Boat With Hundreds of Migrants From Myanmar Heads Farther Out to Sea
By THOMAS FULLERMAY 15, 2015
Migrants from Bangladesh helped a friend who fainted after arrival Friday in Langsa, Indonesia. Thousands from Myanmar and Bangladesh are on the move. Credit Binsar Bakkara/Associated Press
But a Thai reporter who witnessed the boat’s departure said that some of those aboard did not appear to want to leave.
The vessel, which passengers said had been turned away from Malaysia, is part of a rickety flotilla from Myanmar and Bangladesh carrying thousands of migrants, many of them Rohingya Muslims, fleeing persecution or economic hardship, with no country willing to take them in.
Another boat carrying at least 660 migrants landed in Indonesia on Friday morning after being rescued by local fishermen, a United Nations official said. And an Indonesian military spokesman said that the Indonesian Navy had intercepted a third boat carrying hundreds of others in the Strait of Malacca on Friday morning and was preventing it from coming ashore.
Rohingya migrants swam to collect food supplies dropped by a Thai Army helicopter in the Andaman Sea on Thursday. Credit Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In an escalating regionwide crisis, an estimated 6,000 to 20,000 people fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh are said to be on boats in the Andaman Sea and the Strait of Malacca. Some have been abandoned by their traffickers with little food or water.
In a statement on Friday, the United Nations’ human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, rebuked Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia for turning back the vessels. “I am appalled at reports that Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have been pushing boats full of vulnerable migrants back out to sea, which will inevitably lead to many avoidable deaths,” he said. “The focus should be on saving lives, not further endangering them.”
VIDEO 1:00 - Myanmar Migrants Spotted in Andaman Sea
A wooden fishing boat carrying several hundred migrants from Myanmar was seen adrift west of the Thai mainland on Thursday. By Thomas Fuller on Publish Date May 14, 2015. Photo by Thomas Fuller/The New York Times.
Mr. al-Hussein also emphasized Myanmar’s responsibility in the unfolding crisis, saying that until its government addressed “the institutional discrimination against the Rohingya population, including equal access to citizenship, this precarious migration will continue.”
The boat left Thailand’s waters Friday after the Thai Navy repaired its engine and provided food, water, batteries and enough fuel for 33 hours of travel, said Lt. Cmdr. Veerapong Nakprasit, the commander of a Thai naval base here.
The boat is without qualified crew; the captain and five other crew members abandoned the vessel last week, according to passengers. But Commander Veerapong said the navy had trained the passengers “so they can reach their dream destination. We have verified that they can navigate on their own.”
He did not specify where the boat was headed. But the governor of Satun Province in Thailand, Dechrat Simsiri, said the passengers wanted to go to Malaysia. “They didn’t want to come to Thailand because we are in the middle of a heavy crackdown on human traffickers and they knew they would be arrested and sent back to Myanmar,” Mr. Simsiri said.
Migrants helped a friend who fainted after being rescued from the sea in Kuala Langsa, Indonesia, on Friday. Credit Hotli Simanjuntak/European Pressphoto Agency
Several passengers also told reporters on Thursday that they had boarded the boat three months ago in the hope of reaching Malaysia. But they said the Malaysian authorities had turned away their boat on Wednesday.
Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation, has quietly admitted tens of thousands of Rohingya. But after more than 1,500 migrants came ashore in Malaysia and Indonesia in the past week, both countries declared their intention to turn away any more boats carrying migrants unless they were in jeopardy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How Myanmar and Its Neighbors Are Responding to the Rohingya Crisis
In a statement on Friday, Najib Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia, said his government was “taking the necessary actions to deal with this humanitarian crisis.”
Jeffrey Labovitz, head of Thailand operations for the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organization that is helping the migrants, said that the Thai government had offered to bring the boat ashore and allow people to disembark. But he said that individuals on the ship who identified themselves as representatives of the passengers told the authorities that they preferred to try again to reach Malaysia.
Thapanee Ietsrichai, a Thai reporter who witnessed the boat’s departure from Thai waters, confirmed that a man who was acting as the leader of the passengers and gave his name as Selim said to Thai sailors that they did not want to come ashore in Thailand and wanted to travel to Malaysia.
But Ms. Thapanee added that women on board were weeping as the boat departed. “They did not appear to want to leave,” she wrote in an Instagram posting .. https://instagram.com/thapanee3miti/ . She said she and the Thai sailors “could not hold back their tears” as the ship moved farther out to sea.
