Bangladesh is experiencing a seismic shift after 18 years of Awami League rule ended abruptly due to intensive student protests. This upheaval, and the crackdowns that resulted in the deaths of more than 300 protesters, forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country and ushered in an interim government.

But amid this recent political turmoil, the fate of the nearly one million Rohingya refugees residing in the Cox’s Bazar camp in southeastern Bangladesh has grown uncertain.

For years, Bangladesh has grappled with deepening domestic challenges, most notably increasing inequality, nepotism and contested elections. However, the current moment offers tentative hope, as the new government seems committed to providing justice to the protesters, to reducing inequality and to adhering to human rights norms.

Substantial challenges

The new government faces a steep challenge.

Rohingya refugees continue to languish in a deteriorating security situation. With reports of kidnappings and forced conscription in neighbouring Myanmar, the arrivals of war-wounded refugees from that country have increased.

Following a military coup in 2021, Myanmar has been embroiled in a civil war that has been particularly pronounced in the multi-ethnic Rakhine state, where the Arakan Army has exacerbated violence against Rohingya people while also fighting the Myanmari military.

This has caused more Rohingya people to flee to Bangladesh in the past year, where they have been met with diminished services due to the sharp decline in funding.

The situation demands explicit commitments from the interim government and international partners to support Rohingya women activists, to protect both Rohingya young men at risk of forcible conscription and acutely vulnerable Rohingya members of the Hijra community, and to direct the military to protect Rohingya refugees as they travel to Bangladesh.

Refugee camp violence

At present, the regime change has set off violence in and around the camps. Rather than being autonomous, refugee camps are affected by a complex combination of local and international politics that impacts both their stability and vulnerability.

After completing my doctoral field work in Bangladesh, I have observed these connections first-hand.

Institutions seen as affiliated with Hasina’s former government are being treated with suspicion. International organizations operating in Cox’s Bazar are on edge. Bangladeshi protesters reportedly targeted the Cox’s Bazar International Organisation for Migration office because of its perceived connection with the ousted government.

Regional security is also wavering. The military and insurgent killings in western Myanmar along the border with Bangladesh, and during attempts to cross to safety to Bangladesh, have raised serious concerns.

Photo by SH Saw Myint on Unsplash

Uncertainty

Pervasive uncertainty is driving this violence.

Bangladeshi bureaucrats, especially those working within the Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, are unsure of how to proceed. Many top ministry appointees have either gone into hiding or attempted to flee the country. Security forces in the border region are now focused on domestic events, leaving the Bangladesh-Myanmar border less monitored.

Humanitarian organizations and officials have also been impacted. Despite their independence from national governments, humanitarians rely on national entities for permits, supplies and security co-ordination. The current uncertainty has led some humanitarian workers to consider leaving their posts.

As a staff member of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, known as the UNHCR, recently expressed to me: “I just don’t know how we can deliver on services with these constant interruptions and severe stress.”

Tentative hope

Amid the chaos, there is also a feeling of hope. Rohingya activists see potential in this moment of change after years of stagnation.

Amin, a 23-year-old Rohingya activist, told me: “We learned a lot of lessons from the students of Bangladesh. We believe that this new government will do something to help us.”

Rohingya youth have long been denied education and work opportunities. Nonetheless, they’ve been instrumental in creating in-camp educational networks for Rohingya children and documenting evidence about the genocide. Most impressive, they have built a network of committed human rights defenders in the camps.

One such group, the Rohingya Student Network, recently weighed in on the regime change. They published a congratulatory letter to the new government, writing:

“We express our hope that this inclusive government will not only ensure a free and fair future for Bangladesh but will also prioritize the Rohingya crisis.”

Refugees International fellow and Rohingya activist Lucky Karim also praised new Prime Minister Muhammad Yunus. She urged him to bring “positive changes through his leadership for the refugees being gratefully hosted by his people.”

This optimism is fuelled by the unprecedented inclusion for underrepresented groups in Yunus’s interim government, including for student protest movement leaders and women. It also arises from a deeper belief in Yunus himself. Though not without his own controversy, Yunus has remained a long-standing advocate for the world’s most vulnerable communities. “We will wait to see,” said Amin, “because this government gives me some hope.”

