The Myanmar government informed the UN Security Council that February is “not the right time” for a leading UN body to visit conflict-torn Rakhine State, said the council’s president on Thursday.
The Myanmar authorities intend to set up a visit for residing diplomats while stressing that “tensions are high in Rakhine State at the moment”, according to the UN Security Council’s president, Kuwaiti ambassador al-Otaibi.
The delay of the UN visit comes amid a decision to postpone the gradual repatriation, initially scheduled to begin on January 30, of close to 650,000 Muslim refugees from Bangladesh due to fears they were being forced to return and as tensions remain in the area, according to a Bangladesh official.
Myanmar’s acknowledgment that tensions remain in the region supports the notion that repatriation is premature. In this view, Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s refugee and repatriation commissioner, stressed that the process should be voluntary. He added that paperwork for returning refugees had not yet been finalised and transit camps had yet to be built in Bangladesh, according to The Associated Press.
The Myanmar government also denied allegations of five suspected mass graves of Muslims reported by AP.
The AP documented on Thursday that Rohingya mass graves in Gu Dar Pyin village in Buthidaung township in northern Rakhine.
Through satellite images, cellphone videos and interviews, the US-based news agency said the village had been the theatre of one of at least four large massacres. Survivors reported that hundreds of soldiers swept into the village on August 27 joined by Buddhist mobs.
But the government information committee released a statement on Friday denying the allegations, stating that military troops carried out a “clearance operation” in the village against Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) fighters, killing 19 terrorists.
“The Myanmar government will not deny any human rights violations and will investigate if there is strong evidence. And if there are human rights violations after an investigation, prosecutors will take action according to the law,” said the government statement.
Tatmadaw “clearance operations” followed attacks by ARSA, labeled as a terrorist group by the Myanmar government, on police outposts on August 25.
The military operations, allegedly joined by Buddhist mobs, led to reports of human rights violations, extra-judicial killings and rape against the Muslim population, which forced over 650,000 people to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.