ROHINGYA REPATRIATION
Govt activities in mess due to hastiness
Officials term bilateral deal premature
HUMAYUN KABIR BHUIYAN
The activities of the government with regard to the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas appear to be in a mess with officials concerned having no clear ideas about the next course of action, sources concerned have told The Independent. The mess is attributed by sources at the government and international organisations to premature signing of the bilateral agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar on November 23, 2017 without proper preparations.
When asked to explain, they pointed out to some aspects like the governments hurry to conclude the deal, failure to biometrically register Rohingyas on the basis of families, lack of preparations on the part of the Bangladesh side and inability to mobilise enough support of the international community to exert pressure on the Myanmar government to take its people back.
And, they added that the Bangladesh government has apparently failed to make the most of a favourable situation.
To begin with, the sources said that without having any family-wise database of the Rohingyas, Bangladesh at the maiden meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) held in Naypyitaw on January 16 agreed for repatriation on family basis.
Perhaps, they agreed on this bearing in mind that they will get the UNHCR family-wise database and they got it just few days back, said a senior official, adding that a significant time is being spent on having the UNHCR database.
Shedding light on the lack of preparations, another senior
official said that the foreign ministry in the first week of January set up a technical committee, headed by the chief of the Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) based in Coxs Bazar, and asked it to prepare a list of 100,000 Rohingyas within the first JWG meeting on January 15-16 so that the list can be handed over to the Myanmar side at the meeting.
The technical meeting convened only for once since the formation on January 11 and concluded that it was not possible to prepare a list of 100,000 Rohingyas within the time stipulated by the foreign ministry.
Yes, it is true that we sat only once on January 11. We will sit again soon, said RRRC chief Abul Kalam, also a joint secretary to the government under the disaster management and relief ministry, adding that they are waiting to get the database from the UNHCR very soon. Another member of the committee said that the repatriation could have begun on January 22 as stipulated by the agreement signed in Naypyitaw on November 23.
According to the physical agreement, 1,500 Rohingyas are to be repatriated every week. If we were so desperate to begin the repatriation, we could have easily prepared a list of several thousands of Rohingyas and handed over to the Myanmar side to see what they do. Even the list provided to the Myanmar home minister on Friday (February 16) could have handed over earlier, he said.
By doing this we could have exposed Myanmars intention to the international community and stop them to score points, he added.
Another senior government official said, We have been dealing with this problem for decades. So, how harmful it would have been if we signed the bilateral deal after making full preparations through addressing all the issues that might prove problematic.
Having felt the eagerness to sign the bilateral deal so hurriedly, one might feel that Bangladesh was somehow looking for a deal without properly thinking whether it would fully serve our purposes, he said.
Referring to the remarks of the United Nations special envoy on Myanmar Yanghee Lee, he added, Like me many people of the country started believing that the bilateral deal was premature.
As you all know the situation is very complex and everything is not supposed to go on as per the books. We are trying our best to begin the repatriation as soon as possible, said Kalam without even trying to hint as to when the Rohingyas will start returning to their homes in Rakhine.
