C T Online Desk: In October 1978, a Burmese (now Myanmar) delegation led by the country’s interior minister visited Cox’s Bazar to physically see the Rohingya refugees who had fled Arakan and were sheltered in 13 camps across the Bangladesh-Burmese border. This visit was after an initial agreement between Bangladesh and Burma on repatriation. As deputy commissioner of Chittagong, I received the delegation at Cox’s Bazar which came by air from Dhaka accompanied by the Bangladesh home minister.
The agreement, although preliminary at that stage and was subject to the Burmese delegation’s actual visit to the refugee camps and evaluation of the intensity of the problem, was no mean achievement that time since the Burmese Army — which was running the government and was responsible for this exodus of the Rohingya — was initially reluctant to accept the refugees back. This was possible mainly due to change in the Burmese Army’s strategy in tackling the Arakan crisis, and to a great extent due to the diplomatic stance taken by Bangladesh to bilaterally resolve the problem without taking recourse to international intervention.
On our way to the camps most of which were strewn all across Burma-Bangladesh border along the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf highway, I happened to be engaged in a conversation with the Burmese director general (DG) of immigration, an army officer himself, on the prospects of an early repatriation. The director general and I were in one car following the cars of the two countries’ ministers. This conversation was after a visit to one camp, and on the way to another.
To my utter surprise the DG said the repatriation could start as early as next month since the Burmese government did not want an escalation of the problem in Arakan by preventing a return of the refugees to Burma. To my further consternation he said that the refugee crisis was not created by the Burmese Army or the government. It was created by the Arakanese rebels who created a war-like situation in the state and had made living difficult for other minorities in Arakan. Operation Ngamin (the operation in Arakan that time was known as) was more directed toward quelling the rebellion of Rakhine State rebels than at any religious minority, he claimed.
I was not interested to learn about the ethnic or political strife that the Burmese Army was going through or who they were actually targeting in Arakan. My interest, and that of my country, was to see the refugees go back to where they came from and how soon they could get there. I simply nodded my head and said we hoped we could settle on a date for repatriation soon. The two governments subsequently agreed on a time and route for repatriation which officially began in December 1978.
I myself escorted the first batch of refugees (some 40 people) and literally handed them over to the Burmese immigration officials by crossing the Burma-Bangladesh border in Gundum of Ramu Thana under Cox’s Bazar (the events preceding the first repatriation were actually fraught with serious risks, all created by some rebellious refugees, which had to be managed with tact — but that is another story).
The purpose of resurfacing this old story of first Rohingya migration to Bangladesh and their repatriation along with the confession of the Burmese senior official that time is not just to narrate history. The purpose is to highlight the intractable Rohingya crisis and the likelihood of this being even beyond the Myanmar government’s ability to contain and control. This inability has more to do with the never-ending battles that the Myanmar Army and its military-led governments had been fighting since the country’s independence than with the Rohingya themselves.
A history of violence
Myanmar has at least seven ethnic wars going on in seven of its 14 states, all of which want to separate from the domination of Bamars (Burmans), the major ethnic group who comprise 68% of the total population. Bamars control the army and the government and are naturally determined to keep it that way. But in a country that is deeply forested and lacks basic infrastructure such as roads and bridges, control is not easy. Therefore, the other ethnic minorities, with their own history of autonomy under a dynasty of rulers, would not like to succumb to the majority ethnic group.
The Rakhine State, which lies to the west of Burmese mainland, had been historically autonomous, being ruled by their own overlords. Only the British were able to unite the State with the rest of Burma after long battles in the nineteenth century. But this unity fractured after 1948 when the British left, and Burma became an independent country. The Arakanese started to rear their heads in defiance of Burmese government, and the central government through its army had been trying to contain that off and on with limited success.
According to David Mathieson, a Myanmar-based independent analyst, today Myanmar’s most serious conflict in many decades has emerged in Rakhine State between the Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw) and the Arakan Army. The Arakan Army demands self-determination not for all who live in the Rakhine State, but only for the Buddhists of the state.
The Arakan Army’s actions have caused many military and civilian casualties, triggering a typically fierce armed response from the Burmese Army, and causing immense human and physical damage, something the director general of immigration had alluded to in my conversation with him some 45 years ago.
What is going on in Arakan or the Rakhine State now is a war of attrition between the guerilla Arakan Buddhist Army and Burmese Army. David Matheison writes that the trajectory of the armed conflict is alarming, complicating problems in a state already traumatized by the separate crisis that resulted in the violent expulsion of Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh.
Instead of de-escalation, clashes have increased in regularity and intensity, their geographical scope has expanded, and the civilian toll has grown. Despite the significant loss of life on both sides, nothing suggests that Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, is wearing down the Arakan Army or degrading its ability to operate.
Between a rock and a hard place
Caught in between are the million-plus Rohingya who seem to be now perpetual refugees in Bangladesh or elsewhere. According to news reports most of the Rohingya Muslim villages have been emptied, and those still living in the villages that have now become battlegrounds and are no places where the Rohingya can return.
Given this stark reality of the Rakhine State and the ongoing war between the Arakan Army and Tatmadaw, is there a possible solution to Rohingya’s return to that state even if there is some sort of agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar on repatriation? Can anyone guarantee, including the Myanmar government, that the Rohingya would be able to till their lands, tend their cattle, and send their children to school there without fear of lives and property?
The group that currently controls Rakhine State and is fighting the Burmese Army will not allow the Rohingya to return. They are not welcome there. So, what is the alternative? Will or can the Burmese Army come to an agreement with the Arakan Army to delimit a safe Rohingya area and that too under the Burmese Army’s supervision?
These are unlikely scenarios unless the Myanmar government itself undergoes a thorough change in its domestic policies, return its army to the barracks, and agree to a return to a civilian government with elections. But these are long-shot changes that may or may not happen.
What can Bangladesh do to help the Rohingya in the meanwhile? Pragmatically, nothing except keep them sheltering unless Bangladesh again opens its bipartite dialogue with Myanmar. This has to be done with tacit support from the only other country that the Myanmar junta will listen to, which is China.
Bangladesh needs to accelerate its efforts to lobby China through diplomatic channels to pressure Myanmar into arriving at a truce with the Arakanese Buddhists that will allow safe return of the Rohingya to their lands. Even after that assurance, the Rohingya may hesitate to return, but my guess is a good number will return. If the number of returnees is still one-third of who are living in the camps in Cox’s Bazar, it will be a good beginning. Others will follow.
I know these are difficult steps. But without these I don’t see the Rohingya return to Arakan any time at all.