Looking ahead

As Rohingya refugees face an uncertain and hostile future, Bangladesh’s rare moment of political change has both exacerbated violence and opened the door to renewed hope for Rohingya refugees.

National governments play a crucial role in securing resources and negotiating political solutions for displaced communities. Bangladesh’s interim government has a complex road ahead that will require balancing the demands for justice from its citizens with the urgent needs of its refugees.

If it can manage to do so, it will truly be an unprecedented moment not only in the history of Bangladesh, but in the global governance of refugees.

Sarah Nandi, PhD Researcher, Political Science, McGill University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate extremes. The nation’s topography lays its citizens bare to cyclones, flash floods, erosion and drought – not to mention the significant socio-economic impact these bring.

Agricultural economist GM Monirul Alam showed, in a 2017 study, that with more than 230 tidally active rivers and waterways, 20 of the country’s 64 districts are extremely vulnerable to river-bank erosion. Every year, a total of 8,700  hectares of land is lost, with river channels shifting by as much as 300 meters, displacing 200,000 people as a result.

In 2018, a report for the World Bank estimated that if appropriate mitigation measures are not taken to prepare for climate extremes, as many as 13.3 million people could face displacement within Bangladesh by 2050. With the population expected to reach 220 million by then, that would equate to 6% being made homeless.

Disaster preparedness and relief have always been a key focus for the Bangladeshi government since independence in 1972. The Ashrayan programme, launched in 1997, seeks to build new homes for people who are homeless and landless. It now stands as the biggest project of its kind globally.

By 2022, it had helped 507,244 families resettle at a cost of $355.13 million (£297.98 million).

For my doctoral research, I have studied Bangladesh’s response to climate-related migration, conducting interviews with public officials and other people impacted by the project. I have found that when structures are built at speed, without the necessary support system in place, communities’ vulnerability to the climate crisis only increases.

What is an Ashrayan?

The Ashrayan, which means “to shelter” in Bengali, stems from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s longstanding vision of inclusive development. Hasina, who first came to power in 1996, and was re-elected in 2009 and again in 2014, has repeatedly stated her goal that:

No-one will be left without address or homeless and landless.

An Ashrayan comprises anything from a few dozen barrack houses to several hundred, depending on the land available and the scale of the site. The standard house features two to three rooms, a kitchen, a toilet and a small veranda.

Joint ownership of the land can be awarded in the name of both the wife and husband. Special priority is given to widows, disabled people and the elderly.

The development approach is about much more than just construction. It seeks to implement what development experts and urban planners term “people-centric rehabilitation”. Residents have access to technical training courses and micro-credit programmes, as well as community centres and prayer halls.

Going by numbers of people who have been rehoused – around 554,597 families to date – the success of the programme is evident. However, critics point to the project’s failure to take geographical specificities and cultural nuances into consideration when Ashrayans are built. This, in turn, is hampering efforts to achieve policy objectives.

First, as noted in 2022 by urban planners at Khulna University, local agricultural, ecological and geological knowledge was not being taken into account in the spatial planning process. This oversight in selecting safe sites means residents, and the infrastructure they rely on, are even more vulnerable.

This was made clear when cyclone Amphan hit in 2020. Several barracks were severely damaged.

The following year, in 2021, seven of the 22 homes in a Bogra district Ashrayan, in Rajshahi, collapsed after moderate rains caused subsidence. News reports highlighted the poor construction of the barracks and the fact that they had been built on the sandy soil of a canal bank.

Second, observers have noted inconsistencies in how basic infrastructure is constructed. Without a proper drainage system, untreated sewage and waste is allowed to run off into nearby bodies of water, on which communities depend for water and fishing for a livelihood.

Little consideration has been given to where Ashrayan sites are located in terms of the residents’ chances of employment, access to affordable healthcare and education. When families are unable to make ends meet, children often drop out of school to work in jute mills, shipyards or car garages. Many households have reportedly left their designated barracks because they have been unable to find work.

Most illnesses go untreated simply because the health financing system in the country is underfunded and relies heavily on cash payments. Those who cannot afford to pay thus have little access to healthcare.
Moreover, when situated at a remote location, residents lose access to the socio-cultural networks that are key to rebuilding communities.

