Headline July 01, 2015/ STRANDED MIGRANTS `: "' SO HOPELESSLY HELPLESS `'''

STRANDED MIGRANTS `: 

"' SO HOPELESSLY HELPLESS `'''

DESPITE ITS OWN INTRACTABLE problems, Pakistan and in particular its province of  Khyber Pakhtun Khwa, [KPK]  distinguished itself-

In the mind and heart of every fair human - when it took in millions by million of Afghan refugees, and cared for them over many decades. And still does.

"GIVE and ye shall perceive. And maybe receive as well. But perception seems to play a big role in giving   -in how, why, and where we give, and in what we think about it at all."

THE MIGRANTS WHO have made it to the shore in Indonesia told stories of weeks of terror and brutality at the hands of the traffickers-

Who extorted money from them, provided little food or water and then abandoned them on the open sea to evade a crackdown on smuggling networks by the government of Thailand.

And all this misery and sad tales have been happening for over many years.

Surin Pitsuwan, a former Thai  foreign minister and former secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said Myanmar's cooperation would be essential to finding a permanent resolution to the migrant crisis:

''I think Myanmar  has to demonstrate to the world that it can resolve its own internal complexities and resolve this citizenship problem'' with the Rohingya, he said, as well as additional issues including discrimination and the Myanmar's government's failure to provide them basic education and healthcare. 

IN MAY INDONESIA ANS MALAYSIA agreed finally to take in thousands of migrants stranded at sea until they can be sent home or resettled in a third country.

The joint statement called on the international community to provide Indonesia and Malaysia the necessary support, particularly the financial assistance, to enable them to provide temporary shelter and humanitarian assistance,'' for sheltering the migrants.

Responding to international pressure to save the migrants, many of whom have been adrift in rickety boats for weeks with little food or water, the agreement by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand was a potential lifesaver.

It reverses the previous position of those governments, whose navies had been pushing boatloads of desperate migrants away from their shores in what international aid groups characterized as a dangerous game of human ping pong. 

TENS OF THOUSANDS of Rohingya a stateless ethnic Muslim group that lives primarily in Rakhine State in the western Myanmar, have fled the country during the last several years, most going to Malaysia or Bangladesh.

The Mayanmar government does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens and has refused to accept any back, including the latest groups who arrived in or attempted to land in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia in recent months. 

Just later Philippines official expressed a general willingness to accept migrants still stranded at sea, but they did not make specific pledges as to how many might be taken in and under what circumstances.

''The Philippines as a state party to relevant instruments, such as the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of  Refugees, has a commitment to provide succour and relief to persons involuntarily displaced from their homelands as consequence of political conflict,'' said Charles Jose, from the Philippines Foreign Ministry.

Officials have said that if migrants made it to the shores of the Philippines, they will not be turned away.

In the meantime Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying that the government was willing to provide humanitarian assistance to any migrant on the seas and was making  ''serious effort''  to tackle people smuggling and illegal migration.

The statement however did not say whether Myanmar would accept any Rohingya.

Moe Thuzar, lead researcher at the Asean Studies Centre at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore said Myanmar's government was ''caught in abind'' over the legal status of Rohingya.

''I think the present government administration is not averse to citizenship -this is, after all, an election year there," she said. "This  is not the role they want to play while emerging into the international scene as a responsible member.

Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, a human rights group that tracks migration in the Andaman Sea, said that one of the ships that arrived in Aceh had been first discovered some weeks earlier by journalists of the coast of Thailand.

"Its extremely welcome news here," said Joe Lowry a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, in Bangkok.

"It's the right thing to do."

!WOW! too welcomes  the news, and wishes and hopes for an amicable solution to this terrible and unending problem of human suffering. 

With respectful dedication to the students, professors and teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

"' The Effort Of Light "'

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless