Experts see Myanmar's wish to take back all Rohingyas eyewash

Myanmar's announcement to take back all 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh is nothing but eyewash to avoid further pressure from international community, say local experts and diplomats. Myanmar is yet to meet the primary condition set by the Rohingyas, the UN, UNHCR and humanitarian activists across the globe, they say. "They (Rohingyas) would need to see concrete progress in relation to their legal status, citizenship, security and basic rights at home in Rakhine state. Myanmar government is ignoring the voice of international community and Rohingyas," Former Diplomat Humayun Kabir told the Daily Observer on Sunday.
In November last, Arakan Rohingya Jatiya Sanagstha and Arakan Rohingya Union, the two Rohingya groups raising their voice at Kutupalung categorically said they (Rohingyas) would eventually leave Bangladesh in a process that guaranteed them safety, security and dignity. Rohingya leaders drew up a list during the Myanmar minister's visit to Kutupalung in      November. They put forward their demands and said all these required to be met before the refugees would agree to return.

Their demands include holding the military accountable for alleged killings, looting, rape, and releasing 'innocent Rohingyas' detained in counter-insurgency operations.
Echoing the UNHCR statement in this regard, Humayun Kabir, said: "The responsibility for creating such conditions remains with the Myanmar authorities and these must go beyond the preparation of physical infrastructure to facilitate logistical arrangements." He said all these issues are being intact in the contract signed by Bangladesh and Myanmar. However, they are yet to complete the whole packages by this time.
"Repatriation is an ongoing process, but what the Myanmar official said on Saturday in Singapore was simply eyewash. It does not make any sense to any rational man," he added.
Citing the recent comment of Rakhine State Minister for Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry and Mining U Kyaw Lwin a senior official of the Foreign Ministry doubted about the truth behind such statement. He said they (Myanmar), on the one hand, were saying they will take back Rohingyas but, on the other hand, they told the media that they were going to lease the farmland of Rohingyas. According to the Irrawaddy report the Myanmar Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation previously planned to use some 10,000 acres of the 70,000 acres of farmland.
Minister U Kyaw Lwin denied media reports that the farmland had been leased to private companies.
However, Rakhine State lawmaker U Maung Ohn of Maungdaw, said the abandoned farmland should be leased out to local ethnic farmers and private rice-growing companies.
"We're still waiting for the policy of the Union government. We'll do as it says. We don't have enough workers for 70,000 acres of farmland," the Rakhine State Minister for Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry and Mining U Kyaw Lwin told The Irrawaddy. It is not a good idea to leave the farmland unattended. Local ethnic people and landless farmers should be allowed to farm there if they wish. It is also a good idea to lease it out to private companies that have agricultural machinery," said U Maung Ohn. The government previously harvested those 70,000 acres of paddy fields left behind by Rohingyas who fled into Bangladesh after a terror attack on police outposts in Maungdaw in August last year.