By Max Constant
BANGKOK
On the eve of a regional meet on the Southeast Asian boat people crisis, the chief of the leading inter-governmental organization in migration has pleaded for those involved to take a positive view of those who have sacrificed their lives struggling to get to Malaysian shores.
Talking at a press briefing in Bangkok on Thursday, William Lacy Swing avoided directly criticizing Myanmar, from where the many Muslim Rohingya on board boats currently stuck at sea, are thought to have fled, and Thailand, which has refused to open temporary shelters on its soil.
“We have got to find a way to get away from the era of anti-migration sentiment,” said Swing, the director-general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
"Migration in history has been overwhelmingly positive,” he stated.
On Friday, representatives from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia and Malaysia will meet in Bangkok to discuss ways to solve a crisis that has seen 3,500 Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladeshi land on their shores.
The flood started after Thailand clamped down on smuggling routes through its southern region when it discovered 33 bodies of migrants buried along the Thai-Malaysian border May 1. Fearing arrest, smugglers abandoned most of the boats carrying the migrants in the Andaman Sea.
Malaysia and Indonesia have since announced that they will take in 7000 of the migrants andv place them in temporary shelters on the condition that the international community either resettle them in third countries or help repatriate them to their country of origin within one year.
Thailand, however, has not signed up, its navy instead providing humanitarian help and saying it will guide them “to their country of destination,” while its prime minister - General Prayuth Chan-ocha - said this week that all migrants coming to Thai shores will be categorised as "illegal" and detained at immigration centers.
Swing underlined Thursday that the IOM was deeply opposed to Thailand's stance.
“We are very opposed to criminalizing irregular migrants,” he said. “Most of these people are desperate. We are opposed to detention.”
He similarly applauded Myanmar's presence at the meeting, but avoided any criticism. The country's discrimination against its Rohingya community is considered to be a causal factor in the exodus.
Myanmar's government agreed reluctantly to participate in the Bangkok meeting after declaring that it “will not accept the allegations by some that Myanmar is the source of the problems."
Swing underline “There are very few things in the migration field that can be solved alone."
"Myanmar has to be engaged in any solutions,” he added.
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, an organization that has worked on the Rohingya issue for a decade, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday that no boats had landed in Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand since May 20, but experts say that there are still some at sea.
“From what I know, there are still two boats each carrying around 350 migrants on board, probably in Thai waters,” she said.
Alongside representatives from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia and Malaysia, at Friday's meet will also be observers from the United States and Switzerland, and representatives from the IOM, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime.
