Bangladesh's foreign minister appreciates the US statement deploring "genocide" committed by Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya minority nationals, hopping that it would accelerate their repatriation.
This statement, though belated, will help in expediting the rehabilitation of the Rohingyas to their homeland in Myanmar, Dr AK Abdul Momen told a group of journalists Tuesday at his office.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States had formally determined that violence committed against the Rohingya minority during the 2017 military crackdown in Rakhine amounts to genocide and crime against humanity.
Foreign Minister Dr Momen hopes that the after the recognition of the Myanmar genocide, the US government would now put stronger pressure on Myanmar to pave the way for quick repatriation of the Rohingyas, sheltered in Bangladesh's frontier belt.
"We always want that those who committed genocide should be recognized to be made accountable and to be brought to justice," he says.
Responding to a question the minister also blamed Myanmar for not showing sincerity towards taking back their people.
"We have sent a list of 11,000 Rohingyas for repatriation and from that list they selected 700 people for repatriation," he says about the stalled process of refugee return under a bilateral deal mediated by China.
"But when our officials scrutinized the list, they found the list defective as it includes some members of a family leaving out some others of the same family,' the Bangladesh foreign minister told the newsmen.
"It is a common sense that a faction of a family is not willing to go back to their home leaving the rest of the family here," he says, indicating that the Myanmar government did it intentionally.
The minister adds: "It seems that they do not have the honest intention to take back their people, and that is why they prepared the list in a tricky way so that Rohingyas would not be willing to go back."
He notes that the genocide was committed during the democratic government but now a new government is running the country and perhaps they realize that atrocities were done during the previous regime.
"Now, if they take back their people, they can at least offset some of their guilt," he remarks.
The minister also informed the reporters that though OIC countries decided to provide monetary support to Gambia for running the case against Myanmar in the ICJ, the fund provided so far is not satisfactory.
"We provided a major share of the funds but rich countries are yet to come in a big way as expected," he says.
"But I have talked to several foreign ministers, including of the KSA and Turkey, who pledged to provide additional funds," Dr Momen informed.
The issue, incidentally, comes into focus at a time when a US delegation just visited Bangladesh on the first leg of its South Asia mission. Reports say the United States now concentrates its attention on the Asia-Pacific region while a dogged war is raging in Ukraine following Russian attack. The Ukraine war is seemingly causing a realignment of world forces, evident in the UN voting.
Blinken, speaking at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, on Monday, said "beyond the Holocaust, the United States has concluded that genocide was committed seven times", according to reports by international agencies.
"Today marks the eighth, because I've determined that members of the Burmese military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya," he said.
The statement came 14 months after Blinken took office and pledged to conduct a new review of the violence.
mirmostafiz@yahoo.com
