Rangoon's first indication of any responsibility
Cha-am - Burma has agreed to take back the Rohingya Muslim boat people if they are identified as ethnic Bengalis born in Burma, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said yesterday.
Speaking to reporters after a session with Asean foreign ministers, Kasit said the government of Burma did not recognise Rohingya as one of the 135 official ethnic groups residing in their country.
But if it can be proved that these so-called Rohingya boat people are ethnic Bengalis, they will take them back, he said.
The statement marked the first time that the Burmese military government had acknowledged that it had anything to do with the problem of Rohingya boat people, thousands of whom have landed on the shores of Thailand and Indonesia and been found floating in the territorial waters of neighbouring countries, including India.
Kasit said the Asean Secretariat would serve as coordinator for countries burdened with the arrival of Rohingya boat people.
The secretariat will work with Burmese authorities to identify the ethnic Bengalis, said Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.
"We are going to define the issue with the [Burmese] authorities as to who these people are, how to refer to them and categorise them and how many of them there are", Surin told reporters.
The Asean ministers want to know how many Rohingya are in each country and where they really come from, he said.
"Whether or not we can solve the issue 100 per cent we don't know, but we do hope it is the beginning of a serious search for a solution," he said.
Kasit said the issue of Rohingya boat people would be discussed further at the Bali Process meeting on April 14-15 on that Indonesian resort island.
The Bali Process, co-chaired and founded by Indonesia and Australia, brings participants together to work on practical measures to combat people-smuggling, human-trafficking and related transnational crime in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Bali meeting will handle also those who are not counted as ethnic Bengalis, Kasit said.
The plight of the Rohingya boat people was brought to Asean's attention when the Thai Navy was accused of towing nearly 1,000 of them out to sea and abandoning them with little food and water.
Thailand put the issue to Asean since many countries are involved, including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Source: The Nation
