ROHINGYA refugees who return to Myanmar will be safe as long as they stay in the model villages built for them, the country’s army chief has said, renewing fears they will be kept in settlements indefinitely.
Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to Bangladesh after the military launched a brutal crackdown on insurgents in August that the US and the UN called ethnic cleansing. Myanmat denies the allegation.
The country’s powerful army chief Min Aung Hlaing told a visiting delegation from the UN Security Council in the capital Naypyidaw on April 30: “There is no need to be worried about their security if they stay in the areas designated for them.”
A readout of the meeting was posted on Min Aung Hlaing’s official Facebook page last Saturday (5).
He referred to members of the stateless minority as “Bengalis”, reflecting a widespread belief in Myanmar that the Rohingya are immigrants from Bangladesh despite a longstanding presence in Rakhine.
Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to repatriate refugees to conflict-hit Rakhine state last year but Rohingya loathe to come back to a country without guarantees of safety and basic rights such as freedom of movement.
The army chief also cast doubt on the allegations raised by refugees in Bangladesh, many of whom shared stories of extrajudicial killings, arson and rape.
“Bengalis will never say they arrive there happily. They will get sympathy and rights only if they say they face a lot of hardships and persecution,” he reportedly said, adding the issue was “exaggerated”.