Administrative bureaucracy is also taking a toll. The process for acquiring a piece of land under the Ashrayan programme and obtaining proof of land ownership is fraught. Relocated families are supposed to be handed the registered deed on the spot. In practice, however, the actual delivery of the relevant certificates and title deeds is taking years.

Barracks are built at speed, and local municipalities, beset with competing priorities, are struggling to keep up. This is evident in the recurring cost and time overruns. Many of the projects are coming in way over budget and are taking longer than predicted.

Successful resettlements across the world have always been more than a reconstruction of what was materially lost. They are about helping communities to rebuild their social fabric on every level: infrastructural, economic and cultural.

When, by contrast, local autonomy, expertise and aspirations are excluded from the planning process and when existing patterns of inequality are not taken into consideration, the foundation on which the resettlement project is built is shaky. It risks further amplifying the vulnerabilities people face.

Bangladesh should be lauded for undertaking the world’s largest resettlement programme. However, without following a systematic approach that combines resilient infrastructure with governmental investment in human and social capital, its citizens will continue to be at the mercy of shifting lands and weather patterns.

Atmaja Gohain Baruah, Joint PhD Researcher at the National University of Singapore and KCL, King’s College London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We praise charity efforts to combat climate change in countries like Bangladesh as generous, without critiquing why they are made necessary in the first place.

Between 1765 and 1938, Britain plundered almost $45 trillion  from the Indian subcontinent. Within this looting was “the financial bleeding of Bengal”, filled not only with the ransacking of its treasuries and towns for money,  but the exploitation of its workers and artisans for complex and raw materials alike. It’s no surprise that British colonization and imperialism goes hand in hand with its industrialization, considering that the Industrial Revolution demanded cheap raw materials and money in order for factories to produce and over-produce and pollute. Essentially, it’s not inaccurate to say that a major reason for Bangladesh’s climate and flooding crisis is its colonization under the British Raj. 

When we talk about CO2 emissions and responsibility, we need to focus on cumulative historical emissions, as those are the causes of the ongoing climate crisis. The data shows that 23 rich, developed countries, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France are responsible for half of all historical CO2 emissions, with more than 150 countries responsible for the other half.

Up until 1950, more than half of historical CO2 emissions were emitted by Europe, with the vast majority of European emissions being emitted by the UK. While the UK’s carbon imprint has lessened since then, should it not take responsibility for the consequences of its past actions? And today, rich countries like the U.S., Germany, and the UK are among the top 5 CO2-emitting countries. Why should Bangladesh have to suffer for the past and present extravagances of its colonizers? 

Developed countries are primarily responsible for our current climate crisis, but it is developing countries that are the most vulnerable to its effects. Global warming, which has increased the economic inequality gap between the Global South and Global North by a whopping 25 percent, punishes the economically vulnerable over the rich, the colonized over the colonizers, and it’s clear, therefore, that this climate crisis isn’t just an environmental issue: it’s about colonialism and imperialism and poverty and every systemic structure that has inequality enshrined in its foundations. 

Developed countries must take responsibility for the climate crisis they initiated by paying reparations for developing countries. And there’s a number of ways they could do this.  

One very tangible way for developed countries to pay reparations is the reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). SDRs are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets maintained by the International Monetary Fund. Certain numbers of them are distributed to banks and treasuries around the world, allowing financial institutions fallback options when they need to dip into their financial reserves during crises. However, SDRs are currently allocated by quota, which means that low-income developing countries like Bangladesh receive 1.4 percent, high-income developing countries like China receive 22 percent, and rich countries such as the US and the UK receive over 60 percent. Of course, rich countries rarely, if ever, need to dip into their SDRs, whereas low-income countries often rely upon theirs. Ending this quota system and reallocating SDRs to the countries most vulnerable to climate change is a feasible way to dedicate  existing resources to climate change mitigation. Considering that they don’t even use their SDRs, developed countries have no incentive not to do this.

In the same vein,  countries could assist developing countries in undertaking various climate mitigation and adaptation projects. Climate mitigation refers to actions that involve reducing the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, either by reducing the point source pollution (eg. the burning of fossil fuels for electricity) or by enhancing the sinks that store these gases (eg. forests).

Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country of some 220 million people, the fifth most populous in the world It has a nominal GDP per annum of some $350 billion (in the same general range as South Africa, Egypt, Iran and Chile). Its most fertile regions comprise the Indus River basin. Water is the country’s lifeblood, and it is estimated that some 74% of the Indus Valley run-off derives from Himalayan snowmelt and glacier melt. It is likely to decrease by 5% to 12% by 2050. The melting of the glaciers and the retreat of the snow cover there at the top of the world are therefore an existential issue for Pakistan.

Image by lutz from Pixabay

If the world goes on putting 36 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year and doesn’t pull back significantly, actually the melting could be twice as bad. And under the worse case scenario, where human beings just do nothing to fight climate change, by the end of this century, 2081-2100, fully 80% of the lower-lying Himalayan ice will be gone.

These findings, by the way, pertain not only to the lower levels of the Himalayas but also the European Alps, the Rockies, and the Andes.

The reason for the melting of the surface ice in the Hindu Kush Himalayas is obvious. Glacier mass changes have been accelerating because of increased heat owing to human-induced climate change. Temperatures have been going up by an average of +0.28 °C (about half a degree Fahrenheit) every decade since 1951.

The rate of mass loss in the ice between the 1970s and 2019 has increased 65%. Even just in this century, the amount of ice mass lost in 2000-2009 was -0.17 meters water equivalent. But in 2010-2019 it jumped up to -0.28 meters water equivalent.

Seasonal snow cover in the Himalayas is decreasing at an alarming rate. At the lower elevations, there has been a loss of 5 snow-cover days per decade since the 1970s.

The Asian Exchange Union was established in 1972 and was intended to decolonize the banking system and allow member states to trade with one another without going through the old imperial powers. It never has, however, amounted to much, though it may suddenly be a bigger deal if Iran’s plans are implemented.

In the end the representatives voted to explore the formation of a non-dollar basket of currencies, to bring into being a digital currency controlled by the central banks of member states, and setting up an international banking exchange to rival the US-dominated SWIFT. The US has kicked both Iran and Russia off of SWIFT and interdicted their use of dollars, which has hurt their trade and foreign exchange reserves.

The non-dollar basket of currencies to be used as an alternative to the US dollar as a reserve currency would initially consist of the Chinese yuan, the UAE dirham and the Russian ruble, according to the plan voted on.

The United Arab Emirates’ central bank took part last year in a trial of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) using mBridge technology directed by the Bank for International Settlements and looking at the potential use of CBDC’s for “international transactions.” The study’s participants also comprised “the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the Bank of Thailand, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority with participants hailing the results of the study,” according to Coingeek.

The third resolution was to set up an alternative to the SWIFT bank exchange. According to Investopedia, “The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system powers most international money and security transfers. SWIFT is a vast messaging network used by financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. ”

Mohsen Karimi, the International Vice President of Iran’s Central Bank, said at the Tehran summit, “The interbank messenger replacing SWIFT will be implemented within the next month among the members of the Asian Exchange Union.” He said that Iran has designed a new exchange that will message members of the Asian Exchange Union’s banks and allow currency transfers among them. He said this method will be cheaper than SWIFT.

For many reasons, the dollar is likely to remain the world’s reserve currency for some time, and the SWIFT banking exchange will remain central. Still, it may be possible for this rival basket of currencies to replace the dollar in Asia for some purposes, and a new banking exchange that allowed South Asian countries to deal with Iran and Russia in ways that the US cannot easily sanction would have its attractions. It is certainly the case that Washington’s over-use of financial sanctions is likely sooner or later to cause other countries to move away from the US-dominated banking exchange and from the dollar, which is a Trojan Horse for the Office of Foreign Asset Control of the US Department of the Treasury.

( Globalvoices.org ) – Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the world, as two-thirds of the country is less than 15 feet above sea level. Floods continue to be the biggest threat as each year about 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi) or around 18 percent of the country is submerged in water during the rainy season, killing thousands of people and displacing millions.

