Rohingya activists said "Bulldozing Rohingya villages are demolition of
evidence, as they have massively killed uncountable Rohingya peoples including teenagers, women and over-aged all over northern Rakhine Sate."
By Reuters
The language could not be clearer: Bangladesh and Myanmar
agreed on a repatriation deal that would see the Rohingya refugees finally
return to their homeland safe and secure.
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar has bulldozed the remains of
Rohingya Muslim villages to make way for refugee resettlement, not to destroy
evidence of atrocities, an official leading reconstruction effort in the
troubled northern state of Rakhine said on Monday.
Last week, New York-based Human Rights Watch said it had
analyzed satellite imagery showing Myanmar had flattened at least 55 villages
in Rakhine, including two that appeared to be intact before heavy machinery arrived.
The group said the demolitions could have erased evidence
of atrocities by security forces in what the United Nations and the United
States have called an ethnic cleansing campaign against the stateless Rohingya
minority.
A military crackdown prompted by Rohingya insurgents’
attacks on 30 police posts and an army base on Aug. 25 drove 688,000 people
from their villages and across the border into Bangladesh, many of them
recounting killings, rape and arson by Myanmar soldiers and police.
Myanmar has denied most allegations and asked for more
evidence of abuses, while denying independent journalists, human rights
monitors and UN-appointed investigators access to the conflict zone.
De facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in October set up the
Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development
(UEHRD) to lead the domestic response.
Veteran economist Aung Tun Thet, who is the chairman of
the body, said villages were being bulldozed to make it easier for the government
to resettle refugees as near as possible to their former homes.
“There’s no desire to get rid of the so-called evidence,”
he told reporters on Monday, responding to the allegations of demolition of
evidence.
“What we have intended (is) to ensure that the buildings
for the people that return can be easily built,” he added.
Aung Tun Thet also said Myanmar would do its best to make
sure repatriation under an agreement signed with Bangladesh in November would
be “fair, dignified and safe”.
In a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, United
Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres restated his call for Myanmar to
“ensure unfettered humanitarian access in Rakhine State”.
The United Nations suspended activities in northern
Rakhine and evacuated non-critical staff after the government suggested it had
supported Rohingya insurgents last year. The U.N. refugee agency has been
excluded from the repatriation process.
“The Rohingya community desperately needs immediate,
life-saving assistance, long-term solutions and justice,” Guterres said on
Monday.