Myanmar, expected to bring about major changes under Noble Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has failed to deliver any good message to its neighbours and in particular, Bangladesh.
The country carefully planned to get rid of the Muslim minority group called Rohingyas and burdened Bangladesh with 1 million of these mostly poverty-stricken people. They have destroyed hills, forests and livelihood of the local people in Teknaf and Cox’s Bazaar areas.
Bangladesh faces grave environmental situation in those areas and it would take years to recoup the environmental and economic losses incurred so far albeit the Rohingya crisis could have been averted with prudent diplomacy.

Leave aside the Rohingya crisis, Myanmar has simultaneously and very calculative opened another front against Bangladesh— the drug invasion.

Its other neighbours, Thailand and Malaysia also suffer a little from Myanmar’s slow drug poisoning, but we in Bangladesh see a situation never seen before and thus a major drug offensive underway with more than 100 alleged drug peddlers killed in shootouts with mainly security agencies.

The military dictators had encouraged drug abuse to cling to power by corrupting our young generation.

The famous ship ‘Hizbul Bahar’ took young students from different universities for a voyage to Singapore, courtesy of military dictator Ziaur Rahman. Thus, started a free-for-all what came to be known as the “briefcase business,” that brought in huge illegal wealth into the hands of the young.

During that time, I first heard of drugs in the form of pills, cocaine and later Phensedyl, the codeine cough syrup, which started coming in from India.

The menace continued under during the military regime of Hussain Muhammad Ershad.

Thus a generation of drug abusers were born who continue to help in its spread in Bangladesh. Inside Bangladesh, the red Yaba pills have reached remote villages with very young abusers.

We must give our total support to the government’s drive, but must also ask our security agencies do not spare anybody — not your family or friends if found involved in dealing drug.

Questions of why we slept on the drug situation and deaths in shootouts are nothing uncommon, but rather a routine matter for us; better late than never.

But let’s question how our drug drive can be conducted with 100 percent sincerity and no lapses. There has been a concern that we are yet to see the drug lords behind the bars or killed in shootouts.

The issue is Myanmar continues to produce the dangerous methamphetamine-based drug called Yaba. So unless these production and smuggling are stopped, how can we have a successful and an enduring solution to the menace that is eating into our society?

The border with Myanmar needs to be sealed and tress passers should be dealt with a tough hand like “shoot on sight.” We must try and destroy any illegal drug manufacturing units across or close to the Bangladesh border with Myanmar.

We must tell Myanmar and Suu Kyi that they must immediately destroy these drug manufacturing factories and distribution dens or face international sanctions.

We must make ourselves clear in strongest terms from a position of strength that the international community is unhappy with Myanmar on the Rohingya issue and this level of ‘an attempted drug invasion’ would not be tolerated.

Our office in Shegunbagicha (the foreign ministry) has said the Rohingya issue had become complex and they were unable to cope with Myanmar’s tactics in dealing with the matter.

Thus it will be prudent for the government to engage experts from outside the Shegunbaghicha office to plan and execute the issue of international sanctions against Myanmar unless it totally destroys the drug mafia ring it harbours to gain extra cash for its exchequers.

China, which once suffered drug serious menace, could be approached on two fronts:

a. To share its experience as to how it dealt with its problem with drugs,

b. To exercise its utmost to tell Myanmar to shut down the drug factories,

c. To share intelligence to wipe out this drug lords permanently, and

d. To warn that it would back Bangladesh in seeking international sanctions

We must stop this drug aggression at any cost for the sake our independence and sovereignty, above all our respectful existence.

Nadeem Qadir is the Roving Editor at The Asian Age and a UN Dag Hammarskjöld fellow.