It’s not possible now to drag out Aung San Suu Kyi to sell that Burma-Bangladesh forced deportation scheme. She shot her human rights credentials by presiding over the Rohingya genocide. So Sheikh Hasina has to do the dirty work & heavy lifting of selling that monstrous scheme to force refugees back to concentration camps without toilets so the Burmese genocidaires can finish off the extermination of the Rohingya people. She appears to be calling on world politicians to help her drown out the voices of Rohingya refugees & make the plan acceptable to the rest of us.

But whatever made her think that getting Indonesian president Joko Widodo to endorse forced deportation would make it credible or acceptable? Before Widodo has any cachet on human & refugee rights, he has some reforming to do in Indonesia–like ending Indonesia’s practice of indefinite detention for Rohingya refugees. In May 2015, (while Widodo was president) it was Indonesian fishers, not the Indonesian navy, who rescued 1,000 Rohingya refugees adrift in the Andaman Sea without food or water. There were an estimated 25,000 adrift in boats fleeing Burma & the Indonesian navy did nothing. No international agency has made an accounting for what happened to the thousands not rescued–human rights criminality of unspeakable proportions because it can only mean they were allowed to drown. Three years later, those survivors rescued by the Indonesian fishers are confined to camps, not free to leave the camps & move freely about the country. They cannot work & are dependent on service providers like UNHCR for basic necessities.

Stand with the Rohingya refugees against forced deportation & demand asylum in any country they choose with visas & full refugee rights.

(Photo is Widodo & Hasina from PID)