By Rakib Al Hasan/Daily Sun
Dhaka, May 13 – In diplomacy, silence can be louder than declarations. When Bangladesh quietly agreed in principle to a United Nations-backed proposal for a humanitarian corridor into Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state, there were no televised speeches, no parliamentary sessions and certainly no national consensus. The decision slipped into existence like a shadow on water—barely rippling the surface, yet deep enough to reach the undercurrents of regional power politics.
Presented to the public as a compassionate gesture, the corridor is being hailed internationally as a model of humanitarian responsibility. But what lies beneath this apparently noble initiative is far more complex, far more combustible and dangerously under examined. The so-called ‘humanitarian passage’ is not merely an aid route. It is an opening, perhaps irreversible, into the murky terrain of great-power rivalry, proxy militias, strategic resource grabs and a volatile civil war with no visible end. And Bangladesh, a country already staggering under the weight of over 1.3 million Rohingya refugees, appears to have walked into it willingly, guided more by geopolitical persuasion than national interest.
Bangladesh’s government has justified the corridor on humanitarian grounds, but also as a potential catalyst for Rohingya repatriation. After nearly a decade of international failure on the refugee issue, officials in Dhaka are eager for movement, any movement, that could reduce the burden of housing more than a million stateless people with no right to work, no future to plan for and no hope of returning to Myanmar.
The logic is tempting: help the international community stabilise Rakhine and in return, they will help you send your refugees home.
But this is a diplomatic mirage. The Rohingyas did not flee a famine or a failed harvest; instead they fled genocide. The perpetrators of that genocide remain in power, either in the Myanmar military or in rival ethnic militias. Many of the villages the Rohingya once called home no longer exist. Others are now occupied by members of opposing ethnic groups.
To imagine that humanitarian logistics and international diplomacy can gently shepherd Rohingyas back to these lands is not just optimistic—it is dangerous. It opens the door to forced returns, to symbolic reparations for the sake of foreign headlines and to fresh cycles of abuse, displacement and death.
Perhaps most alarming is the quiet military footprint that is beginning to form under the cover of humanitarianism. Reports indicate that Bangladesh will assign three infantry divisions—Chattogram, Sylhet and Ramu—to support the corridor’s logistics. These units are experienced in peacekeeping and have served in various UN missions abroad. But Rakhine is not Rwanda.
This is not a post-conflict stabilisation operation. It is an active warzone with no ceasefire, no neutral ground and no international consensus.
Bangladeshi troops, however well-trained, could find themselves deployed in a region where the line between humanitarian assistance and strategic intervention is razor-thin. Should fighting erupt, or should any faction perceive them as partial, Bangladesh could be pulled into direct confrontation not just with militias but potentially with the Myanmar military or other regional actors.
This is not peacekeeping. This is a forward deployment into the heart of a proxy war. And it is happening without public knowledge or parliamentary oversight.
The broader implication is clear: Bangladesh’s sovereignty is being diluted by a combination of external pressure and internal opportunism. The interim government, tasked only with overseeing a smooth transition to democracy, is instead executing decisions of enormous strategic consequence. It is shifting alliances, reconfiguring military deployments and inserting Bangladesh into a global chess match it neither initiated nor fully understands.
The corridor may be humanitarian in language, but it is geopolitical in consequence. And that consequence is dangerous. China is already watching. India is growing anxious. The Arakan Army grows emboldened. The Rohingyas remain stateless. And Bangladesh, long admired for its careful diplomacy and balancing act between major powers, now finds itself slipping from neutrality into alignment without a vote, without a debate and without a plan.
It is not too late to pull back. But the window is closing. The corridor must be re-examined not just through the lens of humanitarian urgency but through the full-spectrum analysis of what it represents: a military-laced, diplomatically ambiguous and strategically reckless entanglement in a foreign conflict that could easily consume Bangladesh’s stability, security and international standing.
Aid can be delivered by air. Assistance can be routed through multiple neighbouring states. Myanmar shares borders with India, China, Laos and Thailand. The insistence on a Bangladesh-based corridor suggests intent beyond humanitarian relief. It suggests strategic engineering. And that, more than anything, is what should terrify us.
In the end, the question is not what we owe the people of Rakhine. It is what we owe ourselves. Bangladesh has paid its humanitarian dues again and again with open borders, refugee camps and endless patience. But it must not now pay with its sovereignty. There is still time to say no. But not much.
The writer is a physician, activist and international award-winning youth leader. He could be reached at md.rakibalhasan.bd@gmail.com
.
