[Knut Ostby, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, said: “The hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled Myanmar are living in unsustainable conditions. We must do our best to create conditions in Rakhine so that they can return home.” Mr. Ostby called the agreement “the first step in doing that, in helping people start to rebuild their lives.”]
By Hannah Beech
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Rohingya
refugees from Myanmar crossed the Naf River into Bangladesh
in
2017.CreditTomas Munita for The New York Times
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BANGKOK — Myanmar’s government on Thursday announced
that it had reached an agreement with the United Nations that would be a first
step toward the possible return of Rohingya Muslims to the country.
Beginning in August last year, about 700,000
Rohingya fled Rakhine State in far western Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh
in the most urgent exodus of humanity in a generation. The Rohingya, a Muslim
ethnic minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, were escaping a coordinated
military campaign of slaughter, rape and the burning of their villages that
some United Nations officials have said may amount to genocide.
While an agreement with the United Nations is
a precondition for any meaningful repatriation of Rohingya to Myanmar, even the
office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees cautioned in a
statement on Thursday that “conditions are not conducive for voluntary return
yet.”
Few details were available on what the
initial memorandum of understanding entailed. Myanmar said United Nations
agencies would “cooperate with the government for the repatriation of the
displaced persons who have been duly verified so that they can return
voluntarily in safety and dignity.”
Knut Ostby, the United Nations resident and
humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, said: “The hundreds of thousands of
refugees who fled Myanmar are living in unsustainable conditions. We must do
our best to create conditions in Rakhine so that they can return home.” Mr.
Ostby called the agreement “the first step in doing that, in helping people
start to rebuild their lives.”
So far, the United Nations has not been given
free access to the center of violence in northern Rakhine State. Bilateral efforts
by Bangladesh and Myanmar to repatriate Rohingya have resulted in a token
number of returns.
Although the Rohingya consider themselves to
be just one of many ethnic minorities living in Myanmar, most have been
stripped of their citizenship and are stateless. Myanmar’s government has
dismissed widespread and consistent accounts of horrific violence committed by
the country’s military and civilian gangs against the Rohingya.
On Thursday, the president’s office in
Myanmar said it would establish an independent commission of inquiry into human
rights violations that occurred in the wake of attacks by Rohingya militants
last August. Those raids by Rohingya insurgents on police and army posts
catalyzed the military’s brutal attacks on Rohingya civilians.
Yet Myanmar’s government has formed half a
dozen such commissions in recent months. Not one has resulted in any meaningful
soul-searching by the military for actions that the United States has deemed
ethnic cleansing. Instead, Myanmar officials have focused overwhelmingly on the
attacks by the Rohingya militants, whom they call “terrorists.”
Given the continuing denials of wrongdoing by
the Myanmar authorities, it is not surprising that most people sheltering in
Bangladesh have little wish to return to Rakhine. A survey released on May
23 by the Xchange Foundation, which
investigates and documents human migration, found that among more than 1,700
Rohingya interviewed in camps in Bangladesh, 97.5 percent wished to eventually
go home to Myanmar.
But nearly all of those surveyed said they
would go back only if they were given Myanmar citizenship, as well as freedom
of movement and religion. Myanmar’s government has given little indication that
it would be willing to accede to those basic demands.
In recent years, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
have been increasingly persecuted, unable to travel freely, attend college or
worship as they wish. Since 2012, about 120,000 have been interned in camps in
central Rakhine.
Conditions in the Rohingya settlements in
Bangladesh, which include the world’s largest single refugee camp, are dire,
and the monsoon rains that are descending only make life more miserable. About
200,000 Rohingya live in flimsy shelters that are vulnerable to landslides and
flooding, according to the United Nations.
On Thursday, the United Nations refugee
agency cast skepticism on a Bangladeshi government plan to move Rohingya
refugees from the camps in southeastern Bangladesh to a giant sandbar in the
Bay of Bengal.
“I don’t really think it’s realistic to
expect that the island will be a solution,” said George Okoth-Obbo, the United
Nations refugee agency’s assistant high commissioner for operations, at a news
conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. Critics of the plan worry that every
cyclone that strikes Bangladesh — and there are many — could endanger the lives
of any Rohingya forced to live on the island, which is currently uninhabited.
Speaking shortly before the announcement of
the agreement with the Myanmar government on Thursday, Mr. Okoth-Obbo also
dismissed the possibility of large numbers of Rohingya returning to Myanmar
anytime soon.
“Right at the moment,” he said, “we don’t
believe conditions have been created for safe return.”
Saw Nang contributed reporting from Mandalay,
Myanmar.
