The involvement of Bangladesh’s security personnel in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations is a source of three critical resources for the Bangladeshi dictatorship:
- Prestige
- Foreign currency
- Career advancement for military and internal security officials whose support lends the enforced legitimacy that laughably phony elections cannot
The visit of the head of the UN peacekeeping operations to Bangladesh is thus rightly triggered calls from major human rights organizations to do a better job in screening security personnel from that country before they don the blue helmet. Many such Bangladeshi “peacekeeping” personnel belong to the notorious RAB unit; many others are simply there to get the dollars and head back home to launch an effort to migrate to Canada and the United States where many human rights abusers from Bangladesh have second homes.
People in regions of armed conflict should be able to count on the blue helmet symbolizing safety and security; having known human rights abusers wear those very helmets is a sadistic joke that the United Nations should avoid playing. The cost of bringing such personnel—who are used to impunity for crimes in their own countries—to maintain the peace is staggering.
Ideally, the United Nations should forego any further recruitment of Bangladeshi personnel for peacekeeping operations until such a time that the dictatorship paves the way for free elections which are, technically, due by the turn of the year.