Bangkok meeting failed to address root cause

We've read or watched shocking stories and video clips of people being killed and buried in mass graves in remote jungles of Malaysia-Thailand border. Hundreds of boat people were found drifting for several weeks and stranded in rickety boats in the Andaman Sea. It was a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportion.

Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to give temporary shelter to 7,000 people, on condition that these people will eventually be repatriated to their home countries. According to the United Nations, during April/May more than 3,500 starving migrants were given shelter in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. United Nations also said that more than 120,000 Myanmar nationals from Rakhine have fled in the past three years. More than 1000 people have died while trying to migrate.  

To deal with this humanitarian crisis, Thailand called a special meeting on "Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean" of 17 regional countries and international organisations on May 29, 2015 in Bangkok.

Who are these desperate people taking suicidal boat-rides? Why are they fleeing their country?

According to reports most of these people are Myanmar nationals (Rohingya Muslims) from Rakhine State, who are trying to escape persecution in the hands of the Myanmar government. The military regime of Myanmar has denied citizenship to 1.3 million Muslims of Rakhine, claiming that they were from Bangladesh, though they have been living there for more than thousand years.

In late 2011, Buddhist monks-led rioting in Rakhine state led to the death of several hundred Muslims. Subsequent riots in 2012 and 2013 have left many dead and thousands homeless. Constant denial of human rights by the Myanmar regime has made the lives of these people insecure.

Here it should be noted that it is wrong to call these people by their ethnic name. Calling them "Rohingya" is misleading and discriminatory. They are rightfully "Myanmar nationals," whether the Myanmar government accepts it or not. The Bangladesh government rightly considers these people as Myanmar nationals. Bangladesh already has more than 50,000 Myanmar nationals illegally living as refugees and cannot accommodate more.

Interestingly, the Myanmar delegation to the Bangkok Meeting refused to attend if the word "Rohingya" was used by the organisers. Myanmar Foreign Ministry Director General Htin Linn, attending the meeting, has inadvertently accepted that the Muslims of Rakhine were indeed nationals of Myanmar.

The other group of people caught by human traffickers is from Bangladesh. These are young gullible people who were lured by traffickers for well paid jobs in Malaysia. Many of these young people eventually became victims of extortion and ransom.

The Bangkok Meeting was inaugurated by Thai Deputy Prime Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn, who is also the foreign minister of the country. The Final Statement of Bangkok meeting reads as follows: i) Indonesia and Malaysia would continue to provide temporary shelter for the migrants, provided that the international community would resettle or repatriate them within a year; ii) regional countries would intensify search-and-rescue efforts to ensure the safety of migrants; iii) a joint task force would be established to coordinate assistance to countries dealing with migrants; iv) affordable and safe channels of legitimate migration would be enhanced; v) US pledged $3 million to help IOM deal with the crisis, while Australia pledged $3.8 million towards humanitarian assistance for the victims.

Surprisingly, the meeting only addressed how to save the migrants at sea and not the core problem – the reason behind their escape from Myanmar.

Despite several recommendations, the meeting actually ended without any concrete solution. That was because of the denial mode taken by the Myanmar delegation. The meeting turned acrimonious when the UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Volker Turk, said that there could be no solution if the root causes of the migrant crisis were not addressed."This will require full assumption of responsibility by Myanmar toward all its people. Granting citizenship is the ultimate goal … and the removal of restrictions on basic freedom," he said.

To this Htin Linn shot back saying Mr. Turk should "be more informed," apparently alluding to Myanmar's position that these people were not Myanmar nationals. Htin Linn also denied that there was any persecution of Muslims in Myanmar. "Finger pointing will not serve any purpose," remarked Htin Linn. 

Bangladesh delegation leader, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque, pointed at "external factors" that led Bangladeshis to migrate. What exactly he meant is not clear. He argued that Bangladesh achieved sustained economic growth over the past decades. Therefore, poverty could not be the reason for young people to migrate. He, however, assured that Bangladesh will repatriate its nationals as soon as possible after verifying their nationality.

Since the boats used for trafficking were from Thailand and Myanmar, it is clear that a large international syndicate of traffickers is at work in the region. What is even more alarming is the involvement of powerful people and law enforcing agencies in Malaysia and Thailand in this racket. Myanmar authorities were fully aware that Muslims from Rakhine were migrating.

Thailand has arrested scores of people including army General Manas Kongpan on human trafficking charges. Malaysian government has arrested dozens including senior policemen. The Bangladesh government has also cracked down on trafficking networks. These networks need to be crushed.

It is high time that the UN considers imposing appropriate sanctions on the military government of Myanmar. ASEAN also has a responsibility to take credible steps to alleviate the condition of the wretched Muslim population of Myanmar.

The international community along with Nobel laureates, the Dalai Lama and Malala Yusoufzai, have called upon Myanmar to recognise the Muslims of Rakhine as Myanmar citizens.

Denials by Thein Sein's government will not solve this problem. Migration of Myanmar Muslims cannot be stopped until the xenophobic Myanmar government is made to give proper recognition and citizenship to the persecuted Muslims of Rakhine State.

 The Bangkok meeting failed to address this root cause.

The writer is former Ambassador and Secretary.