BNP wants national consensus to resolve Rohingya crisis

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Wednesday called upon the government to create a national consensus to resolve the Rohingya crisis by repatriating the refugees to their home country Myanmar.

The party also said the government should concentrate more on ensuring Myanmar citizenship of Rohingya with the help from all friendly countries and related international organisations.

The call came at a seminar titled 'Plight of Rohingya and role of Bangladesh' organised by the party at the Lakeshore Hotel in the city's Banani area.

Presided over by BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the programme was addressed by the party's standing committee members Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, Dr Moyeen Khan, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Ganashasthya Kendra Founder Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury and former state minister for Foreign Affairs Reaz Rahman, among others.

Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the Rohingya issue has come to a dangerous situation which Bangladesh cannot deal alone.

Creating national unity is the only way to resolve the problem, he said. He added that with the national consensus, the government should do strong international advocacy along with multilateral talks to send Rohingya to their country.

The BNP secretary general said, "High level committees should be formed by the government which will go to different countries to discuss about the crisis intensively to find out effective solution for repatriation."

Besides, he said, "Some ruling party leaders have been irresponsibly blaming BNP for Rohingya issue which will intensify the crisis further and strengthen Myanmar."

The focus should be on ensuring Myanmar citizenship of Rohingya and creating a safe and secure environment inside Myanmar for fast repatriation of its displaced nationals.

"The government should also come out of it's servile foreign policy to send back the Rohingya," Fakhrul added.

Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said political, social and economical problems would arise and create instability in the country if the Rohingya are not repatriated soon.

He said the government should seek help from it's friendly countries to create pressure on Myanmar for fast repatriation.

Presenting keynote paper titled 'Plight of Rohingya and role of Bangladesh' at the programme, Amir Khasru, also the party's international affairs adviser, made some recommendation to resolve Rohingya crisis.

He said BNP strongly feels that Bangladesh should start to lead first, and then follow, wasting no further time to address the root cause of the Rohingya crisis focusing specially on their rights to citizenship and other human rights issues.

The government has so far miserably failed to take any rigid, transparent and concrete position on Rohingya issue, he said adding: "The government must treat it as a national crisis and convene a national dialogue for national unity to make a national consensus."

In convening the meeting, the government should disseminate a position-paper bearing in mind the provision of Article 25 of the constitution of Bangladesh and the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 in general, and Article 15 in particular.

The government must expedite repatriation of the Rohingya refugees ensuring their human rights, their rights to Myanmar citizenship, proper safety and security, rights to property and homestead and freedom of movement, he said.

The government must take all necessary steps to prevent any attempt of militancy or terrorism arising out of the Rohingya crisis, Mr Khasru said.

BNP standing committee member Gayesshar Chandra Roy, Professor Mahbub Ullah of Dhaka University and social worker Dr Dilara Chowdhury also spoke on the occasion.

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