What if the Rohingya are not repatriated?

Bangladesh has been hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees for six years now. In 2017, following the mass exodus of the Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine state to Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, two failed attempts at repatriation were made in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In both cases, the Rohingya refused to return to their homeland for fear of fresh persecution and lack of congenial environment for repatriation. With the 2021 military takeover in Myanmar, the junta responsible for mass murders and genocide against the Rohingya was busy consolidating its power, with no interest in resolving the crisis, despite many efforts and initiatives by Bangladesh and other allies.

A pilot project to repatriate over 1,100 Rohingya refugees is now in discussion between Bangladesh and Myanmar, negotiated by China. As of March 2023, some progress (such as verification of the list of persons in the pilot project) has been made. However, according to experts and informed sources, Myanmar is taking this symbolic step to "lighten the responsibility" in its next submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in May regarding the Rohingya genocide. As of writing this piece, no repatriation has taken place.

So, what if the Rohingya are not repatriated? The symbolic pilot repatriation, which is like a drop in the ocean, could very well be another ploy by the Myanmar junta to delay the genocide case and extend the Rohingya refugee crisis. Since the military coup, the political, economic, and humanitarian crises in Myanmar have only grown more dire, with reports indicating nearly 3,000 killed, 17,000 detained and more than 1.5 million internally displaced.

The pilot repatriation plan does not address the root causes of the crisis and offers no tangible resolution. In fact, it has already come under fire from various quarters, including the Human Rights Watch. After the exodus, there have been numerous calls for the trials of senior military officials based on the many atrocities, rapes, and state-sponsored violence, and for addressing the issues of rights, citizenship, and repatriation of the Rohingya with safety and dignity. The pilot repatriation initiative has reportedly brought unease to the refugees in Cox's Bazar due to its failure to address the ongoing militarism, lack of safety, and continued hostility towards the Rohingya in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and other countries of the region.

Faced with brutal state-sanctioned oppression since 1962 that led to various forms of atrocities – for instance, arbitrary arrest, abduction, confinement in military camps, stripping of citizenship rights in 1982 – and forced thousands to flee the country, of an estimated 3.5 million Rohingya in Rakhine state, over three million now live as refugees or migrants in countries like Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. The rest who live in Rakhine are either confined to camps or completely at the mercy of the Myanmar army.

Would the pilot repatriation be good for Bangladesh or for the Rohingya refugees? The answer could be "yes" and "no" at the same time. The programme may be seen as a start of the long-overdue repatriation, which may build confidence for future repatriation in greater numbers. It is also possible that the Rohingya are afraid and unwilling to return if those involved, both military and civilian, are not made accountable for the past atrocities and brought to justice. Experts view the pilot repatriation as being beneficial to Myanmar due to the ongoing cases at the ICJ. This will also likely dent and chip away at the criminality of the Myanmar military, and persistently marginalise and alienate the repatriated Rohingya, without their rights being re-established.

The troubled question for Bangladesh, then, would be how to deal with this refugee crisis for potentially years more to come involving funding, administration, inclusive and equitable treatment of the refugees and host populations, and national security issues, among others.

There are no easy answers. However, Bangladesh should avoid any shortcuts (such as the pilot repatriation initiative seems to be) without addressing the root causes and a just and sustainable solution which would be acceptable to Rohingya refugees. The agenda should include not only the numbers of people to be repatriated, but also issues of their citizenship and right to return to their homes, not to any supervised pilot camps courtesy of the Myanmar military.

Bangladesh and the international community should intensify their pressure on Myanmar to address the root causes to resolve the crisis. Myanmar should not be allowed to avoid accountability for the genocide against its own Rohingya population. In my view, a full assessment of the current situation in Myanmar must constitute a part of the equation for any sustainable move towards Rohingya repatriation. The deteriorating and potentially destabilising and bloody crisis in military-run Myanmar has already triggered a popular armed resistance that the military seeks to violently crush. In sum, the overall environment domestically within Myanmar itself is not right for Rohingya repatriation at present.

Dr Mohammad Zaman is an international development/resettlement specialist. He has written extensively on the Rohingya crisis.