A million more Rohingya are still under threat in Myanmar

Three years ago next month, in the north-west corner of what was once one of the world's most closed and brutal regimes – Myanmar – the pogroms began. At the urging of a Buddhist political party, mobs began to attack people known as the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority of South Asian descent. Scores have been killed, more than 1,000 homes have burned to the ground, and thousands of families fled.

The violence in the state of Rakhine, just south of Bangladesh on the Bay of Bengal, called to mind the ethnic cleansing of Slobodan Miloševic against Bosnian Muslims in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The military regime in Myanmar had begun to implement political and economic reforms that drew praise from the outside world. But at the same time, it increased sectarian tensions in the Buddhist-dominated country, tensions that now are at the center of a humanitarian crisis unfolding on Southeast Asian waters.

Thousands of Rohingya refugees have been floating at sea for months with dwindling supplies, initially turned away by Myanmar's neighbours Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

On 20 May, as international outrage increased, authorities in Indonesia and Malaysia relented. They said they would admit some 7,000 boat people "temporarily", and Malaysia says it has deployed its navy to search for those still at sea.

An estimated 1.1 million Rohingya remain in Myanmar, more than 100,000 of them living in camps near Sittwe, the capital of the state of Rakhine.

Malaysia and Indonesia also insisted that the international community needed to get involved to bear some of the resettlement costs, and, however belatedly, that now appears likely.

The US State Department said on 20 May that it would provide financial support and was also prepared to take a leading role in a multi-country effort to hasten the resettlement of the most vulnerable migrants.

Less clear is the role Thailand will play. The government there said it will host a multinational conference on 29 May in Bangkok to help resolve the crisis, and also said it would not force boats in its territorial waters back out to sea. The world is watching the Thai response with special scrutiny, because the plight of the Rohingya is a notable embarrassment to Bangkok.

Over the past several years, thousands seeking to flee Myanmar have ended up in what amount to slave labour camps on the border of Thailand and Malaysia. Many of the men work on local fishing vessels. Several Thai naval security officials were implicated in the slave labour rings – to the huge embarrassment of the military government in Bangkok.

Last year, Reuters – as part of a series that won a Pulitzer Prize – reported that the Thai police were allowing Rohingya refugees to board boats that officials knew would be likely picked up by human traffickers. That report triggered an investigation and led to camp closures and arrests.

The ultimate responsibility for the plight of the Rohingya lies in Myanmar, where the government refuses to discuss the issue with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or anyone else. If anything, the government in Naypyidaw is fanning the tensions.

Earlier this year, the government announced it would revoke temporary identification cards for all minorities, Rohingya included. The ID cards gave the Rohingya much needed access to health and education services, and also allowed them to vote in what is expected to be a constitutional referendum later this year. That move triggered large protests by Buddhist groups, and the government backed away from its proposal.

Then, last month, it pressed the issue even further, by stepping up collection of the cards from those who held them. (Other minorities — those of Indian and Chinese descent, for example — also hold white cards.) Some 50,000 cards had been seized by the end of last month in Rakhine, and there is no indication that the government intends to cease the collections. That has stoked tensions, diplomats and non-governmental organisations working in the country have said.

In an email to Newsweek on 21 May, an East Asian diplomat said: "I worry that the refugee crisis that finally has the world's attention now might only be the first of many. More violence is possible. It's not clear how this will be defused. The Rohingya are without hope here, and that's a dangerous place to be. We've not heard the last of this."