On April 20 this year, an extraordinary gazette notification was issued by Bangladesh’s Cabinet Secretariat, formalising the appointment of former ambassador to Myanmar Mohammad Sufiur Rahman as a Special Assistant to Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus.
However, 71 days after this official notification was issued, Sufiur Rahman is yet to join the post in which he was expected to have provided substantial experience on Myanmar in general and the issues involving the Arakan Army and the Rohingya repatriation problem in particular.
This “strong unwillingness” on Sufiur Rahman’s part, well-placed sources said, is a consequence of Sufiur Rahman’s disinclination to be part of a set-up in which he could get caught in likely crossfire between Foreign Ministry Adviser Touhid Hossain and National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman.
Had Sufiur Rahman taken charge he would have enjoyed the status of a minister of state. But sources close to him said that he preferred to not take up the assignment and steered clear of it since expected “differences of opinion” to crop up with both Toushid Hossein and Khalilur Rahman.
Meanwhile, Steve Ross, a Senior Fellow at the Washington DC-based Stimson Center, arrived in Dhaka on June 26 before proceeding to Cox’s Bazar, Ukhiya and other nearby locations to get a first-hand impression of the Rohingya refugee repatriation issue.
Ross, who leads the Stimson Center’s crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State project, was previously with the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, where he led work to address the conflict in Myanmar and to respond to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.
Between 2014 and 2017, Ross was based in Myanmar, where he led a project for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue to prevent and mitigate conflict in Rakhine State.
In 2023, the then Sheikh Hasina regime had invited Ross to seek his advice on the Rohingya issue.
But, Bangladeshi security analysts said, Ross had sought to advocate supporting the Arakan Army by way of humanitarian assistance.
After returning to Dhaka (from Cox’s Bazar) on June 29, Ross sought a meeting with senior officers handling the Myanmar desk in Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) but this was turned down by the agency’s top management.
But Ross will get an opportunity to make a presentation at a roundtable on the ‘Evolving Dynamics in Rakhine: Security Implications for Bangladesh’ on July 2.
In a June 2 issue brief, the Stimson Center said citing “observers” that “the AA (Arakan Army) faces a dilemma of expanding beyond Rakhine State or seize towns like Sittwe and Kyaukphyu”.
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The issue brief does not ascribe any reason for this supposed “dilemma” but the likely support of China to the Myanmar military junta in defending the two townships in the event of an Arakan Army military offensive could be a critical factor.
“The AA may consider the two towns more useful outside of their control. As long as they threaten the capital, Sittwe, and the center of Chinese projects, Kyaukphyu, the Myanmar military must divert resources away from more active fronts in Bago, Magway, and Ayeyarwady to avoid losing these critical sites in Rakhine,” the issue brief noted.
