CM Kajawl :Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to give shelter to the boat people for a year on condition that they should be resettled or repatriated within a year, raising a hope for several thousands of Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya of Myanmar to land on the shores after weeks of uncertainty in the sea.Myanmar also softened its stand on the migrants issue as it has accepted Thailand’s invitation to attend the regional meeting in Bangkok on May 29 to find a solution to the ongoing refugee problems. “We agreed to offer the boatpeople temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said at a joint press conference at Putrajaya, Malaysia on Wednesday.The Malaysian minister made this announcement after chairing a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi and Thai Deputy Prime Minister Tanasak Patimapragorn on the irregular movement of people, especially on human trafficking.It is a temporary offer and applicable only to 7,000 people still stranded at the sea, he said. However, Thailand is yet to reach a decision on the issue as the Thai minister was unsure if the move would be allowed by the domestic laws of his country.Malaysia and Indonesia in the meantime invited the other countries in the region to join in this endeavour,” the Malaysian minister said.The resettlement and repatriation process would be carried out by the international community within a year, he added. The move means Malaysia is going to put an immediate stop to the towing away of vessels ferrying migrants trying to enter its waters, Aman said.The three countries had called upon the international community to urgently share the burden of providing the necessary support to them in addressing the influx of irregular migrants, Aman noted.”The international community will also take responsibility for the repatriation of the migrants to their countries of origin or resettlement to third countries within a year,” he said.In the meeting, the three ministers also promised to take necessary action against human traffickers who have been driving the exodus of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims, according to media reports.The three ASEAN nations will take steps to bring the perpetrators of trafficking to justice, Aman said. Thailand has already arrested several police and local officials after authorities uncovered jungle camps where the trafficked Rohingya had been held until their families agreed to pay ransom for their release.The three Southeast Asian nations — Malaysian, Indonesia and Thailand — came under criticism from the international community when they prevented vessels crammed with starving migrants from landing on their seashore.Tricked by the agents, thousands of Bangladeshis and Rohinya are trying to go to Malaysia to find a better life. But they could not land in Malaysia, even on the nearby shores of the neighbouring countries, after Thailand had launched a crackdown on the international human trafficking network.The captain of the boats and the others agents of the human traffickers abandoned the vessels to save themselves, leaving the refugees stranded in the sea without any food and fuel.The stranded boatpeople, which also included a large number of children and women, were also turned away by the coast guards of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand when the vessels carrying them approached their territories. The other Southeast Asian nation Myanmar also showed its desire to join hands with its neighbours to settle the refuges problem. In a statement, the Myanmar government on Wednesday said it shares concerns expressed by the international community on the migrants issue and it is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to anyone who suffered in the sea.That marked the most conciliatory statement yet from the Myanmar government, which considers Rohingya to be foreigners from neighbouring Bangladesh and disavows all responsibility for them.Myanmar is also set to attend the regional meeting in Bangkok on May 29 set to address the crisis involving thousands of minority Muslims fleeing the Southeast Asian nation by boat.Thailand’s Deputy Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai confirmed that Myanmar has accepted its invitation.Myanmar’s Deputy Foreign Minister Thant Kyaw told the media, “We all have to sit down and we all have to consider how to tackle this problem.”The Myanmar government initially was reluctant to send a representative to the May 29 meeting in Thailand.Myanmar has come under growing pressure to help stem the outflow of Muslim Rohingya, who are fleeing their homes in the country’s western Rakhine state after years repression by the Buddhist majority. In the last three years, attacks on Rohingya have left hundreds dead and sparked an exodus of an estimated 120,000 people who have boarded human traffickers’ boats to flee to other countries.As per media reports, around 3,000 migrants took shelter in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand over the past weeks after the Thai crackdown launched on the people-traffickers. Another 433 people were rescued early Wednesday off Indonesia by the local fisherman, who described that many refugees were in appalling shape at sea, while some of them had died of starvation.
