Bangladesh’s ‘High Representative to the Chief Advisor on Rohingya Crisis and Priority Issues Affairs’ will soon be leaving for New York where he is likely to propose at a conference a ‘no fly zone’ on Myanmar’s Rakhine State and a safe haven for the fleeing refugees.
Northeast News has reliably learnt that Rahman, who was picked for this “highly sensitive” assignment on November 19, 2024, will also deliberate at the conference on the vexed ‘R2P’ – Right to Protection – issue that has been in circulation for at least four years now, primarily among US-based think tanks and refugee rehabilitation organisations.
“Much will depend on how skillfully Rahman is able to deploy arguments in favour of ‘R2P’ as far as the Rohingya are concerned,” a Bangladesh Foreign Ministry official said, adding that Rahman will leave for New York once UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres leaves Dhaka. Guterres arrived in Dhaka today for a three-day visit.
Before leaving for New York, Rahman attended a conference in Dhaka in which a representative from Gambia made a “compelling” presentation on refugee crisis similar to that Western African country’s experience in the past.
Even as over a million Rohingya refugees live in camps in Cox’s Bazar’s Kutupalong area, there have been regular reports of the involvement of members aligned with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) in violent attacks on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.
Said to be a US passport holder Khalilur Rahman (a resident of Connecticut), a career diplomat before he retired from Bangladesh government service, has had several meetings with Rohingya refugee associations between December 2024 and now. He publicly admitted – as recently as February 27 – that the Bangladesh government “is maintaining contact with the Arakan Army”.
Whatever maybe Rahman’s compulsion in admitting to the contact between the Bangladesh government (read Bangladesh Army) and the Arakan Army, some evidence has begun emerging that the US seeks to “enter” the muddied Myanmar civil war crisis and the consequent Rohingya refugee problem with a long-drawn-out plan to exert “greater influence in the Shan State or Wa State” where there is considerable Chinese influence.
Three months ago, on December 13, 2024, Khalilur Rahman visited several Rohingya camps in Ukhiya, Cox’s Bazar, where he interacted with Rohingya refugees, UN officials and NGO and INGO representatives.
However, the Bangladeshi authorities’ real objective, sources said, was to create conditions for the involvement of US organisations along the country’s coastal belt bordering Myanmar.
This brings into sharp focus the meeting between Rahman and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on February 7.
While no details are available on the meeting’s discussion points and outcome, Guterres’ forthcoming visit to Dhaka on March 13 is being seen by Dhaka-based political observers as important from two perspectives.
First, Guterres will likely take up the issue of Rohingya refugees in general and the ‘no fly zone’ on Myanmar’s Rakhine State and a safe haven for the fleeing refugees in particular.
Secondly, Guterres may not embroil himself directly with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Volker Turk’s controversial remarks on issuing last year a warning to Gen Waker-uz-Zaman over the consequences that the Bangladeshi contingent for peace keeping duties might face in the even the Bangladesh Army took “hard action” during the July-August students’ movement.
Whatever might be Rahman’s brief – during his forthcoming New York visit – Bangladesh security service sources said that his “objective would be to throw light on the Rohingyas’ plight and the steps that need to be taken to protect their interests in Myanmar and the refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district”.
But, the sources said, much will depend on the steps that the Yunus regime will take to pave the way for the “penetration” of US interests in the Rakhine State, a move that has been “evolving” after the interim regime in Dhaka lodged itself in August 2024.
