Masum Billah :
The very recent news that several thousand desperate migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been spotted adrift in the Andaman Sea between Thailand and Malaysia providing a dramatic example of the migration crisis confronting the region. They said that they had been on the boat for three months and that the boat’s captain and crew abandoned them more than one week ago. An estimated 6,000 to 20,000 migrants are at sea, fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh. They have been frantically trying to enter into the land of Malaysia or Indonesia but these countries are pointing fingers at one another declining to take responsibility themselves which has aggravated the situation throwing these helpless migrants into an uncertain destination. This destination in the turbulent sea is certain death which this civilized world (?) cannot afford.
The Indonesian Navy turned away a boat with thousands of passengers on May 13, 2015, urging it on to Malaysia, while the Malaysian authorities turned away two boats with a total of at least eight hundred passengers. “What we have now is a game of maritime Ping-Pong,” said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration in Bangkok. “It’s maritime Ping-Pong with human life. What’s the endgame? I don’t want to be too overdramatic, but if these people aren’t treated and brought to shore soon, we are going to have a boat full of corpses. These words give us the most deplorable condition of these hapless humans. “The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has asked regional governments to conduct search-and-rescue operations but still to no avail. “It’s a potential humanitarian disaster,” said Jeffrey Savage, a senior protection officer with the agency. Indonesia’s chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, said that the military would “push back any boat that wants to enter Indonesian waters “The Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi said, “What do you expect us to do?” We have been very nice to the people who broke into our border,” he told The Associated Press. “We have treated them humanely, but they cannot be flooding our shores like this. We have to send the right message that they are not welcome here.” There is no single reason for the spike in departures from Myanmar and Bangladesh, said Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, a human rights group that tracks migration in the Andaman Sea. Responding to the global pressure, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said his country already had 120,000 illegal migrants from Myanmar and the ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ was a global issue to be resolved by the international community. ‘We allow some of them to land and provide humanitarian aid to them but Malaysia must not be burdened with this problem as there are thousands more waiting to flee from their region,.’ In one sense this is right that only Malaysia cannot resolve this crisis and why they will invite more migrants. It’s a regional issue which need to be resolved by some key states and they may at best seek cooperation form international rich states.
The United Nations said that the deadly pattern of migration across the Bay of Bengal would continue unless Myanmar ended discrimination.Most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions. Almost 140,000 were displaced in clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.Myanmar terms the Rohingya ‘Bengalis’, a name most Rohingya reject because it implies they are immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh despite having lived in Myanmar for generations. The root of the problem of illegal migration spins from this point but the world community and the regional powerful states just remain silent to this important regional issue. They thought this would not touch them, so, they kept mum. Now, time has come when they are directly affected by this crisis and they must do something so that Myanmar government do something reasonable to address this issue which is both humanitarian as well as regional .
The UN, US and human rights bodies have urged regional governments to take swift action to save these helpless migrants .The UN chief urged the leaders in the region to keep their borders and ports open for these migrants. Ban Ki Moon also urges the governments concerned to ensure that obligation of rescue is upheld and prohibition on ‘refoulement’ is maintained. Refoulement is forcible return of individuals to their country of origin where they could face persecution. “This is an urgent regional challenge that needs to be addressed regionally through a coordinated international effort and in accordance with international conventions and with maritime law,” said Jeff Rathke, director, Press Office of the US Department of State in Washington DC.”The priority is to save lives. And we appreciate that the governments of the region have accommodated many Rohingya and other refugees and we urge them to continue to do so,” said the US official during a regular press briefing. Governments in Southeast Asia need to respond to this crisis from the premise that migrants, regardless of their legal status, how they arrive at borders, or where they come from, are people with rights that must be upheld.
