Conditions not ripe for return

The government of Myanmar still denies aid agencies unfettered access to Rakhine State, despite desperate needs on the ground. The World Food Program is now reporting emergency-level child malnutrition and food shortages.

These are not conditions ripe for return.

Meanwhile, the specter of more mass atrocities hangs over the Rohingya in Bangladesh like a dark and foreboding cloud. Unthinkable as it may be, the worst may have yet to come.

"You can throw us into the sea, but please don't send us back," a Rohingya refugee woman from Buthidaung Township told my colleagues and me in November. "We will not go back to Myanmar."

Internment camps

Bangladesh authorities knew as well. In November, I was with colleagues in an open-air, second-floor office at the district headquarters of the Border Guards Bangladesh in Teknaf, meeting with a senior military official.

We spoke for more than an hour before he handed us an internal intelligence report detailing daily Myanmar military activity near the shared border, including dates, times, and geographic coordinates of automatic weapon fire on the Myanmar side. This was a full two months after Suu Kyi claimed such operations had ceased.

"There were confirmed gunfire shots in the last two weeks," the official told us, confirming that the gunfire was from Myanmar state security forces. "Every night we were hearing the firing, seeing villages burning, and we were getting dead bodies also."

Apart from fears of lethal violence, many Rohingya understandably fear they'd be repatriated to internment camps.

Complicated response

The Bangladesh authorities' response to the crisis has been complicated.

Since August, we've witnessed continuous acts of humanity by Bangladesh border guards, including officials providing much-needed protection for fleeing Rohingya. Their concern was evident and genuine, even heartwarming. But that could change in an instant.

Bangladesh's primary interest now is to rid itself of the refugee population, and it has a history of refoulement and forcing Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar without proper guarantees of safety.

Return with dignity

We're not quite there yet, but it's not unthinkable, especially if the international community stays silent—or worse, feigns support for the plan.

Donor governments should use this moment to demand that the Myanmar authorities create conditions so that Rohingya can return safely, voluntarily, and with dignity.

The government should dismantle existing internment camps, abolish the severe restrictions against Rohingya, including longstanding restrictions on freedom of movement, and restore Rohingya access to full citizenship.

Myanmar is using the discourse of repatriation to try to convince the world it's doing the right thing and to shift attention away from the military's heinous crimes of recent months. Governments shouldn't fall for it.

They should instead use all political means possible to hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes. It's precisely what the generals fear.