The announcement comes on the ninth anniversary of the 2017 incident, when the Rohingya were forced to flee their homes due to military operations.
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the military-backed government issued a statement on September 3 rejecting politically motivated statements, social media and news reports issued by some countries regarding the Rohingya issue without recognizing the root causes and the ground conditions of the events in northern Rakhine State.
The response comes after the United Nations, international governments, and civil society organizations issued a series of calls for accountability and justice from the Myanmar military's crackdown on the Rohingya, which killed and displaced scores of people in 2017.
Rohingya activists have responded by accusing the military government of trying to cover up the military's atrocities by blaming the 2017 events in northern Rakhine State on ARSA attacks.
Aung Myaing, a Rohingya refugee and activist living in the Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh, criticized the military junta's statement, saying it misrepresents the true situation on the ground and challenges international courts and UN decisions.
“The statement by the Military Council’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blatantly misrepresents the true situation on the ground and challenges and insults the decisions of international courts and the United Nations. Therefore, we oppose the statement by the Military Council.”
On August 25, 2017, the military government said that ARSA simultaneously attacked 30 security posts and a battalion headquarters in northern Rakhine State, killing and injuring security forces, government employees, and civilians.
He also said that some countries' statements fail to acknowledge that the cause of the subsequent events was a pre-planned attack by the ARSA group.
The military-backed government has expressed concern over the way Bangladesh describes all those in refugee camps as refugees from Myanmar, and said the repatriation of displaced people is a matter for Myanmar and Bangladesh to resolve.
Furthermore, the military-backed government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it objects to the use of a name for an ethnic group that does not exist in Myanmar, and that it cannot accept the use of that term for political purposes and the issuance of statements and statements to gain political advantage over the events in northern Rakhine State.
Rohingya activists say that rejecting the name Rohingya and continuing to use the term "Bengali" demonstrates a lack of recognition of the Rohingya's ethnic identity and rights.
Rohingya activists say the push to repatriate displaced people is a pretense to avoid international accountability pressure.
Rohingya and Rohingya activists have called for this issue to be addressed as an international issue, not as a matter to be resolved between Myanmar and Bangladesh, and for the Rohingya to be fully recognized and have their names and civil rights guaranteed, and to be resettled in safety, security, and dignity.
International organizations, including the United Nations, have reported that nearly 700,000 Rohingya refugees fled to Bangladesh in 2017 due to the military's clearing of territory in the Buthidaung and Maungdaw regions of Rakhine State.
