REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Acting House Speaker Fadli Zon has urged Indonesia's government to play a more active role in encouraging the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to fully deal with the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State, Myanmar.
"Indonesia, as the world's largest Muslim population nation and a leading member of the ASEAN, should be very serious in responding to this problem, I think," Zon noted in a statement here over the weekend.
The ASEAN should function optimally in tackling the Rohingya crisis instead of turning a blind eye to its consensus system, the senior politician of Gerindra Party noted.
He urged the Indonesian government to step up diplomacy to definitively and comprehensively end the humanitarian crisis affecting the Rohingya Muslims who are oppressed, raped, and tortured in their state of Rakhine.
Indonesia's human rights non-governmental organization (NGO) Kontras issued a press statement on Saturday (Dec 23), urging the ASEAN to hold an extraordinary summit to specifically discuss crimes against humanity faced by the Rohingya ethnic minority.
Kontras called on the ASEAN to provide humanitarian assistance and access to justice for Rohingya people. Apart from the repressive military regime in Myanmar, the ASEAN should also discuss the use of an alternative force to end the conflict in Rakhine.
Indonesia should also take the initiative to draft recommendations to help Rohingyas who have been internally displaced, according to Kontras. Kontras has also urged the Indonesian government to call for the withdrawal of security officers in Rakhine, as they instill a sense of fear among the Rohingya minorities and threaten them.
The NGO expressed regret over the ASEAN Summit, held in the Philippines last November, for failing to discuss the humanitarian crisis and human rights violations in Rakhine. Instead of focusing on the humanitarian crisis occurring in the ASEAN region, the ASEAN Summit discussed matters relating to the South China Sea, North Korea, terrorism threats globally, and new economic cooperation with Russia, according to Kontras.
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