Arakan News Agency
MALAYSIA should use its prerogative as the Chair of Asean this year to call for an emergency summit-level meeting involving heads of state of Southeast Asian countries to come up with a workable strategy to address the region’s grave humanitarian crisis involving the Rohingyas from the Rakhine State of Myanmar and the Bangladeshi migrants.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak stands at a critical juncture to demonstrate to the world that Asean has the capacity to deal with its most pressing problem, or he risks the regional organisation becoming irrelevant in the eyes of the international community.
At the end of this year he is to launch the much anticipated Asean Community. Over the past couple of weeks, the plight of Rohingyas and the treatment of the asylum seekers from Myanmar and migrants from Bangladesh have captured the world’s attention at an unprecedented level, namely after the discovery of mass graves of the Rohingya asylum seekers and Bangladeshi migrants on Thailand’s border with Malaysia and the initial rejection of their dangerously flimsy boats by Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
As human trafficking crew onboard jumped ship upon hearing the news of the Thai government’s crackdown on this illicit network, thousands more asylum seekers and economic migrants are still stranded in the Andaman Sea. Debates within Asean countries on how to deal with the Rohingyas are as tense as the internal political divides in each country. None of the Asean countries see the problem as theirs to tackle. This is truly the “Tragedy of the Commons.” Myanmar authorities prefer to point to the root cause of the problem as far back to the colonial era when the country was under the British Empire, neglecting any responsibility now.
In other Asean countries, human traffickers colluded with corrupt officials who facilitate these movements of the Rohingyas. With an expected silence from Myanmar leadership, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the rest of the Asean and international community must jointly act to provide aid, in the immediate and, protection in the long term, for the Rohingyas. Considered by the UN as “one of the most persecuted” minorities in the world, the Rohingyas are asking for the world to stand for the most basic of human rights — the right to exist.
Source : nst
