Shahriar Alam blames the foreign network for doing “absolutely nothing” to force the Burmese junta to ensure a return.
The world has done “absolutely nothing” to protect Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, a Bangladeshi foreign minister said, complaining that his country hosts more than a million refugees without support.
Foreign Minister Shahriar Alam told the Guardian that money for the Rohingya was shrinking every year and that there had been no real progress towards repatriation in the five years since more than 700,000 fled massacres at the hands of the Burmese army. This wave, in August 2017, reached some 300,000 people who had already fled Myanmar due to previous security measures.
Alam said there had not been enough pressure on Myanmar’s army junta and called for more foreigners for a genocide case before foreign UN courts and for a forced eviction case before the International Criminal Court.
“When it comes to the political solution and repatriation, the world is surely doing nothing,” Alam said. “They haven’t exerted their full force yet. Until recently, they continued to invest in Myanmar. The expansion of FDI [foreign direct investment] in Myanmar from 2017 to 2020 exceeds that of Bangladesh. You know, how strange is it? »
Alam was skeptical about the proposed sanctions on the finances of senior military officials and said the other people in question rarely did so.
The UN humanitarian appeal for Rohingya refugees has won a third of the investment required this year. Alam said he fears less cash will be delivered next year due to emerging prices around the world.
The Rohingya, mostly Muslims, were jointly stripped of their citizenship in 1982 and subjected to violent military operations, as well as widespread controls on movement, religion, physical care and education.
Thousands of others who fled army repression in 1978 and 1991 have been repatriated, but Bangladesh has seen more people return because no measures have been taken to protect them in Myanmar.
“I think some of those [previous] agreements were flawed, but this time the Bangladeshi government is fully committed to ensuring a dignified and sustainable return. Unless they are given certain fundamental rights, those other people will never need to return,” he said.
Talks with Myanmar to return a very small number of others are ongoing, he added, which he hopes can lay the groundwork for greater returns in the future.
The United States has come forward to resettle some people, he said, but several other countries would be needed to make donations to particularly ease Bangladesh’s burden.
Bangladesh has twice tried to repatriate the Rohingya since 2017, but neither was willing to return. The government has also relocated more than 30,000 Rohingya to Bhasan Char, an island camp in the Bay of Bengal, despite humanitarian teams’ considerations of access. and vulnerability to cyclones.
The article was amended on October 27, 2022 with the correct title of Shahriar Alam. In the past we referred to him as Minister for Foreign Affairs.