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Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, centre, meets with Rohingya Muslims at Kutupalong refugee camp, near the border town of Ukhia, Bangladesh, Tuesday. (AP/PTI)[/caption]
Dhaka, Sep. 12 (PTI): Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday accused Buddhist-majority Myanmar of committing “atrocities” on Rohingya Muslims, saying Dhaka will not tolerate any kind of injustice and its protest will continue.
She also asked Myanmar to “take steps” to take back its nationals who have fled to Bangladesh following the violence.
“We want peace and a friendly relation with neighbouring countries...(but) we cannot allow and accept any kind of unjust and our protest will continue to this end,” Hasina said after visiting a Rohingya refugee camp near the border town of Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar district.
She assured the refugees that Bangladesh would continue to provide humanitarian assistance to them.
“As long as they don’t return to their country we will remain beside them,” she said.
“Bangladesh is a country of 16 crore people and we have ensured their basic needs, we also have capability to provide all kinds of help including food and healthcare services to the Myanmar refugees,” she said.
“We will not tolerate injustice,” she said, referring to the ethnic violence in neighbouring country that has forced at least 313,000 people to take shelter in Bangladesh. According to UN estimates, over 1,000 people may have been killed in the crackdown launched by the Myanmar Army in the Rakhine state since August 25 when a fresh wave of violence erupted there.
Bangladesh had earlier said the new influx of Rohingya refugees is an unbearable additional burden on the country which has been hosting around 400,000 Myanmar nationals who had to leave their country in the past due to communal violence and repeated military operations.
Hasina’s comments came after the parliament last night passed a resolution denouncing Myanmar for the atrocities and called upon the international community to mount intensified pressure on Naypyidaw to stop the atrocities and take back the refugees.
“A handful of people of a shadow group had staged the attack which we (Bangladesh) also condemned, but should the entire community of one million populations be punished for that,” the resolution read.
Hasina on Tuesday said that being the neighbour Bangladesh would extend cooperation whatever Naypyidaw needed “but they will have to first stop inhuman attitude towards these people in Rakhaine and provide them security.”
“They (Rohingyas) are human beings and they will live as human beings...Myanmar has no right to deny the Rakhaine people as they are their citizens,” she added.
Hasina said the massive exodus of its own population tarnished Myanmar’s image as “this is not a dignified thing for a country”.
Rohingyas have faced decades of discrimination and persecution in Myanmar and are denied citizenship despite centuries-olds roots in the Rakhine region.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday said that violence in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims marks the “death of Nobel Peace Prize”, a media report said.
Khamenei called Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a “cruel woman” since the crimes against Rohingya Muslims are taking place under her eyes, Tehran Times daily reported.
Suu Kyi, who was once hailed by the global community for standing up to the Myanmar military, has taken almost no action to put an end to the deadly violence against the Rohingyas. She has been sharply criticised around the world for her inaction.
Khamenei also strongly criticised the silence and inaction of international bodies and self-proclaimed human rights advocates on the ongoing atrocities in Myanmar.
He said the crisis in Myanmar is a political issue and should not be reduced to a religious conflict between Muslims and Buddhists.
“This is a political issue because the party that has been carrying out the atrocities is Myanmar’s government, at the top of which is a cruel woman who has won the Nobel Peace Prize. And with these incidents, the death of the Nobel Peace Prize has been spelled,” he said.
The United Nations says 370,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since the Army launched a huge security operation in response to attacks by militants late last month.
Myanmar’s military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies targeting civilians. But many of those who have fled say troops responded to attacks by Rohingya militants with the brutal campaign of violence and burning of villages aimed at driving them out.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Monday described the operation as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
Khamenei called on Muslim nations to take practical steps to stop violence against Rohingyas in Myanmar. “Of course, practical measures don’t mean military deployments. Rather, they (Islamic states) have to increase their political, economic, and trade pressure on Myanmar’s government and cry out against these crimes in international organisations,” he was quoted as saying by Press TV.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should convene to discuss the crisis in Myanmar, he said.