Arakan News Agency
An international law expert with the University of Indonesia, Hikmahanto Juwana, has said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should take concrete measures to resolve the influx of Rohingya migrants and asylum seekers into Southeast Asian waters instead of only criticizing and condemning countries for refusing to accommodate the boat people.
“Meetings of foreign ministers from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand must agree to pressure the UNHCR, forcing it to also be responsible for the Rohingya refugees,” he said as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Monday.
Hikmahanto said the Indonesian government and people had taken proper measures in responding to the Rohingya crisis. Indonesia, he said, had facilitated and provided temporary shelter to the refugees, who were members of an ethnic minority group in Myanmar.
The expert said it was also expected that the foreign ministers’ meetings scheduled for this week could discuss roles the three countries could play in resolving the Rohingya crisis.
“In the context of human rights promotion and protection, we have to help the Rohingya refugees. Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand also must speak to the government of Myanmar, the native country of the refugees, as the exodus has become a regional problem,” said Hikmahanto.
Earlier, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that for several years, people smugglers had been transporting ethnic Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Arakan state, and an increasing number of Bangladeshis, by boat to Thai shores, where they were moved overland and then held in jungle camps for ransom.
It said the Rohingya were fleeing systematic rights violations by the Myanmarese government, which effectively prevented them from obtaining citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law. In October 2012, the Rohingya were subjected to attacks across Arakan state that the rights group determined constituted ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The HRW claims that more than 130,000 Rohingya have been confined to internally displaced persons camps with little freedom of movement to pursue livelihoods, and a lack of access to adequate food, health care and education.(ebf)
Source : Jakarta Post
