By CRIPDO, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said the flow of Rohingya Muslims into Myanmar's neighbours would not stop unless the former Burma removed problems that compelled them to leave their homeland.
"The Rohingya problem has been lingering for more than 30 years, and Myanmar must take steps to solve that," Moni told a news conference on Friday.
Her remarks came a week after a fresh influx of Rohingyas was reported in Bangladesh, prompting the authorities to step up vigilance at its border with Myanmar.
"The issue has been raised prominently among the countries affected by Rohingya refugees and we hope Myanmar will do the needful to retain their people within its territory," Moni said.
Rohingyas, not recognised as an ethnic minority by Myanmar, allege human rights abuse by its authorities, saying they deprive Rohingya of free movement, education and rightful employment.Moni said Bangladesh was in touch with Myanmar and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to stop further inflows and get Myanmar to take back those who have already left.
Rohingyas have been leaving Myanmar and heading mainly into impoverished Bangladesh since the late 1970s. The biggest influx occurred in 1992.
Rohingya refugees have created problems for several other countries in the region in recent months, with reports of Thailand putting those who come by boat back to sea, and others reaching Malaysia and Indonesia and trying to work illegally.
More than 21,000 living in two camps the U.N. runs near the southeastern resort of Cox's Bazar are not willing to go back, alleging persecution by the military junta ruling Myanmar.
They are the remnants of some 250,000 Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh in 1992. The rest were repatriated through UNHCR."It is (against) U.N. principle to force any refugee to go back home from exile if he does not want" to do so, a UNHCR official said, requesting not to be identified.
Cox's Bazar officials say more then 200,000 Rohingyas live outside the camps, mixing with local Muslims who have an almost common language.
Muslims are a minority in Myanmar, where most of the population is Buddhists. Bangladesh is overwhelmingly Muslim.
The countries share a 320 km (200 mile) border.
On a separate refugee issue, Foreign Minister Moni said Bangladesh would take back so-called "boat people" from Indonesia if their particulars and identities were authenticated.
Indonesia said early this week it would return 114 Bangladeshis who arrived in Banda Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island earlier this year in rickety wooden boats. The status of nearly 280 others was still being considered.
Abhisit told Reuters that officials from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees could meet the latest group that had arrived in the country after they had been given medical treatment.
"We are clear that the matter should be dealt with at the regional level. It's best to tackle the problem at source. We welcome the UNHCR and we hope they do good work in Bangladesh and Myanmar," he said.
More than 500 Rohingya, a Muslim minority fleeing oppression and hardship in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, are feared to have drowned since early December after being towed out to sea by the Thai military and abandoned in rickety boats.
The army has admitted cutting them loose, but said they had food and water and denied the engines were sabotaged.
30/01/2009 Abhisit blamed human traffickers for the problem and called on Bangladesh, India and Myanmar to help deal with what he described as "illegal, migrant workers, not refugees.""On our part we will have to do more to stamp out any kind of trade in humans," he said. "I've told the police to crack down on that."
In a bid to avert international outrage, Thailand allowed U.N. refugee workers Thursday to see 12 children among a group of 78 intercepted Monday, who are in police custody awaiting almost certain deportation.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, Abhisit said his foreign minister would meet the UNHCR in Geneva Monday.
Abhisit has promised a full investigation, but said on Saturday the authorities insisted they had not mistreated the people.
"I know there have been reports but they appear to based on the accounts given by those people who clearly want to be recognized as refugees and then put the burden on Thailand in particular," Abhisit said.
He defended the involvement of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), a shadowy wing of the army set up in the Cold War to run anti-communist death squads, saying they were involved because the influx had become so large.
"The policy that was adopted by ISOC had number of principles, among that was not to violate their rights," he said. "They have done what other countries do around the world."
Security agencies said the number of Rohingya intercepted in Thai waters each year has risen steadily to 4,886 in 2008 from 2,793 in 2007 and 1,225 in 2006.
The UNHCR said there are 28,000 Rohingya refugees living in two U.N. camps in Bangladesh and some 200,000 living outside the camps there. Many have sailed from Bangladesh and Myanmar in small boats in recent years and turned up in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia.
A 44-year-old Oxford-educated economist, Abhisit took over last month after a court dismissed the previous administration that was shaken by months of protests, including those which blockaded Bangkok's main airports in November
