‘Genuine’ Friendship with China Can Help End Rohingya Muslims’ Sufferings: Bangladeshi Prof.

“Myanmar will not cooperate with Bangladesh, which is still friendless in many regions of the world. China is suspicious about many Muslim countries, including Bangladesh. We need to cultivate genuine friendship with China. Trust building process is the most difficult task to be accomplished. China should be amiable in responding our good gestures of peaceful diplomacy,” Ahsan Khan told Tasnim.

Maimul Ahsan Khan (born 1954) is a professor of law currently teaching jurisprudence and international institutional law at the University of Dhaka. He is specialized in jurisprudence, Islamic law, Islam and Muslim culture, political science, human rights, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Oriental studies. He was awarded IIE-SRF fellowship for his academic contribution by the Institute of International Education (IIE). In 2012, the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund featured him as one of the persecuted academics in the world. Khan taught at the University of Illinois-UIUC from 1998-2002, the University of California-Davis and Berkeley from 2002-2006, and the Technical University of Liberec-Czech Republic. He has served as a Fulbright Fellow at the College of Law in University of Illinois-UC and as a country specialist on Afghanistan at Amnesty International (2001-2006).

Following is the full text of the interview:  

Tasnim: The Rohingya crisis has been described by UN officials as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. In your view, is this designation correct? If so, what specifically qualifies the human rights abuses in Myanmar as genocide?

Khan: Of course, it is an example or even established fact that the systematic persecution of Rohingya Muslims is a textbook example of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This process of physical elimination of more than one million Rohingya Muslims has started about half a century ago. In 1978, the big crisis had been orchestrated by pushing more than two hundred thousand Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh. It was settled by repatriating about 80% of Rohingya Muslims refugees after a prolonged negotiation. In 1992 more than a million Rohingya Muslims came under direct attack of Myanmar military and half a million of them took shelter in Bangladesh. With the help of China, Bangladesh could manage to repatriate about 70% of them in Myanmar. A huge number of Rohingya Muslim refugees fled to other countries, especially in the Middle Eastern countries. Myanmar armed forces with the help of their governmental agencies had been taking preparation to vacate all Muslims from Myanmar by inflicting widespread atrocities upon Muslim population of that country. In 2017 has witnessed the most violent attacks on Rohingya Muslims and about a million Muslims from Myanmar had to escape to Bangladesh, which is now hosting 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims as refugees in very congested areas because of lack of facilities and necessary supplies. What had happened with Rohingya Muslims is just a massacre of a huge number of people by burning their ancestral homeland where they lived for centuries. No foreign or Muslim help was available for a long time and as a result, uncounted number of Rohingya Muslims, including children, women, and old people were brutally killed. Incidents of gang rapes of Rohingya women had occurred for a long time without any media assessing them.

Tasnim: What concrete steps the international community can or should take in order to address the humanitarian crisis and the plight of the Rohingya? What is a realistic way out of the situation?

Khan: We need to redouble our efforts to help Rohingya Muslims, especially the children who constitute half of the Rohingya Muslim refugees. This time Bangladesh would not be able to negotiate successfully the repatriation of Rohingya Muslim refugees as China still is unwilling to show its gracious faces this time around because of our diplomatic failure. We need to take Rohingya Muslim refugees as good human resources and preparing them as good human beings to be settled in and around the Muslim World. There is no other alternative now in our hands. We need to conduct more pro-active diplomacy together without which Myanmar would not bow down to any legitimate demands of Rohingya Muslim in there or here in Bangladesh.

Tasnim: Outside humanitarian assistance, are there legal steps that can be taken, such as by the International Criminal Court?

Khan: Muslim countries need to act collectively. If necessary we can severe diplomatic relations with Myanmar collectively. We need to seek help from the Chinese government, which is now getting ready to offer more avenues for cooperation and collaboration with Muslims nations, many of whom were destroyed or greatly harmed by the Western evil empires.

Tasnim: Myanmar has been making an effort to reshape its image as a global pariah prior to the Rohingya crisis. Would being branded a rogue state once again put pressure on the government and make it cooperate with the international community to address the conflict?

Khan: Myanmar will not cooperate with Bangladesh, which is still friendless in many regions of the world. China is suspicious about many Muslim countries, including Bangladesh. We need to cultivate genuine friendship with China. Trust building process is the most difficult task to be accomplished. China should be amiable in responding to our good gestures of peaceful diplomacy.

Tasnim: You have written several books. One of your books is titled “Human Rights in the Muslim World: Fundamentalism, Constitutionalism, and International Politics.” Kindly explain on this. What motivates to write this book?

Khan: Wahhabism-like ideology is very dangerous for all of us, including Muslims. I wanted to tell these are not Islamic fundamentalist theories or practices; these are bad and harmful ideas closer to any religious fundamentalist trends. Some Muslims are to be blamed for that, but Islam should not be held accountable for this kind of violent ideas or activities. this is a thick book. Please try to read a few pages of the book, which contains two chapters on the Islamic Republic of Iran.