Pressure on Myanmar
Myanmar's navy has brought ashore 200 “Bengali boatpeople” found off its coast, after its military chief said some of the thousands of migrants that have landed in Malaysia and Indonesia this month are pretending to be Rohingya Muslims to get UN aid.
In response, a senior US official said yesterday that the majority of the more than 3,000 migrants that have come ashore are Rohingya fleeing desperate conditions in Rakhine State in western Myanmar.
The diplomat also urged Myanmar to extend "citizenship" to the oppressed Rohingya minority to address an ongoing migrant crisis that has hit Southeast Asia, leaving thousands stranded at sea.
Myanmar, where many of the migrants start their journey, has faced increasing international pressure to stem the exodus from its shores and deliver urgent humanitarian relief to thousands still trapped at sea.
The widespread persecution of the impoverished Muslim community in Myanmar's western Rakhine state is one of the primary causes for the current crisis, alongside growing numbers trying to escape poverty in neighbouring Bangladesh.
"They should have a path to citizenship," US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Yangon, referring to the Rohingya -- 1.3 million of whom live in Myanmar yet are dismissed as Bangladeshi illegal immigrants by the authorities.
In comments a day after talks with Myanmar leaders, Blinken added "the uncertainty that comes from not having any status is one of the things that may drive people to leave".
Attention also turned yesterday to the seas off Southeast Asia's west coast as naval vessels from Myanmar and Malaysia searched for stranded boat people and the US military prepared air patrols to step up its involvement.
Blinken said the fact that Rohingya were willing "to put their lives in jeopardy" on deadly sea crossings was a "reflection of conditions in Rakhine state that are leading people to make this choice".
"Even if we address the immediate crisis, we also must confront its root causes in order to achieve a sustainable solution," Blinken said.
Myanmar's government, however, has reiterated its refusal to recognise the stateless Rohingya as an ethnic group, preferring to call them "Bengalis" -- shorthand for illegal migrants.
European Union lawmakers are calling on Myanmar to end the persecution of Rohingya Muslims and for Thailand to launch investigations into reports of mass graves of the Muslim minority.
In a resolution Thursday, the lawmakers also called for the Thai government and officials to "end any complicity with the criminal gangs trafficking Rohingya people and other migrants in Thailand."
The UN says the Rohingya are one of the most persecuted groups in the world. Neither Myanmar nor Bangladesh recognises them as citizens and they have faced increasing discrimination.
The lawmakers demanded that senior EU officials raise the issue with the Thai and Myanmar governments.
Southeast Asia's migrant crisis blew up after a Thai crackdown on human trafficking led criminals to abandon overloaded boats in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea rather than risk trying to smuggle or traffic them through preferred transit routes in Thailand.
The persecution of Rohingya also came to the fore.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimated yesterday that some 3,500 migrants are still stranded on boats with dwindling supplies, and repeated its appeal for the region's governments to rescue them.
Myanmar's navy discovered two Thai boats on Thursday, one carrying migrants and the other empty, the Rakhine state government said in a press release yesterday.
"One is loaded with around 200 Bengali people," it said, using the government term for illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
"The people on the boat were all from Bangladesh," said Rakhine State government executive secretary Tin Maung Swe. "We will deport them."
Zaw Htay, director of Myanmar's presidential office, said yesterday that the men were identified as “Bangladeshi” and would be sent back to the neighbouring country.
"The Myanmar navy continues with search and rescue activities in Myanmar waters," he said. "If they find any boat with migrants, they will provide humanitarian assistance, conduct verification and return them to where they came from."
The rescue by Myanmar's navy was welcomed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which said it was helping local authorities provide assistance to the migrants.
But fears remain for many more still left on boats in the Bay of Bengal with monsoon rains looming.
"We hope that this recent positive development will be followed by other disembarkations in Myanmar and across the region, well in advance of the coming monsoon rains," UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan told AFP.
The imminent monsoon season, when heavy rains and cyclones lash the region, usually lead to a significant drop off in regional boat migrant numbers.
On Thursday, the foreign ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia -- whose countries are destination points for Rohingya fleeing persecution -- met Myanmar officials as pressures mount to stem the migrant exodus from its shores.
Earlier this week, Malaysia and Indonesia relented on a hardline policy of pushing back the boats, and said their nations would accept the migrants for one year, or until they can be resettled or repatriated with the help of international agencies.
Myanmar has seen surging Buddhist nationalism in recent years and spates of violence targeting Muslim minorities have raised doubts over its much vaunted reforms after decades of harsh military rule.
A raft of laws are being considered spanning interfaith marriage, religious conversion and birth rates, which are seen by activists as particularly discriminatory against women and minorities -- with the already marginalised Rohingya likely to be affected.
Both the US and UN have raised particular concerns about the laws proposed by President Thein Sein, seen as a response to campaigns by hardline Buddhist monks in a key election year.
Noble Peace Prize winning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is yet to comment on the current crisis, a silence that observers attribute to fears over alienating a swathe of the electorate just months ahead of the polls.
RESCUE OPERATION
In the first official rescue operation since migrants started washing onto Southeast Asian shores earlier this month, four Malaysian navy ships searched the country's territorial waters for the boats. Navy chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar said three helicopters and three other ships were on standby.
Indonesia said it would not actively search for the migrants, but will rescue those stranded or drifting in the country's waters close to its shores, said Arrmanatha Nasir, the Foreign Ministry spokesman. He said the country would not push them back out to sea.
The US military said it was preparing to send "maritime aviation patrols throughout the region," Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Jeffrey Pool told The Associated Press on Thursday. The Department of Defence "is responding to this crisis and taking this seriously," he said.
Washington has been urging governments in the region to cooperate on search and rescue operations and sheltering the refugees and migrants. Most of the Bangladeshis are believed to be fleeing poverty and seeking better economic opportunities in Malaysia and elsewhere.
Myanmar overcame initial reluctance and agreed to join a regional meeting next week in Thailand to address the crisis.
"We are ready to cooperate with other governments to resolve the ongoing problems through constructive engagement and on humanitarian grounds," said Zaw Htay, director of the president's office on Thursday.
The decision was made after an invitation letter arrived, he said, noting it did not imply Myanmar was solely responsible for the crisis or use the word Rohingya -- two conditions Myanmar had set for its attending the conference.
The US has said it was prepared to take a leading role in any multi-country effort organised by the UN refugee agency to resettle the most vulnerable refugees.
US Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, visiting Southeast Asia, met Thursday with Myanmar's president, army commander in chief and other officials, raising "deep concern about the thousands of vulnerable migrants stranded at sea," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
"He stressed the need for Burma to address the root causes of this migration, including the racially and religiously motivated discrimination and violence facing the Rohingya population in Rakhine State," Harf said, using the former name for Myanmar.
[Compiled from Reuters, AFP and AP]
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