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Rohingya Crisis in Bangladesh: Searching for a Destination
By Faiham Ebna Sharif and A Group of Students from Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka.
A number of exoduses of Rohingyas as refugees to Bangladesh from Myanmar occurred due to the Myanmar government’s discriminatory policy to them. At first Bangladesh government treated this as a short-term problem. And the governments of these two states tried to solve this crisis bilaterally. At the beginning of the ’90s, UNHCR involved in this crisis and it was followed by many NGOs, which invited beurocratic complexities and procrastination. Our paper examines whether this crisis is going to be a permanent problem for Bangladesh or not and whether the ongoing initiatives are enough to give the Rohingya refugees permanent salvation from all persecutions or not.
Rohingya is an ethnic Muslim group of Arakan a western province of Myanmar. They have been residing in this region for more than thousand years. Their ancestors were from the north-western China. Their present language is an eastern Indic language of the Indo0European family. It is mutually intelligible with Chittagonian, the language of south eastern Bangladesh and it contains many Arabic and Urdu words which have come from the ancient traders who have came to this region. After having influence of Muslim kings and poets in last 600 years, the Rohingyas are Muslim in religion. About 50 years ago, Rohingyas once used to dream for an independent separate Arakan. In last 50 years, Burmese governments have been persecuting them successively which compelled lots of Rohingyas to take refuge in neighboring states. According to international law, they became refugees.
A refugee is above all a victim. The 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person, who owing to well- founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.. Some feature are absent in this definition which might be potential causes of refugee influx. Afterwards many attempts were made to redefine the short comings of the definition. Natural disaster, war, political or economic turmoil, external aggression, occupation, foreign domination, civil disturbance are very common in African and Asian third world countries, which led them a huge number of refugee influxes. In 1967 Protocol though the temporal and geographical limitations were removed, but these features were not included. Even though, this definition is the most acceptable one to the world community.
We have carefully scrutinized the present situation of this crisis. Many agencies and organizations have been working here not only for Rohingyas but also for their vested interest. The purpose of this paper is to prove that this crisis is going to be a constant problem of Bangladesh by opening the door to economic, environmental and social imbalance. In doing so, we have submitted the analytical history of the Rohingyas to show the relevance of their demand for citizenship of Myanmar. We have discussed the repatriation process to inform the interactions among the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar and the UNHCR. Then we have discussed about the present condition of the Rohingyas and the activities of various actors to examine whether the ongoing process is enough for them or not. At last we have some recommendations to give a viable solution for the Rohingyas without any interest of others. Having such approaches, we will try to prove that, only repatriation to Myanmar except reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction will not be able to remove the threat of being this crisis a permanent one.
The former name of Arakan is Rohang. It is western province of Burma and one of the most resourceful areas of this country. From the pre-Islamic period it was very known region to the Arab seafarers. Different groups of people like Arabs, Moors, Turks, Pathans, Moghuls, Central Asians, and Bengalis came here as traders, Warriors, preachers and captives overland or through the sea route or land route. Many of them settled there and mixed with the local people of Arakan. They developed the present stock of people known as Rohingya and they are Muslims also. Rohingya Muslims first settled from many where in Arakan date back to 7th century AD. Although they are Muslims by religion but they have distinct culture and civilization of their own. They are one of the ethnics groups of Myanmar but they have a vast difference with other ethnic groups of Myanmar and that is they are not such kind of ethnic group, which developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock.
They have physical differences from other peoples of Myanmar. Rohingyas are basically mixture of many kinds of people, their cheekbone is not so prominent and eyes are not so narrow like Rakhine Maghs and Burmans. Their noses are not flat and they are a bit taller in stature than the Rakhine Maghs but darker in complexion. They are some bronzing colored and not yellowish. Interesting thing is Rohingyas of Arakan still carried the Arab names, faith, dress, music, and customs. So, the Rohingyas are nationals as well as an indigenous ethnic group of Burma. They are not new born racial group of Arakan rather they are as old an indigenous race of the country as any others.
