Shameful treatment of Rohingya refugees

Photo by phuketwan.com

Saudigazette
Thursday, January 03, 2013

THEY are inconvenient They are costly. They are troublesome. Thus most countries would rather that they had not come in the first place.

Nevertheless, refugees are a fact of life. They have been fleeing from the terrors of conflict throughout history.

Turkey and Jordan could have done without the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled across their borders and taken refuge with them. Yet both Ankara and Amman have done the decent thing. Initially from their own resources, both countries set up camps and diverted food, water and medicine to care for the growing populations of these tent cities. Turkey, with its long experience of earthquakes, diverted a large number of its emergency stores of tents and supplies to deal with the increasing refugee flow.

Arab states, not least the Kingdom, have since joined with other members of the international community to bring a longer-lasting flow of assistance to the occupants of these canvas cities now having to endure the cold and wet of an unpleasant winter. This worldwide effort to support and sustain these hundreds of thousands of miserable unfortunates would not have been possible without the original foundations provided by Jordan and Turkey who responded quickly to the desperation of helpless people.

Now compare this with the behavior on Tuesday of the Thai authorities when they intercepted a boat off the resort town of Phuket. In the vessel were 73 Rohingya Muslim refugees, the majority of them women and children, who had been at sea for 13 days. They said they had run out of food and water and had been hoping to reach Malaysia. The Thais fed these luckless souls and then announced that they would be deported overland to Burma. The boat’s passengers can expect little in the way of welcome from the Burmese authorities. What money and precious items they may have been able to keep while in Thai detention will almost certainly be taken from them on their return to the country from which they have fled.

This is by no means the first time that Thailand has acted in breach of its international obligations toward Rohingya refugees. Human Rights Watch claims that hundreds of fleeing Burmese Muslims have perished because of Thai actions. HRW says that Bangkok should be holding all refugees in humane detention until officials from the UN refugee agency, UNRA, can establish the legitimacy of their status. Economic migrants can be returned to their country of origin. Those fleeing for their lives, cannot.

HRW has told the Thais that it is perfectly clear that political violence, communal conflicts and serious human rights violations in the Rohingya’s home state of Arakan are set to create a flood of genuine refugees. It has called on Thailand and other neighboring states to which these helpless people are likely to flee to quickly develop a coordinated policy that will reflect their international obligations toward refugees.

The Thais, of course, do not want to accommodate a refugee exodus any more than the Jordanians and Turks were eager to have desperate Syrians fleeing across their borders. But Turkey and Jordan stepped up to the plate and met their obligations, not simply under international law, but out of common humanity. The Thais may protest that at least they fed and watered the passengers on the boat they intercepted. Given their determination to send them back to an extremely uncertain fate in Burma, some might wonder why they bothered.