In April, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked the court’s judges to rule on whether the ICC “can exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh.”
Earlier this month, the ICC asked Bangladesh for its observations on the matter, saying the country had been “affected by the events concerning the alleged deportation of Rohingya people from Myanmar.”
It also sought Dhaka’s views on the court’s “exercise of territorial jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of members of the Rohingya people from Myanmar into Bangladesh.”
Bangladesh government has not responded to the letter yet.
Asked what the government’s response might be, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque declined to make any comment.
Experts are saying Bangladesh can and should take a strong moral position on the matter, given its own history with genocide.
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque said states that are party to the Rome Statute fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC. Bangladesh has ratified the treaty but Myanmar has not. This prevents the ICC from taking action against crimes committed there.
“The other way is when the UN Security Council asks the ICC to accept the charges, but there are states with veto power that may oppose such a move,” he said.
“The bilateral agreement seems to have made no visible progress.”
A big part of the pressure is to take Myanmar to trial, that will create international pressure on Myanmar
“We can provide supporting documentation and evidence. The NHRC can provide these things,” he said.
Shahab Enam, an associate professor of international relations at Jahangirnagar University, said many international bodies, including Amnesty International, have called the atrocities in Rakhine a genocide, based on facts and evidence.
“Bangladesh has to give its opinion strongly and pitch it much stronger in the international community.”
“This will ensure that those who endorse the ICC mechanism as a legal platform, the member states, can put major legal sanction on Myanmar,” he said.
“Simply the factual or circumstantial evidence that you will get from the Rohingya community present in Bangladesh, the number of victims of rape, prevalence of gender repression is enough to take Myanmar to international court,” he added.
“Bangladesh has experienced genocide in 1971. It is our moral responsibility to stand beside them and provide support as needed with our limited resources,” Shahab said.
“The moral position of Bangladesh is much more important than the stance of other countries,” he said.
Former Bangladesh ambassador to the US Humayun Kabir suggested being in the middle while making a decision as Russia and China have difficulties on the issue.
“These security council members may not be helpful, but the point is we need to keep pressure on Myanmar. Put pressure on them instead of going straight saying yes or no, just follow the middle way,” said Humayun Kabir.
“Bangladesh is strongly committed to bringing those who commit crimes against humanity to book. This could be an option to strongly assert our commitment to do so. We are not saying that we should be either for it or against it. We have to have a moral position of supporting this process,” said Humayun Kabir.
A Chinese government delegation that met with Deputy Speaker of Parliament Fazle Rabbi Miah on Tuesday said the Rohingya issue is a complex ethnic and racial problem.
China wants a speedy solution to the crisis, but since the problem is between two countries, China will consider if the two countries bring specific proposals, the delegation said.
World calls it a crime
An estimated 9,000 Rohingya residents of northern Rakhine state died in the first month of the Myanmar army crackdown last year, surveys by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) revealed in December. Since August last year, around 700,000 Rohingyas have also fled into Bangladesh from across the border, fleeing the military
MSF said around 6,700 of the reported deaths between August 25 and September 24 of 2017 were caused by violence, with at least 730 children below the age of five among the victims.
In September last year, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for an end to Myanmar’s “brutal security operation” against Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine state.
“The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” he said.
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) in have expressed solidarity with Bangladesh in resolving the ongoing Rohingya crisis and proposed to adopt a resolution in this regard at its general assembly.
In November 2017, both the UN officials and the Human Rights Watch reported that the Armed Forces of Myanmar were committing widespread gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against the Rohingya Muslim women and girls for the last three months.
Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi, ambassador of Kuwait to the United Nations, told reporters in Dhaka after a UNSC visit to the Rohingya camps last month that Myanmar and Bangladesh are parties to many international conventions and they want to see these conventions and commitments being implemented.
“The UN Human Rights Council, I know they adopted a decision and they have established a fact-finding mission. But the Security Council, we are responsible for peace and security,” he said.
Karen Elizabeth Roxburgh, the UK ambassador to UN, said: “We need to have a proper judicial investigation with proper evidentiary standard, and then proper follow up to be able to make this determination in law. The fact finding mission does not do that, they collect evidence. They make assessments but it is not legal determination. But the Myanmar authorities have started their own investigation. We may feel that this is little too late but we want to talk to the Myanmar authorities about how they see accountability in this case. And then we will want to explore what might need to be done beyond that.”
