THAILAND'S handling of the Rohingya and Bangladeshi boat people issue is no different from that of other countries in Southeast Asia - but the military government's diplomatic exposure has revealed nothing of value.
Irregular migrants from the Bay of Bengal are not new. The Thai military has been familiar with them for years, such as when the Navy towed refugee boats out from Thai territorial waters to the high seas in January 2009 - prompting international condemnation.Normally, refugees who manage to land can live and work. But for those who get caught, the game is over and they are treated as "illegal migrants" who have entered the Kingdom without permission. They are prosecuted, detained and eventually deported.
More than 700 Rohingya are currently detained by Thai immigration.
While communal violence forced thousands of Rohingya to flee Myanmar in 2012, there was no report of how many of them obtained "asylum" from Thai authorities.
Prior to the meeting in Kuala Lumpur last week, Indonesia and Malaysia - believed to be their favoured destinations - offered the same treatment as Thailand.
However, the governments in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have better diplomatic skills than the Thai military. The two governments showed their "human face" to the international community, as they had the good sense to feel the world's mood over the plight of Asia's latest boat people.
Like Thailand, Malaysia realised it was under close scrutiny on the issue of refugees as the country has also been downgraded to the lowest level - Tier 3 - in the United States' annual report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP). Issues such as policy, stance and treatment of trafficked people are taken into account when a country's status is evaluated by the State Department.
The next TIP report is due to be released in the middle of June.
In fact, the military government led by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was well aware of the TIP report review being prepared by the US. The government has made the trafficking issue a national priority and began a crackdown on trafficking syndicates months ago. Dozens of suspects and uniformed officials have been arrested in connection with the trafficking of Rohingya and other migrants.
Malaysia has done even less than Thailand to crack down on trafficking - but the government in Kuala Lumpur has better diplomatic skills, how to talk and show "results" to soothe the international community. Malaysia called a meeting of affected countries, including Indonesia and Thailand, last week to seek a solution to the immediate crisis.
The foreign ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia announced humanitarian assistance to some 7,000 migrants who were still at sea - and offered to shelter them for one year pending repatriation. But the Thai foreign minister "went missing" during the announcement.
Shortly after the meeting, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak took all the credit when he ordered his navy to conduct a boat people search and rescue effort to prevent loss of life.
A day after the Kuala Lumpur meeting, Indonesian fishermen rescued hundreds of boat people, including a group believed to be on a boat that departed Thai waters days earlier. In fact, Thai officials provided people on the vessel with food and water, as well as helped fix their boat engine before they left, but this help won no credit as survivors told international media that they were threatened with guns and forced to leave.
As international concern grew louder from the UN and the US, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman rushed to visit Myanmar to discuss the matter last Thursday - while the Thai government left all hope to a low-key meeting in Bangkok this Friday. The PM and his officials claimed things would be clear after the Bangkok meeting on irregular migrants - although they knew every well it would be a meeting of senior officials and experts on migration, not a summit of leaders to seek a decisive solution to the Rohingya predicament.
So, it was a little late when Prime Minister Prayut said on Monday that his government would organise a "floating platform" with a task force to take care of boat people in the Andaman Sea.
If Rohingya were found on vessels, they would be taken to the ship, where medical staff would take care of them. If they were sick, they would be treated. After that they would be sent to shelters provided for them in Indonesia and Malaysia, he said.
It sounded reassuring, but would have been better if his foreign minister had announced these plans when he was together with his colleagues in Malaysia last week.
Diplomatic credit can be gained if you say the right thing - at the right time.
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