Thailand is facing an international outcry over its treatment of the minority Muslim Rohingya group, after CNN published a photo showing armed forces towing refugee boats away from the shore on Jan. 26. Five of six boats towed in late December sank, killing several hundred people, CNN reported.
Jolie issued the plea during a visit yesterday to camps in northern Thailand that house 111,000 mostly ethnic Karen and Karenni refugees from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
Witnessing the government’s hospitality to the refugees sheltering in camps “makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores,” the Oscar-winning actress said, according to a statement on the UN’s Web site.
Thousands of Rohingyas flee Myanmar each year because of land confiscation, arbitrary taxation, forced eviction and denial of citizenship, according to Amnesty International. Some members of the estimated population of 3 million also attempt to settle in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and India.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said earlier this week that his government won’t build a camp for the Rohingyas and will continue to expel them.
“They are not refugees,” Abhisit said in Bangkok on Jan. 4. “Our policy is to push them out of the country because they are illegal migrants.”
The government has said it is investigating the CNN report and the navy has denied allegations the boats were sent out without engines and adequate food and water.
Thailand has asked the UN to join a regional forum to help address the migrant issue.
U.N. Chief Urges Dialogue In Myanmar
(RTTNews) - U.N.secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has appealed to Myanmar's military rulers and the opposition to resume early, substantive negotiations without preconditions to pursue democratic change and political reconciliation, an official spokesman said Thursday.
The appeal followed Ban's meeting with his special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari in New Delhi on the outcome of the latter's four-day visit to Myanmar--aimed at nudging the military regime into holding a dialogue with the democratic opposition--during which the envoy failed to secure a meeting with the top junta leadership.
The spokesman added that Ban, who was in the Indian capital on the last leg of his two-week visit to Europe, Africa and Asia, looked forward "to building on the Gambari visit to further foster national dialogue and reconciliation" in Myanmar.
Gambari, who left Myanmar Tuesday, however, met Monday with opposition leader, Nobel Peace laureate and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest for most the past 19 years. She refused to meet with him on his previous visit last August.
Earlier, Myanmar's military government called for the lifting of the economic and diplomatic sanctions against the country before it could consider introducing either reforms or seeking a political reconciliation.
General Thein Sein, the country's prime minister, reportedly told the U.N. envoy that economic sanctions against his country amounted to human rights violations, affecting the health, as also economic and social conditions of its citizens.
Western governments, including the United States, have imposed economic and political sanctions on Myanmar because of its poor human rights record and failure to restore democracy.
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