DHAKA: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh expressed concern and fear on Saturday over plans for them to return to neighboring Myanmar.
Leaders of the refugees, along with Bangladeshi officials, visited Myanmar on Friday to assess the possibility of repatriating the estimated 1.2 million Rohingya refugees currently in Bangladesh.
The 27-member delegation visited Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the area from which the majority of the Rohingya fled due to a military crackdown that began in October 2016.
The repatriation of Rohingya refugees has been on the United Nations’ agenda for years, but no practical progress has been made, despite pressure from Bangladesh.
The team which visited Rakhine State took part in a pilot Bangladesh-Myanmar project mediated by China. On their return, some Rohingya members of the delegation told the media that they would refuse to go back to Myanmar because, under the current proposal, they would not be granted citizenship.
Bangladeshi Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mizanur Rahman, who led the delegation, told Arab News that Myanmar authorities were proposing a National Verification Card scheme for returning refugees. While such alternative identification was widely criticized by rights groups when the idea was first floated by Myanmar in 2019, Rahman said it was still better than what the refugees were being offered in Bangladesh.
“It is better to have a life with some civil rights than a life without any civil rights,” he said. “It’s their own country. Here in the camps, Bangladesh has not even given them refugee status.”
Although it has been hosting the Rohingya for years, Bangladesh is not a signatory of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
The violence the Rohingya community endured in Myanmar — which international observers have referred to as genocide or ethnic cleansing — understandably makes many reluctant to go back to their official homeland.
“What is the guarantee that we wouldn’t be tortured again by the military junta once we return?” Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, a Rohingya activist in Bangladesh, said. “We don’t want anything except our rights, so that we don’t turn into refugees again, not even after 100 years — our next generations must not turn into refugees. We want to solve this crisis, and the only solution is to ensure equal rights and provide citizenship rights to the Rohingya people.
“We just need citizenship, even if we are not given any other things,” he continued. “If we get citizenship, we can do the rest on our own; we will be able to earn money, study… we can do whatever is necessary for our community.”
If a peacekeeping mission could guarantee their protection in Myanmar, then the refugees would likely choose to return, he added.
“This process should involve the international community,” he said. “The US and other important countries should stand beside us.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has so far distanced itself from the current proposal, citing unsustainable conditions in military junta-ruled Myanmar.
For Mohammad Nur Khan, a Bangladeshi rights activist and migration expert, it is no surprise that the refugees are skeptical about what awaits them should they return to Myanmar.
“The Rohingya have been deceived for a long time. They were the subject of torture and atrocities. The team that visited (Myanmar) on Friday did not gain confidence from that visit,” he said.
Meeting the Rohingya community’s most fundamental demands — such as the issue of citizenship — is of utmost importance in building trust, Khan told Arab News.
“There will be no chance to reach a compromise through bypassing their main demands,” he said. “Without the involvement of all stakeholders and international aid agencies, I think it’s not possible to come to (an agreement).”
Rohingya reluctant to return to Myanmar with citizenship not guaranteed
https://arab.news/ctfvq
Rohingya reluctant to return to Myanmar with citizenship not guaranteed
- Delegation including Rohingya leaders visited Myanmar on Friday
- China is mediating Rohingya repatriation project
Trump’s Iran war violates international law, experts say
- Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the attack on Iran “had no justification under international law“
- “The US probably could have prevented any Israeli attack on Iran by virtue of the leverage afforded by critical US military support,” said Finucane
WASHINGTON: The United States insists it attacked Iran to curb “direct threats” from the Islamic republic, but legal experts say the dangers cited by Washington do not justify war under international law.
US and Israeli forces launched a massive air campaign against Iran on February 28, with Washington saying it aimed to curb nuclear and missile threats from Tehran. Yet the war has also decapitated the country’s government, and President Donald Trump is now demanding “unconditional surrender.”
The White House laid out Washington’s justification for the war during a news conference this week.
“This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America, and the president’s feeling, based on fact, that Iran does pose (an) imminent and direct threat,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday.
She went on to cite Iranian sponsorship of “terrorism,” its ballistic missile program and its alleged efforts to “create nuclear weapons and nuclear bombs.”
But Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the attack on Iran “had no justification under international law.”
“The law is clear that international disputes are to be resolved using peaceful means — negotiation, mediation, the intervention of international organizations,” said O’Connell, an expert in international law on the use of force and international legal theory.
The Trump administration has offered “vague mentions of imminent attacks by Iran and to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” while the UN Charter “requires, at the least, that evidence of a significant attack by Iran be underway,” she said.
- ‘Even less plausible’ -
“No shred of such evidence has been provided. Nor is there any right whatsoever to start a war over a weapons program.”
While Leavitt cited threats from missiles and militants, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a different justification for the war earlier in the week: fears that an Israeli attack would trigger reprisals against US forces.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser for the International Crisis Group’s US Program, said there were several issues with Rubio’s explanation, including that the Trump administration has since offered other rationales for the war.
“The US probably could have prevented any Israeli attack on Iran by virtue of the leverage afforded by critical US military support,” said Finucane, who previously worked in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State.
The Iran war is not the only legally dubious military intervention by the Trump administration.
In early September, the United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and later the eastern Pacific — a campaign that has killed more than 150 people.
The US government has yet to provide definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, and legal experts and rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump also ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last year, and sent US forces into Caracas in early January to seize leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who is now on trial in the United States.
Finucane said Trump’s Friday demand for “unconditional surrender” by Iran “further undercuts prior justifications for US military action.”
“The administration has not even bothered to argue that Operation Epic Fury complies with international law, but certainly statements like this make any such argument even less plausible,” he said, referring to the Iran operation.
