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Dhaka to back Rohingya genocide proceedings


Published : 03 Dec 2019 09:05 PM | Updated : 20 Aug 2020 01:57 AM

Bangladesh has decided to support the trial proceedings of Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for ensuring accountability for crimes against humanity. Bangladesh would also provide support to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation into the alleged crimes committed by Myanmar military during the 2017 bloody crackdown on minority Muslim community of Rohingya in Rakhine.

Foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque made the revelation during a press briefing on Monday in Dhaka. He said, “Bangladesh has been extensively in the loop of the ICJ process after Gambia lodged a case on behalf of the OIC and we’ve signed a memorandum of understanding with the ICC.”

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed instruments on repatriating the Rohingya people and the government would also continue to support the accountability mechanism, he said, adding, ‘repatriation and accountability complement each other’. The first public hearings on Rhongya genocide is scheduled to be held at the ICJ in The Hague on December 10-12.

Gambia will open its case against Myanmar before the UN's top court accusing the mainly Buddhist state of genocide against its Rohingya Muslims. The small, majority-Muslim African country will ask the ICJ to make an emergency injunction to protect the Rohingya, pending a decision on whether to deal with the wider case.

Gambia's case at the ICJ accuses Myanmar of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention through a brutal military campaign targeting the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state. According to a report of the Ontario International Development Agency, Myanmar state forces killed nearly 24,000 Rohingyas and raped thousands of women and girls since August 2017.

The UN termed the atrocities a classic example of ethnic cleansing. Over the last two years, UN Security Council took no concrete action against Myanmar mainly because of opposition from China and Russia that have veto powers. Apart from this, the ICC on November 14 authorised its prosecutor to proceed with a formal investigation into the alleged crimes committed against the Rohingya people of Myanmar.

In an immediate reaction, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that crimes committed against Rohingya people on or after June 1, 2010 would come under purview of the investigation according to the court decision. The ICC became the second international court to look into the alleged atrocities against the Rohingya after African country Gambia lodged a case with the ICJ – the UN’s top court on disputes between and among member states – against Myanmar on allegation of carrying out genocide against the Muslim minority group.

More than 7,00,000 Rohingyas, mostly women, children and aged people, entered Bangladesh after fleeing unbridled murder, arson and rape during ‘security operations’ by the Myanmar military in Rakhine, what the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing and genocide, beginning from August 25, 2017.

Meanwhile the UNHCR and the government failed in their first attempt to send back the first batch of Rohingyas on November 15 last year as none of them agreed to go back referring to absence of environment for return in Rakhine. The ongoing Rohingya influx took the number of undocumented Myanmar nationals and registered refugees in Bangladesh to about 1.2 million so far, according to estimates by UN agencies and Bangladesh authorities.