Message from Rohingya Refugee Committee to Prof. Yanghee Lee

20 January, 2020

Honorable Professor,
Ms. Yanghee Lee,
Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar,  
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 
United Nations.

Your Excellency,
On behalf of the Rohingya genocide survivors in Bangladesh Refugee camps, we, the Rohingya Refugee Committee (RRC) would like to say that we are eternally grateful to you for your wonderful humanitarian service and for everything that you’ve done for us over the years in seeking justice.
Again, we are powerless to express our sincere gratitude for frequently visiting us in the camps and for the opportunity we had today to meeting you.
Your Excellency,
Our Repatriation to Myanmar is merely a part of the bigger problem that our people, the Rohingya, have been facing under the brutal regime there. Indeed, 80% of our Rohingya population have been forcibly expelled through a government-institutionalized process that aims at elimination of our very existence in our ancestral land where we have been living for generations.
After the success of its evil project of expulsion of the Rohingya majority, the Myanmar regime is now forcing the remaining Rohingya to hold onto the NVC with the sole purpose of reducing their citizenship status. Besides, in its war with the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar military is currently using the Rohingya inhabitants as human shields while their villages are littered with landmines and are being vandalized and destroyed due to the use of heavy artilleries. These activities are causing unnecessary deaths and destruction to our people on a daily basis.
On December 8, 2019, a Rohingya man, named Mohammed Yasin a.k.a. Lalu (40) from Aetaliya village tract was kidnapped by four Rakhine goons in a white car in Maungdaw while he was returning home from the town to his native village. Then he was burned alive and dumped to a nearby football playground at around 10:00 PM, assuming that he had died. But fortunately, he survived. After the goons had left, he ran from there and finally reached to the Maungdaw police station to make an official complain of the incident. But as of now, sadly, no one in the police station has taken any action to apprehend the criminals.






This kind of lawlessness has become a daily phenomenon for the remaining Rohingya everywhere inside Myanmar while the criminals are going free and moving around fearlessly among the people.   

Your Excellency,
On 18 – 19 December, 2019, a team of representatives of Myanmar government and ASEAN-ERAT visited our camps and we held two days of meeting with them where we shared our concern that the Myanmar regime is reluctant to take us back home. The regime has not changed its intentions toward us, and told us about the NVC and concentration camps. Finally, the meetings resulted in zero outcome.
As mentioned above, we have made the following demands during the two days of meeting with Myanmar authorities.
1.                   Myanmar must halt branding us falsely as being ‘Bengalis’, and must recognize our actual ethnic identity as the “Rohingya” since our identity is neither for sale nor it is negotiable. It is one of the fundamental rights.
2.                   Myanmar must restore our citizenship rights including other fundamental rights before our repatriation. We are not asking to give us citizenship newly by process of holding the NVC, which is absolutely insincere and a conspiracy to withhold our citizenship status.  
3.                   Myanmar must allow the international community including Bangladesh Government to take measures for our safety and security of life, households, properties, cultures, dignities, etc. in the northern Arakan (Rakhine State) from where we were displaced. 
4.                   Myanmar government must nullify all the inhuman and arbitrary restrictions, laws and orders that were imposed and applied on us under the content of the so-called regional administration without hesitation before our repatriation. 
5.                   Myanmar government must return our homes, lands, and other moveable and immoveable properties including shrimp dams to the original Rohingya owners that were confiscated from us. Besides, Myanmar government must compensate against all the losses of all our properties including cattle, rations and shops that were destroyed or taken by its security forces and their collaborators during both the so-called operation of regional clearance and in our absence. (Myanmar authorities have detail list of our properties).
6.                   Myanmar government must grant repatriation of all the Rohingya who has a history of settlement in Arakan (Rakhine state) or other parts of Myanmar but left the country for many reasons. This repatriation must include all those Rohingya who are relocated inside and outside refugee camps in Bangladesh. This repatriation must include the Rohingya refugees that are living in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, UAE, Sri Lanka, Nepal and so on. Specially, the repatriation of all the relocated person in Bangladesh camps including the UN mandated refugees should be mass and full-fledged and should not be partial by selecting only a few among many.  (Myanmar Immigration authorities have the list of details and censors of all Rohingya since the colonial period.)
7.                   Before the repatriation of relocated persons from Bangladesh, Myanmar government must settle the issue of the Internally Displace People in the IDP Camps and from the no-man border territories completely.   
8.                   All the Rohingya who have been kept in Myanmar custodies for just being a Rohingya and/or trying to protect their family and properties and business from the onslaught of the security forces and Buddhist mob must be released before the repatriation process.  
9.                   For the sake of justice and accountability, Myanmar government must allow the International Fact-Finding Mission and the UN investigation team into Arakan to collect factual evidences of atrocities that were committed by Myanmar armed forces and their collaborators against the Rohingya.
10.               Myanmar government must respect the freedom of our religious practices, and reopen all our religious infrastructures that have been locked up throughout Arakan, and grant permission for the renovation of all religious buildings freely that are ruined due to restrictions. As Muslims by faith, Rohingya need to adhere to Islamic practices to preserve their faith as a community. The government should not interfere in such issues of Islamic jurisdiction and practices.

Your Excellency,
At the moment, the most important thing for us is our immediate repatriation. Our children are getting older and their future is uncertain as refugees. We like them to go to the schools and have a promising future. Besides, the international provisions for us is shrinking rapidly. As you are well aware that our host Bangladesh is a small and poor country with a huge population of its own. It has many of its own crises and is facing socio-economic, environmental, socio-cultural and political problems because of hosting us. So it is inconceivable that Bangladesh alone will be capable to supporting us in the future. We are, thus, highly concerned about our people as they will be faced with starvation if the repatriation is delayed.  
In recent days, the Myanmar authorities are trying to approach some prominent Rohingya individuals inside Myanmar and are offering them the voting rights in the next coming election. While we like to vote, and participate in the next election, we realize that the Rohingya problem will never be solved through our repatriation alone. There are many diaspora Rohingyas living today outside the camps of Bangladesh. They must be able to get the opportunity of the rights of repartition.    

Your Excellency,
Since the Myanmar regime is firm on its xenophobic stand and is unwilling to take us back as equal citizens with dignity and fundamental rights restored, including the restoration of our citizenship rights, the international intervention is the only option left open to solve our problem sustainably.  We count on your continued support and dedication for the voiceless Rohingya.

Thanking you very much. 
Sincerely,
Sirajul Mostafa
Chairman,    
Rohingya Refugee Committee (RRC)                                                     

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