Asian Nations Struggle as Thousands of Migrants Approach by Sea
By THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — The Indonesian Navy turned back a ship laden with migrants on Tuesday as experts warned that thousands of would-be arrivals from Myanmar and Bangladesh risked being stranded at sea.

The wooden ship was carrying thousands of passengers and had run out of fuel, said Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, a spokesman for the Indonesian military. He said boarding the vessel would have been risky because of the large number of people on board.

“We finally decided to give them enough fuel and food so they could get to their destinations, to Malaysia,” he said. “They should not have entered Indonesian waters without our permission.”

The Thai government, which began a crackdown in recent weeks on human trafficking networks, announced on Tuesday that it had convened a meeting with representatives from governments around the region to help with “exchanges of information and intelligence on the current situation on irregular migration by sea.” But the meeting will not take place until the end of May.

More than 1,500 migrants have come ashore in Indonesia and Malaysia over the past three days, leaving governments struggling to respond to the wave of refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar and others leaving Bangladesh for better job prospects in wealthier countries.

The crisis has echoes of Europe’s problems curtailing the stream of migrants making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the Middle East and North Africa, but unlike the European Union, countries in Southeast Asia appear to be going it alone in their response to the flotillas of desperate people.

“This issue is quite urgent,” said Panitan Wattanayagorn, a government adviser and security expert at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “It’s a very clear humanitarian issue — you need to rescue these people — but you have political complications and economic complications.”

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is preparing to form a regionwide single economic community by the end of the year, “doesn’t have a proper mechanism and is struggling with this,” Mr. Panitan said.

As a measure of the minimal regional cooperation, one of the leading sources of information on the Asian exodus is a Belgian woman, Chris Lewa, who tracks migration in the Andaman Sea. Ms. Lewa estimates that 6,000 to 20,000 migrants are still at sea and is following the fate of one particular boat believed to be anchored somewhere off the coast of southern Thailand or the northern Malaysian Peninsula.

Ms. Lewa has been in touch with passengers on the boat who communicate with her using a Thai mobile phone. The captain and crew of the boat fled on Sunday and the 350 passengers, including 50 women and 84 children, ran out of food three days ago, the passengers told her. “They can see land on the horizon,” she said.

She asked a journalist to contact the Malaysian authorities to help find the abandoned boat. “You can’t just let these people die at sea,” she said.

The interception of boats in territorial waters is a gray area of international law, according to the United Nations. “An internationally accepted definition of interception does not exist,” says a document from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency asks governments not to return refugees to countries where they are at risk of persecution. The issue is clouded by the question of whether boat people are economic migrants or political refugees.

The migrants from Myanmar are mostly members of the Rohingya ethnic group, a Muslim people who have been persecuted by the government and by radical Buddhists in western Myanmar.

More than 1,000 migrants came ashore on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi on Monday. An additional 582 landed Sunday near Lhokseumawe, Indonesia, on the island of Sumatra.

In 2002, dozens of governments and United Nations agencies established the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime. The organization’s mission is to “reduce irregular migration in the Asia and Pacific region,” according to its website.

Yet despite an estimated 25,000 migrants in desperate conditions boarding boats this year from Myanmar and Bangladesh, there has been little evidence of regional cooperation. No one answered the phone at the Bali Process regional support office in Bangkok on Tuesday.

Many of the boats were destined for Thailand, a way station for migrants whose final destination is often Malaysia.

The Myanmar government until now has rejected multilateral talks on the issue. Sriprapha Petcharamesree, a former Thai representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, describes continued obstruction by Myanmar at regional meetings. The issue of the Rohingya is proposed but not discussed because Myanmar delegates argue that the Rohingya are not Southeast Asian people and that discussing the matter is interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

“I have been arguing that it doesn’t matter where they are from,” Ms. Sriprapha said. “To me, as a human rights worker, it doesn’t matter where they are from — they are now in our territory. They are entitled to our protection.”

Unlike in Europe, migration issues are often swept under the carpet in Southeast Asia because they are considered too contentious, Ms. Sriprapha said. “The difference is that they can discuss it openly, not like us,” she said.

Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country, has in recent years turned a blind eye to the illegal immigration of the refugees, who are also Muslim.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 620 people have died at sea during voyages from the Bay of Bengal since October. The deaths were “primarily as a result of starvation, dehydration and beatings by boat crews,” the agency said in a report released last week. The agency based its findings on interviews with migrants who reached Thailand and Malaysia.

“A few interviewees also told of entire boats sinking, but there was no way to verify such reports or if, and how many, lives were lost,” the agency said.

Around half of the people who took the journey this year originated from Myanmar, according to United Nations estimates. The other half came from Bangladesh, some of whom also identify as Rohingya and are living in refugee camps on the Bangladeshi side.

6000緬孟難民 困麻六甲海峽

大批被東南亞人蛇集團棄置海上的移民，過去兩天上陸而稍獲安全，但估計有六千孟加拉人與緬甸的洛興雅穆斯林仍然困處海上的擁擠木殼船裡，食物與飲水都逐漸不足，處境險惡。

其中一艘船在周一上午抵達印尼水域，印尼海軍把它擋下，給了食物和飲水，要它轉往馬來西亞。

由於擔心木船可能很快載著屍體漂流上岸，聯合國高級難民專員、美國和另外好幾個外國政府與國際組織召開緊急會議，但沒有達成任何立即到麻六甲海峽拯救那些船的計畫。

有個問題是，一旦啟動救援，要如何安置船上的洛興雅族。緬甸政府不給這個族群公民身分，其他國家則久已憂心，接納了其中少數人，將會招來絡繹不絕的貧窮移民。

出走者大多想去馬來西亞，但這個地區近來加強打擊人蛇集團，人蛇經紀紛避風頭，造成移民下不了船，有的家庭付出二千美元(台幣6萬2000元)，還是被丟在海上。

麻六甲海峽與附近的國際水域，估計仍有六千洛興雅與孟加拉人困在大大小小的木船裡，食物飲水兩缺，健康惡化，已經傳出數十人喪生。

四艘載著將近六百人的船在印尼西部登陸後，第五艘載了數百人，周一上午被指示轉向。印尼海軍發言人說，該船要去馬來西亞，迷路到印尼。

失根的洛興雅族

洛興雅族信仰伊斯蘭教，約有130萬人，在佛教主導的緬甸久受政府歧視，他們家族世居緬甸，但緬甸政府至今視他們為來自孟加拉的非法移民。

過去三年，對這個族群的攻擊已造成280人死亡，14萬人流亡，他們如今處於種族隔離狀態，在緬甸西部若開邦首府實兌郊外的難民營度日，不能上學，亦無健診。

因在緬甸處境不堪，又難就業，他們出現越戰以來最大的出走潮，2012年中期以來，估計已有10多萬男女老幼上船。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/world/asia/asian-nations-struggle-as-thousands-of-migrants-approach-by-sea.html

2015-05-12．聯合晚報．A6．國際焦點．編譯彭淮棟