Dhaka, Jun 18 (PTI) An armed group from amongst the Rohingyas who have taken refuge in Bangladesh has launched fights against the Arakan Army that virtually controls the Rakhine region driving out government troops there, the International Crisis Group said on Wednesday.
The group has started recruiting fellow Rohingyas in their makeshift camps in south-eastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar bordering Rakhine of Myanmar, the International Crisis Group (IGC) said.
But it feared the move could be counterproductive making the Muslim minority ethnic group to be more unwarranted in greater Myanmar society and frustrate Bangladesh efforts to send them back home in Rakhine.
Bangladesh currently hosts over 1.3 million Rohingyas, government data shows. Their influx began in 2017 to evade a ruthless Myanmar military action termed by the United Nations as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
The influx has continued in recent months as the fallout of armed conflict between Myanmar military and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State.
“Rohingya armed groups, meanwhile, have already started carrying out attacks on the Arakan Army in Rakhine State and are training fighters in camps along the border,” read the ICG report titled 'Bangladesh/Myanmar: The Dangers of a Rohingya Insurgency.'
But the ICG said further intensification of this insurgency would cause great harm to all concerned – “Rohingya civilians, the Arakan Army and Bangladesh” when Dhaka was trying to engage with the Arakan Army since Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh was now entirely controlled by the non-state-actor.
“It would heighten the risk of further bloodshed between the Buddhist majority and Rohingya Muslim minority within Rakhine State, as well as increase the likelihood that more Rohingya will flee conflict across the border to Bangladesh,” the report said.
“Bangladesh’s main objective when it comes to Myanmar is repatriation of Rohingya refugees, who now number well over one million. Political upheaval on both sides of the border has not altered this goal,” the ICG said.
Muhammad Yunus took over as the Chief Adviser of the interim government, three days after the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted following a student-led protest on August 5 last year. His administration has acknowledged the need to engage the Arakan Army, given the group’s control of the border.
In November 2024, Yunus appointed a former Bangladeshi UN official, Khalilur Rahman, as the high representative for Rohingya affairs and “other priority issues” and later simultaneously tasked him as the security adviser. The ICG said “in February, he (Rahman) held talks with counterparts from the Arakan Army’s political wing.”
“The interim government has proposed establishing a humanitarian corridor into Rakhine State and lobbied the UN successfully to convene a ‘high-level conference’ on the Rohingya in late September, on the sidelines of the General Assembly, with the aim of drawing up solutions to the crisis,” the report pointed out.
Yunus and Rahman, however, later declined to have offered any “corridor” proposal as the issue sparked reactions among major political parties prompting the Bangladesh Army with military chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman saying in an officers' meeting “no bloody corridor,” according to the mainstream media.
The ICG report, however, insisted that talks between Dhaka and the Arakan Army were important “given not just the immensity of humanitarian need, but also as a trust-building exercise”.
“Dhaka should continue to pursue dialogue with the Arakan Army, including discussions of provision of humanitarian assistance,” the report read.
The ICG also suggested that Bangladesh should reduce the influence of Rohingya armed groups within their makeshift refugee camps and strengthen informal trade and humanitarian assistance to Rakhine. At the same time, it advised the Arakan Army to show it could govern inclusively and initiate dialogue with the Rohingya.
Several Bangladeshi security and foreign relation experts, however, preferred to see the ICG report as a reflection of western views and desires in regard to geo-politics in the region.
“I think it is an analysis by an influential international group, which reflects the US and western point of view... wanting to allure the Arakan Army bringing it out of the Chinese fold,” former ambassador and career diplomat Mahfuzur Rahman said, referring to the increasing Chinese interest in the region.
He said the non-state actor, too, now wants to forge an alliance with the West without keeping the Rohingya issue beyond their strategic, operational and political landscape.
Another foreign relation expert Professor Mohammad Kalimullah, who is also an honourary lieutenant colonel in Bangladesh Army, said hobnobbing with the Arakan Army was unlikely to yield any positive result as far as Rohingyas were concerned.
“Unfortunately, Rohingyas are not welcomed either by the Myanmar junta government or by the Arakan Army,” he said.