Press Release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to the Joint Statement of some embassies in Yangon (17 September 2015)
The following is the full text of the Press Release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 17 September 2015 in response to the Joint Statement of some embassies in Yangon:
Press Release
It is learnt that a Joint Statement on election was issued on 15 September 2015 by Embassies of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Norway, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America in Yangon.
Cognizant of the importance of the upcoming general elections in Myanmar, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is appreciative of the support expressed by the “Joint Statement” for the successful holding of the elections. However, the Ministry is also concerned that the Joint Statement could bring about unwarranted, negative impacts on the efforts being made by all the people of Myanmar especially when the election process is progressing smoothly, effectively and efficiently in a peaceful and positive environment.
With regard to the concerns of the countries expressed in the Joint Statement, the Union Election Commission has already established the mechanisms to address concerns, large or small that may arise in the election process in accordance with the existing laws, rules and regulations in just and non-discriminatory manners.
President U Thein Sein, in his International Democracy Day message on 15-9-2015, had also clearly stated that “Myanmar is a country where ethnic nationalities are residing side by side with their diverse ethnicity, customs and beliefs. In canvassing votes for their candidates, political parties and voters need to refrain from causing disruption to those harmonious communities and wide diversity of beliefs.” This emphasizes the importance that Myanmar places on the ethnic and religious harmony in communities. The Government, the UEC, the people and all stakeholders are working together in order that the elections will be held in a free and fair manner. Furthermore, the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar ensures equal rights to all its citizens regardless of race, religion or gender.
At a time when Myanmar is in the process of holding nationwide elections and undergoing a campaign period focusing on prevalence of law and order and peace and stability, the Joint Statement prejudges the situation and has potentials to create misunderstandings and doubts based on ethnicity and religion.
Issuance of such statement at this delicate juncture goes against the peaceful environment the people of Myanmar have established for the successful holding of the elections. The Ministry, therefore, categorically rejects the implications in the Joint Statement that instigate misunderstanding and doubts among the people.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Nay Pyi Taw
Dated: 17 September 2015
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သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