The green and red fishing boat, packed with men, women and children squatting on the deck, flew a tattered black flag on a makeshift bamboo mast with the words, in English, “We are Myanmar Rohingya.” Passengers said there were 400 migrants aboard the boat.
Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, which monitors trafficking in the Andaman Sea and had been in contact with a passenger on the boat with a mobile phone, said the boat appeared to have taken on the Rohingya passengers around March 1. She said other vessels linked to the traffickers delivered water and food to the boat during the voyage.
Passengers said that 10 people had died during the journey and that their bodies had been thrown overboard. But Ms. Lewa said passengers have given differing accounts of how many people died during the journey. “It’s always difficult to get the true story,” she said. “They are so traumatized.”
Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Lipe Island, Joe Cochrane from Paya Bateung, Indonesia, and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva.
Despite Critics, Support for Suu Kyi Strong Before Election
By esther htsuan and jocelyn gecker, associated press KAWHMU, Myanmar — Oct 30, 2015, 2:16 AM ET
Aung San Suu Kyi's star power has fallen among fellow Myanmar politicians critical of her management style and decision-making, and among fans abroad disenchanted with the Nobel Peace laureate's relative silence on human-rights abuses. But she's as popular as ever amid the muddy roads and ramshackle huts of her constituency and across much of the country.
In big cities and remote rural corners, the red flag of Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy is much more common than signs of support for the ruling party. She's expected to carry the NLD to victory in parliamentary elections Nov. 8, even though the 70-year-old is barred by the constitution from becoming president and it's unclear who will take the job if her party wins.
"Mother Suu is our hero. We want her to be our leader," said Myint Thein, a 54-year-old rice farmer in a village of Kawhmu township, Suu Kyi's impoverished constituency south of Yangon.
People here shrug their shoulders when asked what Suu Kyi has done for them since they elected her to Parliament in 2012. The tiny village of Wartheinkha, where Myint Thein lives, has no running water or electricity. Most residents are uneducated farmers living in shacks built of bamboo and palm leaves. Yet the people here, like many in Myanmar, see Suu Kyi's rise in politics as part of a national narrative.
Suu Kyi is the daughter of the country's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, who was assassinated by rivals in 1947, when she was just 2. After many years abroad, she returned in 1988 to Myanmar, previously known as Burma, just as an uprising erupted against the military regime. She was thrust into the forefront of the pro-democracy movement, which was brutally crushed by the junta. The military kept her under house arrest for 15 of the next 23 years, which ultimately may have only enhanced her popularity.
"I love her because she is the daughter of our beloved Gen. Aung San, and she sacrificed a lot for this country," said another villager, 32-year-old Mya Thandar. "We know that when Mother Suu is in a position of power, she will improve our lives."
She is called "Mother Suu" by many who see her as having mothered Myanmar through dark, difficult times at the expense of her own family: a husband, now deceased, and two sons left behind in Britain. She is also known respectfully as "The Lady."
The junta held her under house arrest for the last two national elections, in 1990 and 2010. The NLD won the first of those, but the military annulled the results and refused to hand over power. Suu Kyi's party boycotted the 2010 election as neither free nor fair, but after the country began a series of political reforms, the NLD took part in the 2012 by-election in which Suu Kyi won a parliamentary seat.
The military will retain substantial control over the country even with a sweeping NLD victory next month. The constitution, written by the junta before it ceded power, allocates 25 percent of seats in Parliament to the military. So, for the NLD to be in power, it would have to win 67 percent of the available seats — either by itself or in a coalition — to have an overall simple majority.
The 2008 constitution also bars Suu Kyi from becoming president because of a provision viewed as custom-made for her that says anyone whose spouse or children are foreigners cannot become president. Suu Kyi's late husband was British, as are her two sons. Changing that requirement would take 75 percent support from Parliament, meaning it is practically impossible without military support.
Visibly confident heading into the elections, Suu Kyi brushed off the constitutional hurdle in a recent interview, saying she has a plan to lead the country from behind the scenes.
"I've made it quite clear that if the NLD wins the elections and we form a government, I'm going to be the leader of that government whether or not I'm the president," Suu Kyi told Indian television channel India Today in an interview earlier this month.
In her quest for political power, Suu Kyi has been criticized for sacrificing her principles.
Suu Kyi's many supporters overseas have been dismayed that she has said little about the plight of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority who have faced decades of persecution and have been treated even worse since the end of the junta. Rioting by Buddhist mobs has left more than 200 dead and driven well over 100,000 Rohingya from their homes. Rohingya were allowed to vote in 2010, but are being denied this year.
