WEEK 1.
Euan McKirdy and Saima Mohsin, CNN
Updated 0435 GMT (1135 HKT) May 20, 2015
Meetings between the foreign ministries of Indonesia, Thailand and
Malaysia are taking place Wednesday in an effort to ward off a looming
humanitarian disaster. Thousands of Rohingya migrants remain stranded in the
Andaman Sea, while authorities around the region refuse to take them in.
Updated 0435 GMT (1135 HKT) May 20, 2015
Meetings between the foreign ministries of Indonesia, Thailand and
Malaysia are taking place Wednesday in an effort to ward off a looming
humanitarian disaster. Thousands of Rohingya migrants remain stranded in the
Andaman Sea, while authorities around the region refuse to take them in.
The scale of the crisis is still unknown. No organization, from
the UNHCR and the International Organization
for Migration (IOM) to Rohingya rights groups, knows how many boats there are.
The number of migrants stranded aboard these ships, however, is estimated to be
in the thousands.
Despite a plea from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, urging
Southeast Asian leaders to uphold "international law" and "the
obligation of rescue at sea," Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are
currently refusing to accept the "boat people" -- men, women and
children who remain on ships, with rapidly dwindling provisions.
Thailand supplied them with food and water in the middle of last
week, the last confirmed resupply.
CNN understands that the ships, which remain at sea, are trying to
elude patrols and the refugees are effectively being held prisoner by their
smugglers. Official sources, who have requested not to be named, say the
smugglers may be telling people they can only accept landing rights in Malaysia
as the smugglers are possibly Thai and wish to avoid what has become a very
high-profile issue.
Thailand will host a regional conference on May 29, where the
issue will be high up on the agenda.
More immediately, Malaysia will play host to three-way meetings
Wednesday between the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Despite its pivotal role in the crisis, the Myanmar government will not send a
representative.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has said that while the humanitarian disaster
at sea is the most pressing concern, a State Department official tells CNN the
fundamental issue lies in Myanmar.
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor, Tom Malinowski, told CNN's Hala Gorani that the U.S. has offered assistance
and is urging the governments of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to work
together to conduct search and rescue missions, and to allow the refugees to
land.
"Our first responsibility is to save lives and that is
something that has to be done in the coming days and hours. In the longer run,
the biggest challenge is to get at the root cause of this crisis, the treatment
of the Rohingya population inside Myanmar."
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is home to a large Rohingya
population, particularly in Rakhine state, in the west of the country.
Clashes in 2012 between the state's Buddhist community and
Rohingya Muslims, a long-oppressed linguistic and ethnic minority in this
majority Buddhist country, left hundreds dead and more than 140,000 people
homeless.
The United Nations estimates more than 100,000 Rohingya have fled
Myanmar by sea since ethnic and sectarian violence erupted.
The government has forcibly segregated Rohingya from the rest of
the population in Rakhine state. They live confined in enclaves -- rural
ghettos, in effect -- from which they are not allowed to leave. The government
refuses to recognize them as a legitimate ethnic group and as citizens of
Myanmar.
Those who have the means to leave do so by perilous sea journey.
They are taken out on small boats to cargo ships by smugglers, mostly bound for
Malaysia.
The government has said it will not participate in Thailand's
regional conference on May 29. Zaw Htay, a director in the office of Myanmar
President Thein Sein, told CNN: "We will not participate in the
discussions next week if the name 'Rohingya' is mentioned.
"If we recognize the name, then they will think they are
citizens of Myanmar... Myanmar cannot take all the blame for these people who
are now at sea. We need long term (solutions) and you can't just explain it by
saying Myanmar is the source of
the problem. A long term solution is needed."
A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, published in
state media on May 19, points to illegal smuggling as the root cause of the problem,
and says that the Burmese government "shares concerns expressed by the
international community," and that it is "fully prepared to work with
the international community, on humanitarian grounds, to alleviate the
sufferings of the smuggled victims." The statement makes no mention or
acknowledgment of Rohingya claims to citizenship.
_________________________________________________________
2015.05.23文茜的世界周報(from: youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w87M4Mm7kMw
Structure
of the Lead
|
|
WHO
|
Myanmar's
Rohingya
|
WHEN
|
May
25, 2015
|
WHAT
|
Rohingya
were eager to be accepted
|
WHY
|
Rohingya
was forcibly segregated and they fled Myanmar
|
WHERE
|
Myanmar
|
HOW
|
Not
given
|
Keywords:
- ward off 避開；避免
- rohingya 羅興亞人
- strand (v.)使擱淺；處於困境
- UNHCR 聯合國難民署
- plea(n.)請求
- dwindling 漸漸減少
- uphold(v.)堅持
- provision(n.)供應
- elude(v.)躲避
- patrol(n.)巡邏兵
- smuggler(n.)走私者；走私船
- high-profile(adj.)引人注目的
- pivotal(adj.)重要的；中樞的
- representative(n.)代表；代理人
- pressing(adj.)迫切的
- linguistic(adj.)語言的
- ethnic(adj)種族(上)的
- sectarian (adj.)派別的
- forcibly(adv.)強制地
- segregated (adj.)種族隔離的
- enclave(n.)飛地
- ghettos(n)少數民族居住區；貧民區
- legitimate(adj.)合法的
- perilous(adj.)危險的；冒險的
- bound for 準備前往……
- alleviate(v.)減輕；緩和
