Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand agree on measures to tackle boat-people crisis

The foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand met Wednesday in Putrajaya to discuss the issue of irregular movement of migrants into the three countries, agreeing to implement some interim measures to tackle the current boat-people crisis.

The meeting was held at a time when thousands of Bangladeshis and members of Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim-minority were abandoned at sea over the past week after a Thai crackdown on human trafficking activities, and appeared to have no place to go after related nations refused to offer refuge to the boatloads of hungry men, women and children.

The meeting involved Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman and his Thailand counterpart General Tanasak Patimapragorn, who is also Thai deputy prime minister and Indonesia's Retno Marsudi, who agreed to resolve the issue in keeping with the spirit of unity and solidarity of ASEAN as well as the aspiration of have a people- oriented and people-centered ASEAN.

According to a joint statement released after the meeting, while expressing concern on the plight of the irregular migrants and condemning the people smuggling and human trafficking, the three nations said that the crisis can only be resolved by the efforts from both the related countries and the international community.

The statement said that the root causes and other contributory factors to the recent influx of irregular migrants should be immediately identified and addressed by the parties concerned, to which Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand will continue to give assistance.

The three nations also agreed to continue to uphold their responsibilities and obligations under international law and in accordance with their respective domestic laws, including the provision of humanitarian assistance to the irregular migrants.

"Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants still at sea," it said, adding that they also agreed to offer them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community.

The two countries also invited other countries in the region to join the effort, saying that intelligence information will be shared by the enforcement agencies of the countries concerned to combat people smuggling and human trafficking.

The three nations called on the international community to give a hand in tackling the crisis by providing support to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to offer assistance to the irregular migrants, and taking responsibility for the repatriation of the irregular migrants to their countries of origin or resettlement to third countries within a period of one year.

They also called on ASEAN to play an active role in dealing with the issue, and recommended the convening of an emergency meeting by the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime to address the crisis.