By LAWI WENG
A spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that there were “positive indications” that Thailand would respond soon to a request for access to detained Rohingya boat people following a meeting on Thursday between the Thai foreign minister and a representative of the UN agency.
Kitty McKinsey, a spokesperson for the UNHCR in Bangkok, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya did not formally grant the request during his meeting with UNHCR representative Raymond Hall at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but, “There was obviously a wish to cooperate with the UNHCR.”
“We have not had any formal permission yet from the Thai authorities, but we have had positive indications that we will have a formal response soon,” said McKinsey.
The UNHCR asked the Thai government to grant access to the boat people for interviews last week. The agency said it believes 126 Rohingya are in the custody of Thai authorities.
“We have asked for access to them to do a fact-finding mission to find out exactly who they are, where they came from, and what their protection needs are,” said McKinsey.
Speaking to reporters in Bangkok, Kasit said that he had agreed “in principle” to give the UNHCR access to the Rohingya. He added, however, that the Foreign Ministry would discuss the matter with Thai security bodies, “and when we reach an agreement with them we will give the answer to UNHCR so that they can send a representative to meet [the Rohingya].
The meeting came a day after a Thai court in the southern province of Ranong decided to deport 62 Rohingya boat people who had been arrested by the Thai navy and charged with illegally entering the country. They were also sentenced to five days in jail because they were unable to pay a fine of 1,000 baht (US $28) each for illegal entry.
The detained asylum seekers appealed to the court not to send them back to Burma, where they said they would face severe discrimination. Many of them had severe injuries that they said had been inflicted by the Burmese army.
On Thursday, a senior Burmese official speaking to Agence France-Presse denied that the Rohingya were from Burma. “These so-called Rohingya are Bangladeshi who left their state for a better life, trying to get sympathy from Western countries by claiming to be Rohingya from Myanmar [Burma],” the official said.
“It’s not our problem. It’s the problem of Bangladesh,” he added.
According to Thailand’s English-language daily, Bangkok Post, 4,880 Rohingya were arrested last year for illegally entering Thailand and 90 percent are still waiting to be repatriated.
Two major US-based rights groups, Refugees International and Human Rights Watch, claim that the Thai navy mistreated hundreds of Rohingya boat people from Burma, forcing many back out to sea with little food or water. The groups said as many as 300 Rohingya are missing.
Thailand has denied the charges, but in a statement released on its Web site on Wednesday, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “should concrete evidence be presented, the Thai Government would seriously look into such cases.”
The statement added that “the Minister of Foreign Affairs looks forward to discussing this issue, and Thailand’s long-standing humanitarian cooperation with the UNHCR, with High Commissioner for Refugees [Antonio] Guterres when they meet in Geneva on February 2, 2009.”
Thailand has also moved to increase cooperation among regional neighbors to address the Rohingya issue. Last week, Foreign Ministry officials met with envoys from India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Burma to discuss the exodus of the Rohingya from Burma.
Since the early 1990s, a growing number of Rohingya refugees have taken to boats, many not sea worthy, and fled Burma and Bangladesh for political and economic reasons, trying to reach Thailand and Malaysia.
Experts say the number of boat people may increase this year due to the impact of the global economic downturn on one of the poorest regions of Asia.
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