By Siegfried O. Wolf To respond to the ‘alarming rise in the irregular movement of persons in the Indian Ocean’, the Royal Thai...
By Siegfried O. Wolf
To respond to the ‘alarming rise
in the irregular movement of persons in the Indian Ocean’, the Royal Thai Government organized the
‘Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean’ on May 29th, 2015
in Bangkok. Subsequently seventeen countries convened in Thailand’s capital to
address the then called ‘boat people problem’ in the Andaman Sea and Bay of
Bengal. Among the participants [1]were high-level representatives of the
five most affected countries namely Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar,
and Thailand. The fact that Sri Lanka, India as well as Afghanistan joined this
significant event underpins the fact that the ‘boat people’ crisis is an issue
which involves not only the intersection between South Asia and South East Asia
but also the respective subcontinents on the whole.
The meeting was convened to
address the continuing exodus of migrants from Myanmar. These refugees are
mainly Rohingya, a Muslim religious-ethnic minority officially located in
Myanmar’s Rakhine state (known as Arakan state by the Rohingya). Being treated as
‘second-class citizens’, suffering from social
discrimination, massive violent repression, human rights violations, and
political exclusion, the marginalized Rohingya fled the country in masses. Additionally,
the Rohingya not only were confronted by strict repressive policies by the
central government but also had to face extremely anti-Muslim sentiments
enforced by public policy supported Buddhist fundamentalism in Myanmar, like
the 969 movement spearheaded by radical
Theravada Buddhist monk Wirathu). Consequently, the region witnessed tremendous
movements of some hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to enter
neighbouring countries illegally, as well as other states in the extend region
by land or sea.
Based on the fact that most
countries became increasingly reluctant to accept additional migrants,
thousands of Rohingyas became stranded in the seas under disastrous
humanitarian conditions. Additionally, the discovery of mass graves in Malaysia and Thailand [2] ,which have created international
awareness about the ‘plight of the Rohingyas’. This is a new phenomenon, since
the course and consequences of the Rohingya crisis was largely ignored by
policy-makers worldwide in the past. Even democracy icon and Nobel Prize
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi surprised political
observers by evincing a disturbing silence regarding the fate of the Rohingyas.
Nevertheless, a growing number of international actors have become involved in
raising awareness about the extremely worsening situation of Rohingyas,
especially such which are currently on the run via the sea lanes. The latest
conference in Bangkok on ‘illegal migration’ has to be seen in the context of
these efforts to improve the situation of the unwanted and stranded people.
 |
Htin Lynn, Special Representative of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Myanmar, gestures as he addresses delegates meeting in Bangkok to discuss the migrant crisis. (EPA Photo) |
The ‘boat people’ conference was characterised
by a complex balancing act of proposing concrete measures to deal seriously
with the crisis of the Rohingya while attempting to appease Myanmar. The
latter was declared by many conference
participants as the most important since any open ‘finger pointing’ would lead
to a boycott or ‘un-cooperative’ behaviour of Myanmar’s delegates. Keeping this
in mind, the language used during the talks speaks for itself and it is worth looking
at what the conference achieved or failed to achieve. Overall, despite numerous
hurdles and criticisms, one can state that the meeting was a crucial step in
the right direction accomplishing several, noteworthy ‘promises’ by the
participating countries. Firstly, the meeting made states of South and South
East Asia talk with each other about the issue of the Rohingya. This is already
an achievement since major cooperation between these two Asian sub-regions has
not taken place yet. Secondly, it was the first time that the participating
states exchanged their views in a comprehensive manner on how to tackle the
‘illegal migration problem’ (meaning the Rohingya crisis without mentioning it
by name) and to be able to find at least a common proposal on how to implement
immediate action. Thus, despite the fact that no date was set for the next
round of talks, it was important that the participating countries agreed to continue the dialogue. Thirdly, the
gathering achieved that donor countries pledged money, especially the US,
Australia, and Japan. It isenvisaged to use the money to pay for
temporary shelter, food and other urgent needs for the refugees as well as for
humanitarian aid for needy people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and Bangladesh’s
Cox’s Bazaar district. Nevertheless, the amount of provided financial aid is
far away from being sufficient. For example, the International Organization for
Migration (IOM) appealed for $26 million. Fourthly,
besides several other measures, the enhancement of maritime search and rescue
missions to help refugees who are vulnerable “boat people” stranded in the
region’s seas marks an extraordinary step for immediate help.
