Rohingya refugee leaders draw up demands ahead of repatriation

Saturday, 20 January 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: 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 has still to be finalised, demanded the Myanmar government publicly announce it is giving Rohingya long-denied citizenship and inclusion on a list of the country’s recognised ethnic groups. It asks that land once occupied by the refugees be returned to them and their homes, mosques and schools rebuilt.

It wants the military held accountable for alleged killings, looting and rape, and the release from jails of “innocent Rohingya” picked up in counter-insurgency operations.

It also wants 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 has described the Myanmar military operations in the northern part of Rakhine as a classic case of ethnic cleansing.

The military says it has only conducted legitimate operations and denies there have been cases of sexual assault.

But the military said last week soldiers had 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.