In the third week of June 2022, floods had taken a severe turn in the northeastern region of Bangladesh, especially the areas of Sylhet, Sunamganj and Netrokona. In May 2022, the Sylhet division was inundated with the first floods of the season. But in mid-June the flood was triggered by the record rainfall in the bordering India states of Meghalaya and Assam, as these waters came gushing the downstream, overflowing rivers and streams. Besides the lowlands near the border, major towns and business hubs in this region, such as Sylhet and Sunamganj went under water quickly.

In some areas the water rose to 8 feet, making this the deadliest flood in more than a century. It seemed like a doomsday situation as the power supply was cut off in inundated areas to avoid accidents, leaving millions in the dark. As the power cuts were prolonged, the majority of over 3,600 mobile towers in this region went offline, leaving around 4 million people already suffering a crisis of food and purified drinking water stranded in a communications blackout. The local airport in Sylhet was closed for six days as the runway was under water. The roads and railway connections between the cities and the rest of the country were also cut off, marooning this region.

Maria Kibtia, a student from Sylhet, tweets that people in her generation have never seen such a catastrophic flood before.

As of Friday, June 24, 68 people had died since the mid-May floods. The speed of the flash flood and the disrupted communications meant that government relief efforts took time to reach the flood-affected. The army and the air force were deployed to distribute emergency aid and rescue flood victims in remote areas.

People and organisations came forward

Several political, and social organizations and the general public have come forward in various ways to help the flood victims, as people are not out of the woods yet despite some improvement in the situation. They are complementing government efforts by raising funds from the public and reaching out to the flood-affected population with medicine, clothes, food, water and other necessities. Along with the army, they are helping with rescue and resource distribution efforts. Author Hasan Morshed, from his experience of working directly in the region during the floods of 2004 and 2016, says that rescue operations are most needed during the first few days. He wrote in a Facebook post:

What do the [flood-affected] people need at this moment? At first, people need to be rescued. They need to be evacuated from the affected area quickly. The issue of feeding and sustaining them comes after that. Is it possible for anyone to help in the rescue efforts? Not possible [without logistics and access]. This requires specialized initiative.

The army started this specialized initiative to rescue people as an ally of the local administration.

Asif Saleh, the executive director of BRAC, the largest non-governmental development organization in Bangladesh, tweeted that all their offices in Sunamganj were flooded:

The organisation has allocated funds to help 52,000 affected families initially.

Meanwhile, in the face of such misery, unscrupulous traders have increased the prices of daily necessities. There is no electricity, and the candles have become scarce, people have even paid BDT 100 (USD 1) for candles originally priced at BDT 20 (USD 0.20). In the highest demand are rescue boats and trawlers. The price of renting them has gone up manifold — some people were asked to pay up to BDT 30,000 (USD 300) for a two-hour journey. Many have not been able to pay for their rescue themselves.

However, the opposite is also true, with some heartwarming tales of people helping each other in times of danger. Alim al-Razi tells an encouraging story on Facebook:

Yesterday I went to rescue my waterlogged aunt and cousins from a haor in the Gowainghat area. At first, I could not find any boat. After waiting a few hours, we could arrange a medium-sized boat. The boat driver is still in his teens — maybe 16 or 18.

It was a long journey, and he had to push the ground with logs in some places, and row in some places to bring all of us back safe crossing a large haor. When the journey ended, I found it difficult to pay him as he refused to take any money for the rescue. After much insistence, I could only manage to slip a BDT 500 (USD 5) note into his hand.

The boy’s name is Bashar. Bashar should also be in our timeline.

1 taka Meal, an initiative of Bidyanondo Foundation is traveling to remote areas with their mobile kitchen to feed thousands of people:

Our mobile kitchen is moving towards Chalbon in Sunamganj …. Cooking is egg khichuri [rice and lentils dish] …. hundreds of children are waiting for hot food ….

Why the repeated floods?

A record amount of rainfall in Cherrapunji, India is mainly what contributed to this sudden flood in Sylhet, Sunamganj. The hilly area is adjacent to the border of the Sunamganj district and the water from there flows directly into the low-lying areas of the Sunamganj and Sylhet districts of Bangladesh.