The United Nations and other
observers, note that around 2,000 to 2,500 people may still be adrift
in boats on the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. Leading South East Asian
experts, like Paul Chambers at Thailand‘s Chiang Mai University, are stressing
that the situation for the Rohingya in Myanmar is turning even worse: “Myanmar
is headed toward a policy veering toward genocide of the Rohingya,”[3]which, of course, will create further
movements of migrants and increasing the pressure on host countries. Therefore,
the outlining of clear procedures for immediate help for the refugees is of
existential importance for the survival of the refugees. Fifthly, and
most significant was to get Myanmar involved. This was a major challenge since
the country is obviously the source and focal point of the Rohingya crises. In
the past, Myanmar was quite reluctant to talk about the Rohingya
at all and blocked several international initiatives to improve the situation
of this community. Therefore, it can be interpreted as a positive sign that the
country showed up at least.
Myanmar’s participation came with
a price. Acceding to the demands of Myanmar, the term Rohingyawas not mentioned at all. Instead the
words ‘illegal migrants’ or ‘boat people’ determined the rhetoric of the conference trying to avoid
the specification of the people which should be helped. By having said this,
the limitations regarding aims and achievements of the conference become
obviously and pre-assigned. Firstly, the participating countries failed to enforce a binding agreement.
Instead, the recommendations of the meeting are just non-committal proposals
for immediate responses of individual states. Taking the socio-political and
economic constraints of the affected countries into account, the ambiguous aim to promote “full respect for human rights and
adequate access of people to basic rights and services, such as housing,
education and health care” appears as sole aspirations, at least at the moment.
Secondly, without doubt, the meeting was an urgent and promising milestone
regarding the number one priority: saving the lives of the ‘boat peoples’ in
distress. But the gathering failed not only to produce any short term
commitment but also lacks any substantial endeavour to deal
with the Rohingya crisis in a long-term perspective. Thirdly, the meeting only
dealt with the consequences but not with the course of the problem. Due to the
appeasement policy towards Myanmar, the conference failed to publicly address the root causes
of the problems, namely the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
There were also no talks about
resettlement of the Rohingya in Myanmar on the basis of granting full
citizenship for the migrants. Any talks relating to issue of granting
citizenship for Rohingya in Myanmar was clearly rejected by Myanmar’s delegates
as undue interference in domestic affairs. As such,
the reluctance to accept the legitimacy of Rohingya as an official minority and
granting them full citizenship rights in Myanmar remains. By calling the
Rohingya as Bengalis, Myanmar’s authorities are indicating that they are originating from
Bangladesh. However, Dhaka also does not recognize them as citizens (and the
Rohingya themselves state that they are from Myanmar). As a result, both
countries have rendered them effectively stateless—though the Rohingya find
fault most with Myanmar (Wolf 2014; Ahmed 2010). This is gaining
significance since other countries in the region have remarkable difficultiesin finding an
appropriate legal status for the refugees. Therefore, it does not come as a
surprise, that Volker Türk, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for
Protection, stated at
the conference that “granting citizenship is the ultimate goal” for Myanmar in
order to manage the current migration crisis.
The outcome of the conference is ‘no major
breakthrough’ at all. However, it would be totally unrealistic to expect any
kind of ‚miracle solution’ after a “one-day-conference”. Or in the words
of Volker Türk,
“it would be disingenuous to suggest that there are any simple solutions to
this phenomenon”. But most important is that the actors involved understand
that an extended regional framework is needed to deal with the complexity of
the Rohingya crisis. In this direction, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) offers an excellent platform to bundle efforts in South East
Asia. But its effectiveness regarding the solution of the ongoing Rohingya crisis
will be limited because of following factors: The respective ASEAN countries
are (feeling) affected differently by the crisis. Subsequently, there will be
only limited political will and interests among several member states to solve
the issue via procedures/mechanism offered by ASEAN. Additionally, any solution
regarding consequences and courses of the Rohingya crisis will have a
remarkable impact on national sovereignty. This determines a factor which is
not in line with the original, founding spirit of ASEAN focusing on the
promotion of economic cooperation and development. However, theoretically the
new ASEAN Charter of 2007 would allow ASEAN
countries to interfere in the affairs of other member states in a vocal manner
despite the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.
