Rohingya children are a "ticking time-bomb"
Rohingya children are a "ticking time-bomb"
Views from the Bangladesh military establishment
At an online meeting of the Arakan Rohingya National Alliance (ARNA) in November 2022, a retired Bangladeshi army officer, Lt General Mohammed Mahfuzur Rahman, spoke about a field trip where he met a 12-year-old Rohingya boy who had witnessed the rape of his mother and crossed the Myanmar border into Bangladesh in September 2017. He stated that the boy would likely grow up with “trauma” and “hatred in his heart”, and given that there is no scope for proper education in the refugee camps , would be at risk of radicalisation. He also noted that while there were estimates of between 10,000 and 30,000 “foreign fighters” who had gone to fight in Syria, there were 400,000 Rohingya children in the camps, representing a potential "ticking time-bomb" for Bangladesh, the region, and the world.
Rahman's statements during the inauguration of a new Rohingya organisation are noteworthy. Even extraordinary. It is clear that he does not wish to attribute blame for the conditions in the camps nor necessarily improve them. Instead Rahman’s choice of words is designed to stigmatise refugees, potentially perpetuating harmful stereotypes and misunderstandings about the Rohingya to the Bangladeshi host community and beyond.
Or is that not the case? To gain further insight, I reached out to experts Dr. Maung Zarni and Nurul Islam for their thoughts on the matter.
First, the actual comments by Lt General Md. Mahfuzur Rahman:
Audio clip from meeting (in English):
Here is the transcript of the audio:
Nay San Lwin (A joint-Secretary and Founding member of ARNA)
I would like to invite retired Lieutenant general Mohammed Mahfuzur Rahman to take the floor…..and deliver their speech. Thank you
Lt General Md Mahfuzur Rahman
Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim and Salam Walaikum. First of all, thank you for having me. And like everyone I'm also amazed for the leadership and vision for a unified approach.
In early September 2017, I was visiting the arrivals of the Rohingya. I met a boy of 12 years.I also came to know his mother was violated. That 12 year old understand what went wrong. And for him, possibly, there is no bottom line. And children like these are going to lead their life with trauma in their minds and hatred in their hearts. And if you do not understand this, there is going to be serious issues.
And we often talk about foreign fighters - people who went to Syria. How many of them? 10,000 20,000? Maybe 30,000? There are 400,000 children growing up without proper education, hope and dream. And if you do not understand this, and if you do not tell people about this, they are not going to understand the reality or ramification of this ticking time-bomb. This is not going to be a problem of Bangladesh alone. This is going to be regional as well as a global problem. What we are seeing now, the day to day problem what is happening in Rohingya camps, not what is lurking around the corner, and this is what is lurking around the corner. This is number one issue.
Rahman has made similar comments before at a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence meeting in September 2019. This paragraph is from Dhaka Tribune Bangla of 4th September, 2019:
“Armed Forces Principal Staff Officer (PSO) in the meeting. General Md. Mahfuzur Rahman said on the Rohingya issue: Rohingya are a threat not only to Bangladesh but also to Southeast Asia. There are about 400,000 children aged 12-17 in the Rohingya camp area. They are facing dire consequences due to lack of education. If they get a chance, they will try to spread across the country. He expressed fear that various international terrorist organisations will try to use them.”
The same meeting of the Bangladesh Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence recommended the construction of barbed wire fencing. The decision was approved by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and construction began in late November 2019. The objective, according to Muhammad Farooq Khan, a member of the Defence Standing Committee, was to ensure that “no one can get out of the camp or get in”. He said that too “many Rohingya were leaving the camp, and going here and there.”
Other members of the Bangladeshi military establishment, like retired Major General Md Nayeem Ashfaque Chowdhury, also believe that Rohingya youth who have experienced trauma are at risk of "being derailed." In an article discussing the creation of ARNA and its tasks, Chowdhury discusses the same potential attributes of Rohingya children that Lt General Md Mahfuzur Rahman sees as making them "ticking time-bombs." Chowdhury writes:
The trauma with which the next generation of Rohingya is passing their days is inhuman and unimaginable. These kids have seen their mothers, sisters, or relatives being raped and killed by Myanmar military and other law enforcing agencies. They witnessed their fathers or brothers slaughtered or stabbed to death. They came across the blazing of their properties. Thousands were orphaned.
I asked Dr Maung Zarni, a Rohingya advocate, what he thought of Lt. General Rahman’s “ticking time-bomb” theory. Zarni said,
“Buddhist Myanmar misframes Rohingya Muslims as a threat to national security, and adopts a policy of genocidal destruction. Muslim Bangladesh misframes the survivors as embryonic jihadis and adopts a policy of secondary persecution, if not outright genocide. Starting with denial of education, legal rights as refugees, and in short denial of a future. First, cage them in and ship them out to the prison Island while touting the government as "compassionate" and “generous.” This is nothing short of preemptive criminalisation of 400,000 young survivors.
I posed the same questions to Nurul Islam, a seasoned Rohingya politician and Chairman of ARNA, the organisation that held the meeting where Lt General Rahman made his remarks. Islam's answers were consistent with the statements of Rahman. In contrast to Zarni, Islam stated, "Most of the young people are radicalised already," and "They are killing their own people." He continued,
“Generally this is true. This is true in the sense that the young people - they have seen with their own eyes how their parents and dear ones were killed. Most of these young people, all their relatives and all their acquaintances have now become orphaned. This is actual fact. And they go into trauma - this is true. As to the education system, you know what is happening in the camps. They don’t get proper education…A lot of hindrances are put in the refugee camp for those pursuing education. If you don’t get education - what will happen? What will be their future? This is what the general means.”
What do you think of the framing of the “Rohingya crisis” by the Bangladeshi military establishment? Feel free to comment below.
The audio is clipped from this youtube channel. Copyright disclaimer for audio: allowance is made for 'Fair Use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.