MK Fahim, an IT professional from Dhaka, shared this tweet:

The river Meghna and its tributaries carry the water from upstream in the north and eventually into the sea in the south. But, due to the reduced navigability of the river, the excess water flooded the areas adjacent to the river. AKM Saiful Islam, director of the Institute of Water and Flood Management at the Bangladesh University of Engineering, also blamed unplanned urban development for the floods. He said in an interview with BBC Bangla:

We are now building roads in the pockets of the haor [back swamp]. As a result, the natural water flow is being obstructed. […] Due to these reasons, frequent and severe floods are happening.

Many have blamed global warming for the floods. Environment and climate activist Mohaiminul Islam Zipat called for action now:

Rushnara Ali, a member of the UK Parliament of Bangladeshi descent, tweeted about the effects of climate change:

The number of climate refugees is increasing every day in Bangladesh. According to World Bank data, every year around 400,000 people are permanently migrating from rural areas to urban areas. Seventy percent of them are climate refugees. This is due to rising sea levels, rising river salinity, rising river erosion and natural disasters such as floods and tidal surges.

Via Globalvoices.org

But this isn’t just the story of a close call from long ago. A future framed by a warming globe means that the real danger of climate change doesn’t represent just fires and storms, but an increased risk of major international conflict with each new landfall.

The good news? We have the tools to stop these dominos from falling, if we just know which warning signs to spot.

The Great Bhola Cyclone made landfall as Pakistan was suffering through extensive socio-political instability. Pakistan was literally a divided country then, with its capital and power center of Islamabad in the west, and the more populous Bengali speaking region to the east. India lay between East and West Pakistan.

General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan was Pakistan’s president then. Yahya’s feeble, uncaring aid effort after the cyclone magnified the death toll and convinced Bengalis that he would never see them as equals. Just three weeks later, Pakistan held its first ever democratic elections. A Bengali majority voted Yahya out, but he refused to leave office. As unrest grew, Yahya ordered a brutal military crackdown to kill tens of thousands of protestors. He believed that if he could just kill three million Bengalis, “the rest would eat out of our hands.” So he did just that, launching a genocide against the Bengali people – his own Pakistani citizens.

Yahya’s viciousness pulled in the world’s pre-eminent military powers. Overwhelmed by refugees, India looked to the Soviet Union for help. The USSR supplied arms to a resistance movement. Pakistan was long-time friends with the USA, so then-President Richard Nixon not only helped Yahya cover up evidence of the genocide, but sent illegally smuggled weapons too.

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As the massacre morphed into a civil war, the Bengali resistance, trained by India and armed by the USSR, began to make inroads. Terrified that East Pakistan would be only the first country to fall to the Soviets in South Asia, Nixon dispatched the USS Enterprise and its dozens of nuclear weapons to the Bay of Bengal as a deterrent. The Soviets matched the Enterprise with their own flotilla of nuclear-equipped submarines.

As the competing flotillas neared each other, Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger urged a “final showdown” – a first strike of nuclear weapons to win the war for Pakistan. At the same time, the Soviet subb were ordered to make sure that the Americans got no closer to land – and to use their own nukes if they dared try. The world averted nuclear armageddon – possibly by mere hours – only because East Pakistan’s capital Dhaka fell on that very day. The Bengali resistance, with the help of India, won the war. About one year after Bhola made landfall, Bangladesh was born.

Hundred-year storms like the Great Bhola Cyclone might feel like once-in-a lifetime anomalies, but climate change is accelerating their frequency into once a decade or, in the worst projections, annual events. They crash into fragile political systems just as surely as they do coastlines. They trigger chain reactions that build into ever greater catastrophes as one dangerous situation collides with another. Dozens of countries like Bangladesh are at high risk of armed conflict, and storms like the one that hit East Pakistan in 1970 can be the spark that sends a country over the edge.

Of course, climate change didn’t cause the Great Bhola Cyclone. Rather, it’s a harbinger of what climate change will bring in the future. The problem isn’t just that each specific storm is a roll of the dice for societal and political destruction, but that due to climate change the dice are being rolled more often, in more places, and generating more powerful storms, each and every year.

