Myanmar and Bangladesh have signed a memorandum of understanding for the return home of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled to the neighbouring country to escape an army crackdown, a senior Myanmar official says.
"We are ready to take them back as soon as possible after Bangladesh sends the forms back to us," Myint Kyaing, a permanent secretary at Myanmar's Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population, told Reuters.
The official was referring to registration forms the Rohingya must complete with personal details before repatriation.
Information will include their previous address in Myanmar and a disclaimer that they are returning voluntarily, authorities said.
The office of Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi said the agreement "on the return of displaced persons from Rakhine state" was signed by Cabinet officials in Naypyitaw, Myanmar's capital.
The statement, which did not use the term Rohingya, said the pact follows a formula set in a 1992 repatriation agreement signed by the two nations after an earlier bout of violence.
It is certainly significant that a deal has been reached. Myanmar and Bangladesh have long argued over essentially whose problem the Rohingya Muslims are. Neither side essentially says they are the citizens or rightful occupants of each territory. It is significant that Myanmar has accepted that these people have been living in Myanmar and therefore have some right of return.
But what is the bigger question, is just how willing people will be? The military crackdown, the widespread allegations of atrocities are really very fresh.
I have spoken to a number of refugees in the camps in Bangladesh who have said if there are Bangladeshi Government moves to send them back, they will seek to escape to other countries. And that raises a question about whether that will reinvigorate people smuggling networks which have been dormant since 2015.
The deal clears the way in bureaucratic terms, but even the requirements around filling out the paperwork, that is certainly tricky, because what Myanmar has said previously is in order to be repatriated, they have to furnish things like proof of where it was they had come from originally. For most of the refugees, they fled without any papers. — South Asia correspondent James Bennett
Under that agreement, Rohingya were required to present residency documents, which few have, before being allowed to return to Myanmar.
"We're continuing our bilateral talks with Myanmar so that these Myanmar nationals [Rohingya] could return to their country," Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was quoted as saying by the United News of Bangladesh news agency.
"It's my call to Myanmar to start taking back soon their nationals from Bangladesh."
Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh were wary of the accord.
"I don't trust the Myanmar Government. My husband left three times and this is my second time to leave," said Nurasha, who came to Kutupalong camp two months ago.
"The Myanmar Government is always like this."
Sayed Hussein, 55, has been at Kutupalong camp for two months and said he would be willing to return if they had equal opportunities.
Others said they would only return if certain demands were met.
"Our demands are that we are given citizenship. They also have to give us back our land," Salimullah said.
Human rights monitors have accused Myanmar's military of atrocities against the stateless Rohingya during so-called clearance operations following Rohingya militants' August 25 attacks on 30 police posts and an army base.
More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, mostly to neighbouring Bangladesh, since the crackdown, which followed the insurgent attacks.
Inside Bangladesh's camps
The United States on Wednesday labelled the Myanmar military operation against the Rohingya population "ethnic cleansing", and threatened targeted sanctions against those responsible for what it described as "horrendous atrocities".
"I don't think that it will help to solve this problem," Russian ambassador to Myanmar Nikolay Listopadov said when asked about the US move.
"On the contrary, it can aggravate the situation, throw more fuel," he said, citing concern over how the Buddhist community in Rakhine would react to such a designation.
Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday met with Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali in Naypyitaw.
Mr Ali is making an official visit to Myanmar after attending the 13th ASEM Foreign Ministers' meeting, at the invitation of the Union Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor.
SOURCE: ABC
