Use reforms to settle Rohingya issue: FM

Foreign minister Dipu Moni has called upon the OIC member states to take the ‘opportunity’ of Myanmar’s current reforms to settle the Rohingya issue.

“We must recognise and use the strength of our moral weight to make sure that the most vulnerable people in Myanmar, especially the Rohingyas, do not remain excluded from the dividends of reform,” she said in a ministerial meeting on Sunday at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah.

The foreign ministry released her speech on Monday.

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Moni expressed her concern over ‘no progress’ with the proposed visit of a ministerial delegation of the OIC Contact Group to Myanmar.

“It is also unfortunate that the OIC’s offer of humanitarian assistance to those in need has also met with resistance,” she said.

Despite the challenges, she said, OIC must send out a clear message to it Muslim brethren that “we shall continue to stand by them and never give up till we find a lasting solution to their problems.”

“We must continue to act as a conduit to channel their legitimate concerns to the larger international audience.”

She also suggested OIC member states’ to give ‘uniform and unequivocal’ message to the Myanmar leadership across the political spectrum and offered a few ideas to resolve the crisis that include dialogue between Muslims and Buddhists in the Rakhine state.

She suggested first to convince the Myanmar authorities, and particularly the Rohingya and Rakhine communities, that the OIC’s offer of humanitarian assistance is meant for all distressed and displaced people in the Rakhine State.

“There appears to be a motivated trust deficit about the OIC’s objectives, which we should take a pro-active approach to address,” she said.

The minister also stressed the need for ‘neutralising the radical elements’ within both communities and for promoting dialogues among the moderates within their respective leaderships.

She said the OIC could possibly play the role of a facilitator for holding inter-communal and inter-faith dialogues to reinforce mutual respect and understanding.

It should also continue to urge the Myanmar government to create better economic opportunities for the Muslim minorities in Myanmar.

Raising the issue of Rohingyas’ irregular movements at seas from the coasts of Myanmar and Bangladesh, mostly towards Malaysia and Thailand, she suggested ‘better policy coordination’ to make sure that the migration schemes being undertaken by some OIC member states do not work as a ‘pull factor’ for such irregular movements.

She said a large number of Rohingyas, including women and children, are reportedly falling prey to the trafficking and people’s smuggling networks operating in the region.

“We need to enhance further cooperation among the concerned regional countries to prevent such irregular movements and provide necessary support to the victims.”

The intrusion of Rohingyas in Bangladesh started in 1978. Bangladesh officially accommodates about 30,000 Rohingya refugees, though different estimates put the unofficial figure between 0.3 and 0.5 million.

Myanmar has been denying them citizenship for long despite the fact that Bangladesh witnesses fresh influx when any violence occurs in the Rakhaine state.

The Foreign Minister said the Rohingya nationality question also has some ‘added urgency’ in view of the national population census in Myanmar slated for next year.

“The current official attempt in Myanmar to term the Rohingyas as “Bengali or Bangladeshi immigrants” in a general sweep does not have any historical or legal basis,” she once again said.

She said their ‘safe and sustainable return’ from Bangladesh to Myanmar remains ‘an outstanding concern for us.’

Dipu Moni referred to the process of verification of a small number of registered refugees in Bangladesh two years back for their ‘possible voluntary repatriation’ to Myanmar and wished to resume the process ‘as early as possible’ through bilateral consultations.

The process stalled in the wake of the sectarian violence in the Rakhine State in June last year.

She hoped that the Investigation Committee set up by the Myanmar President last year would ‘soon submit its report and make recommendations on the entire gamut of issues concerning the Rohingya situation in the Rakhine State.’

She said the situation in Myanmar is ‘evolving fast’ and the situation of the Muslim minorities there is ‘getting ever more complicated.’

Within the OIC, she said, “We must rise to the occasion and get things done to end the systematic persecution and discrimination against the Rohingyas and other Muslim minorities in Myanmar.”