A New " Atrocity " !

The United Nations was supposed to be the world body with the power to stop wars and provide the impartial judgement to settle disputes.  Perhaps its finest hour was its intervention in the war when North Korea invaded its southern neighbour in 1950.  Troops of many nations fought under the United Nations banner to repel that invasion.  Now a new atrocity is happening before the eyes of the world and the UN seems to be impotent.

A million Rohingya refugees have fled across the border from Rakhine state in Myanmar and are sheltering in squalid camps in Bangladesh.  They are unwanted in either country and now an agreement has been signed to allow them to return to the very people who burned their villages and committed a massacre that forced them out of that country.

This agreement seems to be steeped in bad faith.  Myanmar is a predominently Buddhist country and the Rohingya are Muslim.  They have lived in what was then Burma for many generation when they were imported to solve a labour shortage, but they have never been accepted as citizens.  They are denied the vote or access to passports and over the years there have been repeated pogroms that made their life miserable.

Recently, a militant element emerged in Rohingya ranks and this resulted in an armed attack on a police post.  The response from the Myanmar army was swift - and deadly.  They unleashed a terror attack, burning villages and indiscriminately shooting men, women and children.  Rape was common, and widespread.  About a million Rohingya fled across the border with just the clothes on their backs.

Myanmar is a country emerging from as military dictatorship. Aung San Suu Kyi heads a civilian government but power remains in the hands of the army and it seems that the Buddhist majority are complicit in forcing the Rohingya to leave.  Myanmar has come under heavy world criticism and it seems to be reluctantly bowing to world pressure in allowing this return agreement.

But the Rohingya will return - to what ?  Their villages are burned to the ground. They crops and farm animals are gone and whatever industries that delivered a living have been destroyed.  They will not even be returning to their former " place of origin ", but to new refugee camps in other regions.

This is not a plan to allow them to peacefully resettle.  The intent seems to be to herd them into uncomfortable and dangerous refugee camps in the hope that privation will cause them to migrate elsewhere - and solve the problem for Myanmar.

There is a remarkable resemblance here to the Palestinian problem in Israel, and it might have a similar outcome.  We might see the emergence of a simmering civil war like the Intafada that delivers terror attacks - and their consequent reprisals.  An unhappy people who are impossible to govern does not auger well for a prosperous future for Myanmar.

Unfortunately, it seems that the UNHCR will simply stand aside as an interested observer and let this happen !