By Jade Huynh
Jade Huynh says the
10-point proposal to repatriate Rohingya refugees cannot ensure their
well-being in Myanmar and the international community should step in to prevent
it
As the crisis enters its third month, refugee flows and violence against Rohingya show few signs of abating. Reports that Myanmar and Bangladesh planned to repatriate Rohingya refugees emerged as early as October 2, culminating in a 10-point October 25 agreements calling for “repatriation of refugees at the earliest date and restoring normalcy in Rakhine Region for their resettlement”.
The repatriation
deal appears to have been stalled by the two countries’ squabbling. Thus, the
Rohingya have been granted temporary respite from forced return to Myanmar.
However, the risk of the plan resurfacing is acute.
What’s driving
Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis? Watch: http://sc.mp/Be4Wli
Rohingya Muslims
wait for weeks on Myanmar’s beaches to be transported to Bangladeshi camps. Read
here: https://sc.mp/2AAwfwk
If we are truly
concerned about the Rohingya, we must nip the repatriation deal in the bud. Yet
little protest has been raised, and high-profile individuals like former UN
secretary general Kofi Annan have underscored the responsibility to ensure a
safe return.
These statements
come with conditions: returns must be voluntary, Rohingya ought to play a key
role in planning and managing their homecoming and Myanmar must provide full
citizenship. Yet, such statements fail to underscore the risk of premature
returns.
Myanmar must
resettle Rohingya in their villages, says US official. Read here: http://sc.mp/O3El86
To allow the deal is
to subject the Rohingya to refoulement – forcible return of refugees to a
country where they face persecution. Bangladesh and Myanmar are not signatories
to the Refugee Convention, but the duty to avoid returning refugees to danger
remains a customary principle of international law.
How can we regard
repatriation as acceptable when anti-Rohingya pogroms by Myanmar’s military and
Buddhist nationalists blaze throughout Rakhine, when international relief
organisations and Rohingya sympathisers are attacked, and when Myanmar’s
military denies responsibility for the Rohingya flight?
Western criticism of
Suu Kyi won’t help Myanmar – will China’s UN intervention? Read more: https://sc.mp/2hUmxxU
Moreover, the wishes
and concerns of the Rohingya have not been considered. Even before the most
recent influx, there were at least 200,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh who fled
earlier waves of violence. Commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces Min
Aung Hlaing has made it clear there is no end in sight to these cyclical waves
of anti-Rohingya violence.
While allowing
refugees to someday return to their homes with full dignity is ideal,
conditions at home are far too perilous at present. Myanmar’s treatment of the
Rohingya is now widely recognised as an example of ethnic cleansing. We must
form a united front against the repatriation plan.
The author, Jade Huynh is an alumna of the University of
Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre
