PKS Calls for Immediate Response to Growing Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Jakarta Globe, May 17, 2015

Rohingya migrants who recently arrived in Indonesia by boat wait in line to be
registered in Kuala Langsa, in Aceh province, on Sunday. The United Nations has
 called on countries around the Andaman Sea not to push back the thousands of
desperate Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar now stranded in
rickety boats, and to rescue them instead. (Reuters Photo/Roni Bintang)

Jakarta. Legislators from an Indonesian Islamic party have urged the government to address the Rohingya boatpeople crisis by issuing a regulation allowing Jakarta to assist the migrants, including by providing temporary shelter for them.

Fahri Hamzah, a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, said in Jakarta on Sunday that he was concerned with media reports that Indonesian officials had prohibited boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya migrants from reaching Indonesian shores.

He said he understood that officials were turning the boats back because of a lack of legal grounds to assist the refugees, but added this should not be the case.

“[Lack of regulation] should not be an excuse to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people from other nations,” said Fahri, also a deputy secretary general of the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS.

“Their suffering is evident. Do we, as a nation that believes in humanity, have the heart to see them suffer?”

He urged President Joko Widodo to issue a presidential regulation to specifically address the growing crisis at sea.

Fahri added that Indonesia should not treat the boatpeople the same way that neighboring Malaysia and Thailand are doing, by pushing the boats out of their national waters in what the International Organization for Migration has blasted as a perverse game of “maritime ping-pong.”

Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have been criticized for sending Rohingya refugees back to sea on rickety, unseaworthy boats after catching them in the countries’ waters or after also giving them food.

Indonesia and Malaysia last week saw a surge in refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar following a Thai government crackdown on human trafficking, under which the Thai authorities are blocking boats carrying migrants from landing.

Neither of the governments of the three countries has responded to an appeal made by the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, last week for an international search and rescue operation for the thousands believed to be stranded in Southeast Asian waters.

The UNHCR has said several thousand migrants were abandoned at sea by smugglers after the Thai crackdown, warning that the region is risking a “massive humanitarian crisis,” Reuters reported.

Another PKS legislator, Sukamta, said last week that Indonesia’s immigration law and international relations law actually addressed the matter of migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers.

He added, though, that the lack of derivative regulations meant there were no technical details for officials to adhere to in addressing actual problems.

“There is no presidential decree yet for those laws. The presidential decree should serve as an operational guideline for how we should treat refugees,” said Sukamta, a member of House Commission I, which oversees defense and foreign affairs.

“We want to make sure that this country, Indonesia, sides with humanity, at least by providing [the refugees] with temporary shelter. The government can do this as long as it has the will to,” he added as quoted by state-run news agency Antara.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman on Sunday said he would hold separate meetings this week with his Indonesian and Thai counterparts to discuss the Rohingya migrant crisis — including to work out a collective proposal under Asean and discuss it with Myanmar to resolve the Rohingya migrant crisis.

“As Asean chairman, we will discuss in depth, so that this problem will be solved. I hope Myanmar will sit with us to find solutions before we take it to the international level,” Anifah said, according to Malaysian newspaper The Star.

“If necessary, we will call for an emergency Asean meeting as suggested by the Prime Minister,’’ he  added.

University of Indonesia international law professor Hikmahanto Juwana said Indonesia must be able to convince Malaysia and Thailand to allow Rohingya migrants to enter their territories so that the ill sick could be given medical treatment.

“We’ve already done the right thing if we focus on the humanitarian aspect, especially for those who have entered Indonesia, such as those who have been rescued by Indonesian fishermen,” he said.

“Don’t ever send them back to sea; don’t give them food and then send them away like Thailand and Malaysia have done.”

He suggested Indonesia could set up a refugee camp on one of its thousands of islands, as it did for Vietnamese war refugees on Galang Island in Riau Islands province.

“Financially, we cannot run such an island alone. We would need help from others. We need to discuss this with the UNHCR,” Hikmahanto said.

Most importantly, he went on, the issue would never be resolved without serious discussions with Myanmar, which refuses to recognize the Rohingya or acknowledge the discrimination and violence they face in the country.

Myanmar has refused to attend crisis talks on the issue slated for May 29 in Thailand if other countries use the word “Rohingya” at the meeting, saying it does not recognize the term.

One of migrants housed in a makeshift camp in Langsa,

 Indonesia, shows the scars he says are from violence that erupted

 on the boats while still at sea. Photograph: Antonio Zambardino/

Guardian

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