TERRORISM DILEMMAS AND DEMOCRACY
unfolding along the Bangladeshi border in 2012.
Generalisation of victimisation to all Muslims: Accounts such as those
of Rohingya women Rashida Begum and Syeda Khatun were common in the
coverage of refugee migration. The paper said the women ‘were found shocked
and crying. They said Muslims were being tortured in their localities and they
definitely did not want to go back’ (The Daily Star, June 12, 2012), suggesting
the persecution of Muslims in general rather than explicitly identifying the victims as Rohingya. At times of intense crisis, the framing is clearly sympathetic,
but The Daily Star generally fell short of its Fourth Estate mandate to scrutinise
power by failing to question Bangladesh’s role in the humanitarian crisis though
its policy of closing the border and the official channels of refuge in 2012.
Shifting victimisation solely to Myanmar: Shifting responsibility for victimisation also framed refugees as intruders—a population forced to intrude by the
actions of the Myanmarese regime. A Daily Star article on June 11, 2012 reported
Bangladeshi police had arrested a number of wounded Myanmar citizens, one of
whom told the newspaper’s correspondent he had come to Teknaf in Bangladesh
on a fishing boat, after being shot by Myanmar’s border security, the Nasaka
forces. The same article simultaneously gave voice to the Bangladeshi border
commanders who bragged about the effectiveness of the tougher border security
regime which was keeping intruders at bay.
Capacity for humanitarianism as finite: This frame exonerates Bangladesh
for having done its best. In this context, there is little ambiguity over the party
responsible for victimisation when presenting historic claims of persecution and
subsequent refugee migration into Bangladesh. The exodus of more than 200,000
Rohingya in 1978 following the Myanmar army’s operation ‘Dragon King’,
and further migration in 1991-1992 are presented without caveats, allowing the
newspaper to frame the 2012 refugee crisis within a wider historic framework
in which Bangladesh had already fulfilled its humanitarian obligations. The
language in this frame included phrases such as ‘Bangladesh had been burdened
with the Rohingya’ and ‘influx of Rohingya refugees’ (The Daily Star, December 17, 2011) strengthening claims that Bangladesh had carried the ‘burden’ of
humanitarian assistance.
Intruders of Bangladeshi sovereignty
After a brief dalliance with a humanitarian frame, by mid-June 2012 The Daily
Star again shifted to national security and territorial integrity frames, reporting
Bangladeshi border guard efforts to barricade against Rohingya refugees. The
border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General, Major General Anwar Hossain, was quoted saying, ‘The patrolling has been intensified and forces have
been made alert… so that the violence in the neighbouring country does not
affect border security’ (June 10, 2012).
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