানমার উভয়েই বন্ধুত্বপূর্ণ দেশ। রোহিঙ্গা সমস্যা ভারতীয় কূটনীতির জন্য ‘উভয় সংকট’ তৈরি করেছে বলে মনে করেন অনেক বিশ্লেষক।

এ সংকট শুরুর পর দুই দেশের কূটনীতির সঙ্গে ভারত কি ভারসাম্য আনতে পেরেছে? এমন প্রশ্নে ভারতীয় ওই কূটনীতিক ‘ভারসাম্য আনা মুশকিল’ বলে উল্লেখ করেন। বাংলাদেশ চাইছে যত দ্রুত সম্ভব রোহিঙ্গাদের মিয়ানমার ফিরিয়ে নেবে।

এক্ষেত্রে ভারত কি কোনো সাহায্য বা মধ্যস্থতা করতে পারে? এমন প্রশ্নও ছিল বিবিসি বাংলার। জবাবে মি. চক্রবর্তী বলেন, ‘বাংলাদেশের একটা ধারণা যে, আমরা মিয়ানমারের ওপর প্রেশার দিয়ে সব করিয়ে দেব। মানে ওদের প্রবলেম (সমস্যা) আমরা সলভ (সমাধান) করে দেব। এটা তো হবে না।’ বিবিসি বাংলার প্রতিবেদনে বলা হয়েছে- রোহিঙ্গা সংকট শুরুর পর থেকে বাংলাদেশ আশা করেছিল সমস্যা সমাধানের জন্য ভারত হয়তো কোনো ভূমিকা রাখবে।

২০০৯ সালে শেখ হাসিনার নেতৃত্বে আওয়ামী লীগ সরকার ক্ষমতায় আসার পর থেকে ভারতের সঙ্গে বাংলাদেশের সম্পর্ক বেশ জোরালো। দুই দেশের নেতারা বিভিন্ন সময় এ কথা বলেছেন। কিন্তু রোহিঙ্গা সংকটের শুরুর পর ভারত যেভাবে মিয়ানমারের পক্ষে অবস্থান নিয়েছে সেটি বাংলাদেশ সরকারের ভেতরে অনেককেই বেশ অবাক করেছে।

মিয়ানমারের ওপর ভারতের এক ধরনের প্রভাব রয়েছে। বাংলাদেশ ধারণা করেছিল, সে ‘প্রভাব’ কাজে লাগিয়ে রোহিঙ্গা সংকট সমাধানের জন্য ভারত হয়তো কোনো ভূমিকা রাখবে। কিন্তু দৃশ্যত সে ধরনের কিছু ঘটেনি। রোহিঙ্গা সংকট নিয়ে ভারতের পররাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয়ের সঙ্গে আলোচনায় বাংলাদেশ পররাষ্ট্র সচিব মো. শহিদুল হক এখন দিল্লি সফরে আছেন। সন্ধ্যায় দিল্লির বিদেশ সচিব ড. এস জয়শঙ্করের সঙ্গে বৈঠক হয়েছে তার।

এ নিয়ে দিল্লি বিদেশ মন্ত্রকের সূত্রে যে খবরাখবর বেরিয়েছে তা নিয়ে সন্ধ্যার অধিবেশনে বিবিসি বাংলা পৃথক প্রতিবেদন প্রকাশ করেছে। তাতে বলা হয়- রোহিঙ্গা সংকট নিয়ে দুই পররাষ্ট্র সচিবের মধ্যে মুখোমুখি বৈঠক হয়েছে। সেখানে দিল্লির তরফে মোটা দাগে বাংলাদেশকে ৩টি বিষয় বলা হয়েছে।

প্রথমত: বাংলাদেশ এবং মিয়ানমার উভয়েই ভারতের বন্ধুপ্রতিম রাষ্ট্র। সেখানে একটি দেশের পক্ষ নিয়ে আরেকটি দেশের ওপর কোনো ধরনের চাপ সৃষ্টি করা দিল্লির পক্ষে সমীচীন হবে না। তবে আক্রান্ত রোহিঙ্গাদের হিউম্যানিটেরিয়ান এইড বা ত্রাণ সহায়তা দেবে দিল্লি।

দ্বিতীয়ত, রাখাইনে রক্তাক্ত সংঘাত বন্ধ এবং শান্তির পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠা দেখতে চায় ভারত। এটি মিয়ানমারের উন্নয়নের জন্যও যে জরুরি সুচি সরকারকে তা বুঝানোর চেষ্টায় রয়েছে ভারত।

