Rohingya refugees queue in the rain to receive food at Kotupalang refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. — Reuters photo
AT Kutupalong near Cox Bazar in Bangladesh, a field hospital will be built for the Rohingyas who had managed to escape from further atrocities in Myanmar.
This is a Malaysian project worth some RM3.5 million. In addition, doctors and nurses and other personnel from Malaysia will go there to work among the refugees.
A form of foreign aid given to people in dire need is a noble gesture indeed – a humanitarian project with no strings attached.
Policy Rationale
It is for the Rohingyas’ own good that as many of them as possible stay put where they are at the moment, until a way is found to relocate them in third countries which are prepared to accept them or until the Myanmarese authorities have picked and chosen the citizens of Myanmar among the refugees and taken them home.
Meantime, the refugees must be given all possible aid including basic healthcare service accorded to humans in trouble. Help from us is comparatively small but something worthwhile. Hopefully, the hospital will be set up very soon.
It is also for own good that these Rohingyas don’t come to Malaysia as illegal asylum seekers. Given half the chance, they would prefer to seek refuge in this country but we cannot afford to accommodate large numbers of them. Already we are swamped with illegal as well as registered refugees over the years. Adding the numbers of refugees to the population would not be politically correct.
Policy On Boat People
Our northern shores are reachable by boat from that part of Bangladesh where the refugees are now accommodated in tents. Indications are that many of them are likely to seek asylum elsewhere. And Malaysia is an attractive country for them especially those who profess the same religion.
I wonder what the government’s policy is with respect to people coming by boats. Will they be turned back or sent to some island or allowed to come ashore?
We must understand that desperate human beings will risk their lives in order to get away from the conditions in which they have found themselves. They may come in rickety boats and other means of transport just so they can get to another country. And Malaysia is among the nearest destinations for the next round of poor people escaping hardship.
If this happens, we will have a bigger problem in our hands. Cost of constructing that hospital at Kutupalong and staffing it by the Medical Corp of our armed forces is a good Jiwa Murni project – humanely as well politically correct. One hospital does not prevent the Rohingyas to come over here; there ought to be other arrangements that the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees has to make: persuade other countries to accept those who decide to leave the camps.
Malaysia, not being a signatory to the UN Convention on the status of Refugees, and its Protocol (1967), is not obliged to take any illegal migrants and to recognize their status as refugees, or allow them to work but that doesn’t discourage them from coming over here illegally.
The Rohingyas, in this case, will be comparatively better off if they stay put in where they are at the moment. It would be better if Myanmar would take them back. It has indicated that it is willing to take back the ‘verified’ Rohingyas only. We must recognize its right to pick and choose whom they want back.
In this sense the aid given by Malaysia in the form of the medical facilities makes sense. Otherwise, it is will continue to face criticism at home. In the absence of adequate explanation as to the necessity of helping others when “charity should begin at home”, it is impossible to stop criticism of the move. Government must somehow appease the critics with a plausible explanation.
People I’ve talked to have expressed the view that the money for the hospital in Bangladesh and the salaries for the ‘volunteer’ staff would be better used for the completion of those hospitals in Sarawak, citing the Sri Aman Hospital, as an example.
I had a considerable problem in convincing them that Malaysia as a nation and a responsible member of Asean grouping must play an appropriate role: helping people in trouble. Who knows that one of these days we may need help from another country; on good turn deserves another, as the saying goes. This humanitarian role is better and cheaper than a military one.
Not a wink of agreement ensued from my ‘friends’. We agreed to disagree without being disagreeable. They are entitled to their views. And so am I, to mine.
The Rohingya refugee crisis is most unfortunate. The poor judgment on the part of the Arakanese Salvation Army (ARSA) to attack police posts in the Rakhine state in August had sparked the exodus of innocent ordinary people to seek safety across the border.
Historically, it’s an outcome of the political developments of the countries in that region of South Asia which had become colonies of Great Britain in 19th century. As historians will tell you that it all started with the colonisation of Mother India after the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Before that, India had been ruled by East India Company since the early part of the 17th century. When Britain began to decolonise its territories after the Second World War in 1948, India was split into two countries known as India and Pakistan. Out of Pakistan came Bangladesh as we know it today.
At almost at the same period of time of the 19th century, Burma, after three wars with the Burmese Kings, became a British colony. It’s the same country – Burma it was and Myanmar it is now.
In those colonial days, people in India and in Burma were all British citizens. In Burma, the Indians were civil servants and businessmen mainly in major cities like Rangoon and Mandalay and in the Rakhine state.
Among these must be many ancestors of the present Bangladeshi. As British citizens they had lived there in the Arakanese area for a long time. Over the years, relatives and friends of those already made their homes at Rakhine State must have crossed the border between Burma/ India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.
Above is an express glance at what has become to that part of the old British Empire.
Not my story, but this must be the shortest account of history of the Empire “where the sun never sets”. It was related to me by a room-mate, Ba, a Colombo Plan student from Burma, long time ago in New Zealand. My readers will have to take it or leave it.
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