Fri 4 Jan 2013
Filed under: ASEAN,News
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.