Rohingya leaders draw up repatriation demands
KUTUPALONG: Rohingya leaders in a Bangladesh refugee camp have drawn up a list of demands they want Myanmar to meet before authorities begin sending back hundreds of thousands in a repatriation process expected to begin next week and last for two years.
The petition is the latest indication of the challenges ahead for Bangladesh and Myanmar as they try to engineer the return of refugees, who fear continued military operations in Rakhine State and are dismayed about the prospect of a prolonged stay in “temporary camps” in Myanmar when they go back.
A half-dozen Rohingya elders, saying they represented 40 villages from Rakhine, showed the list of demands to a Reuters reporter at the Kutupalong refugee camp, where most of the 655,500 Rohingya refugees are staying.
The petition, handwritten in Burmese, said none of the Muslim Rohingya would return to mainly Buddhist Myanmar unless the demands were met.
The petition, which was yet to be finalised, demanded that the Myanmar government publicly announce it was giving the Rohingya long-denied citizenship and inclusion on a list of the country’s recognised ethnic groups. It asked that land once occupied by refugees be returned to them, and their homes, mosques and schools rebuilt.
It wanted the military held accountable for alleged killings, looting and rape, and the release from jail of “innocent Rohingya” picked up in counter insurgency operations. It wanted Myanmar to stop listing people with their photographs as “terrorists” in state media and on government Facebook pages.
Myanmar state newspapers this week issued a supplement listing the names and photos of alleged members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, (Arsa), whose attacks on security posts on Aug 25 triggered a sweeping counter insurgency operation.
The United Nations had described the Myanmar military operations in northern Rakhine as a classic case of ethnic cleansing.
The military said it had only conducted legitimate operations and denied sexual assault claims.
But, the military last week said soldiers killed 10 captured Muslim “terrorists” during insurgent attacks at the beginning of September, after Buddhist villagers had forced the captured men into a grave the villagers had dug.
It was a rare acknowledgment of wrongdoing by the Myanmar military during its operations in the western state of Rakhine.
Arsa last week said the 10 Rohingya in the mass grave were “innocent civilians” and not members of their group.
The Rohingya elders said they were finalising the list of demands before showing it to Bangladesh authorities and aid agencies administering the camps.
They said the 40 village leaders they discussed the petition with represented the interests of all Rohingya at the camp, but that could not be independently verified and aid agencies were unable to comment pending formal issuance of the petition.
Bangladesh and Myanmar this week agreed to complete the return of the refugees over the next two years, with the process due to begin on Tuesday. Reuters