By Max Constant
BANGKOK
Discord is growing among Southeast Asian nations about the best way to deal with the thousands of Myanmar and Bangladeshi boat people stuck at sea off Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian shores.
With the situation showing no signs of improving Saturday, Bangkok has called on international organizations to pressure Myanmar - where many of the Muslim migrants on board the boats originate - after it threatened to boycott a regional meeting aimed at solving the crisis.
On Friday evening, Thai junta chief-cum-prime minister general Prayuth Chan-ocha attempted to turn the focus on his neighbor.
“It is international organizations which have to talk to Myanmar, rather than put pressure on Thailand to shoulder the sole responsibility of looking after the migrants,” he said during his weekly televised address.
Chan-ocha was reacting to a declaration by a Myanmar presidential adviser Friday that his country could boycott a regional meeting on the issue on May 29.
Prayuth Chan-ocha announced Tuesday that the country will host the talks on the crisis with senior officials from “15 affected countries” – primarily Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladeshi - as well as Australian and United States representatives and officials from the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration.
“We cannot force Myanmar to attend,” Chan-ocha, said Friday. “Every country is equal in dignity… Thailand only hopes to bring peace to the region.”
He nevertheless implied that one of the main reasons why thousands of Muslim Rohingya were on the boats was because of “the way they were treated in Myanmar.”
Myanmar authorities do not recognize Rohingya as citizens, even though many they have lived in western Myanmar for generations. Two months ago, the government also suppressed temporary ID cards, which were the only legal documents that they could hold.
After violent clashes with local Buddhists in the summer of 2012, tens of thousands of Rohingya joined an exodus from Myanmar’s Rakhine state towards Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia, sparking what has now been called the region’s largest exodus of boat people since the Vietnam War.
Myanmar's boycott threat is seen as a response to a statement earlier this week by Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, in which he criticized Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya.
The dispute laid bare the apparent incapability of Southeast Asian countries to confront in a concerted fashion what is emerging as a major regional humanitarian crisis.
Over the last few days, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have all pushed back ships carrying hundreds of migrants.
On Friday, Thailand did however make a goodwill gesture by saying it will open temporary shelters for migrants “awaiting repatriation.”
“Please rest assured that the Thai government will provide humanitarian aid, even though our budget for this is limited,” Chan-ocha said in his televised address.
“Now, the question is, if we have a limited amount of money, how are we going to look after these migrants?” he added.
Patrick Murphy, the U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Bangkok told the Bangkok Post Saturday that Washington was ready to support efforts to solve the humanitarian crisis and will send representatives to the May 29 regional meeting.
Since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking in its southern region May 1, boatloads of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants have been turning up on Malaysian and Indonesian shores.
Inter-governmental agency the International Organization for Migration has estimated that 8,000 migrants being smuggled from either western Myanmar or Bangladesh are currently on boats in the Andaman Sea and Malacca Straits.
The deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch has accused Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia of playing games with the boat and putting the lives of those on board at risk.
Phil Robertson urged the countries’ navies to “stop playing a three-way game of human ping pong,” as the world would judge how they treated “these most vulnerable men, women and children.”
