Cambodia's experiences could help to solve Rohingya problem

Tin Sokhavuth

Rohingya Muslim refugees disembark from a boat on the Bangladeshi side of Naf river in Teknaf on September 13, 2017. Photo: Newsweek.

Dr. Sok Touch, president of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, on Thursday, asked Madame Saida Muna Tasneem, Ambassador of Bangladesh to Thailand and Cambodia, to invite Prime Minister Hun Sen to share his experiences with Bangladesh and Myanmar in order to find solution to the Rohingya issue.

In response, Madame Tasneem agreed to bring Dr. Touch's advice to the prime minister of Bangladesh. In exchange, Madame Tasneem asked the Royal Academy of Cambodia to provide a number of scholarship to Buddhist monk students in Bangladesh for them to come to study Buddhism in Cambodian universities.

In Cambodia, the first free election was organized by the U.N. in 1993 after the 1991 peace accords were signed. Unfortunately, the former Khmer Rouge rebels refused to participated in the election. As a result, the civil war still continued to happen in the western part of the country.

To completely end the civil war, in 1996, Prime Minister Hun Sen secretly negotiated with the former Khmer Rouge leaders to setup a plan, the so-called «Win-Win» policy by which the premier has promised to allow the former Khmer Rouge rebels to keep controlling their territory.

In exchange, the premier asked them to only live in accordance with the new liberal democratic rules that were just setup by the UN. As the support from China was just ended at that time, former Khmer Rouge leaders accepted the deal.

In sum, peace in Cambodia was achieved by integrating the former Khmer Rouge rebels into Cambodian society. Likewise, the Rohingya problem could be also solved by integrating Rohingya people into Burmese society by providing them Burmese citizenship.

However, to many countries around the world, Rohingya people are the world’s most persecuted minority living in Rakhine state in Myanmar since long time ago, some say since centuries ago. But, to the Burmese government and other Burmese people, «Rohingya» people are people from Bangladesh who came to live illegally in Rakhine state since long time ago.

The fact is «Rohingya» people are Muslim and speak Bengali like most people living in Bangladesh. In contrast, 88 percent of people living in Myanmar speak Burmese and they are Buddhist.

Concerning this issue, an anonymous political analyst said that wherever «Rohingya» people come from, the «INTEGRATION» is still a strong possibility to solve Rohingya problem, due to the fact that «Rohingya» people used to live in complete harmony with other Burmese people since Burma became independent from British rule in 1948. The problem has arose only when Burma’s junta passed a law in 1982 to prohibit «Rohingya» people from being Burmese citizen.

On the other hand, according to Mr. Derek Mitchell, former US Ambassador to Myanmar, Burmese people share the same fear with Cambodian people. It is the fear of loss of land to a group of people from a neighboring country - Burmese people fear that the «Rohingya» people would annex Rakhine state to the country they came from, while Cambodian people fear that the Vietnamese immigrants would annex Cambodian lands to Vietnam.

"We in the international community see the Rohingya as innocent people who just want to call themselves a name and who are uniquely abused for it. And, of course, it’s true they are largely innocent and uniquely abused. But to people in Myanmar, the name suggests something much more," said Ambassador Derek Mitchell.

To this point, the anonymous political analyst added that the fear of immigrants taking over the country is everywhere even in the US. That is why President Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the border with Mexico to prevent people from illegally entering the US. And whatever the problem is, many countries around have solved the illegal immigration problem by legalizing trusted immigrants, and enforcing the laws at the same time.

Regarding this issue, a Facebook user under the screenname Brett Gasper from University of Maryland, USA, made a comment on «Newsweek» website that Nepal does not acknowledge «Rohingya» people as refugees, because Nepal considers their home is in Bangladesh.

"Myanmar's neighbor, Nepal, refuses to acknowledge that the Rohingya immigrants are refugees - because they shouldn't have been in Myanmar to begin with. Bangladesh is their home," wrote Mr. Gasper.