ရန်ကုန်မြို့အခြေစိုက် သြစတြေးလျ၊ ကနေဒါ၊ ဒိန်းမတ်၊ ပြင်သစ်၊ နော်ဝေ၊ ဂျပန်၊ ဆွီဒင်၊ ဗြိတိန်နှင့် အမေရိကန်သံရုံးများမှ ပူးတွဲကြေညာချက်တစ်ခုကို ၂ဝ၁၅ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ ၁၅ ရက်နေ့တွင် ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။
မကြာမီ ကာလအတွင်း ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်မည့် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲ များသည် မြန်မာ နိုင်ငံအတွက် အရေးကြီးသည်ကို အလေးထားသည့်အလျောက် နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန အနေဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲများ အောင်မြင်စွာ ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရန် ပူးတွဲ ကြေညာချက်ပါ အားပေးထောက်ခံမှုကို အသိအမှတ်ပြုပါသည်။ တစ်ဖက်၌လည်း မြန်မာ ပြည်သူများ အားလုံး တည်ငြိမ် အေးချမ်းစွာဖြင့် တက်ကြွစွာ ဝိုင်းဝန်းကြိုးပမ်း အားထုတ် ပြင်ဆင် ဆောင်ရွက် နေသည့် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဆိုင်ရာ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ် ချောမွေ့စွာ တိုးတက်ဖြစ်ပေါ် နေချိန်တွင် ပူးတွဲကြေညာချက်ကြောင့် အပြုသဘော မဆောင်သည့် မလိုလား အပ်သော အခြေအနေများ ဖြစ်ပေါ်စေနိုင်သည်ကို စိုးရိမ်မကင်းဖြစ်မိပါသည်။
ပူးတွဲ ကြေညာချက်၌ ဖော်ပြပါရှိသော နိုင်ငံများ၏ စိုးရိမ်မကင်း ဖြစ်ရသည် ဆိုသည့် အကြောင်းတရားများကြောင့် ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာနိုင်ဖွယ်ရှိသည့် ကိစ္စရပ်ကြီးငယ် များကို တည်ဆဲ ဥပဒေ၊ စည်းမျဉ်းစည်းကမ်းများနှင့်အညီ ဘက်လိုက်ခွဲခြားမှုမရှိဘဲ တရားမျှတစွာ ဖြေရှင်း ပေးနိုင်ရေး အတွက် ပြည်ထောင်စု ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ကော်မရှင်က စီမံဆောင်ရွက်ထားရှိပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတ ဦးသိန်းစိန် ၏ ၁၅-၉-၂ဝ၁၅ ရက်နေ့ နိုင်ငံတကာ ဒီမိုကရေစီနေ့ သဝဏ်လွှာတွင်လည်း ''မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် ဓလေ့ ထုံးတမ်း ပေါင်းစုံ၊ ကိုးကွယ်ယုံကြည်မှုပေါင်းစုံ ရှိသည့် လူမျိုးများစွာနေထိုင်သော နိုင်ငံ ဖြစ်သည့်အတွက် မဲဆွယ်စည်းရုံးရေး လုပ်ငန်းစဉ် များတွင် နိုင်ငံ၏ လူမှုသဟဇာတဖြစ်မှုနှင့် မတူညီသည့် ကိုးကွယ် ယုံကြည်မှုများကို ထိခိုက်နစ်နာစေသည့် ကိစ္စရပ်များ မပေါ်ပေါက် စေရန် နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီများနှင့် မဲဆန္ဒရှင် ပြည်သူများအားလုံး ရှောင်ရှားရန် လိုအပ်ကြောင်း'' အတိအလင်း ဖော်ပြထားပါသည်။ ယင်းမှာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအနေဖြင့် လူမှုအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ အတွင်း လူမျိုးရေး၊ ဘာသာရေး သဟဇာတ ဖြစ်မှုကို အလေးထားကြောင်း ဖော်ပြနေခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အစိုးရ၊ ပြည်ထောင်စု ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ကော်မရှင်၊ ပြည်သူများနှင့် သက်ဆိုင်သူများ အားလုံးသည် တရားမျှတပြီး လွတ်လပ်သည့် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲများ ကျင်းပနိုင်ရေးကို ဝိုင်းဝန်း ကြိုးပမ်း ဆောင်ရွက်လျက် ရှိပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံ ဥပဒေတွင် နိုင်ငံသူ နိုင်ငံသားအားလုံး တန်းတူရည်တူ အခွင့်အရေးကို လူမျိုး၊ ဘာသာ၊ ကျား/မ မရွေးခံစားခွင့်ရှိကြောင်း အတိအလင်း ဖော်ပြထားပါသည်။
သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတစ်ဝန်း၌ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲအတွက် ကြိုတင် ပြင်ဆင်ရေး လုပ်ငန်းစဉ် နှင့် မဲဆွယ်စည်းရုံးရေးကာလအတွင်း တရားဥပဒေ စိုးမိုးရေးနှင့် တည်ငြိမ် အေးချမ်းရေးကို အထူးအလေးပေး ဆောင်ရွက်နေချိန်တွင် ပူးတွဲကြေညာချက်သည် ဘာသာရေး၊ လူမျိုးရေး အရ အထင်အမြင် လွဲမှားမှုများ၊ သံသယများ ပေါ်ပေါက်စေနိုင်သည့် တစ်ဖက်သတ် သုံးသပ် ဖော်ပြချက်များ ဖြစ်သည်ကို တွေ့ရှိရပါသည်။