In practical terms, the new
charter does not sufficiently equip ASEAN to deal with controversial issues and
certainly does not offer anything new that could help to convince Myanmar
to change its
‘Rohingya policy’. It is important to stress that, unlike the European Union
(EU), ASEAN is not a political project of unifying a regional entity including
more or less all spheres of state and society. Furthermore, there is an
imminent threat that bilateral conflicts (like Thailand-Cambodia) and asymmetries regarding
power and geographical location between ASEAN member states might hamper the
decision-making process of ASEAN. One only has to look at the tensed
India-Pakistan relations, paralysing more or less completely any substantial
regional cooperation via the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC), South Asia’s pendant to ASEAN. These phenomena could have severe
negative ramifications for a sustainable solution for the Rohingya crisis.
However, ASEAN could become important especially on the sub-regional level in
order to promote transnational cooperation. The fact, that the latest
conference in Bangkok was gaining a significant boost from the successful
bilateral talk between Malaysia and Indonesia on how to deal with the current
Rohingya problem, can be seen as an indication therefore.[5]Nevertheless, in order to find a
comprehensive and sustainable solution for the crisis including consequences as
well as courses, South Asian states must be included too. Therefore, a new
regional organisation or regime would be needed which serves as a platform for
dialogue between South Asia and South East Asia, including not only cultural
and economic but political and security dimensions too. The development of a
transnational coherent refugee policy, which is actually hard to find anywhere
in Asia (not even in Europe), could serve as a point of reference for new
regional collaboration. It could be something like an Organisation for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for Southern Asia based on a closer
cooperation between the areas of South and South East Asia (and beyond).
However, it is essential that such an institution is understood as an
instrument to strengthen the existing organisations of ASEAN and SAARC and not
to substitute them.
To conclude, the need of the hour
is that regional governments in South and South East Asia identify the unsolved
Rohingyas problem finally as a chance for constructive regional cooperation
instead of a roadblock for further collaboration. It seems that the actors
involved understand that an (extended) regional framework is needed to deal
with the complexity of the Rohingya crisis. Therefore, the conference marks a
significant step towards the institutionalization of mechanism in order to deal
not only with the problems of the current humanitarian crisis of the migrants
but could also serve as a road map for future challenges.
This article was first published at E-International Relations on 18th June 2015
Notes
[1] High-level representatives from the countries in the region,
namely Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, The
Philippines, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, and Thailand, as well as the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the
United Nations Resident Coordinator for Thailand attended as participants.
Representatives of Japan, Switzerland, and the United States of America
attended as observers.
[3] Paul Chambers in an interview with the author, 2.6.2014.
[5] Here it is interesting to note, that one of the crucial steps
forward in the ongoing crisis was done in Putrajaya (Malaysia) a couple of days
before the Bangkok conference tool place as Indonesia and Malaysia agreed “to provide temporary shelter to
thousands of migrants stranded at sea in the first breakthrough in the
humanitarian crisis confronting Southeast Asia”. These commitments were
encouraging other neighbors to get active too.
References
Ahmed, Imtiaz (2010), The Plight
of the Stateless Rohingyas. Responses of the State, Society & the
International Community. The University Press Limited: Dhaka.
Wolf, Siegfried O. Suffering from
Statelessness: Rohingyas in Bangladesh, APSA Comment, No. 9, 28. March 2014.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Siegfried O.
Wolf is Director of Research at
SADF; he was educated at the Institute of Political Science (IPW) and South
Asia Institute (SAI), both Heidelberg University. Additionally he is senior
researcher in International Relations and Comparative Politics at SAI as well
as a former research fellow at IPW and Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi,
India). Before starting his academic career, Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf worked for
various consultancies specialising in political communication, e.g. promoting
the interaction and cooperation between academic, political and economic
spheres. He is the co-author of ‘A Political and
Economic Dictionary of South Asia’ (Routledge: London, 2006), and
Deputy Editor of the ‘Heidelberg Papers
in South Asian and Comparative Politics’ (HPSACP). Furthermore, he
has worked as a consultant for the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation
and Development (BMZ), Germany.
