Bangladesh will comply with a request from Myanmar to replace the words “Myanmar nationals” with “displaced persons from Rakhine state” on ID cards issued to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
The request was made during a meeting last weekend between Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and Kyaw Tint Swe, the minister of Myanmar’s State Counsellor’s Office. The Myanmar delegation argued that under its bilateral agreement with Bangladesh signed last November, Rohingya refugees “are not Myanmar citizens, but they used to live in Rakhine,” an anonymous Bangladeshi official told BenarNews.
“We listened to them and agreed to change the identity of those living in Cox’s Bazar as ‘displaced persons from Rakhine state,’” the official said, though he did not reveal when the new cards would be issued.
In June, the UN and Bangladesh announced that they would issue new ID cards to every Rohingya refugee above the age of 12 after verifying their identities. It is not clear whether the agreement on the new wording will affect that effort.
Some Rohingya refugees see the move as part of a continued assault by Myanmar on their identities. Myanmar does not allow the use of the word “Rohingya” in international agreements related to the refugee crisis, nor does it recognize the refugees as citizens of Myanmar.
“We are Rohingya. We are Myanmar nationals. We do not belong to Bangladesh,” Mohammad Afzal, a leader of Balukhali refugee camp, told BenarNews. “Bangladesh has refrained from calling us Rohingya because of Myanmar’s objection. Now, they won’t call us Myanmar nationals?”
Others, however, believe the change in wording has practical applications. Humayun Kabir, a former ambassador and vice president of private think-tank Bangladesh Enterprise Institute said dropping the phrase “Myanmar national” will “bring uniformity in the nomenclature officially used by Bangladesh and Myanmar.”
“This is not a big issue,” he said. “The most important issue is safe and sustainable repatriation of the Rohingya.”
Around 700,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State were driven into Bangladesh last year by military operations that Myanmar claims were aimed at crushing a Rohingya insurgency by that rights groups say was a premeditated effort to expel the Muslim minority group. The recent arrivals joined an estimated 400,000 refugees who came in previous waves of mass displacement.
Despite its bilateral agreement with Bangladesh and a secret agreement with UN refugee and development agencies to welcome back Rohingya refugees, none have returned to Myanmar. Rohingya leaders say they are waiting until Myanmar offers specific guarantees for returnees’ safety.
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