ယခုကဲ့သို့ သိမ်မွေ့နက်နဲသည့် အချိန်အခါတွင် ပူးတွဲကြေညာချက်ကို ထုတ်ပြန် ခဲ့ခြင်းသည် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲများ အောင်မြင်စွာ ကျင်းပနိုင်ရေးအတွက် အေးချမ်း ကောင်းမွန်သည့် ပတ်ဝန်းကျင်တစ်ရပ်ကို ကြိုးစားဖန်တီးနေကြသည့် မြန်မာပြည်သူများ၏ ကြိုးပမ်း အားထုတ်မှု များကို လျစ်လျူပြုရာ ရောက်ပါသည်။ သို့ဖြစ်၍ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန အနေဖြင့် ပူးတွဲ ကြေညာချက်ပါ ပြည်သူများအကြား အထင်အမြင်လွဲမှားမှုများကို ဖြစ်ပေါ်စေနိုင်သည့် ဖော်ပြချက် များကို ပြတ်ပြတ်သားသား ဆန့်ကျင်ပယ်ချပါသည်။
နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
နေပြည်တော်။
ရက်စွဲ၊ ၂ဝဝ၅ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ ၁၇ ရက်
* * *
Announcement of date/time/venue for Advance Voting for 2015 General Election
Announcement of date/time/venue for Advance Voting
for 2015 General Election
ပြည်ပရောက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားများ ကြိုတင်ဆန္ဒမဲပေးနိုင်ရန်
သတ်မှတ်ရက်/အချိန်နှင့် နေရာတို့ အကြောင်းကြားခြင်း
၁။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ ၂၀၁၅ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ(၈) ရက်နေ့တွင် အထွေထွေ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ရန် ရှိခြင်းကြောင့် ပါကစ္စတန် နိုင်ငံရောက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားများ ကြိုတင်ဆန္ဒမဲ ပေးနိုင်ရန် အောက်ပါ နေ့ရက်/ အချိန်/ နေရာ တို့တွင် မဲရုံ သတ်မှတ် ထားရှိမည် ဖြစ်ပါကြောင်း အကြောင်းကြားအပ်ပါသည်-
နေ့ရက် - (၁၇-၁၀-၂၀၁၅)ရက်နေ့ (စနေနေ့)
အချိန် - နံနက် (၆)နာရီမှ ညနေ (၄)နာရီ အထိ
နေရပ်လိပ်စာ - မြန်မာသံရုံး၊ အစ္စလာမာဘတ်မြို့
Plot No. 99-101, Street No. 5,
Diplomatic Enclave, Sector G-5
၂။ အထက်ပါ နေ့ရက်တွင် သံရုံးသို့ လာရောက် ကြိုတင်ဆန္ဒမဲ ပေးနိုင်ရန် သံရုံး တည်ရှိရာ Diplomatic Enclaveသို့ ဝင်ရောက်နိုင်ရန် အတွက် လိုအပ်သော ဂိတ်ဝင်ခွင့် များကို သံရုံးမှ ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးပါမည်။ သို့ပါ၍ အမည် (နိုင်ငံကူး လက်မှတ် တွင် ဖော်ပြသည့် စာလုံးပေါင်းအတိုင်း)၊ နိုင်ငံကူးလက်မှတ် အမှတ်၊ ထုတ်ပေးရက်စွဲ၊ ဖုန်းအမှတ် တို့ကို ဤသံရုံး၏ အီးမေးလ် အမှတ် ( embassy_myanmarisb@yahoo.com ) သို့ အချိန်မီ အကြောင်းကြားပေး ပါရန်နှင့် မရှင်းလင်းပါက ဖုန်းအမှတ်၊ ၀၃၀၀ ၈၅၆၆၃၂၁ သို့မဟုတ် ၀၅၁ ၂၈၃၂၂၃၂ သို့ စုံစမ်းနိုင်ကြောင်း အကြောင်းကြား အပ်ပါသည်။
မြန်မာသံရုံး၊ အစ္စလာမာဘတ်မြို့
NOTICE TO ALL MYANMAR CITIZENS IN PAKISTAN FOR VOTING
၂၀၁၅ခုနှစ် အထွေထွေ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် ဆန္ဒမဲပေးရေး ကိစ္စ
အကြောင်းကြားချက်
၂၀၁၅ခုနှစ် အထွေထွေ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲအား မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ (၈-၁၁-၂၀၁၅) ရက်နေ့တွင် ကျင်းပမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံတော်အစိုးရ၏ ခွင့်ပြုချက်ဖြင့် ပြည်ပသို့ ရောက်ရှိလျက်ရှိကြသော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားများသည် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ နိုင်ငံရှိ မြန်မာသံရုံး/ အဖွဲ့ရုံး/ ကောင်စစ်ဝန်ချုပ်ရုံးများနှင့် ဆက်သွယ်ကာ ကြိုတင်ဆန္ဒမဲများ ပေးနိုင်ကြမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ပါကစ္စတန်နိုင်ငံသို့ ရောက်ရှိနေထိုင် အလုပ်လုပ်ကိုင်လျက်ရှိ ကြသော မြန်မာ နိုင်ငံသားများအတွက် ထိုသို့ကြိုတင်ဆန္ဒမဲပေးမှုကို ၂၀၁၅ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာ လလယ်ပိုင်းတွင် ဤသံရုံး၌ ကျင်းပမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ သို့ပါ၍ ကြိုတင်ဆန္ဒမဲ ပေးခွင့်ရှိသူ စာရင်း ကောက်ယူလျက်ရှိရာ မိမိတို့နှင့် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ မဲဆန္ဒနယ်မှ ကိုယ်စားလှယ် များအား မဲပေး နိုင်ရေးအတွက် မိိမိတို့၏ အချက်အလက်များ၊ အထူးသဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ နေရပ်လိပ်စာ အတိအကျကို အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ ပုံစံ (ပုံစံ၁၅)တွင် ဖြည့်စွက်ကာ ဤသံရုံးသို့ စာတိုက်မှ ဖြစ်စေ၊ Scan ဆွဲ၍ Email မှ ဖြစ်စေ ယခု ၂၀၁၅ခုနှစ်၊ ဇူလိုင်လ (၂၈) ရက် နောက်ဆုံးထား၍ ပေးပို့ ကြပါရန် မေတ္တာရပ်ခံ အကြောင်းကြားအပ်ပါသည်-
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မှတ်ချက်။ ပုံစံများအား ဖြည့်စွက်ပေးပို့ရာတွင် မိမိတို့အား ဆက်သွယ်နိုင်မည် တယ်လီဖုန်း အမှတ်များကိုလည်း ဖော်ပြပေးကြပါရန် မေတ္တာရပ်ခံ အပ်ပါသည်။
မြန်မာသံရုံး
အစ္စလာမာဘတ်မြို့
Briefing notes by Union Minister for Foreign Affairs of Myanmar on the Current Situation in Myanmar
Briefing notes by H.E. U Wunna Maung Lwin,
Union Minister for Foreign Affairs of Myanmar
to the Diplomatic Corps and UN Agencies
on the current developments in Myanmar
(4 June 2015)
Your Excellencies,
Members of the Diplomatic Corps and UN Agencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A very good morning to you all and Mingalabar!
v I’ve invited you here today to brief you on the current developments in Myanmar. I hope this meeting will be made into a regular meeting between us to keep you inform of the current developments in Myanmar, to provide opportunity to ask questions, and to share views on matters of common interests and concerns.
Reforms in Three Waves
v As you all are fully aware, Myanmar is now in the midst of historic changes—undergoing expanded political and economic reforms which are occurring at a pace that was almost unimaginable 3 or 4 years ago.
v Since the first democratically elected Government took office in 2011, Myanmar has been stepping up its three waves of reform process.
v Following the introduction of a multiparty democratic system and transition from the old to a new system as the first wave, and placing emphasis on strategies for political, economic, administrative and private sector development as the second, the third wave of reforms is being carried out to consolidate firm foundation for democracy to promote higher living standard for the people.
v These are being carried out by building up good governance and clean government, effectively delivering government services, accountability, capacity building and establishing e-government services.
v The political, economic, administrative and private sector reforms are also being undertaken with visions not only to promote peace, stability and prosperity for the people of Myanmar but also to lay down lasting foundations for future as well.
Workshop on Draft Framework for Administrative Reforms
v In this regard, Myanmar has recently conducted a workshop on 23 May comprising of government and international experts to draft a comprehensive framework for top-to-bottom administrative reforms with aims to decentralization of power, including matters of distribution of budgets and management of resources, and to build capacity of civil servants at all levels.
