The United Council of Rohingya, the elected representative body of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, has strongly rejected Myanmar’s latest claims on repatriation, accusing the country’s military-backed government of attempting to ‘rewrite history’ and evade accountability for atrocities committed against the Rohingya.
In a press statement issued on Monday, the UCR described Myanmar’s August 15 foreign ministry statement as ‘misleading propaganda’ and rebutted it point by point, insisting that any repatriation must be voluntary, safe, dignified, and guaranteed by full citizenship and international protection.
The rebuttal came a day after Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had verified 308,797 displaced persons in Bangladesh as former residents of Rakhine State and was prepared to receive them once the security situation became stable. The ministry also maintained that repatriation should proceed under bilateral agreements with Bangladesh.
At the centre of the UCR’s response is the question of identity. The organisation condemned Myanmar’s continued use of the term ‘Bengalis’, saying it was a deliberate attempt to erase the Rohingya’s ethnic identity and deny their historical presence in Rakhine State.
‘The term ‘Bengali’ is a weapon of erasure,’ the statement said, demanding international recognition of the Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic community of Myanmar.
The UCR also rejected Myanmar’s claim that the 2016–17 military operations were legitimate responses to attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Instead, it argued that the military’s clearance operations constituted genocide and ethnic cleansing, citing widespread killings, rape, village burnings and forced displacement documented by international investigations. The group said blaming ARSA amounted to ‘an inversion of reality’ and insulted the memory of thousands of victims.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry stated that around 540,000 people fled to Bangladesh during the 2017 crisis and claimed more than 200,000 remained in Rakhine.
The UCR dismissed those figures, saying more than 700,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh within weeks in 2017, joining earlier waves of refugees, and that over one million Rohingya are now displaced. It further alleged that those still in Rakhine live under severe restrictions without freedom of movement or basic rights.
The Rohingya body criticised Myanmar’s nationality verification process as discriminatory, alleging that refugees are required to identify themselves as ‘Bengalis’ in order to qualify for return.
It questioned Myanmar’s rejection of more than 113,000 names submitted by Bangladesh and opposed the designation of over 4,000 individuals as terrorists, arguing that such classifications could exclude entire families from repatriation. The UCR called for an independent verification mechanism led by the UNHCR.
Rejecting Myanmar’s position that the crisis should be resolved solely between Bangladesh and Myanmar, the UCR said the persecution of the Rohingya constitutes a matter of international law and justice.
The organisation urged the United Nations, the Security Council and the International Court of Justice to increase pressure on Myanmar, while expressing gratitude to Bangladesh for hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees. It maintained that no return would be acceptable without guarantees of citizenship, safety, property restitution and direct UN supervision.
In its August 15 press statement, Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Bangladesh had submitted a list of 828,824 displaced persons for verification, of whom 308,797 had been confirmed as former residents of Rakhine State. The ministry said 113,507 names could not be verified and 4,241 individuals were identified as having alleged links to terrorist activities. It reiterated that verified returnees would be accepted when security conditions in Rakhine improve and insisted that repatriation remains a bilateral process between the two neighbouring countries.
