Beyond a few obvious facts, working out what to do with the many thousands of "boat people" who have been stuck in the vast sea straddling South and Southeast Asia in pursuit of jobs and better livelihoods is difficult to come by.
These new waves of boat people have cast the international spotlight on longstanding regional human smuggling and persecution and poverty of the hapless victims. Tracing their origins, handling their sufferings at sea and finding longer-term solutions pose challenges for the countries involved and for the international community more broadly. The flight and plight of these boat people in the Indian Ocean have become an intractable conundrum which must be overseen and mitigated by a regional framework with international backing that goes beyond any single country.
What is known is that loads of people from the areas in the vicinity of Bangladesh and Myanmar have traversed the adjacent sea lanes in rickety fishing boats towards Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Their geographic origins, ethnic makeup, destination aims, and future aspirations are a matter of contention among the countries in question. Whether to call them migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, let alone "Rohingya" or "Bengali", is similarly contentious.
Yet it is unmistakeable that these boat people are exploited by a hidden, illicit regional trade in labour involving physical maltreatment and abuse by greedy and cruel middlemen, with the collusion and corruption of authorities from countries concerned. It is also clear, in view of the risks taken and hardship conditions endured, that they must be escaping conditions of poverty and/or persecution. Moreover, the issue of the boat people has become politicised at regional, bilateral and domestic levels, while lacking international consensus for better handling.
That much is agreed. The rest is murky and disputed, and remains to be worked out.
Myanmar is the country that has been at the centre of the controversy. It is said that the vast majority of the boat people derive from Myanmar's western Rakhine state, a persecuted Muslim minority whom the country's Buddhist majority deeply detest and the Myanmar government refuses to recognise with proper citizen and residential rights. The boat people crisis has stoked old wounds of political confrontation within Myanmar between the military-dominated government and dissident groups inside and outside the country who have opposed Myanmar's reform path since August 2011.
Dissident groups have seized on the opportunity to pounce on Myanmar's government and the opposition alike, not sparing even the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi for not speaking up for the "Rohingya" boat people. For most Myanmar people, however, the Rohingya are not the problem as these are "Bengalis" who should return to Bangladesh. Myanmar thus does not favour a regional framework to deal with the boat people because most Myanmar people, government and opposition do not recognise the Rohingya.
If the global and local dissident groups want to deal with Myanmar government, opposition and society more effectively, they will have to be more nuanced and respectful. The first step, as ever, is to stop calling Myanmar Burma and Yangon Rangoon. Grinding old axes against the Myanmar authorities will get the boat people nowhere. Myanmar's reform pathways are bumpy and flawed but still an infinite improvement on conditions and prospects in the recent past prior to 2011.
Evidence from interviews of boat people who have landed near Aceh in Indonesia indicates that many of them are from Bangladesh. Even Bangladeshi media openly called for its government to do a better job of eradicating extreme poverty to entice desolate Bangladeshis not to leave in the first place. And Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has publicly said that both middlemen traffickers and the Bangladeshi immigrants have tainted the country's image. Clearly, the narrative of the boat people is lopsided and more attention needs to be focused on Bangladesh and what it has done and not done as a source of the boat people's plight.
For Malaysia, the issue is as much domestic as regional. As chair of Asean, Malaysia cannot afford to let the crisis of the boat people, some of whose remains have been unearthed in mass graves, derail its regional leadership agenda and its chance to shine, especially in the Asean Community (AC) launch year. The Asean chairmanship is also seen as Prime Minister Najib Razak's bid to boost his embattled domestic political position, as he is challenged by corruption scandals and manoeuvres within the ruling Barisan Nasional. Success from Asean's regional efforts and the AC launch can shore up Mr Najib's standing. This is why Malaysia has been more forthcoming in allowing detention centres and camps to be set up to accommodate boat people coming ashore.
Indonesia has also been more accommodating. As the largest Muslim country and the up-and-coming third-largest democracy in the world, with a fresh president who wants to prove himself worthy at home and not to be taken lightly abroad, Indonesia can hardly turn a callous eye to the predominantly Muslim boat people. For Indonesia, it is about the spirit and community of Islam as much as the humanitarian imperative. If Malaysia and Indonesia can see eye to eye and join hands to alleviate the boat people's sufferings, the way ahead will be more promising.
Thailand is another by-standing country with direct stakes. It is a notorious transit country that spawns a wide variety of transnational crimes and the trafficking of migrant labour, drugs and other illicit trades. Having provided sanctuaries and succour to countless refugees from war and conflict in Indochina in the 1970s and 80s and to Myanmar's minority groups fleeing conflicts since, Thailand is not a country to be accused of cold, careless treatment of suffering neighbours.
The boat people crisis has fed into Thailand's own domestic political polarisation. The more conservative and pro-coup segments of Thai society have been dead set against allowing the boat people to set foot on Thai soil, whereas the other anti-coup and pro-election side has been more sympathetic. With Malaysia and Indonesia more accommodating towards the boat people, Thailand's geographical luck is coming into play. If diplomatic skills and political acumen can be deployed, Thailand is likely to be one step removed from the centre of the action, a transit and facilitation point with adequate humanitarian assistance without location commitments. Positioning naval vessels in the sea to provide humanitarian supplies and medical and other assistance for the boat people is a step in the right direction.
After a year of government from a putsch and relative alienation from the international community, Thailand's military-led regime is now banking on a regional role with international involvement to address the boat people crisis. If done right, it will be the first time the coup government gains broad, implicit recognition from the international community. If handled ineptly, the coup government will be demonstrating its true colours.
The stakes are also high for Asean. The 10-member grouping initially displayed its usual ineffectual stance towards the boat people. But once self-interests of the Asean chair took hold and regional peer pressure from international prodding escalated, Asean is coming round little by little. It will not be able to go all the way in solving the boat people crisis but collective Asean efforts among Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, with quiet personal diplomacy and nuanced persuasion, may be enough to entice Myammar to fully take part in the regional framework for boat people solutions. Such prospects will be more likely if international backing and commitments for near-term assistance and longer-term resettlement are made available.
The crisis of the boat people is intractable and crosses lines of history, geography, ethnicity and religion, a 21st century imbroglio that requires domestic economic development, effective regional responses, and global attention and support. Domestic problems that spill over into the regional domain to become intractable can still be sufficiently mitigated to be manageable without unconscionable humanitarian costs.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
