Unabating maelstrom

In the sixth year of Rohingyas’ presence in camps in Bangladesh following their pushback from Myanmar on August 17, 2017, there are still streaks of undesirable activities in the camps. According to the latest inputs, only last week there was an incident of arson and violence in one of the camps bordering Myanmar in the district of Bandarban. This has resulted in one death and two serious injuries. Credible sources further confirm that there is a disturbing trend of cases of violence at regular intervention in various Rohingyas camps posing a serious challenge to law and order and crime scenes in the area.

The aforesaid violent incident has also led to the escape of nearly 4,000 Rohingyas into other areas thought to be a safe haven. The authorities on the ground are bewildered over the development for the creation of new camps for the Rohingyas along the zero line. The International Red Cross has also set up a temporary camp to address the food-related problems of the displaced Rohingyas. Still, a lot more is required to be done on the ground for the hapless refugees. Currently, there are around 1.2 million Rohingyas sheltered in Bangladesh and it is Bangladesh alone which is bearing the brunt of the refugees and their related problems. As already known, many of these refugees have got religiously indoctrinated towards fanaticism and are involved in many organized crimes including fake passports, drugs, smuggling, murders and communal violence. There are also reports of terror incidents perpetrated by a section of Rohingyas along the zero line of Konapara. Insiders reveal in anonymity that the Arakan Rohingyas Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) are continuing their extortions in a big way. It is equally disturbing that these two Myanmar-based outfits continue to exploit the Rohingya Muslims leading to an uneasy calm and a spurt in crime and terror.

It may be worth recapitulating that the Myanmar promises made earlier that it would take back all the refugees have been blatantly belied as even after a lapse of nearly six years, not a single Rohingya refugee has been repatriated to Myanmar despite assurances given by the Chinese Foreign Minister to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina about four years ago and other international players including bodies like ASEN’s assurances. The incumbent military regime in Myanmar seems oblivious to its promises and happenings keeping Bangladesh in a lurch fomenting radicalization and a spike in organised crimes. The Armed Police Battalion (APBn) of the Bangladesh law and order machinery has been specifically deployed to oversee control of the undesirable and violent elements living in the refugee camps but to no avail, as there is no abatement in organized offences. In December, there were proven cases of drug dealing and seizures of Yaba drugs in Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar. There were also umpteen cases of stabbing, gang war, human trafficking and possession of illegal arms. While drug syndicates are active with the direct complicity of many Rohingyas, in a separate incident, a Vietnamese oil tanker rescued 154 Rohingyas from a boat floating in the Andaman Sea. Most of those rescued were women and children. They were subsequently handed over to the Myanmar Navy after being rescued from the Andaman Sea on December 7. The Vietnamese oil tanker was en route from Singapore to Myanmar. The ship’s sailors spotted the sinking boat on the way. The Rohingyas were eventually rescued.

Meanwhile, in its latest report, the UN agencies recently described the security situation within Cox’s Bazar’s operational area as complex, fluid and unpredictable. Specifically, in this area, drug-related crimes remained primary threats, in addition to a series of other crimes as has already been enunciated in the above paragraphs. The regular border meetings between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP) failed to curb the activities of various terror groups despite their agreement to share real-time actionable intelligence and hold joint patrols on both land and water for bringing down transborder crimes. Also, Bangladesh authorities have deployed drones to monitor its shared border with Myanmar amid growing tension between the two countries.

On its part, Bangladesh authorities are doing their best to control the menace of a plethora of crimes emanating from the Rohingyas. Yet, it is far from arriving at a satisfactory headway for multiple reasons. Bangladesh is poised for its general elections end of the year and for holding peaceful trouble-free elections, it would appear imperative to keep the Rohingyas in check as in case their undesirable activities spiral out of control, it might have adverse repercussions on the Bangladesh establishment as the fundamentalists and the fanatics might try to exploit the indoctrinated Rohingyas in their favour for political mileage considerably denting the electoral prospects of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the ruling party — the Awami League (AL). In sum, Rohingyas remain a thorn in the flesh of the Bangladesh system and unless tackled effectively, it might prove costly in terms of peace, communal harmony and even political stability.

The writer is a retired IPS officer, a security analyst and a former National Security Advisor to the PM of Mauritius. Views expressed are personal