Thailand Will Allow U.N. to Vet Refugees

European Pressphoto Agency

Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on 

Friday waited for registration at a southern 

Thailand immigration-detention center.

The Wall Street Journal

By JAMES HOOKWAY

BANGKOK—Thailand will grant United Nations relief workers access to suspected Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, the U.N. said on Wednesday, and the government might also seek help from Myanmar authorities to help identify some of the nearly 1,000 people immigration officials detained here in the past two weeks.

The rising number of people arriving in Thailand, which until now has tried to intercept boats carrying migrants and force them to go to third countries, underscores the extent of the growing exodus of Rohingyas from western Myanmar.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said 115,000 other Rohingyas remain in refugee camps in western Myanmar following a series of clashes with local Buddhists that left more than 170 people dead last year.

U.N. officials have said many, including women and children, appear to be opting to making the risky sea voyage south to Thailand and Malaysia to avoid any future violence in Myanmar, where authorities accuse them of being illegal immigrants and deny them citizenship.

As of Wednesday, officials at Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command confirmed that 857 people have been detained this year from safe houses to which they had been taken by human traffickers, or intercepted in boats in southern Thai waters.

Late Wednesday, Manit Pienthong, the local government chief in Kuraburi in southern Thailand, said authorities had detained a group of 88 Rohingyas whose boat landed earlier in the day. The detainees were provided with food and water and taken to a local immigration center, Mr. Manit said. Other suspected Rohingya refugees have also been detained in Malaysia in recent weeks.

"The Thai authorities have agreed in principle to give us access," Golam Abbas, the UNHCR's representative in Thailand, said Wednesday. "We would like this to happen as soon as possible so that we can jointly look at their immediate humanitarian and protection needs."

He added that if any of the detained people are seeking asylum, their need for protection should be properly assessed, although Thai officials say they plan to deport the detainees if they are from Myanmar.

The plight of Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingyas is attracting growing international attention, especially in the Muslim world.

The Myanmar government doesn't recognize them as one of its 135 ethnic groups, calling them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Rohingyas face discrimination in Myanmar and are prevented from traveling freely in the country, despite the sweeping political overhauls President Thein Sein enacted after he took over from the previous military regime in 2011.

Last year's violence, which was concentrated in western Rakhine State, prompted 13,000 Rohingyas to flee the country in 2012, the UNHCR said, with at least 2,000 more leaving in the first week of this year, sometimes via Bangladesh.

In past years, Thai authorities often have opted to stop boats carrying suspected Rohingyas when they enter Thai waters, instead sending them to other countries after providing more fuel and supplies. In some instances, those boats have sunk in stormy waters, killing passengers.

Thai authorities also previously have transported detainees across its land border with Myanmar without consulting the U.N.'s refugee agency, prompting an outcry from human-rights groups.

But as awareness of the Rohingyas' problems widens, Thailand appears to be opting to coordinate with the U.N. and other agencies as it responds to the influx.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Tuesday told reporters that the government would discuss the possible repatriation of the migrants with the U.N.'s refugee commission.

"In the meantime, Thailand has the duty to take care of them. We are not going to send them anywhere yet because we have to look into the cause and talk to the country which will accept them, and [determine] their country of origin," she said.

Sihasak Phuangketkeow, permanent secretary of Thailand's Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday that Thailand might seek assistance from Myanmar in identifying the detainees.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared January 17, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Thailand Will Allow U.N. to Vet Refugees.

Indonesia Minister to Visit Restive State in Myanmar

Myanmar army officers patrol near a relief camp in Rakhine state. (Photo - AP)

January 4, 2013
The Wall Street Journal
By BEN OTTO

JAKARTA—Indonesia's foreign minister will travel to Myanmar next week to examine conditions in Rakhine, the restive western state where ethnic violence has led to an exodus of refugees seeking asylum across Southeast Asia.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said he will make the trip Monday and Tuesday at the invitation of the Myanmar government, which has been struggling to contain the clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine that have displaced more than 100,000 people.
He told journalists that during his stay he will formally announce a pledge for $1 million in humanitarian aid to the region.

"Basically it's a seeing tour... to try to dissect what is the actual situation and what are the actual challenges" in Rakhine, he said. "Obviously there's a humanitarian problem, where people are in a very difficult state in terms of their basic needs."
About 800,000 residents of Rakhine are ethnic Rohingya Muslims, who make up less than a quarter of the state's total population. They are denied citizenship in Myanmar, also known as Burma, which is Buddhist dominated. The Myanmar government considers them illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.
Civil-society groups have warned that more Rohingya refugees are fleeing Rakhine by boat because Bangladesh stopped accepting refugees at its border with Myanmar last year. Some recent attempts to sail from Myanmar have ended in tragedy, including an incident in October when 130 Rohingya reportedly died when their ship sank.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, on Sunday took in nine shipwreck survivors believed to be Myanmar nationals after they were refused entry into Singapore. Malaysia earlier accepted 40 survivors rescued from the same wreck that were similarly denied entry into Singapore.
Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday said that "as a small country with limited land and natural resources, Singapore is not in a position to accept any persons seeking political asylum or refugee status, regardless of their ethnicity or place of origin."
On Thursday, Thailand said it had deported back to Myanmar 73 refugees found off its coast on New Year's Day.

Mr. Natalegawa said he would travel to Rakhine with nongovernment and economic specialists to assess economic prospects in the region.
"Hopefully not only we will address the immediate humanitarian situation... but also create a postconflict dividend situation" where economic development can be promoted, he said.
He declined to provide more details about the trip.

Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia aren't signatories to the U.N. Convention on Refugees, which establishes a basic framework for protecting people escaping persecution. The convention bars signatories from expelling recognized refugees—with some exceptions—or punishing refugees for illegal entry.
Michael Tene, a spokesman for the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, said Friday that the country will continue to treat Rohingya asylum-seekers as it does other refugees, by providing humanitarian assistance and ensuring they are not deported.
—Chun Han Wong in Singapore contributed to this article.

Indonesia Takes In 9 Myanmar Shipwreck Survivors

December 31, 2012

The wall street Journal

BY CHUN HAN WONG

Indonesia has taken in nine shipwreck survivors believed to be refugees from Myanmar, ending weeks of uncertainty for the men, who were refused permission to come ashore in Singapore.
The nine men had been in limbo off Singapore aboard the Liberia-flagged cargo ship that saved them after their vessel sank in Myanmar waters. Singapore authorities this month denied entry to them and 40 other survivors rescued from the shipwreck by a Vietnamese freighter, highlighting the wariness among Southeast Asian governments to accept asylum seekers from a recent exodus caused by ethnic violence in Myanmar.
Indonesian authorities Sunday sent a vessel ..