By Su-Ann Oh*
Today
Nov 30, 2017
Last week, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a Memorandum of Understanding to repatriate Rohingya refugees, referred to as Bengali in Myanmar, with the agreement to set up a joint working group and arrangements for repatriation in the coming months.
This has come about after over 600,000 of them fled Myanmar in recent months, joining the approximately 200,000 others who were already refugees in Bangladesh.
This latest exodus began at the end of August, after an insurgent group attacked police posts and the Myanmar army conducted countermeasures in northern Rakhine State.
Repatriation of the refugees back to Myanmar appears to be inevitable. However, there needs to be some consideration of whether now is the appropriate time to do so, the way in which repatriation should be conducted and the permanence of this exercise. Otherwise, there will be negative implications for the region.
Practically every time that the Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, Dhaka’s response was to begin repatriation negotiations with Myanmar immediately.
The first group of Rohingya refugees fled to Bangladesh in 1978 after a nationwide identity check. The Bangladesh government engaged the Burmese government in discussions on repatriation without delay and by the end of 1979, they were all repatriated.
The second influx of approximately 260,000 Rohingya refugees fled religious persecution, forced relocation and labor, extrajudicial executions, killing, rape and incarceration in 1991 as a result of the Burmese regime’s nationwide militarization campaign.
Once again, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding and planned for repatriation even while refugees were still crossing into Bangladesh.
In this instance, two rounds of repatriation were conducted, between 1992 and 1993 and between 1994 and 2005. By 1997, approximately 230 000 refugees had already been repatriated. Repatriation was eventually suspended in 2005 when Myanmar did not extend a deadline for doing so.
Eventually, arrangements were made to repatriate more than 2,000 Rohingya refugees who had been identified in 2005 but who had refused to be repatriated in 2014.
Thus, despite the fact that Rohingya refugees were fleeing to Bangladesh in 2012 after intercommunal violence erupted between Muslims and Buddhists and in 2016 after an insurgent attack on border guard posts and subsequent counter offensive by the Myanmar army, the Bangladesh government was still carrying out the repatriation of refugees.
The next point concerns the way in which repatriation was conducted. According to international law on refugees and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ best practice, the principle of voluntariness is the cornerstone of international protection with respect to repatriation. Anecdotal evidence shows that many Rohingya are only willing to return if their personal safety is guaranteed back in Myanmar. However, the repatriation campaigns carried out in the 1970s and 1990s do not bode well for the chances of voluntary return. Very few refugees chose to return when repatriation began in 1978, but this number rose when the Bangladesh government allowed camp conditions to decline and food rations to be reduced so that the refugees would be forced to leave.
As a result, all of the refugees were repatriated and more than 12 000 starved to death. Similarly, in the first round of repatriation (1992-1993) in the 1990s, conducted without the full participation of the UNHCR, serious abuses, such as beatings and the denial of food rations by camp authorities to force the refugees to go back to Myanmar were reported.
It is particularly troubling that this is the agreement on which the current MOU on repatriation is based.
Finally, repatriation at this point seems hasty and reckless as the conditions which led to the refugees fleeing have not yet been addressed. What will be their legal status upon return? Will there be concerted efforts to broker reconciliation between them and their Buddhist Rakhine neighbors? Will they be granted freedom of movement and access to livelihoods and government services like the rest of the residents in Myanmar? Will they be able to work legally and obtain support to rebuild their lives? Crucially, will there be UN oversight of this whole process?
Although Bangladesh has worked hard to accommodate all the refugees, its reasons for the immediate repatriation of the Rohingya serve its interests more than the refugees.
It faces an election next year; it has plans to develop Cox’s Bazar into a tourist location; it is concerned about the impact of the refugees on its political conflict with inhabitants of the Chittagongian hill tracts, among others.
Thus, while it is aware that there is a need to implement long-term solutions in the form of the implementation of the recommendations of the Advisory Commission of Rakhine State, it is eager to cast off the more than 600 000 Rohingya refugees.
This is a short-sighted approach which may have an impact on the Southeast Asian region. The next time that a crisis occurs in northern Rakhine State, instead of fleeing to Bangladesh, it is likely that the Rohingya will attempt to escape to Malaysia or Indonesia by boat, replicating the refugee boat crisis of 2015.
Southeast Asia will once again be the site of refugee stranding, deaths and intense scrutiny about its treatment of and policies on refugees.
*Su-Ann Oh is a visiting research fellow at ISEAS-Yusok Ishak Institute.
(http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/another-rohingya-repatriation-deal-doomed-fail)
