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ROHINGYA REPATRIATION

A Delicate Balancing Act

Time and Tide

Shah Husain Imam
Some old wounds have re-opened on the Rohingya repatriation question. Ironically, these fester the last part of the process involving return of 21.500 refugees to Myanmar, now lodged at the Nayapara and Kutapalong camps of our Cox’s Bazar district. Since September, 1992 to December. 1996. bulk of the refugees — in the order of 2 lakh 19 thousand — had returned to Myanmar. Subsequently, the number of returnees rose to Quarter of a million some three months ago before tne process came suddenly to a halt due to unilateral stalling of it by the Myanmar authorities.
No sooner had it resumed with 399 refugees sent back home in two phases last week, an anti-repatriation group emerged on the scene and whipped up resistance against any further repatriation from the camps.
While the send-off seemed patently repugnant to the sensibilities of that group, they could perhaps touch on a sympathetic chord of the UNHCR when some children had reportedly gone back to Myanmar without their parents accompanying them.
In a memorandum submitted to Bangladesh authorities the agitators stated that returnees fell victim to state persecution'. A Daily Star report referred to some refugees outside the Kutapalong camp as claiming that 15.000 Rohingyas who had been earlier repatriated to Myanmar came back to Bangladesh during the last couple of months to escape the wrath of the military Junta in Myanmar.
The UNHCR in a letter to Bangladesh government conveyed their impression that the refugees were being sent against their will. An Amnesty International press release said last Wednesday. "Refugees have been forcibly returned to Myanmar where forced labour and portering continue at a high level.' Diplomats from the British High Commission and the US Embassy In Dhaka have already visited the refugee camps. The Western media has taken a considerable interest In the development.
Tne resistance put up earlier on against the repatriation process by way of making a stand with bows and arrows' from trenches, which provoked BDR deployment around the camps, subsequently changed into a refusal of food rations.
This was serious enough a sign of desperation on tiie part of the refugees though, to stay back.
Those who have been watching the scenario closely tend to trace the root of troubles to some six thousand cadres having been trained at the camps under the aegis of the Rohingya Solidarity Front in cohorts with some active fundamentalist organisations in the area.
It is surmised by some observers that the anti-repatriation group thought that if they could hold off the return of refugees until August 15. the deadline set by the Myanmar authorities to receive the Rohingya returnees, they would be able to stay back in Bangladesh — for good.
One particular conjecture that cannot be so easily brushed aside relates to a notion that maybe some western countries are holding on to this issue for the sake of pressurising the Myanmar military reg-"ime into democratising its society I with Aung San Suu I Kyi given her righ-Itful position in ft. I Some NGOs in vol-Ived In the relief operations have ■ grown a psycholo-.glcal stake in the refugees' future, too
Bangladesh government has been able to head off a crisis of confidence by successfully assuring the international community through the UNHCR that the Rohingya refugees would not be pushed back'. Our foreign office has made it clear at the same time in response to a UNHCR request that Bangladesh would not be in a position to provide asylum to the Rohingya refugees because her economic conditions do not permit it. The UNHCR has shown due consideration to Bangladesh s view point on this, so It is gathered.
A persistent refugee problem can be a ticking time bomb on the backyard of neighbouring countries Our relations with Myanmar at the working level need not suffer so long as Yangon is willing to take back the remaining refugees. Myanmar is likely to be our colleague-member at the BISTEC which on her entry would be renamed BIMSTEC. Not only is our boundary demarcation agenda with that country at an advanced stage of discussion, there is also the visage of the Aslan Highway In front of us.
All in all. this Is a very delicate situation we face, one that definitely calls upon us to perform a balancing act of a very challenging kind.