At UNGA, Hasina to push for implementation of Annan commission recommendations in Myanmar

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will highlight the main reasons behind the Rohingya crisis in the UN General Assembly and demand implementation of the recommendations by the commission headed by former UN chief Kofi Annan in Myanmar.

She will also focus on Bangladesh’s proposals to resolve the refugee crisis in her address to the global leaders, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said at a news conference on Thursday.

The 72nd UNGA started at the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday. The general debate will take place from Sept 19 to 21. Prime Minister Hasina is scheduled to reach New York to take part in the assembly on Sept 17.

This is the first General Assembly of the UN after Antonio Guterres took charge as secretary general.

Secretary-General Guterres, in a rare letter to the UN Security Council, expressed concerns over the Rohingya crisis.

In a news conference on Wednesday, he admitted that the military operation against Rohingyas was ethnic cleansing.

He also asked Myanmar to stop military action against Rohingyas that has pushed around 400,000 members of the ethnic minority to flee to Bangladesh. UN agencies fear the number may reach 1 million by year-end if the situation in Rakhine remains unchanged.   

The Security Council has also condemned the action by Myanmar authorities in a statement agreed on the country for the first time in nine years.

Foreign Minister Ali, in the news conference at state guesthouse Padma on Thursday, said the UN was holding the General Assembly at a time when thousands of Rohingyas were crossing the border into Bangladesh daily.  

He said the refugee crisis along Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar has worsened than any other time.

According to the minister, the Rohingya refugees, mostly women, children and elderlies, who fled the indiscriminate violence by the Myanmar Army in Rakhine, have taken shelter in an area stretching 40 kilometres along Bangladesh’s border.

He mentioned that Bangladesh already shelters 400,000 Rohingyas at refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“Bangladesh has faced an unprecedented crisis to provide hundreds of thousands of helpless Rohingyas with humanitarian aid and to deport them,” he said.

“In this situation, the prime minister will present our specific proposals to resolve the crisis, highlighting the root causes behind it, in her speech at the UN General Assembly,” the minister said. 

“She will also strongly push for immediate implementation of the recommendations by Kofi Annan commission,” he said.

Ali said Bangladesh’s efforts to mount international pressure on Myanmar to ensure deportation of all the Rohingya refugees after stopping the ‘ethnic cleansing’ will also continue.

The Myanmar government with Aung San Suu Kyi as its de facto leader formed the commission after it drew condemnation for an army operation against Rohingyas following attacks on security forces in October last year. The army crackdown pushed some 67,000 Rohingyas into Bangladesh.

Hours after the commission submitted its report, Rohingya insurgents attacked 30 police posts and an army base on Aug 25 this year, triggering the latest wave of violence in Rakhine State.

Giving citizenship to the Rohingya Muslims and taking them back from Bangladesh after ‘joint verification’ are some of the key features of the Kofi Annan recommendation.

Foreign Minister Ali said the prime minister will join some key meetings on the sidelines of the UNGA.

She will discuss the Rohingya crisis at a meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Sept 19 and urge the Muslim leaders to take quick and effective steps to resolve the issue, Ali said.

The foreign minister hailed the UN Security Council statement on the situation in Rakhine as ‘strong and timely’.

He said Bangladesh will also press the global leaders for the recognition of the genocide of Bengalis conducted by the Pakistan Army in 1971.

Besides Ali, Local Government Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain and State Minister for Women and Children Affairs Meher Afroze will accompany the prime minister during the visit.