BANGKOK, 29 May 2009 (IRIN) - One year after the establishment of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG) to coordinate the international response to Cyclone Nargis, many aid officials favour its extension to help the Rohingya in Myanmar.

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) [http://www.aseansec.org/] -led mechanism, which brought together the regional body, UN agencies and the government of Myanmar, proved invaluable in ensuring an effective relief effort after Nargis, which left some 140,000 people dead and affected more than two million.

In the first weeks after the disaster, the group was instrumental in facilitating access to the Ayeyarwady Delta for relief workers and providing visas for international staff with NGOs and the UN.

"Without the TCG the humanitarian impasse may have dragged on," Andrew Kirkwood, head of Save the Children-UK in Myanmar, said. "It provided the government with a counterpart to deal with the rest of the international community; and donors would certainly not have provided assistance on the scale that they did without it."

But one year on, many aid workers now believe it could be used to address other important humanitarian challenges in the country, including the plight of the Rohingya, an ethnic, linguistic and religious, de jure stateless minority in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State.

Earlier this year, more than 1,000 Rohingya made international headlines after they were allegedly pushed out to sea by Thai authorities after fleeing to Thailand and Malaysia in search of a better life.

Hundreds ended up in Indonesia and India, as well as in Thailand. Others reportedly died at sea.

Their status has become a contentious regional issue. At its summit in Thailand in February, ASEAN decided the Bali Process, established in 2002 to deal with human trafficking and other crimes in the region, should consider the issue.

At the same time the countries of the region proposed that ASEAN coordinate a census of Rohingyas in Indonesia and Thailand.

This raised the prospect of a TCG-type mechanism to deal with the issue, particularly as the Southeast Asian nations endorsed the idea that the Rohingya question had to be dealt with at source, including the reason for the mass exodus, as well as their repatriation.

"The TCG could have an enormous benefit if it could be extended to the rest of the country or to specific areas like Northern Rakhine state," Luke Arend, deputy head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières in Myanmar, [see: http://doctorswithoutborders.org/news/country.cfm?id=2296] told IRIN.

Lessons from Nargis

Other senior humanitarian officials in Myanmar, meanwhile, believe the lesson from the TCG experience is the co-operation and coordination that the TCG established between those involved.

"During the past year, the cooperation between the TCG partners … has worked well, and the UN hopes that the parties can have an open dialogue and joint efforts in facilitating delivery of humanitarian and development assistance also in other parts of the country," Bishow Parajuli, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, told IRIN.

That is also the view of the ASEAN Secretary-General, Surin Pitsuwan, who played a key role in the TCG's establishment.

"An ASEAN kind of initiative, whether it's the same as the humanitarian taskforce, or the TCG, at this point doesn't matter," the ASEAN chief told IRIN.

"Neither Myanmar nor ASEAN has the resources necessary to help the humanitarian needs of the people ... in northern Rakhine State. So an ASEAN-led mechanism of some sort could be helpful."

But so far Myanmar's government has made no comment and the subject has not even been discussed with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the lead agency in Rakhine, according to Raymond Hall, the agency's regional head in Bangkok.

"Technically, it would be feasible to use the TCG model for assistance in Rakhine," Hall told IRIN in Bangkok. "Whether it is practically feasible would depend, of course, on the agreement of ASEAN and the Myanmar government," he said.

At the ASEAN summit in Hua Hin, Thailand, in February, the TCG's mandate was extended for one year.

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