Suu Kyi avoided talking about it with UN envoy

Myanmar State Counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi reportedly skirted around reports of Rohingya women and girls being raped by Myanmar security forces when she recently met a senior United Nations official.

Pramila Patten, the special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, was sent on a four-day visit during mid-December to discuss the crisis with Myanmar government officials. But she was unable to engage in “any substantive discussion” about such reports with Aung San Suu Kyi, The Guardian reported.

“The meeting with the state counsellor was a cordial courtesy call of approximately 45 minutes that was, unfortunately, not substantive in nature,” Patten wrote to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

She said that Suu Kyi did not discuss the alleged incidents of rape and instead told her that she would enjoy “a number of good meetings” with senior Myanmar officials.

At these meetings, Patten was allegedly informed by top officials from the military and the civilian government that reports of atrocities were “exaggerated and fabricated by the international community”.

An estimated 655,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals fled to Bangladesh amid persecution since violence began in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State on August 25.

Doctors Without Borders believes at least 6,700 Rohingyas were killed during “clearance operations” ostensibly targeting militants, while many survivors say women and girls were gang-raped.

“Moreover, a belief was expressed that those who fled did so due to an affiliation with terrorist groups, and did so to evade law enforcement,” Patten wrote.

In November, Patten had said that Myanmar soldiers had systematically targeted and gang-raped Rohingya women during the violence against the Muslim community in August.

The UN envoy had also said that many women and girls had died because of the assault, and that this sexual violence was one of the reasons for the mass exodus of Rohinygas from Myanmar.

Patten also expressed concerns about plans to send Rohingya who have fled back to Myanmar, citing the “prevailing climate of impunity” in the country, The Guardian reported.

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement on November 23 to the “speedy” repatriation of Rohingyas, scheduled to start by the end of January.

Suu Kyi has faced criticism globally for her response to the persecution of Rohingyas in her country.

Meanwhile, our diplomatic correspondent reports, Dhaka is preparing the draft of the physical arrangement for starting the repatriation process of the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in a speedy manner.

Diplomatic sources said the physical arrangement will have detailed guidelines on repatriation and rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands Rohingyas who fled Myanmar to escape persecution and are now sheltered in Bangladesh.

As per the agreement signed on November 23, Myanmar has agreed to take necessary measures to halt the outflow of its residents to Bangladesh, to restore normalcy in Northern Rakhine and to encourage those who had left Myanmar to return voluntarily and safely to their own households and original places of residence or to a safe and secure place nearest to it of their choice.

Under the agreement, Myanmar will take back those people who entered Bangladesh after October 9 last year and August 25 this year.

Repatriation of those who took shelter in Bangladesh before October 9 last year would also be considered separately after conclusion of the present arrangement, foreign minister told journalists.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the National Taskforce on Implementation of Strategy on Myanmar Refugees and Undocumented Myanmar Nationals and an inter-ministerial meeting will take place at the foreign ministry today to finalise the draft of the Physical Arrangement. The meetings are to finalise the strategy ahead of the first Joint Working Group meeting.

Officials said Dhaka is expected to hand over the first list of 100,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar's nationals in the upcoming JWG meeting in Myanmar.

They said the government has prepared a database containing the names of 850,000 Rohingyas sheltered in Bangladesh.