NEWAGE
Nov 21,2020
THE United Nations having adopted a resolution on November 18 urging Myanmar to resolve the Rohingya crisis appears to the Bangladesh side to be ‘a major achievement’. But experts believe that the adoption of such a resolution is of little significance. This also speaks of major diplomatic failures on part of Bangladesh authorities. After the latest round of ‘security operations’ by Myanmar’s military in Rakhine, 8,60,000 Rohingyas had fled unbridled violence to safety into Bangladesh since August 25, 2017 to join many others having already lived here since the late 1970s to take the total number of Rohingyas in Bangladesh to more than 1.1 million. Efforts to repatriate the Rohingyas since August 2017 have faltered twice — on August 22, 2019 and November 15, 2018 — mostly because Myanmar continued creating a fearful situation for the Rohingyas in Rakhine, with none living in Cox’s Bazar camps voluntarily turning up to accept the repatriation offer, citing a ‘lack of a congenial atmosphere’ in their homeland. The process of Rohingya repatriation has since then been left somewhat unattended. Although the Bangladesh permanent representative to the United Nations describes the adoption of the resolution as ‘a very strong mandate’, this speaks of grave Bangladesh failures at the diplomatic level.