The international bodies and powerful states are just requesting the states. Can’t they come forward with immediate help for these hapless people who have been driven by ethnic conflict and poverty? Why they don’t put real pressure on the government of Myanmar for showing animal like behvariour to their Muslim citizens? We all urge the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia to accept these people and close next all the avenues so that this game does not repeat. It is true that if these people could have landed on their lands, their private owners would have been benefited making their countries’ economy fat. Even Bangladesh would get huge amount of remittance and we would be proud of our rich bank reserve. But now nobody wants to do anything real to save these men, women and children branding them as ‘ illegal migrant’. Why illegal migration takes place, the government of Bangladesh must find out the cause.
A ray of hope has arisen through a recent declaration ( May 16) made by the Thai government that they are to work with the international community in solving the problem relating to boat people from Myanmar and Bangladesh. However, deputy government spokesman Maj Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd rejected a proposal for Thailand to set up shelters for such illegal migrants. He cited security concerns and possible violation of law for the rejection. “Thailand has a clear standpoint of coordinating with the international community in attempting to solve this problem,” he said. “We have always helped illegal migrants on humanitarian grounds. But the government also needs to protect our people. We have no policy of allowing migrants to settle in Thailand.”It also sound positive that the Thai government will host an international conference on “unusual” migration in the Indian Ocean on May 29 in Bangkok. Senior officials from 15 countries affected by the problem would be invited to take part in the conference. The countries include Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Bangladesh. The US and international organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime would also be invited as observers at the meeting.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR says 25,000 people are believed to have embarked on the Southeast Asian route from January to March this year which proves double the previous year, and that an estimated 300 had died.Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Bangkok, said traffickers may now be unwilling to land in Thailand and are holding people “captive” at sea or abandoning them. “There’s definitely a need for countries in the region to come together to see how best to address the problem”. This problem should be tackled at its root cause and it is not possible to deal with single- handedly. The key states of this regions must reach a consensus and find out a tangible solution through the international conference the Thai government is going to convene. Both Myanmar and Bangladesh must take preventive measures to tackle this problem and the Thai convention regarding this issue must take a concrete action.
(Masum Billah is Program Manager: BRAC Education Program, Email: [email protected] )
The very recent news that several thousand desperate migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been spotted adrift in the Andaman Sea between Thailand and Malaysia providing a dramatic example of the migration crisis confronting the region. They said that they had been on the boat for three months and that the boat’s captain and crew abandoned them more than one week ago. An estimated 6,000 to 20,000 migrants are at sea, fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh. They have been frantically trying to enter into the land of Malaysia or Indonesia but these countries are pointing fingers at one another declining to take responsibility themselves which has aggravated the situation throwing these helpless migrants into an uncertain destination. This destination in the turbulent sea is certain death which this civilized world (?) cannot afford.
The Indonesian Navy turned away a boat with thousands of passengers on May 13, 2015, urging it on to Malaysia, while the Malaysian authorities turned away two boats with a total of at least eight hundred passengers. “What we have now is a game of maritime Ping-Pong,” said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration in Bangkok. “It’s maritime Ping-Pong with human life. What’s the endgame? I don’t want to be too overdramatic, but if these people aren’t treated and brought to shore soon, we are going to have a boat full of corpses. These words give us the most deplorable condition of these hapless humans. “The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has asked regional governments to conduct search-and-rescue operations but still to no avail. “It’s a potential humanitarian disaster,” said Jeffrey Savage, a senior protection officer with the agency. Indonesia’s chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, said that the military would “push back any boat that wants to enter Indonesian waters “The Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi said, “What do you expect us to do?” We have been very nice to the people who broke into our border,” he told The Associated Press. “We have treated them humanely, but they cannot be flooding our shores like this. We have to send the right message that they are not welcome here.” There is no single reason for the spike in departures from Myanmar and Bangladesh, said Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, a human rights group that tracks migration in the Andaman Sea. Responding to the global pressure, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said his country already had 120,000 illegal migrants from Myanmar and the ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ was a global issue to be resolved by the international community. ‘We allow some of them to land and provide humanitarian aid to them but Malaysia must not be burdened with this problem as there are thousands more waiting to flee from their region,.’ In one sense this is right that only Malaysia cannot resolve this crisis and why they will invite more migrants. It’s a regional issue which need to be resolved by some key states and they may at best seek cooperation form international rich states.
