Arakan News Agency
The visiting delegation of the advisory commission on Arakan (Rakhine) state on Tuesday said providing citizenship to and ensuring the dignity of Muslims in Myanmar’s Arakan state is the key to improving situation there.
“Yes, this is the key to have a better situation there,” delegation leader Ghassan Salame told reporter after a closed group discussion at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS).
Ghassan Salame, also former Lebanese cultural minister, came up with the remark when asked whether the commission believes the problems will be over once Rohingya Muslims are granted citizenship.
He said Arakan is the least developed, economically and technologically, state of Myanmar. “I think there are huge opportunities for everybody in the State the moment basic human rights and the rule of law are reestablished there for everybody.”
Responding to a question, Ghassan Salame, also former UN special adviser to the secretary-general, said he does not think that only religious elements that compelled to flee them from their motherland.
“This is not war of religion. They’re also other issues,” said the team leader adding that there are issues that people are deprived of their rights, there are issues related to ethnicity, freedom of movement, the rule of law and human rights.
Three other delegation members who attended the discussion are chair of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission Win Mra, core member and founder of Religious for Peace, Myanmar Aye Lwin and Andreas Indregard.
The four-member delegation of the advisory commission on Arakan state has already visited two Rohingya camps in Ukhia and Teknaf upazilas of Cox’s Bazar on Sunday and listened to Myanmar nationals about the torture unleashed by the military of the Myanmar government on them.
Foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque, BIISS chairman Munshi Faiz Ahmad, Dhaka University professor Syed Anwar Hossain, executive director at Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS) professor Imtiaz Ahmed, executive director at Research Initiative Bangladesh professor Meghna Guhathakurta, DU History profsesor Mohammad Shah, DU International Relations professor Rashed uz Zaman, Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA) honorory director Shahdeen Malik, Brotee executive director Sharmeen Murshid, former ambassador Ashfaqur Rahman, former Bangladesh ambassador to Myanmar Anup Kumar Chakma, former ambassador Shahedul Haque, former ambassador to Myanmar Chowdhury Khalequzzaman were, among others, present.
Earlier, the delegation members had a meeting with foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali at State guesthouse Padma.
More than 30,000 registered Rohingyas are living in two camps in Cox’s Bazar, while about 500,000 undocumented Rohingyas are living in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is regularly expressing deep concern at the continued influx of Muslims from Arakan into Bangladesh apart from tightening border deployment.
On 29 December, the foreign affairs ministry summoned Myanmar ambassador to Bangladesh Myo Myint Than demanded early repatriation of the entire Myanmar population staying in Bangladesh and expressed Dhaka’s readiness to engage with Myanmar to discuss the process and modalities of repatriation with Myanmar.
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