ZCZC
BSS-39
MOMEN-MYANMAR-ROHINGYA
Bangladesh to counter Myanmar propaganda over Rohingyas: Momen
DHAKA, June 23, 2019 (BSS) – Bangladesh prepares a “factsheet” to negate
Myanmar propaganda over the Rohingya issue to downplay its intensity and
camouflage Naypyidaw role in creating and prolonging the crisis, Foreign
Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said today.
“I have directed my ministry to prepare a brief paper on Rohingyas, so that
no one will be confused about the facts and send it to all 193 member states
missions at the UN,” he told newsmen at his office here today.
Momen said Myanmar was disseminating different type of “misinformation”
with an apparent motive to decline that Rohingyas were their nationals.
Naypyidaw, he said, was trying to claim that only five lakh Rohingyas to
refuge in Bangladesh and even propagating that they were actually Bangladesh
citizens.
“They (Myanmar) are trying to camouflage the Rohingya crisis spearheading
propaganda,” the foreign minister said adding that Naypyidaw appointed
different organizations to make fabricated reports to confuse the world about
the issue.
Momen, however, said Dhaka just intends to reply to Myanmar’s propaganda
regarding the Rohingya crisis.
The minister said Dhaka came to know that Myanmar wants to send a fact
finding mission in Bangladesh while “we always welcome them as we are always
transparent”.
“We would like to know how many of them want to come and how many days to
stay here . . . but the Myanmar government is yet to inform us anything
officially about their fact finding mission,” he said.
He said Bangladesh was long been urging Myanmar to send their team here to
assure the Rohingyas about conducive environment in Rakhine “what they
claimed”.
“We urged Myanmar to take some Rohingya leaders inside Rakhine to show them
physically that they (Rohingya) will be safe after their return home,” he
said.
The minister also binned an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
report saying the study picked only two out of the 800 villages as samples of
Myanmar atrocities in Rakine, Rohingyas homeland. “This is a twisted report
(ASEAN) with distorted information,” Momen said.
The minister said the Rohingya crisis was likely to largely feature Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming Beijing tour as Dhaka planned to explain
China that the crisis could eventually spread radicalism throughout the
entire region.
“We will tell them (China), if peace and security don’t prevail in the
region, the huge Chinese investment in Myanmar as well as in Bangladesh will
be threatened,” Momen said.
Bangladesh now hosts over 1.1 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in
Cox’s Bazar district and most of them arrived there since August 25, 2017
after a military crackdown, which the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic
cleansing” and “genocide” by other rights groups.
BSS/ASG/TA/AR/2000 HRS