Jakarta Globe, May 17, 2015
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| 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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