Dil Mohammed, the Rohingya Camps, and Dhaka's Diplomacy
Inside Bangladesh’s Rohingya Chessboard
First up: the camp’s resident bogeyman, Dil Mohammed. Not the No Man’s Land elder now rotting in a Bangladeshi jail in Bandarban, but the other Dil Mohammed - the junta’s favourite fixer who operates from a brand new office in Camp 1 under the discreet protection of Bangladeshi intelligence. He’s suddenly feeling the heat: WhatsApp and Facebook posts are shredding his reputation, so he has released a “Q&A” video to restore his reputation among the doubters. I’ll pull that apart, line by line.
Next, Reza Uddin, secretary-general of the Arakan Rohingya Union, flew in from the USA and breezed into the camps on a diplomatic tour and breezed out, leaving an unpaid tea-shop bill behind him. What is going on? His local rep, Sadek Husin, responds to my questions.
Then, I discuss the so-called “Rohingya Consultative Council.” Aung Kyaw Moe, the Deputy Minister of Human Rights of the National Unity Government, posted a press release on 12th May. Is this a genuine representative body or just another soft-launch shell company for the upcoming New York conference?
And finally, intriguing visitors are milling around Dhaka’s hotel lobbies this week. I’ll allow myself one paragraph of informed speculation about who they are and what they want.
You won’t read any of this in the polite pages of Dhaka’s dailies. The camps have their own news cycle - fast, vicious, and often entirely off the record.
Dil Mohammed’s Video
I provide the full translation at the end of this article.
Dil Mohammed’s PR video is damage control disguised as grassroots testimony. In the face of growing criticism, this pre-scripted performance deploys reverent, circular logic to shield a man whose career has been marked by collusion with the same military that orchestrated Rohingya genocide. If you watch the video, the Q&A never addresses the core accusations with evidence - only with rhetorical deflection and appeals to emotion. Scripted by Bangladesh’s intelligence handlers, every talking point echoes the line Dhaka’s camp operatives have been pushing.
Let’s address the central claim that violence in the camps has gone down. Yes, it has. But that drop isn’t a sign of lasting peace brought about by Dil Mohammed; it’s the outcome of a calculated bargain. The new Bangladeshi government has taken a different, more strategic course: bring the warring Rohingya factions under one umbrella - the so-called Four Brothers Alliance - and offer them a deal. Stop the bloodletting in the camps, stop embarrassing us with chaos, and in return, you’re free - for now - to position yourselves in Arakan.
But this isn’t an open-ended green light. Dhaka’s real game is leverage. While it permits the appearance of coordination among these groups, it is also quietly pressuring them to accept a settlement with the Arakan Army. This is not so much about empowering the Rohingya to fight for their rights. It’s about managing them as a bargaining chip. The calm in the camps masks a deeper containment strategy: one that recasts armed groups as clients in a regional negotiation where the real terms are set far beyond their reach.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the other claims. They offer valuable insight into how Dhaka’s intelligence officers have been framing and managing the entire process.
The claim that “if it were true (sending fighters), the Maulanas would have left” is not an argument. This line simply leverages the religious and moral authority of clerics to launder political legitimacy, while ignoring how power, coercion, and fear function in closed, militarised environments like the camps. Silence is not proof of innocence. It is often the price of survival, maulana or not. The photos that follow below show Bangladeshi officials repeatedly putting these clerics centre-stage at camp events.
The claim that “RCPR belongs to all Rohingya” is precisely what Dhaka wants to put out. By rhetorically collectivising the outfit, they deflect scrutiny from the actual command chain - Dil Mohammed, his eight-man committee, and the Bangladesh officers who bless every meeting from the shadows.
The claim that “We can now move freely; therefore RCPR brings peace” - yes, mobility has “returned” only because intelligence units have corralled the armed groups under a single roof. The real programme is pacification in service of geopolitical interests. The messaging that came from Dil Mohammed in January is still ringing in people’s ears. Families who refuse to hand over a son are threatened with ration cuts; madrasas that balk face closure. Extortion, forced “donations,” continue - only now they flow through a franchise blessed by state security. The Rohingya camp residents basking in this manufactured calm are enjoying the quiet that settles just before the next crisis kicks off.
The portrayal of RCPR as a benign peace-and-repatriation group is also deeply disingenuous. The name is evoked repeatedly, as though to chant “peace” is to prove its existence. But peace built on coercion - as I wrote earlier, on threats to madrasa closures, food ration withdrawals, and forced recruitment - is not peace.
Dil Mohammed is not acting alone. He is operating with state backing - as evidenced by the inauguration of his new office in Camp 1, under the patronage of Bangladeshi intelligence and his many appearances in the camps and his ability to have his people included at high profile diplomatic gatherings (again, see the photos below) . This fact alone guts the idea that he is a grassroots servant of the people. He is a proxy actor using community language to disguise state manipulation.
And the video’s finale - “return, citizenship, liberation” - is strategic misdirection, at least as things stand today. Return to where? To which Myanmar? Under what guarantees? It’s designed to resonate emotionally, to mirror the deepest aspirations of the Rohingya people. But coming from Dil Mohammed, a long-time informant and collaborator of the Myanmar military, it rings hollow. He is the last person who should be painting that vision. The very regime he served is the one that tried to make that return impossible.
Let’s rewind to the video’s reverent take on the maulanas’ loyalty to Dil Mohammed. The clerics shown in these 7 photos below have cycled through allegiances - some lending their blessings to ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army), others to ARA (Arakan Rohingya Army) or RSO (Rohingya Solidarity Organisation) - only to end up in Dil Mohammed’s service today.
A quick scroll through these images tells us that the same inner circle shadows Dil Mohammed from one “community” event to the next, whether it’s a closed-door camp rally, a meeting with the OIC’s special envoy Ibrahim Khairat, or a carefully stage-managed photo-op with UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The faces recur like a hall-of-mirrors - ARSA commanders, RSO organisers, madrasa principals, long-time military informants. Their presence at both internal mobilisation sessions and high-profile diplomatic encounters exposes the sleight of hand at work: dress the recruiters up as community leaders and launder their legitimacy through photo-ops with dignitaries. The pattern is impossible to miss.