Release of 2014 Main Census Results
v Another development is the “nationwide census” that Myanmar has not been able to undertake for the past 30 years.
v The 2014 national census results that were released on 29 May will enable planners from all sectors to utilize in various national development tasks such as policy formulations, implementations and assessing and monitoring of projects, programmes and provision of public services.
Political Dialogues, National Reconciliation and Peace Process
v On political and national reconciliation front, we are making obvious progresses. The all-inclusive political process that Government is striving to foster has become a reality in a new culture of political dialogue and dynamism where parliamentarians are playing active roles in the National Legislative Body (Parliament), where a good working relationship between different political parties is enabling them to share common views on key issues including the removal of economic sanctions.
v The 6-way talks which was held on 10 April, among other things, discussed and shared views on the political stability for “before”, “during” and “post” elections periods, constitutional reforms, decentralizing of power including sharing of natural resources and taxation.
v Another progress is the signing of the draft nationwide ceasefire agreement between the Union Peace-making Working Committee (UPWC) and the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) (representing16 armed groups) on 30 March after several rounds of talks which started in the past years.
v The next positive steps would be meaningful political dialogues which will be followed by lasting peace, stability and economic cooperation to bring about balanced development for all.
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
v The 2015 is an important year for Myanmar as we will be holding multi-party general elections at the end of October or early November. Holding general elections in a free and fair manner will demonstrate how far Myanmar has come in her democratization process.
v The President, the Union Government, the Parliaments, the Union Election Commission (UEC) and political parties are working hand in hand to ensure the successful holding of general elections in a free and fair manner.
v The President as well as the Union Election Commission is meeting with political parties to hear their concerns, comments, and views on the holding of the upcoming elections.
v International observers and representatives from the political parties will be invited to witness the elections in progress. Based on the election rules and laws, the experience gained from the previous elections, the input from the political parties, the Union Election Commission is committed to work towards ensuring the successful holding of the free and fair 2015 election in timely organized manner.
Myanmar and ASEAN
v 2014 was a remarkable year for us as we had successfully assumed the ASEAN Chairmanship for the very first time since becoming a member of ASEAN in 1997.
v During Myanmar Chairmanship, ASEAN had been able to issue 6 statements responding to urgent crisis affecting ASEAN based on consensus. ASEAN also adopted 4 documents at the 24th ASEAN Summit, 6 documents at the 47th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, 18 documents, declarations and statements at the 25thASEAN Summit, which all together adopted 34 documents, statements and declarations.
v ASEAN is now at an important cross-road as we are approaching to the realization of ASEAN Community by the end of this year. We are trying our best to fulfill our national commitments in realization of ASEAN Community’s Blueprints.
v We fully support Malaysia as current ASEAN Chair in realizing (8) priorities including formal establishment of ASEAN Community and development of the ASEAN Community’s Post 2015 Vision to be accomplished during its Chairmanship.
v In accordance with the “Nay Pyi Taw Declaration on the ASEAN Community’s Post-2015 Vision”, the “High Level Task Force on ASEAN Community’s Vision 2025” is drafting the ASEAN Community’s Vision 2025. We are actively participating in the process and will be hosting the 5th Meeting of the High Level Task Force on ASEAN Community’s Vision 2025 from 8 to 11 June in Yangon.
v With regard to the irregular movement of people in Andaman Sea, we support the Joint Statement of Ministerial Meeting on irregular movement of people in Southeast Asia at a meeting hosted by Malaysia in Putrajaya on 20 May 2015. We are committed to fully cooperating with countries in the region in addressing the issues of human trafficking and people smuggling.
v Malaysia as current Chair of ASEAN has recently proposed to convene an emergency meeting of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMM) to address the current crisis of the irregular migrants in Southeast Asia. We fully support the convening of such emergency meeting and Myanmar will actively participate and fully cooperate with other ASEAN member states at the meeting.
v The Government has taken measures to improve education, access to health care, improvement of living condition and greater livelihood. The condition on the ground has improved compared to the past year. Peace has been maintained. We were also able to resettle 2,000 IDP to their respective places. We will soon be able to resettle 4 or 5 thousand more.
v To apprise you on the issue in Rakhine State;-
- Rakhine is one of the Myanmar national races and has the longest ethnic root in Myanmar history.
