India Pushed the Bangladesh-Myanmar Agreement on Rohingya Refugees

India played the crucial role of ‘facilitator’ between Myanmar and Bangladesh on the repatriation of refugees.

A Rohingya refugee waits for relocation at the Balukhali refugee camp, Bangladesh, 21 January 2018.

(Photo: AP/ Altered by The Quint)

Unknown to most, the agreement to facilitate return of more than half a million Rohingya refugees from makeshift camps in Bangladesh to their villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine province has been facilitated by India.

Indian diplomats and intelligence officials have formed a ‘silent bridge’ between Bangladesh and Myanmar for the last five months, finally facilitating a backroom channel between the two ladies who run Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Backroom Efforts to Facilitate the Deal

“India considers both Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi as crucial to regional stability, so we have helped them connect to each other. That helped in the final agreement for repatriation and hopefully it will also be implemented without much loss of time,” said a top official in India’s national security architecture but one who was unwilling to be identified.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval took personal interest in the backroom efforts to facilitate this agreement and his deputy and former R&AW chief Rajinder Khanna played a key role ever since his visit to Yangon for a seminar in November last year.

Khanna had a stint at the Indian Consular Office in Yangon in 2002-2008.

The Quint has exclusive access to information about his back-room efforts and the author – working as consultant in Myanmar’s Mizzima media for much of last year –also played a role.

The thrust of this effort was to get Myanmar, specially its army, to accept the repatriation of the Rohingyas and push Bangladesh not to insist on a time frame in order to prevent the agreement from being jeopardised.

Indian officials coordinated with the US during Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Yangon in December, so that the Burmese military officials opposed to the repatriation agreement were coerced into accepting it under the threat of US and Western sanctions.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar with Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi after singing agreement for supply of pre-fab housing to Rakhine. (Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Myanmar State Counsellor Office)

“Once Burmese military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing agreed to the repatriation, Tillerson came out of his meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi to announce that ‘sanctions against Myanmar were not immediately advisable’,” said an official connected with this exercise.

That raised Suu Kyi’s stock with the army because she had met Tillerson at Manila before his visit to Myanmar but Indian officials coordinate this whole exercise, suggesting the Burmese military that only India could effectively lobby with the West specially US (as its strategic partner) to avoid sanctions.

“They (Burmese officials and military) were given to understand that China could stop UN Security Council Resolutions but not bilateral sanctions ,” the official told The Quint on condition of anonymity.

Myanmar’s Repatriation Plan

• India pushed the Rohingya repatriation agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh by backroom parleys
  
• Myanmar officials, specially military, were told the agreement would save the country from western sanctions
  
• Bangladesh was told not to insist on a time frame but India pushed it by promising $25 million and huge quantity of pre-fabricated housing for the returnees
  
• In an election year, it is important for Hasina to facilitate repatriation while that saves Aung San Suu Kyi from global criticism
  
• ARSA, which has killed 55 Rohingyas so far for cooperating with Myanmar government may try to torpedo the repatriation by a fresh bout of violence
  

Convincing Bangladesh for the Agreement

When Bangladesh Foreign Minister A H Mahmood Ali reached Myanmar for the Asia-Europe summit, his officials were unwilling to sign the agreement because Myanmar was unwilling to concede to a time frame.

“But we convinced Sheikh Hasina and Mahmood Ali that we will push Myanmar into a time frame by persistent lobbying,” he said, adding:

Mahmood Ali realised it would be suicidal for his boss and government if he returned without an agreement because the Islamist opposition would pounce on the opportunity. So he overruled his foreign secretary and signed the deal.

Official privy to the diplomatic exercise

Indian officials then pushed Myanmar to begin repatriation by promising to supply pre-fabricated housing for the Rohingya returnees.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar visited Myanmar to sign an agreement for the supply of pre-fabricated housing and persuaded for the announcement of a date when repatriation would begin.

Hasina’s internatioinal credibility, specially in West and the Islamic world, and domestic acceptability has hugely boosted by the way she has opened her doors to the Rohingyas and is now able to send them back. This is crucial for Hasina and her party in an election year.

Prof Jayanta Ray, Bangladesh Watcher

That Myanmar will first accept 450 Hindu refugees from Rakhine and then start taking in the Rohingyas is seen as an attempt to placate the Hindu nationalist government in Delhi and play up the ‘Hindu factor’ in the province.

Preparations Ahead of the Return of Refugees

The Myanmar government and the army has played up the massacre of Hindus and other smaller tribes, as it said that the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) terrorists were responsible for them.

That not only helped them to counter global criticism about military atrocities against the Rohingyas and justify operations against the ARSA but also ensured India’s tough stand on the Rohingya issue.

Rakhine chief minister Nyi Pu told The Quint that “finishing touches were now being given to buildings, medical clinics and sanitation infrastructures” in Rohingya villages in anticipation of the return of the refugees.

The Global New Light of Myanmar published a photo of his delegation standing by a long, wooden house that will be used to house returnees at the camp near the town of Maungtaw. A wire-mesh fence topped by barbed wire appears in the background of the photo.

Rakhine State Chief Minister Nyi Pu provides cash to villagers from Khonhtaing village in Maungtaw. (Photo courtesy: Subir Bhaumik)

Over 655,500 Muslim Rohingyas had fled to Bangladesh after the Myanmar military cracked down in the northern part of Rakhine in response to militant attacks on the security forces on 25 August. The United Nations described the operation as ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas, an allegation denied by Myanmar.

Myanmar will start receiving the Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh at two reception centres and the temporary camp near Maungtaw, starting from Tuesday, and this will continue over the next two years under an agreement the two countries signed this week.

Bangladesh will provide an advance list of prospective returnees with forms attesting to their residency in Myanmar, the newspaper said. Some returnees will cross over by land and others via a river along the border, it said.

Rohingya refugees at the sprawling Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh are balking at the thought of going back until Myanmar can guarantee their safety, among other demands listed in a petition drawn up by camp leaders.

Even as Myanmar gets ready to start receiving the Rohingyas next week, more are fleeing following continued military operations in Rakhine, as was told to journalists by newly arrived refugees.

More than 100 Rohingya Muslims from northern Rakhine fled to Bangladesh and scores more were waiting to cross the Naf river that forms the border, they said.

ARSA Opposed to the Repatriation Plan

The ARSA has opposed repatriation plan saying it’s “not acceptable” and alleging that “the Burmese terrorist government is deceitfully and crookedly offering Rohingya refugees to settle down in so-called temporary camps”. Burma is the former name of Myanmar.

Repatriated Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh will never be able to settle down in their own ancestral lands and villages, rather than spending not only the rest of their lives but also the lives of their next generations to come in those concentration camps

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s (ARSA) statement on Twitter

UN Raises Caution

Myanmar has said it would build a transit camp that can house 30,000 returnees before they are allowed to return to their “place of origin” or “nearest to their place of origin.”

Paul Vrieze, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesman in Myanmar, cautioned that the returnees must not be rushed out of Bangladesh prematurely “without the informed consent of refugees or the basic elements of lasting solutions in place.”

Further measures are also required to ensure safe, voluntary and sustainable repatriation of refugees to their places of origin and to address the underlying root causes of the crisis.

Paul Vrieze, Spokesperson, UNHCR (to Reuters news agency)

(Subir Bhaumik, a veteran BBC Correspondent, is now Consulting Editor with Myanmar’s Mizzima Media Inc. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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