Myanmar’s junta stepped into the deepening Rohingya crisis yesterday, denying any of the Muslim boat people washing up in Thailand, India and Indonesia were from its soil, but promising to take unspecified “measures.”
“The Rohinja is not included in over 100 national races of the Union of Myanmar,” it said in all state-controlled papers, its first reaction since reports surfaced two weeks ago of the Thai army towing migrants out to sea and leaving them to die.
Rohinja is an alternative spelling for the Muslim minority from Rakhine state in the former Burma’s northwest.
“Moreover, a statement released yesterday by Thailand did not mention that those who made [the] attempt to illegally enter Thailand from the sea were from Myanmar,” the announcement added.
“Nevertheless, the departments concerned of the Government of Myanmar will take necessary measures in connection with the above matter,” it continued, without elaboration.
Narinjara News, a Dhaka-based Rakhine news agency, reported this week that a Myanmar artillery battalion had been redeployed last month from the former capital, Yangon, to Buthidaung, a town in the midst of Rohingya villages.
More than 500 Rohingya are feared to have drowned since early last month after being towed out to sea by the Thai military and abandoned in rickety boats without functioning engines.
The army has admitted cutting them loose, but said they had food and water and denied the engines were sabotaged.
Thailand is trying to depict them as illegal economic migrants, and paraded a group of 78 intercepted on Monday on domestic television, showing off wounds the migrants said were inflicted by Myanmar naval officials.
Survivors of some of the Thai “push-backs” have corroborated the reports of Myanmar abuse, with one man who washed up on Indonesia’s Aceh Province early this month telling al-Jazeera television he faced certain death if sent back to Myanmar.
Indonesia yesterday denied it was holding around 170 refugees from Myanmar, calling them “economic migrants” even as new accounts emerged of their harrowing journey and abuse by the Thai navy.
The migrants would be repatriated to Myanmar despite the concerns of rights groups, the foreign ministry said.
One of the migrants who spoke to reporters yesterday from a hospital in Sabang, northern Sumatra, said hundreds of Rohingya had been beaten for days by Thai troops, then towed out to sea and abandoned to die.
He begged not to be sent back to Myanmar or Thailand.
“For three days and three nights, we were beaten by Thai navy with big guns and wooden sticks. They hit us all over our bodies,” said Mohammad Hasan, 22, in a hospital where he is being treated for tuberculosis.
“We were put into four boats with no engines, no rice, no food, no water” and towed out to sea by a Thai navy ship for one day and night, he said.
“In the morning, they cut the rope and shot in the air randomly ... The Thai navy left us after that,” he said. “If Indonesia sends me back to Myanmar, my family will be shot by the Myanmar military ... They don’t want us to live in Myanmar because we are Muslims.”
The 174 Rohingya and 19 Bangladeshis being kept at the naval base were found in a boat off northern Sumatra on Jan. 7.
They are believed to be survivors from a group of about 1,000 mainly Rohingya who were abandoned at sea by the Thai military. Thailand denies the allegations.
Nearly 650 have been rescued in waters off India and Indonesia but hundreds remain unaccounted for.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said the migrants had “economic motives” for leaving Myanmar and refused to comment on their alleged abuse by Thai security forces.
“We’ve read about the ill-treatment by Thailand in the media. But what we seek is the result of our own investigations. Don’t be quick to jump to conclusions and say there are human rights violations,” he told reporters.
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