US Senate Committee To Release Reports Of Myanmar Migrants

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=384195

January 16, 2009 17:43 PM

By Salmy Hashim

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Bernama) -- The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee is working on two reports containing details of allegations by Myanmar migrants of extortions and threats of being turned over to human traffickers in southern Thailand, if ransom demands were not met.

A Committee staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Bernama here Thursday, that while the first report contained detailed allegations about the extortions and threats by Malaysian officials, the second report contained specific allegations by victims on who were paid and the recipients' bank account numbers.

Information from the second report would be conveyed to the United States law enforcement officials at the Treasury department and the Justice department who would determine what information would be shared with law enforcement officials in Southeast Asia, he added.

He said the timetable for release of the two reports had not been finalised.


Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in commenting on a foreign wire service report, wants the United States to pass on information pertaining to allegations that Malaysian officials extorted money from migrants in the country.

Stating that the government did not tolerate such practice, he said so far, the authorities had not received any report on the matter.

"If the US authority has it, we would be very thankful if they can pass the information to us, so that we can investigate and take appropriate action," he told reporters in Kuala Terengganu yesterday.

The Committee staffer told Bernama here that staffers had met with senior officials in Malaysia in August 2008 to make the Malaysian government aware of the allegations so that they could look into the matter.

The staffers also met with senior officials in southern Thailand (Sungai Golok). Last month, they went to Bangkok to meet with anti-trafficking police.

The staffer said the committee had received several signed statements by individuals (former Myanmar migrants) who typically alleged that once they reached Malaysian soil, they were arrested by Rela (People's Volunteer Corps) and then placed in government detention facilities.

They were then removed from these facilities and transported to the Malaysia-Thai border where they were later approached by agents of traffickers who demanded that they pay money to an established system, before they were allowed to return to Malaysia.

If these migrants refused to pay, they would often be turned over to human traffickers in southern Thailand.

"It's this same pattern of allegations that the committee received over the past year that caused us to investigate the matter," the staffer said.

There are more than 5,000 Myanmar refugees settled in Indiana where they had been giving first-person accounts of what had happened to them. About 40,000 Myanmar migrants have resettled in the United States since 1995.

-- BERNAMA