- The current issues and challenges occurred in the Rakhine State were mainly based on the long historic background, that stretched back to the colonial era.
- Due to the delicate, complex and sensitive natures it is imperative to handle the situations through cooperation among the Government and people.
- To demonstrate Government’s commitment to the peace and stability of the Rakhine State, the Central Committee on Implementation of Peace, Stability and Development was established on 13 March 2013 with Vice President Dr Sai Mauk Kham as the Chair.
- At the same time, the Rakhine State Government is striving to create a peaceful coexistence between two communities in the region. The Government is also giving priority to create socio-economic developments of the people with the cooperation of international community including UN agencies.
- Despite the overall efforts, sufficient time is essential for a nation or a region to carry out peace, stability and development. Nothing can be built overnight.
- It is a true desire of the Union Government as well as the State Government and all responsible authorities to address the issue of the right to citizenship by a fair and acceptable approach in accordance with the existing laws.
- Although there are criticisms on the return of temporary registration cards, the process is running smoothly on the ground. Since 1995, more than seven hundred and fifty thousand temporary cards have been issued all over the country.
- As of 27 May 2015, a total of 418,470 temporary cards have been returned to the authority.
Boat People and Illegal Migration
v While we are trying to strike delicate balance in the Rakhine State, the issue of illegal migrants and boat people in the Andaman Sea and Strait of Malacca arises.
v The issue of boat people in the Andaman Sea and the Straits of Malacca was escalated in Southeast Asia beginning mid May this year, which affected Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand.
v Myanmar shares no less concern than those of the international community on the suffering of boat people, who became victims of smuggling and human trafficking.
v Myanmar has supported the outcome of the meeting between Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand held in Kuala Lumpur on 20 May 2015.
v Myanmar also received delegations headed by Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Malaysia on 21 May and cordially exchanged of views on the prevention of human trafficking and illegal migration issues in regional and individual perspectives.
v For that reason, we strongly believe that the issue of human trafficking in the region must be urgently addressed in a comprehensive manner. It is in that spirit Myanmar dispatched a delegation to attend "Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean" held in Bangkok on 29 May 2015.
v As you all are fully aware, a summary record was issued at the end of the meeting with clear guidelines to tackle the heinous crime.
v Myanmar is determined to work cooperatively with the affected countries including countries in the region based on the well established mechanism called the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.
v To demonstrate our sense of responsibility, Myanmar Navy and Air Force have intensified patrolling in its territorial water to search for those who are suffering in the sea.
v During the time of patrolling, on 21 May 2015, the Myanmar Navy rescued a total of 208 boat people who are adrift at sea. On humanitarian grounds, they are given temporally shelters at Taung Pyo (Let Wai), Rakhine State.
v Among them, 200 people are found to be from Bangladesh after verification process done by the Myanmar side. We have also immediately granted permission for a consular visit to a Bangladeshi team from their Consulate in Sittwe for further verification. During my meeting with the Ambassador of Bangladesh in Nay Pyi Taw yesterday, the Ambassador informed me that they are taking the people back starting from coming Sunday.
v Also on 29 May, Myanmar Navy sighted a boat with 734 people on board with their life in danger. According to preliminary investigation, it was found that they were abandoned at sea by smugglers. Out of 734 persons, 611 are men, 72 are women and the remaining 51 are children.
v After careful consideration based on humanitarian grounds, they have now reached a safe ground for temporary shelters with the help of the Navy. After proving necessary needs such as healthcare, food and clothing, verification process will be carried out, beginning today.
v Myanmar is affected with this problem of boat people not as a destination country. Since Myanmar is a developing country with limited resources, we are making our utmost efforts in looking after this large number of people.
v Under these circumstances, Myanmar is not in a position to provide shelters to them on long-term basis. After the completion of verification process, we will coordinate with country of origin to take them back expeditiously.
v Myanmar is deeply concerned by the suffering and the life threatening fate of the innocent people as a consequence of human trafficking and illegal migration in the region.
v Myanmar has already provided humanitarian assistance to those found adrift in Myanmar’s territorial water. Myanmar feels that focus should be made on a more holistic and pragmatic approach such as scaling up cooperation by providing humanitarian and development assistances to the affected countries if we really want to resolve the issue.
v Finger pointing at each other is not a productive approach to solving a problem.
v With regard to boat people in other countries that were alleged to be Myanmar, Myanmar will make consular visits, collected data for verification and will take appropriate measures in accordance with the findings.
