A ‘humanitarian crisis’:
Human rights groups have urged the Thai government and other Asean countries to treat the Rohingya conflict as a humanitarian crisis as over 120,000 members of this Muslim minority have fled Myanmar in the wake of a brutal crackdown by the military.
“Asean as a group needs to step up and take action. It should act as political bridge in this situation. Myanmar is a member of Asean. Maybe it will listen,” Lilliane Fan from the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network said in Bangkok yesterday.
U Kyaw Win, executive director of the Burma Human Rights Network, said persecution against Muslims has increased steadily since 2012 and Myanmar’s slow transition to democracy has hurt Muslims while benefiting other groups.
Critics claim there have been mass killings and a systematic destruction of the Rohingya population in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The findings were complied from 350 interviews in 46 locations last year.
Thailand has played a constructive role in recent years by cracking down on human trafficking and smuggling rings that bring the Rohingya to Malaysia, Michael Vatikiotis, Asia regional director of the Centre of Humanitarian Dialogue, told the Bangkok Post in Kuala Lumpur.
In July, 62 people were convicted and 40 others walked free in a high-profile human-trafficking case in Thailand involving the Rohingya.
The case was lodged after 30 graves filled with the bodies of the persecuted minority were discovered on Khao Kaew mountain in tambon Padang Besar in Songkhla’s Sadao district near the Thai-Malaysian border, prompting an investigation.
“You can make many criticisms of the military government in Thailand but I think this is one area where it is trying very hard,” said Mr Vatikiotis.
“We saw [Prime Minister Prayut Chano-cha] came out the other day and said Thailand must be prepared to receive the Rohingya people,” he added.
“We’ve not seen this before in Thailand — a willingness to be open about the humanitarian aspect of the movement of these people, and I think this has been a response to the TIP report by the US government.”
He was referring to the annual Trafficking in Persons report, which has put Thailand on a Tier 2 watch-list. “Thailand does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so,” the 2017 report said.
Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan, Malaysia’s minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of governance, integrity and human rights issues, said it was important Malaysia and Thailand cooperate on human trafficking.
“It’s not only a question of refugees drowning at sea or getting lost in the jungle, but it’s because people are trafficking and holding them,” he said.
Regarding the mass graves found near the shared border, he said: “[We] tried to find out what really happened, and which Malaysians were responsible, but not so many people have been charged or convicted”.
Witnesses are reluctant to come forward due to safety concerns, he said.
Most of the ethnic group is believed to have fled to Bangladesh.