And megastorms won’t be the only thing that drives climate conflict. Droughts, floods, desertification, and other shocks to fragile environments can all trigger political and economic upheavals. For example, in 2018 Central American farmers were pushed off land that was no longer arable, and were unable to settle in violent local cities. They joined what then-president Donald Trump called the “migrant caravan”: 4,000 displaced people seeking an opportunity simply to live productive lives again. Experts estimate that two million climate refugees from Central America alone will attempt to enter the United States by 2040. That’s two new climate caravans every month for the next two decades.

The stakes are higher—and more immediate—than even most climate-change advocates realize. Our global climate future means not just flooded beach houses in twenty years and more expensive groceries next decade, but an increasing likelihood of selective genocide and even global international war. Analysis from peace research scholars shows that disasters are increasingly used to leverage political aims, using the same blueprint that Yahya Khan did after the Great Bhola Cyclone.

The path is familiar: A disaster strikes a country suffering from political tension. Leaders of that country, whether out of malice or indifference (or both), give a half-hearted disaster response. It inflames tensions along pre-existing societal dividing lines. The ruling party blames the aggrieved for the tensions to justify further suppression. Then, war erupts. To wit, politicians used the 2017 drought in Sudan, the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami, and the 2016–2020 drought-flood cycles in Afghanistan and Somalia to justify wars or increase their intensity. And more will come.

But the future is not predetermined. In issues of war and climate, holding politicians to account at critical junctures can mean the difference between heartwarming tales of humanity coming together or a genocide. It’s essential to penetrate the noise of information overflow on topics as wide-ranging and combative as the relationship between natural disasters and social conflict.

( Middle East Monitor ) – Rohingya refugees and victims are suing Facebook for $150 billion. They allege that Facebook played a key role in the brutal crackdown against Muslims in Myanmar by promoting anti-Rohingya posts. This online hate turned into real-world violence, according to the lawsuit.

As stated by Noam Chomsky, author of Manufacturing Consent, in this new digital era, Facebook is not just a platform for sharing knowledge or social networking, it is also a space for manipulation, targeting, and incitement. The Rohingya case and lawsuit, to a large extent, confirms Chomsky’s view.

Meanwhile, this week a letter submitted by lawyers to Facebook’s UK office shows the reality of this case. It says their clients and family members have been subjected to acts of “serious violence, murder and/or other grave human rights abuses” as part of a campaign of genocide conducted by the ruling regime and civilian extremists in Myanmar.

In 2019, I met with Dr Maung Zarni to discuss his book, Essays on Myanmar’s Genocide of Rohingyas (2012-2018). Zarni told me that he had been following and documenting the stories of the Rohingya genocide as a Burmese exiled human rights activist.

I opened the discussion about Facebook’s Rohingya case and asked him: “Does Facebook really support genocide in Rohingya?”

“Facebook acts against its promise. It has become a means for those seeking to spread hate and cause harm, and posts have been linked to offline violence,” he responded candidly.

In 2018, Facebook confessed that it had not done enough to prevent the incitement of violence and hate speech against the Rohingya, the Muslim minority in Myanmar.

Zarni explained: “We understand that the Facebook posts were not from everyday internet users. Instead, they were from Myanmar military personnel who turned the social network into a tool for ethnic cleansing, according to former military officials, researchers, and civilian officials in the country.”

Seemingly, the campaign in Myanmar looked similar to Russia’s online influence and disinformation campaigns prior to the 2016 US presidential election. According to the book, Hybrid War: Attack on the West, human rights groups focused on the Facebook group, “Opposite Eyes”, which shared Myanmar’s military propaganda pictures.

Facebook is failing to aid an important international effort to establish accountability. This creates global concerns, especially regarding the brainwashing of youth in Myanmar. As observed by the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM) in its September 2018 report: “For most users age between 16-35 [in Myanmar], Facebook is the internet.” The report also states that “Facebook has been used to spread hate” in the country and regretted that the company was unable to provide country-specific information about hate speech on its platform.

Facebook’s manipulation of consent on Myanmar’s genocide policy against Rohingya Muslims is neither new nor shocking. The UN refugee agency even inappropriately collected and shared personal information on Rohingya refugees with Bangladesh, which was then shared with Myanmar to verify people for possible repatriation.

Filtering laws on social media must be applied strictly by governments for the protection of its users.

