Bangladesh is frustrated with Myanmar propaganda to repatriate couple of thousands of Rohingyas, out of over a million who have fled to Cox’s Bazar.
A Myanmar newspaper quoted a senior official urging Bangladesh to expedite the repatriation of a little over than 2,000 Rohingyas.
The Myanmar Times report quoted Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Ministry Director General U Ko Ko Naing, who said that the number included 1001 refugees, most of them Muslim, that were approved on May 2 from the list of 8000 names submitted by Bangladesh for repatriation.
“We told them what we must insist on starting repatriation. We expressed our readiness,” it quoted the official.
Describing the call as ‘absurd’, a senior Bangladesh government official said, “Out of about a million Rohingyas, Myanmar is propagating that they are ready to take back only two thousand people. This is absurd.”
Bangladesh is not interested to repatriate in a piecemeal basis, rather it has urged Myanmar to take back a critical mass of at least 100,000 Rohingyas, the foreign ministry official told Bangla Tribune.
The issue was discussed at the Bangladesh-Myanmar Joint Working Group meeting held in Dhaka last week, he said before adding “Now they are proposing to take back a handful Rohingyas to show the international world that they are sincere but that is not the case.”
Citing example, he said, “Even two days back, they used megaphones asking the Rohingyas to move away from the zero line.”
About 4,500 Rohingyas are taking shelter on the zero line of the border and Myanmar tried several time to push them to Bangladesh.
On May 14, there was a procession in Rakhine state with placards that read “All Bengalis are terrorists, all terrorists are Bengalis”, according to the official.
“A Myanmar minister recently told the country’ parliament, “If we take back the people from Bangladesh, one day we will have a bearded president” he said.
As long as this type of anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim campaign is going on in Myanmar, it will not be possible to send back one Rohingya, according to the foreign ministry official.
Another official said, “Our position is clear and that is remove all the deterrent repatriation factors.”
Bangladesh has identified anti Muslim and Rohingya campaign, negative attitude of Rakhine politicians and aggressive action of local civilian vigilantes as the stumbling blocks in repatriating Rohingyas to their homeland.