তৃতীয়ত, এ সংকটের সমাধান কারও একার পক্ষে সম্ভব নয়। ভারত মনে করে আন্তর্জাতিকভাবে এর একটি দীর্ঘমেয়াদি গ্রহণযোগ্য সমাধান হোক। আর এটি হতে হলে যারা রোহিঙ্গা ইস্যুতে মিয়ানমারকে সরাসরি সমর্থন দিয়েছে সেই চীন ও রাশিয়ার সঙ্গে বাংলাদেশের আরো ঘনিষ্ঠ যোগাযোগ এবং আলোচনা দরকার।

উল্লেখ্য, ভারত সমুদ্রে এবং উড়োজাহাজে দু’দফা ত্রাণ পাঠিয়ে আক্রান্ত মানবতার পাশে দাঁড়িয়েছে। বিবিসি বাংলার রিপোর্টে বলা হয়- দিল্লির জ্যেষ্ঠ কূটনীতিক মি. চক্রবর্তী জানিয়েছেন রাখাইন পুনর্গঠনের জন্য ভারত সহায়তা দিতে চেয়েছে। এর বেশি ভারতের পক্ষে করা সম্ভব নয়।

রোহিঙ্গা সংকটে মিয়ানমারকে চীনের সমর্থনের কথা উল্লেখ করে তিনি বলেন, ‘চায়না (চীন) তো একেবারে এক পায়ে দাঁড়িয়ে আছে। ওরা তো এসব হিউম্যানিটেরিয়ানের ধার ধারে না।’

এমন প্রেক্ষাপটে রোহিঙ্গা সংকট নিয়ে ভারতের কাছ থেকে বাংলাদেশের বেশি কিছু আশা করা ঠিক হবে না বলে তিনি মনে করিয়ে দেন।
http://www.mzamin.com/article.php?mzamin=86158

 

[Banglar Bir]

Unhelpful neighbors thrust entire responsibility for Rohingyas on Bangladesh
P K Balachandran

Abdul Rahman, 21, cares for his four-month-old daughter Sangida. Her mother was shot dead by soldiers in Myanmar while trying to flee to Bangladesh. Tommy Trenchard/Caritas

Unhelpful and hostile neighbors have thrust the enormous burden of looking after 400,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on the slender shoulders of Bangladesh when the latter is just beginning to make progress on the economic front.

After telling Bangladesh that it is fully with it on the Rohingya issue (to assuage anger in that country over India’s statement that the Rohingya problem is a terrorist one), the Indian government told the Supreme Court on Monday, that the Rohingyas are a “serious threat” to India’s security and that the court must not interfere with plans to deport 40,000 “illegal immigrants”.

It is not clear if the Rohingyas will be shipped to Myanmar or pushed into Bangladesh from where they entered India. If Myanmar refuses to take them, as they well might, the hapless refugees may have to be pushed into Bangladesh to add to the lakhs already there. In fact, The Hindu has reported that the BJP-ruled Indian state bordering Bangladesh like Assam and Manipur have already told their police to “push back” incoming Rohingyas.

Myanmar’s stand is even more unhelpful than India’s. Myanmar seems to be determined to push the entire population of one million Rohingyas out of the country because they are not considered to be native to Myanmar, but as Bengali Muslim immigrants.

The entire Myanmarese nation, military and civilian, has joined together to support State Counselor Aun San Suu Kyi’s tough military line against the Rohingyas.

While Russia has said that outside intervention will only further divide the communities in Myanmar and that the Suu Kyi government is doing its best to look after the Rohingyas, China like Myanmar and India, sees the Rohingya issue as a terrorist one. And unlike India and Russia, China has forthrightly supported military action.

Thus, Bangladesh has been caught in a cleft stick, between an adamant Myanmar on the one hand and an unsympathetic and non-cooperative neighboring countries on the other.

All that India is willing to do is to send some relief material and make feeble attempts to persuade the Aung San Suu Kyi to keep civilian casualties and displacement to the minimum.

China, which believes in strong arm methods to quell rebellions, will do nothing of that sort. Russia, which has no direct stakes in Myanmar unlike India and China, will be silent.