Suu Kyi has defended her reaction as a means of political survival in the predominantly Buddhist country, where there is much animosity toward the 1.3 million Rohingya. Despite her Nobel, she says, she is a politician and never sought to be a human rights campaigner.
"What people would like to hear are flaming words of condemnation. And I'm not up for condemnation," Suu Kyi said in the India Today interview. "What I am trying to achieve is reconciliation, and we've got to keep to that path because there is a long future ahead of us."
At home, activists, intellectuals and other former allies have expressed growing disenchantment over Suu Kyi's political choices and an increasingly "authoritarian leadership style," Min Zin, a U.S.-based Myanmar expert, wrote recently in an article for Foreign Policy.
Many have criticized Suu Kyi's decision to ally herself with a former foe, Thura Shwe Mann, a reform-minded former army general who was considered a strong candidate for president.
Suu Kyi had banked on the political friendship to help forge a post-election coalition that she hoped might push through reforms to the constitution, analysts say. But the move backfired, angering conservatives in the military establishment and prompting the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party to purge Shwe Mann in August from his position as head of the ruling party.
"The strategy of Aung San Suu Kyi is not working," said Kyee Myint, a lawyer and former NLD member who says she has become unpredictable in her pursuit of power. "Because the road she used to walk was straight, everyone could see where she was headed. But now she has deviated from her path."
Her party also faced criticism after its selection of candidates for the Nov. 8 election, which completely excluded Muslims and largely excluded former political prisoners from a group known as the 88 Generation. The group got its name for organizing the 1988 pro-democracy protests that launched Suu Kyi's political career, and many of its members are among the country's most respected democracy crusaders.
It was one of several moves seen as an attempt by Suu Kyi to prevent competition from rivals. She has also refused to cultivate or name any successor, despite her inability to become president.
"Why has The Lady chosen to burn bridges like this?" said Min Zin. "She believes she can lead the NLD to a landslide election triumph. She is firmly convinced that she can rely on her personal standing to carry her to victory."
In a country without opinion polls, voter sentiment is difficult to gauge. More than 6,000 candidates from around 90 political parties are competing for 330 lower house seats, 168 upper house seats and 644 state and regional parliamentary seats.
But Yan Myo Thein, a prominent Yangon-based political commentator, says criticism of Suu Kyi is not shared by many voters.
"The majority of people in Myanmar want change," he said. "For those people who want change, The Lady is the only choice."
———
Gecker reported from Bangkok. AP writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report from Yangon, Myanmar.
Thailand considers defamation case against human trafficking investigator.. bit ..
The south-east Asian nation argues it has made significant efforts to combat the trade, pressing charges against more than 100 people, including an army general, on counts of human trafficking after dozens of bodies were found in a jungle prison camp earlier this year.
Many of the exhumed bodies were believed to be Rohingya Muslims, a long-persecuted minority who have been fleeing Myanmar.
The country’s military rulers claim to have embraced democracy – and will soon transfer formal power to the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But an unsolved double murder may suggest the Burmese army is not yet ready to surrender control
Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi takes part in talks with Myanmar’s military leaders in April 2015. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters
Police reinforcements have been called in to help guard a village in central Myanmar where religious tensions are running high after a Buddhist mob destroyed a mosque.
Authorities said an angry mob of around 200 Buddhists rampaged through a Muslim area of a village in Bago province following an argument between neighbours over the building of a Muslim school.
It is the latest flare-up of anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar, which has seen sporadic bouts of religious bloodshed since 2012, with a surge of Buddhist nationalism presenting a key challenge for Aung San Suu Kyi's new government.
Own Lwin, the local police chief, said the atmosphere remained tense with around 100 police officers deployed to keep the peace.
He said there had been rumours that there might be more unrest, adding that no arrests have been made over the destruction of the mosque.
Win Shwe, the mosque's secretary, said Muslim residents feared for their safety and were planning to move to a nearby town until the tension cools.
"Our situation is not safe and now we are planning to leave the village ... We still feel afraid," he said.
The worst religious violence struck central Myanmar and western Rakhine State, which is home to the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, tens of thousands of whom still languish in displacement camps after rioting.
Hardline monks and Buddhist nationalists fiercely oppose moves to recognise the Rohingya as an official minority and insist on calling them "Bengalis" — shorthand for illegal migrants from the border with Bangladesh.
Ms Suu Kyi, a vocal champion for human rights, has been criticised for not taking a stronger stance on the Rohingya or the abuse they face.
This month the UN warned violations against the group could amount to "crimes against humanity".
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, now leading Myanmar's first civilian government in decades, asked for "space" while her administration sought to build trust between religious communities.
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