Elif Selin Calik is a journalist and independent researcher. She is a regular contributor to publications like TRT World, Daily Sabah, Rising Powers in Global Governance and Hurriyet Daily News. She was one of the the founders of the In-Depth News Department of Anadolu News Agency and participated in United Nations COP23 in Bonn as an observer. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the International University of Sarajevo and a second MA in Global Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

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Over the past decade, there has been growing recognition of climate-induced loss and damage – such as the destruction of homes or buildings after a flood. However, economic losses and damages have received far more attention than their non-economic counterparts.

These non-economic losses and damages cannot be measured in monetary terms, including loss of life, health and wellbeing, livelihoods, territory, cultural heritage and traditions, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity.

When a major UN report on climate change was released earlier this year, I and my peers at the Lancet Countdown described its findings as a “code red for a healthy future”. That doesn’t just mean physical health, but mental health as well.

In my research, I focus on the relationship between environmental events and people’s wellbeing and mental health in countries such as the Philippines, South Africa, Senegal, India and Bangladesh.

In one of our coastal study sites in Khulna, Bangladesh, I met Kabir, a 38-year-old Bangladeshi man. He explained the longer-term mental health impacts of Sidr, a Category 5 tropical cyclone that hit the Bangladesh coast in November 2007, killing thousands.

2007 may feel like a lifetime ago for many of us, but for Kabir, the memory of the night the cyclone struck his house still lives with him every second of the day.

After Sidr, I became anxious. I cannot seem to relax. Especially during cloudy and rainy days like these, I feel the breeze coming in from the sea and it forces me to remember. I cannot stand that breeze anymore.

Kabir explains how the first year after the cyclone was a big black hole. He has fragments of positive memories such as neighbours bringing him food and checking in on him. He also has other, more unpleasant memories of people taking advantage of his vulnerable state by claiming to have lent him money while he was unable to work, and then pestering him to pay back his debts.

If one person in your family dies, people will mourn and face a tremendous loss. All of my four children and my wife died. I am the only person left alive. How could I be mentally stable?

Psychological trauma caused by previous cyclone strikes left many feeling so anxious that they stopped evacuating, in an attempt to avoid witnessing or being exposed to further traumatic evacuation experiences.

Kabir’s village lost about a third of its population to Sidr, and for weeks after its impact bodies were lined up for burial on a field next to the cyclone shelter. Many survivors remained deeply traumatised, as explained by an elderly local man:

We noticed that some children would bury their toys here and there. We also often heard them saying: “Stop the game! Otherwise, the cyclone will come.” They often repeated: “When will the flood strike again? Will I have to go [to the shelter] again then, or will I die next time? If it happens again, then please promise me not to leave.”

The man explains that many cyclone survivors were psychologically and internally injured and faced complications, some of which caused lasting mental distress. However, no mental health specialists visited the region after the cyclone, so people did not receive specialist psychological support.

These hazards keep coming back every year. I witnessed many of my relatives dying while screaming and crying. I failed to help them, I failed to save their lives. This can never leave me completely happy. Nothing you would try to provide me with would ever be enough to fix that.

I was struck by how these men’s words spoke directly to the core of the debate around how to compensate for non-economic loss and damage. What they said highlights the importance of incorporating mental health considerations into climate policy, especially by adding carefully designed mental health assessments and support to post-disaster relief packages delivered by national governments, the UN or non-governmental organisations.

When people are not given any chance to work through the traumas left behind in the path of disasters, it leaves them at risk of longer-term psychological impacts such as post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depressive disorders. Over time, untreated mental health issues may lead to reduced developmental and educational opportunities particularly for women, children and other marginalised groups.

Climate change is projected to increase the intensity of some extreme weather events such as rainfall, droughts, cyclones, heatwaves and humidity. It is therefore more important than ever that we start treating problems in vulnerable areas of the world – like poverty resulting from historical power imbalances between countries, making inhabitants more vulnerable to climatic changes – as well as the symptoms of these problems, like mental ill health exacerbated by extreme weather events. After all, the effects of so-called “natural disasters” are socially constructed.

Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Senior Researcher in Environment and Human Security, United Nations University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Featured photo: A Bangladeshi boy walks along a riverbank protected from climate-driven erosion by concrete blocks. By Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson. (Author provided).