Following Myanmar Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye’s visit to the Kutupalong camp, there is apprehension that forced repatriation will take place from the date stated by the governments i.e. mid November. On Wednesday, 50 Rohingyas gathered in a community centre run by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in the Kutupalong refugee camp to meet Myat Aye, the minister in charge of the repatriation process.
The Social Welfare Minister promised Rohingyas houses, hospitals and schools. However tensions erupted after the minister said that Rohingyas will have to apply through the NVC in a very long and complicated process to get citizenship, with Myat Aye leaving the meeting in a hurry without answering questions.
While different organisations have expressed worries that Bangladesh would send back Rohingyas forcefully, our correspondents say that the ground situation indicates that it is very unlikely that Bangladesh would follow previous wave of repatriations when previous governments sent back Rohingya refugees often at gunpoint.
Bangladesh has won praise for giving shelter to more than a million Rohingya refugees in their overcrowded country, as the Myanmar army unleashed one of the worst instances of ethnic cleansing in the 21st century killing approximately 25,000 Rohingyas including women and children in a span of few weeks. Analysts say though Bangladesh is reeling from the huge influx, it will not be too keen to send Rohingyas back to the killing fields especially after their Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared in a now famous speech from the refugee camp that Rohingyas can stay in the country until there is security for the minority Muslim community in their homeland.
And security has not come. Arakan remains as dangerous as it was for the Muslim community with much of the Myanmar populace cheering on the genocide and the local Rakhine community of Arakan fiercely opposed to the return of Rohingyas. Myanmar has built camps to house returning Rohingyas, and there are well founded fears that these camps have been designed to hold the Rohingyas forever.
On the other hand, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly blamed Bangladesh for delaying the repatriation process, saying Myanmar was well equipped to take back the Rohingyas if they could be proved as ‘inhabitants of Arakan’. She has however refused to acknowledge the situation that drove the Muslims away instead blaming the incidents on terrorists.
During the Wednesday meeting, the Rohingyas shouted in unison,”We want to go back to Myanmar.” However they also said it will not be possible to go back under current circumstances as it seems that Myanmar is as willing to destroy them as they ever were.
Sources say that some NGOs with ties to Suu Kyi’s international lobby has convinced a section of the populace to go back. Many former collaborators (tabbeys) who were driven out by heavy rocket fire have also received assurances they will be accepted if they come back.
Analysts working on the ground say that Myanmar desperately needs to show the international community they are working for the return of the Rohingya. Suu Kyi’s policy of continuously blaming her Bangladeshi counterparts is proving increasingly futile and unless there is at the very least some sort of voluntary repatriation, both the civilian and military rulers of Myanmar shall lose whatever little credibility they have left. Some form of repatriation will allow Suu Kyi more space to carry out what is by now Burmese state policy – – blame Bangladesh and Bengalis for anything that goes wrong.
