Reuters reports there was a closed door meeting in Dhaka last Sunday of diplomats, government officials & international agencies to discuss relocating Rohingya refugees to an uninhabitable island in the Bay of Bengal.

Apparently there was some reference to the UN report last week accusing the Myanmar government of a “calculated policy of terror” against Rohingya involving extrajudicial killings, torture, forced disappearance, gang rape & other sexual violence (including of small children), arbitrary arrests, & deportation.

Put aside for a moment that Bangladesh which is proposing to send thousands of traumatized refugees to an uninhabitable island & that is forcing refugees back to a killing field is in no position to act morally superior to Myanmar’s butchers. A political advisor to the Bangladesh Prime Minister said: “When Bangladesh cited the horrific acts of Myanmar’s law enforcing agencies, the Myanmar representative did not agree with this & was in complete denial.”

The advisor’s use of the psychiatry term”denial” is quite revealing, if not altogether inappropriate. In psychiatry, denial is a defense mechanism whereby unpleasant realities are kept out of conscious awareness to prevent anxiety reactions. The guy sitting there for the Myanmar junta & Suu Kyi may have been disconcerted or felt he was in an awkward spot but if you’re willing to represent a junta conducting genocide, chances are your mind has found comfort in nationalist rationalizations & racism & anxiety reactions are no part of that. Exactly as Suu Kyi has & also as Assad propagandists.