Register as 'Bengalis' or face detention
Myanmar has drafted a plan that will give around a million members of the persecuted Rohingyas a bleak choice: accept ethnic reclassification and the prospect of citizenship, or be detained.
Many Rohingyas lost documents in the widespread violence, or have previously refused to register as "Bengalis", as required by the government under the new plan, because they say the term implies they are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingyas already live in apartheid-like conditions in western Rakhine, where deadly clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012 displaced 140,000 people, mostly Rohingya.
The plan, shared with Reuters by sources who have received copies of the draft, proposes Rakhine authorities "construct temporary camps in required numbers for those who refuse to be registered and those without adequate documents".
The plan says one of its aims is to promote peaceful co-existence and prevent sectarian tension and conflict. It includes sections on resolving statelessness through a citizenship verification programme, as well as promoting economic development.
But rights advocates say it could potentially put thousands of Rohingyas, including those living in long-settled villages, at risk of indefinite detention.
Myanmar has long been under international pressure over its treatment of the Rohingya. According to official estimates, about 2,50,877 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh in 1991 following persecution by the military junta.
Of them, 2,36,599 were repatriated through bilateral negotiation between Bangladesh and Myanmar with the UNHCR supervision till 2005. The process halted after a group of 92 Rohingyas was sent back that year.
Now, over 32,000 registered Rohingyas reside at two camps in Kutupalong in Ukhia and Nayapara under Teknaf in Cox's Bazar district.
Early this month, at the 8th round of Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) in Dhaka, Myanmar agreed to resume the repatriation of registered Rohingyas within the next two months.
But there are about 3,00,000 to 5,00,000 undocumented Myanmar nationals outside the camps and Dhaka raised the issue at the meeting. The Myanmar side, however, did not respond to this, sources told The Daily Star.
CITIZENSHIP OFFER
The government will offer citizenship for those who accept the classification and have required documentation. That may encourage some to consent to identification as “Bengali”.
Citizenship would offer some legal protection and rights to those Rohingya who attain it. But an official from Rakhine State who is part of the committee overseeing citizenship verification said even that would not resolve the simmering tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in the state, or prevent a recurrence of the inter-community violence that plagued the country in 2012.
"Practically, even after being given citizenship and resettlement and all that, a Bengali with a citizenship card still won't be able to walk into a Rakhine village," said Tha Pwint, who also serves on the committee that oversees humanitarian affairs in the Rakhine.
The plan was drafted at the request of the national government, said Tha Pwint and three other sources contacted by Reuters about the plan.
STATELESS MINORITY
Many Rohingya families have lived in Rakhine for generations and are part of a small minority in the predominately Buddhist Myanmar.
They are stateless because the government does not recognize the existence of the Rohingya ethnicity, and has to date refused to grant the majority of them citizenship.
Accepting the term “Bengali” could leave the Rohingya vulnerable should authorities in future attempt to send them to Bangladesh as illegal immigrants, said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.
"One of human rights' core principles is the right to determine one's ethnic and social identity and this is precisely what the Myanmar government is doggedly denying the Rohingya," he said.
"So it's no wonder that the Rohingya completely reject the national government's efforts to classify them as 'Bengalis' because they know that is the starting point for an effort to confirm their statelessness and eject them from Myanmar."
The draft plan states that the authorities would request the U.N.'s refugee agency, the UNHCR, to "resettle illegal aliens elsewhere". That might leave them facing indefinite detention, Robertson said, as the UNHCR would be unable to assist.
Complying with the government request would be impossible, because the UNHCR only resettles "recognized refugees who have fled persecution and conflict across international borders", said Medea Savary, a UNHCR spokeswoman in Myanmar.
"The group in question does not fall into this category."
Myanmar is preparing to carry out a state-wide citizenship verification process for the Rohingya as part of the plan, a process it recently piloted.
The document says the plan "is a work in progress, with time frames to be adjusted according to the situation on the ground".
Almost all Rohingya were excluded from a United Nations-backed census earlier this year after refusing to list their identities as Bengali.
The Action Plan for Peace, Stability and Development in Rakhine State also says the government will ask international agencies for help in having the "humanitarian needs met in terms of food, shelter, water and sanitation" for Rohingya living inside the new temporary camps.
Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya is proving a stumbling block to the country's opening to the world since a semi-civilian, reformist government led by former general President Thein Sein took over after 49 years of military rule.
In May, US President Barack Obama, who is due to visit Myanmar in November, cited abuses in Rakhine State as one reason for maintaining some economic sanctions.
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