Repatriation must be UN-brokered

The efforts for Rohingya repatriation and creating secure conditions in Rakhine without engaging the United Nations would prove futile, say international relations and political analysts.

They have suggested creating an independent international body to monitor and report on the status of the repatriation process and measures taken by Myanmar authorities to create a favourable situation that creates confidence among Rohingyas that their return to Rakhine is safe.

The observations come as Myanmar proposed taking back the newly arrived Rohingyas through a bilateral arrangement with Bangladesh without engaging the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), which is mandated to facilitate refugee affairs.

"The Rohingya issue is a decades-old problem and Myanmar has never been sincere in addressing this. This time, Myanmar is accused of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Therefore, the issue must be dealt with the best possible tactic," said CR Abrar, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University.

He said the international community would have to have a very strong role to bring a permanent solution to the problems of Rohingyas, who are denied citizenship and civil and social rights in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar despite being its original residents for generations.

As international pressure on Myanmar has increased due to atrocities against the Rohingyas since late August, the Southeast Asian nation quickly began bilateral talks with Bangladesh, said Dr Abrar, also executive director of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), while talking to The Daily star.

"This is nothing but Myanmar's diplomatic tactic to defuse international pressure," he said.

Over 509,000 Rohingyas fled into Bangladesh since Myanmar security forces launched "clearance operations" against the persecuted minority in response to Rohingya insurgents' attacks on some police posts and an army base on August 25.

Myanmar said 12 police officials were killed. The clearance operations, however, led to the killings of hundreds of Rohingya men, raping of women and burning down of over 200 Rohingya villages, according to rights bodies.

The UN termed the atrocities "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Globally, Myanmar's State Counsellor Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kye faced mounting criticism for not stopping the military response, which rights bodies define as disproportionate.

The crackdown and subsequent Rohingya influx drew global media attention, and most countries, except for China and Russia, demanded strong actions to stop the atrocities that caused the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world. Some countries and rights bodies also demanded economic and arms embargo on Myanmar.

Against this backdrop, Kyaw Tint Swe, Myanmar's union minister for the Office of the State Counsellor, led a delegation to Dhaka and held a meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali on October 2.

The Myanmar delegation offered to take back the newly arrived Rohingyas, not the other around 400,000, who fled Myanmar violence in the previous years.

Major influxes of Rohingya Muslims, who are called the most persecuted ethnic population in the world, took place in 1978, 1991-92, 2012 and 2016. 

Under bilateral agreements and with active support of the UN refugee agency, many of the Rohingyas were repatriated. However, the repatriation has totally stalled since 2005.

Prof Abrar said now the Myanmar delegation hastily came to Bangladesh for talks only to show the world they were working on the issue with Bangladesh, and that the international community need not worry. Once international pressure comes down, Myanmar will find its own way of avoiding the issue like it has been doing over the years, he said.

Bangladesh foreign ministry officials said Myanmar did not want to engage the UN refugee agency in the repatriation process. Back in Rakhine, the UN and other international agencies are still barred from operating any humanitarian aid campaign for Rohingyas. Such a stance of Myanmar has created serious doubts among political and foreign affairs analysts. 

In an interview with The Daily Star on October 4, the head of UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Mark Lowcock, said one had to ask this serious question why Myanmar did not want to engage international community when UN bodies acted with international humanitarian law, neutrality, and independence.

CR Abrar said even when the Myanmar delegation was holding meeting in Dhaka, Rohingyas were fleeing into Bangladesh. That means they did not feel safe there anyway despite Suu Kye's claim that security forces stopped its operations on September 5, he said.

“Repatriating Rohingyas to Myanmar now is nothing but sending the chicken to the slaughter house,” he added.

A law professor of Dhaka University, Dr Mizanur Rahman, said the UN Security Council meeting last week proved that it was divided. Though the US, UK and France talked tough against Myanmar, China and Russia did not. This means Myanmar has been able to convince the latter two countries in their favour, he said.

“In no way will it be wise to go ahead with the Rohingya issue bilaterally,” he told The Daily Star. According to him, such a global momentum has never been created in history for resolving the Rohingya problem in Rakhine. And, this opportunity should be utilised in the best possible manner, he added.

Engagement of the international community is a must for a durable solution, he said. The international community, at least a UN body like UNHCR or International Organization for Migration (IOM), will have to be engaged in the registration and repatriation process to make the whole affair credible and acceptable, said Dr Mizanur.

He also suggested active involvement of the UN or other international organisations to strongly monitor what and how Myanmar is creating an enabling environment in Rakhine where Rohingyas will feel confident to return and flourish.

OCHA Chief Mark Lowcock said immediate cessation of atrocities, providing humanitarian organisations' access across Rakhine and eventually implementing the Kofi Annan Commission's recommendations including ending all sorts of discriminations against the Rohingyas were the most important jobs Myanmar needed to do.

CR Abrar said Bangladesh must ask Myanmar to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing. It has to vigorously mobilse global support, he added.

Unless discriminatory practices are stopped and Myanmar eventually provides citizenship to Rohingyas, he said, “I don't see any hope that the problem will ever be solved.”