Bangladesh’s ruling party, the Awami League, is to take up the Rohingya issue with Beijing during a forthcoming visit to China. But experience shows that the powers-that- be in Beijing rarely ever change policy on anybody’ appeal ignoring long term strategic and economic interests.
UN’s Role
In this context, the UN’s role becomes significant. But since the Aung San Suu Kyi regime is opposed to UN intervention (Suu Kyi is boycotting the on-going UN General Assembly session), the world body cannot play a political role. All it can do is to be allowed to look after the displaced and suffering Rohingyas in Myanmar and Bangladesh to some extent with financial and other assistance.
India’s Contentions
Meanwhile, the Indian government told the Supreme Court on Monday that any decision to deport Rohingyas would be an “executive decision” over which the court has no jurisdiction, India Today website reported.

The Rohingyas are a “very serious potential threat to national security”. They are “indulging in anti-national activities and channeling funds through hawala (private non-banking and illegal) channels, the government said citing intelligence reports.

“The Rohingyas are also found to be very active in Jammu, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mewat, and have been identified as having a very serious and potential threat to the internal/national security of India,” the government said.

Referring to “security agencies’ inputs and other authentic material”, the government said there were indications of “links between some of the Rohingyas with Pakistan-based terror organisations and similar organisations operating in other countries”.
Buddhists Under Threat
According to the centre, there is a “serious potential and possibility of eruption of violence by the radicalized Rohingyas” against Buddhists in India.

“The right to reside and settle in the country is available only to citizens and not to illegal immigrants,” the government argued, asserting that India is not bound by the UN convention on refugees, as it is not a signatory. It also said the influx of illegal immigrants had “a direct detrimental effect on the fundamental and basic human rights of country’s own citizens,” the government mentioned.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra posted the next hearing on October 3, and said: “We want to first see the legal position. What’s the jurisdiction of court and what kind of jurisdiction can we invoke.”
Case Background
The Supreme Court is hearing the petition of two Rohingyas registered as refugees under the UN – Mohammad Salimullah and Mohammad Shaqir – who have said that their deportation is against their fundamental rights.

Around 40,000 Rohingyas have settled in India. About 16,000 are registered with the United Nation’s refugee agency. Last month, minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju told Parliament that Rohingyas are illegal immigrants and that the government aims to deport them.

The United Nations’ top human rights body criticised the government plan to deport Rohingyas, saying India “cannot carry out collective expulsions, or return people to a place where they risk torture or other serious violations.”

The Indian government rebutted that sharply saying enforcing its laws to deal with possible security threats posed by illegal migrants cannot be seen as a lack of compassion. “This chorus of branding India as villain on Rohingya issue is a calibrated design to tarnish India’s image… It undermines India’s security,” Mr. Rijiju tweeted.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/0...t-entire-responsibility-rohingyas-bangladesh/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Bangladesh fails diplomatically on Rohingya issue: Shujan

By Prothom Alo
October 12, 2017
Discussants at a roundtable said Bangladesh has been an utter failure in diplomatically handling the Rohingya issue.

They also said the atrocities inflicted on Rohingyas meet all conditions for genocide.
Shujan (Citizens for Good Governance), a civil society organisation, organised the roundtable, 'Rohingya Crisis: Context, Current Situation and Possible Solution', at the National Press Club on Thursday morning.

Politician SM Akram said, "We have diplomatically failed on the Rohingya issue. Those whom we consider our friend countries, have not stood by us."

Shujan secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar said there are ten conditions for genocide. All of these conditions are met in the incidence of Rohingyas fleeing in thousands to Bangladesh following the crackdown by the Myanmar army in the Rakhine state since 25 August.

Former cabinet secretary and executive member of Shujan Ali Imam Majumder said the Rohingya crisis may exacerbate further in the future. The attention of the international community may be diverted, he pointed out, saying it will be difficult to bear the pressure of one million Rohingya refugees.
Ali Imam Majumder said, "Vested quarters may instigate the persecuted Rohingyas to extremism. As a result, the entire region may become unstable."

Columnist Syed Abul Maksud said after Bangladesh's Independence in 1971, such a crisis like Rohingyas did not emerge in Bangladesh.

"We notice irresponsibility inside the government in handling the issue, which is not expected," Maksud said.

Professor of international relations at Dhaka University CR Abrar said there is no necessity to rehabilitate Rohingyas in Vasanchar and Balurchar.

Human rights activist Hamida Hossain, former adviser to the caretaker government M Hafizuddin Khan, former state minister for foreign affairs Abul Hasan Chowdhury, former ambassador Munshi Faiz Ahmad and Nagorik Samaj (citizen society) convener Bahauddin Chowdhury, among others, spoke at the programme.