The Truth Rohingya Leaders Are Afraid to Tell Khalilur Rahman
Why the rush to congratulate Bangladesh’s top diplomat rings hollow
In recent weeks, several Rohingya organisations, armed groups, diaspora networks and prominent individuals have rushed to congratulate Dr Khalilur Rahman on his election as President of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Some of those offering congratulations have had deeply troubled relations with Bangladesh. Most remarkably, even ARSA joined the chorus, despite the fact that ARSA’s leader is in Bangladeshi custody. Their leader was arrested a year ago last June when Rahman was both the high representative for Rohingya affairs and the National Security Adviser. Yet when it came to his UN appointment, ARSA curiously found little to criticise.
Diplomatic courtesy is normal. Congratulating someone on a prestigious international appointment is not unusual. The more interesting question is what exactly these organisations believe Khalilur Rahman has achieved for Rohingya refugees during his time in Bangladesh’s interim government and since.
There has been no expansion of freedom of movement. Refugees still cannot work legally. Access to higher education remains restricted. The legal status of the Rohingya has not changed. The biometric dispute affecting registered-camp families remains unresolved. Aid cuts and funding shortages continue. Bhasan Char remains in operation. Violence, insecurity and restrictions continue inside the camps. If these are the outcomes of “distinguished leadership”, as the Arakan Rohingya National Council put it, one struggles to see the distinction.
Defenders of Khalilur Rahman will no doubt point instead to his diplomacy. Certainly, he has been active internationally. But diplomacy should be judged by its purpose and results. Much of Bangladesh’s recent diplomatic effort has focused on securing more international support for the existing refugee response. More donor pledges. More burden-sharing language. More meetings. More appeals for funding. In other words, resources to sustain the current system of containment. Refugees remain confined to camps and excluded from meaningful rights. The diplomacy may have kept the Rohingya issue alive internationally, but it has not fundamentally changed the condition of the Rohingya themselves.
The latest statement by Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations illustrates the problem. Once again, Bangladesh has renewed its call for repatriation, emphasising the burden that nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees place on the country. In all these speeches, Rohingya appear primarily as a humanitarian burden to be managed until they can be returned. This language has become familiar. It makes repatriation sound like an active destination, when in truth repatriation functions as a governance fiction - invoked to justify containment, attract funds, and avoid rights-bearing inclusion.
What receives far less attention is what return would actually mean.
Bangladesh is simultaneously pursuing dialogue not only with Myanmar’s authorities but also with the Arakan Army, which now controls much of Rakhine State. This has been described by some observers as a pragmatic attempt to maintain working relations with whichever actors exercise power across the border. Yet diplomacy alone cannot solve the central political problem. The Rohingya were not merely displaced by conflict. They were stripped of citizenship, subjected to mass atrocities repeatedly, and driven from their homeland through a campaign that many governments and international bodies have described as genocide.
Under these circumstances, phrases such as “safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return” are little more than diplomatic rituals. Dignity is not a slogan. It requires rights. It requires citizenship and security. It also requires accountability and restitution for what was taken. A return that leaves the Rohingya stateless and dependent on the goodwill of whichever armed authority controls Rakhine is not a dignified return!
This is why the recent wave of congratulatory statements feels so hollow. The issue is not whether Dr Khalilur Rahman deserves congratulations on a personal achievement. The issue is whether Rohingya organisations are willing to tell uncomfortable truths.
What are those truths? Well, for a start, to make Rahman understand that Rohingya survive through a mixture of humanitarian assistance, informal labour, small businesses and community networks, yet remain excluded from all meaningful rights, legal status and political agency. If Rohingya leaders cannot say this openly to Bangladesh's most senior Rohingya diplomat, who will?
On one point, however, I do find myself agreeing with Dr Khalilur Rahman.
Khalilur Rahman argues that the previous Awami League government treated the Rohingya issue primarily as a humanitarian crisis, sought donor funding to manage it, and failed to take meaningful steps towards a durable solution. In his view, this approach helped prolong the crisis. Here is the quote from the Daily Star
Khalilur said that the former Awami League government failed to take steps to resolve the crisis, instead seeking donor funds while portraying it as a humanitarian disaster. He said this approach diverted global attention from the plight of the Rohingyas and contributed to the crisis becoming more complex and prolonged.
He is entirely right. And I should perhaps offer him my own congratulations.
For some time now, I have argued precisely this. I have argued that Bangladesh’s Rohingya policy was not aimed at fixing the displacement, but merely at controlling it. Instead of prioritising human rights and political answers, the government focused on containing refugees and locking down donor money to fund an ongoing crisis - a permanent emergency. That argument did not make me popular. It attracted hostility and carried professional costs. Yet today, a version of the same critique is being voiced by one of the principal architects of Bangladesh’s current Rohingya policy.
For years, Bangladesh presented itself as the indispensable humanitarian host while donors funded an ever-expanding system of camps, barbed wire, fences, restrictions and aid delivery. The difficulty is that it is becoming increasingly hard to see how the current approach differs in substance. Khalilur Rahman deserves credit for correctly diagnosing the disease. The question is whether he has prescribed anything different from the treatment that produced it.
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