A recent scheme gestated by Gambia to try the Tatmadaw generals has garnered lot of media attention. It has come at a time when repatriation of the Rohingyas has completely stalled because of the dilly dallying by Myanmar and prevailing restive conditions in Rakhine State, where the Rohingyas lived centuries after centuries. Bangladesh already signed bilateral agreement with Myanmar, a powerful neighbor who will undoubtedly play a crucial role in the development of Bangladesh years down the line, to defuse tension following events of Tatmadaw's drive against the Rohingya. To Bangladesh's despair , such agreement has yet to come to fruition as the hostile atmosphere in the ground in Rakhine State and other feuding parties' lack of interest to integrate the Rohingyas back to nation building process.
Bangladesh has to stick to this agreement as we cannot afford losing the favor of a big neighbor like Myanmar. Recent genocidal allegations against Myanmar generals have received the nod of Muslim countries as well as the occidental ones. However, what difference this kind of trial can make could only be told by time. Many argue that this will generate pressure on Myanmar generals. There are other ethnic minorities of Myanmar who have been living in the camps of neighboring countries for decades. If the UN were able to document those atrocities, the the holistic allegations of human rights abuses by Myanmar generals would become a formidable one. Myanmar,on the other hand, made its own investigations of torture and killing in the wake of growing international criticism heaping on Tatmadaw. Tatmadaw did acknowledge some of its units had involved in gross human rights violations. In fact, mild punishments were awarded to culprits. So efforts are there from the part of Tatmadaw to address the issues attributed to it by international human rights organizations.
Myanmar has been going through a transitional phase for the last couple of years. In this phase, Tatmadaw will play an important role to get the country back into the track of participatory democracy.
Unlike other regional armies, Tatmadaw has some unique features. It is an organization that was not modeled after the outgoing colonial master's army and that does not hinge on its former colonial master to train its personnel as some of its neighbors do. Home-grown and oriental orientation to training and grooming of future military leaders have its pros and cons. Often in our region we see regional armies have officers whose views and convictions are moulded by the country of origin of their trainers. At various stages, they developed some kind of split loyalty and embarked upon misadventures that froze constitution and took away freedom of expression for several years. This derailment of democracy, often happens through bloody events, crippled institutions that are quintessential to flourish democracy.
Tatmadaw is no saint, however, its personnel are loyal to its own code of conduct and there has been deep understanding among the various branches of this large monolithic organization. It is translated into lack of coups and counter-coups and lack of defection in the history of Tatmadaw. Meanwhile, if we take a look at the history of Armed Forces we will notice that it is plagued by tragedies and bloody fracas. In addition, defection and desertion soiled the reputation of our Armed Forces. It may sound harsh but the truth is our Armed Forces are a demoralized political entity that urgently requires a complete revamp like a vanquished army.
Despite a long ban on Tatmadaw,none of its generals perked their wealth in the west and defected to a western country in the face of odds. Rather, most of them banked with Chinese overseas banks located in the South-East Asian countries. So this kind of steps at the end of the day would be rendered useless.
In recent years, Tatmadaw helped international community to curb drug invasion. It allowed reporters to investigate the drug empire of a drug kingpin, known as "El Chapo of Asia".By the same token, it would be in a far more formidable position to implement bilateral agreement if there were peace in Rakhine State.
In contrast to Tatmadaw, we have not seen yet any concrete step inside Bangladesh that insinuates that accountability has been ensured in Armed Forces. We do not know how many senior army officers and rank and file personnel have been brought to book for breaching discipline or committing crimes. People are eager to know the fate of rogue law-enforcement personnel who killed the local counselor in Cox's Bazar. There has been a wild rumor that siblings of a senior Army officer have been listed as fugitives by Interpol. In the past we witnessed sensitive surveillance technology was used to influence city corporation election outcome. People placed in important position at the parliament to look into the defense matters have been found involved with groups engaged in lucrative business dealings and laundered money in offshore heavens.
Many of the dual citizens and Army bureaucrats who tried to cleanse politics or engaged in corruption found safe sanctuary in the west. Same holds true for corrupt businessmen and politicians.
Point is despite being a democracy, our journey towards stability and progress is not not as impressive as that of Myanmar, which has just reached the highway of participatory democracy stripping of authoritarian practices of trampling down over free voices.
Myanmar senior Army General and Chief of Staff donated to the renovation project of a historical mosque and paid a visit to the the mausoleum of last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. This is a gesture to indicate that he is willing to reconcile with the Muslim community of his country.
Myanmar is also important for our economy. During the last Bakri Eid, Myanmar sent shipments of cattle to keep the Bakri Eid cattle market stable. In the recent onion crisis, Myanmar exported 35000 metric tons of onion to stabilize the local onion market.
This is undoubtedly a friendly gesture to keep the kitchen market stable. For our growing economy, Myanmar has many resources to offer. In addition, we could export commodities to meet Myanmar's domestic need. As its RMG industry is growing, Bangladesh could make some strategic alliance with Myanmar on which RMG items each ofthe two countries should produce in order to avoid stiff competition in common export market.
More importantly, Myanmar will help us to dismantle methamphetamine infrastructure built across the other side of the border. Prerequisite is maintaining a warm relationship with the country. Bangladesh could also invite FDI in financial service industry so that Chinese community in Malaysia and Singapore sets up overseas bank where the Myanmar nationals could do banking.
In recent months, there have been hawkish cries menacing to shatter regional peace if there is no peaceful end to Rohingya crisis. Some retired Army bureaucrat in seminar even went further to portray the future Rohingyas as would-be bombers. This kind of portrayal neither helps ending Rohingya crisis, nor depicts them as a peace-loving community to the world. It is not clear which section of Rohingya community the military bureaucrat in question talked to and got that shocking picture. But more or less Bangladesh should be committed to not repeating another Charlie Wilson's war , which tremendously helps this kind of army bureaucrat, in this part of the world.
Reaching out every segment of civil and military leadership of Myanmar does not only dispel ambiguities in each country's concerns, but also gives a strong message to our future economy that needs to grow at far more greater pace.For this reason, I think Bangladesh should take distance from Gambia initiative to try the Tatmadaw for war crimes. Let the multilateral body do this. Bangladesh should not veer off the path of thawing relations with the Tatmadaw since it is the best alternative we have to connect ourselves with the East and to solve more pressing issues at hand.