A/HRC/39/CRP.2 1229. Building “new villages” close to the sites of previous Rohingya villages appears to be an attempt to change the demographic landscape of northern Rakhine State. Tin Maung Swe, Rakhine state secretary and a senior official with the military-controlled General Administration Department, has publicly stated that government departments, led by the Ministry of Home Affairs, would reclassify or re-zone land previously occupied by Rohingya villages, for purposes such as agriculture or forestry, with new villages being built close-by for settlers. He also said that returning refugees would not be entitled to return to their original villages.2792 This cannot be reconciled with Principle 28 of the Guiding Principles to return “in safety and with dignity to their homes or places of habitual residence”. 1230. Satellite imagery analysis has identified large-scale construction of organized permanent structures, which appear to be new “model villages”, in nine locations: • Pa Da Kar Taung (Net Chaung/Pa Da Kar Day War Nar Li village tract); Thit Tone Nar Gwa Son (Thit Tone Nar Gwa Son village tract); Du Than Dar (Than Dar village tract); Pa Da Kar Ywar Thit (Pa Da Kar Ywar Thit village tract); Kyet Kyein (Kyet Kyein village tract); Ah Htet Pyu Ma (Ah Htet Pyu Ma village tract); and Maungdaw town in Maungdaw Township; • Yin Ma Zay (Nga Yant Chuang village tract) in Buthidaung Township; and • Koe Tan Kauk in Rathedaung Township. 1231. The four images below are of Thit Tone Nar Gwa Son village tract in northern Maungdaw Township, the site of one of the new “model” villages. The images show the evolution of the area from 25 May 2017, prior to the “clearance operation”, when there was no damage, to 13 February 2018, when there have been extensive terrain clearance and new construction of houses with metal roofs in an organized layout. Thit Tone Nar Gwa Son is one of the 26 locations in the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine’s house reconstruction plan mentioned above. The plan lists four ethnic Mro villages where 86 houses will be built “near Thittonena Gwa Sone village”, in “Thittonena Gwa Sone” village tract.2793 2792 2793 V-198; see also The Republic of the Union of Myanmar – Ministry of Information, “Redevelopment of Maungtaw region as per Disaster Management Law 26 September 2017” (26 September 2017), www.moi.gov.mm/moi:eng/?q=news/27/09/2017/id-11604 Information published by the Myanmar Government’s Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine State lists the names of four new ethnic Mro villages where 86 houses will be built for 559 people, “near Thittonena Gwa Sone village”, in “Thittonena Gwa Sone” village tract. See: http://rakhine.unionenterprise.org/latest-news-en/235-nearly-800houses-under-construction-fordisplaced-villagers-in-maungtaw; Global New Light of Myanmar, “New homes for residents in Maungtaw, Rakhine State” (24 February 2018). 293