Conclusion
v In conclusion, today briefing is conducted with a view to share the first hand information on the current developments in Myanmar. I know that you also have chances to gather information from your visits and tours in Myanmar.
v I, therefore, sincerely hope that all these information that you have been provided will be reflected in your reports back to your respective capitals. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to share these information with you.
v I would now open the floor for your comments, views and questions that you may have that the officials who are here with me and I can clarify.
v We would very much welcome your constructive comments that could help Myanmar.
v Thank you.
* * * * * * * * * *
Myanmar’s cooperation in international efforts on the incident occurred in the Indian Ocean
Myanmar’s cooperation in international efforts on the incident occurred
in the Indian Ocean
First and foremost, we agree with you and share concerns over the sufferings and unfortunate fate of innocent people as the consequences of human smuggling and illegal migration currently occurred in the region.
How did it happen?
Many people living under the poverty line, naturally, seek for better life in other countries at where they expect job opportunity, social life, etc. could be happily and easily found. While taking the opportunity to exploit these simple hopes, smugglers and traffickers emerged and played in devil role pretending to fulfill their dreams in conventional and inhumane manner under contemporary form of slavery.
At this point, we would like to suggest to find further various news carrying about crackdown of smugglers including high-ranking officials in one country, bodies found at the two countries’ border, refusal of three countries to enter the drifting boats into their territories, US$ 600 payment for sea transporting, etc. for your own judgment who did it and how it happened whilst Myanmar and another country are described as the countries from where these migrants fled away.
The most important thing for you to be known
Myanmar is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society peacefully co-existed of over 51 million population composed of 90% Buddhist, 4% Christian, 4% Muslim and 2 % Hindu and others in religious-wise.
You may ask the 90% Buddhist. The answer is simple as the majority of Muslims in Islamic countries exist traditionally. Most importantly, in Myanmar, there are freedom of religion and non- discrimination against any person on race, religion, gender, etc. under the Constitution. Christian Church, Muslim Mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist pagodas can be seen side-by-side in many parts of the country proving mutual regard for all religions.
We, you and many witness the rise of religion extremism in various societies as a complex phenomenon and its negative effects are present in our daily life.
To avoid these, inter-religious/ interfaith dialogues are being widely held in Myanmar as a powerful way of promoting tolerance to share deep insights and aspirations with each others on the basis of mutual respect and recognition of one’s belief.
Other factors to be counted
Developing country like Myanmar is facing undue pressure politicized by some quarters who do not want Myanmar to be on right track forwards prosperous one. They are also creating misunderstanding and anger from the international community including Muslims at this very moment when humanitarian assistance are badly needed for the boat people ( this is our strong view ) by placing one-sided story over sole country.
There are efforts by Myanmar on rebuilding trust between two communities in Rakhine State, granting citizenship through national verification process to Bengalis living in Myanmar for many years and arrangements made for living side-by-side with concrete documentation.
Myanmar and Pakistan
Myanmar High Commissioner was the first-ever one presented his Letters of Credence to Quaid-i-Azam, Governor-General of Pakistan since 1947 and could imagine the long-lasting and time-tested relations between the two countries and the peoples.
Conclusion
Myanmar is fully prepared to work with the international community especially on humanitarian ground and moral obligation to alleviate the sufferings of the smuggled/ trafficked victims. It has also been extending its full cooperation with countries in the region to solve the issue of boat people. On the other hand, Myanmar has been providing humanitarian assistance and search and rescue efforts in its own capacity.
Recently, 700- 1000 victims have been rescued and well-looked after at Myanmar side, and 150 persons were verified as Bangladeshi nationals and handed over to their side on 8 June 2015.
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