The United Nations said that the deadly pattern of migration across the Bay of Bengal would continue unless Myanmar ended discrimination.Most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions. Almost 140,000 were displaced in clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.Myanmar terms the Rohingya ‘Bengalis’, a name most Rohingya reject because it implies they are immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh despite having lived in Myanmar for generations. The root of the problem of illegal migration spins from this point but the world community and the regional powerful states just remain silent to this important regional issue. They thought this would not touch them, so, they kept mum. Now, time has come when they are directly affected by this crisis and they must do something so that Myanmar government do something reasonable to address this issue which is both humanitarian as well as regional .
The UN, US and human rights bodies have urged regional governments to take swift action to save these helpless migrants .The UN chief urged the leaders in the region to keep their borders and ports open for these migrants. Ban Ki Moon also urges the governments concerned to ensure that obligation of rescue is upheld and prohibition on ‘refoulement’ is maintained. Refoulement is forcible return of individuals to their country of origin where they could face persecution. “This is an urgent regional challenge that needs to be addressed regionally through a coordinated international effort and in accordance with international conventions and with maritime law,” said Jeff Rathke, director, Press Office of the US Department of State in Washington DC.”The priority is to save lives. And we appreciate that the governments of the region have accommodated many Rohingya and other refugees and we urge them to continue to do so,” said the US official during a regular press briefing. Governments in Southeast Asia need to respond to this crisis from the premise that migrants, regardless of their legal status, how they arrive at borders, or where they come from, are people with rights that must be upheld.
The international bodies and powerful states are just requesting the states. Can’t they come forward with immediate help for these hapless people who have been driven by ethnic conflict and poverty? Why they don’t put real pressure on the government of Myanmar for showing animal like behvariour to their Muslim citizens? We all urge the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia to accept these people and close next all the avenues so that this game does not repeat. It is true that if these people could have landed on their lands, their private owners would have been benefited making their countries’ economy fat. Even Bangladesh would get huge amount of remittance and we would be proud of our rich bank reserve. But now nobody wants to do anything real to save these men, women and children branding them as ‘ illegal migrant’. Why illegal migration takes place, the government of Bangladesh must find out the cause.
A ray of hope has arisen through a recent declaration ( May 16) made by the Thai government that they are to work with the international community in solving the problem relating to boat people from Myanmar and Bangladesh. However, deputy government spokesman Maj Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd rejected a proposal for Thailand to set up shelters for such illegal migrants. He cited security concerns and possible violation of law for the rejection. “Thailand has a clear standpoint of coordinating with the international community in attempting to solve this problem,” he said. “We have always helped illegal migrants on humanitarian grounds. But the government also needs to protect our people. We have no policy of allowing migrants to settle in Thailand.”It also sound positive that the Thai government will host an international conference on “unusual” migration in the Indian Ocean on May 29 in Bangkok. Senior officials from 15 countries affected by the problem would be invited to take part in the conference. The countries include Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Bangladesh. The US and international organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime would also be invited as observers at the meeting.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR says 25,000 people are believed to have embarked on the Southeast Asian route from January to March this year which proves double the previous year, and that an estimated 300 had died.Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Bangkok, said traffickers may now be unwilling to land in Thailand and are holding people “captive” at sea or abandoning them. “There’s definitely a need for countries in the region to come together to see how best to address the problem”. This problem should be tackled at its root cause and it is not possible to deal with single- handedly. The key states of this regions must reach a consensus and find out a tangible solution through the international conference the Thai government is going to convene. Both Myanmar and Bangladesh must take preventive measures to tackle this problem and the Thai convention regarding this issue must take a concrete action.
(Masum Billah is Program Manager: BRAC Education Program, Email: [email protected] )
