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Indonesia insists ‘not going soft’ on Rohingya issue

Indonesia was not going soft on the Myanmar government when it comes to dealing with the Rakhine crisis, which has caused hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to flee to Bangladesh, according to the Indonesian representative of a Southeast Asian human rights commission

Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, February 9, 2018

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Indonesia insists ‘not going soft’ on Rohingya issue

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ndonesia was not going soft on the Myanmar government when it comes to dealing with the Rakhine crisis, which has caused hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to flee to Bangladesh, according to the Indonesian representative of a Southeast Asian human rights commission.

Dinna Wisnu, Indonesia’s representative at the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), was defending her country’s approach to the ongoing crisis in Rakhine state, as unease from the stalled repatriation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh gives cause for more international pressure.

“I don’t think we’re going soft just because it seems like we aren’t doing much, when in fact we are firm [with them] behind the scenes,” she said on Thursday.

Indonesia has been among the few countries to have engaged closely with Myanmar since the outbreak of violence occurred in August last year, having repeatedly delivered humanitarian aid and even constructed facilities to alleviate hardships on the ground.

Southeast Asian experts recently claimed that Jakarta was slowly losing its edge and that it needs to think of a more effective strategy in dealing with Naypyidaw under Aung San Suu Kyi.

Speaking in a recent discussion hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, Aaron Connelly of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank said, without elaborating, that Jakarta should be firmer with Suu Kyi on account of evidence showing that because of “cultural bias” Indonesia was losing access to Myanmar.

“It is not easy issue, but I think [Indonesia’s] approach was sort of soft. Going full Najib is not good either, but I think working with the international community like ASEAN to raise this issue could be helpful,” he said, referring to Malaysia’s leader Najib Razak, who has opted for megaphone diplomacy to deal with the Rohingya issue. However, Connelly said Suu Kyi could still be persuaded to act on the matter.

Dinna denied the allegation that Myanmar was closing itself off from Indonesia and insisted that Jakarta was “active on many levels” on the Rakhine issue. “We have continued using the available political mechanisms to resolve the issue,” she said. “You just can’t ask us to ‘do something’ because we can’t just make any aggressive move, can we?”

Amnesty International recently published new evidence of ongoing violations by Myanmar’s security forces.

“Shielded by official denials and lies and a concerted effort to deny access to independent investigators, Myanmar’s military continues to get away with crimes against humanity,” said Matthew Wells, an Amnesty crisis advisor.

Dinna also said Myanmar did not respond to all recommendations made by external parties, saying the best anyone could do was tell a country to “do something different”.

The United Nations Security Council plans to meet on Tuesday to hear UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi’s report on the crisis that was allegedly sparked by an army crackdown in Rakhine last year. The meeting came at the request of Britain, France, the United States and five other countries.

More than 750,000 Rohingya have been driven to Bangladesh to flee persecution since August, according to Agence France-Presse. Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed last month to repatriate the Rohingya over a period of two years but has the commencement has stalled.

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