are still about 800,000 Rohingyas living in
Myanmar. The Rohingyas are physically,
linguistically, and culturally closer to the people of
South Asia (Rismayati, 2009).
The majority of them is not recognized as
Myanmar citizens. They are forced to work at the
government-owned or military infrastructure sites
(Head, 2009). As a result, they end up lacking of
time to earn income for daily life and to feed their
own families.
They are prohibited from access to health and
educational service. In 1994, the Myanmar
government stopped issuing birth certificates for
Rohingya’s children. The mobility of Rohingya is
also restricted. Even if they want to go to a
neighboring village, they must enclose travel card
and are required to pay it (Lewa, 2009).
Such arbitrary and discriminatory treatments
have made the Rohingyas become mentally
depressed, forcing them to leave Myanmar to seek
better security and livelihood in other countries
(Rismayati, 2009). The countries where they decided
to transit or settle are Bangladesh, , Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, China, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, and
Indonesia.
5 DISCUSSION
ASEAN essentially supports the settlement of
Rohingya refugees problems. ASEAN should be
worried because the Rohingyas can be a burden for
the countries where they transit or settle. ASEAN's
concern towards the Rohingyas is proven by
addressing this issue to the regional level. ASEAN
then discussed the issues of Rohingya refugees
through the Bali Process mechanism.
The Bali Process is a conference that addresses
the mechanisms of resolution on the issue of illegal
and human trafficking, people smuggling, and
transnational crimes. In this forum, ASEAN agreed
to resolve the Rohingya issue by involving the origin
country, transit countries, and destination countries.
However, despite of agreeing to deliberate the
Rohingya issue into a regional context, ASEAN is
less able to act more firmly against Myanmar
because it’s obstructed by the existence of non-
intervention principle within ASEAN itself. This
principle is already often becoming a barrier for
ASEAN to interfere in the domestic affairs of its
member countries.
Moreover, the issue of Rohingya refugees is only
considered as a part of people smuggling and
trafficking, not a matter of a group of people who
suffered human rights abuses and severe opression
by Myanmar's military junta (Jagan, 2009).
The ASEAN Secretary-General at that time Surin
Pitsuwan stated that the Rohingya issue is not on the
ASEAN’s official agenda but it would still be
discussed in an informal meeting among ASEAN
countries (The Irrawady, 2009).
There are two international laws governing the
issue of refugees, namely the 1951 Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967
Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. ASEAN
countries, especially those who directly impacted by
the Rohingyas arrival—Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Thailand—unfortunately have not ratified these two
rules, thus assuming that UNHCR doesn’t need to
interfere on this matter. Only Cambodia and
Philippines who have been the state parties to the
convention and the protocol (UNTC, 2018). As a
result, ASEAN coordination with UNHCR and
International Organization for Migration (IOM) isn’t
well established. The issue of Rohingya is still
unresolved until now.
In accordance to the neoliberal institutionalism
assumptions, ASEAN is used as an instrument to
resolve problems among its members. They met in a
summit forum and made the Rohingya issue as one
of the topics of the conference, although it was not
really intense. It has been seen the efforts of ASEAN
member countries to resolve the issue of refugees
through ASEAN’s intermediaries. The issue of
refugees is included in the low politics level, but
ASEAN countries continue to view that the low
politics issues such as human rights violations can
pose a threat to ASEAN, and particularly to the
national interests of each member country.
Referring to the neoliberal institutionalism
assumptions, ASEAN is being a facilitator in the
policy-making process of Rohingya refugees by
encouraging more solid cooperation at regional
level.
6 CONCLUSIONS
ASEAN addressed the issues of Rohingya refugees
from Myanmar by bringing up the issue to the
regional level. ASEAN views that this issue is not in
line with the spirit of human rights and democracy
enforcement contained in the ASEAN Charter which
was just agreed in December 2008.
In the settlement process, ASEAN agreed to
involve the origin country, transit country, and
destination country. However, this issue was not
included in the official agenda of the ASEAN
Summit. This issue would still be discussed in an
informal meeting between ASEAN countries.
The displacement of Rohingya migrating from
Myanmar is only considered as a phenomenon of
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