We have a difficult program. I was going to say, you know, we're excited to welcome you all for this discussion. It's a bit of a difficult topic. But we, the reason we have such, you know, it's a little un-CSS-like to have so many people speaking on the same topic. But the reason is that there's so many different facets to this, it's so complicated that we wanted to get the different perspectives and all the different elements on the table. So we're going to, each panelist will speak briefly and then we'll open it up for discussion. Questions from you guys, input. So I'll start with our first speaker. Unfortunately, Assistant Secretary Anne Richard had a family emergency today. And, but Jessica Uticon from her office, she was a senior policy officer in the Office of International Migration in the State Department's Bureau of Population and Refugees in Migration, was available to take her place. Jessica traveled with Assistant Secretary Richard on the trip that was just, she just completed. Jessica has quite a bit of experience, has worked in this office for quite a number of years, but earlier worked on development and refugee issues in Southeast Asia and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. So Jessica, over to you. Thank you very much. I also want to point out that we have another expert from PRM here, Hoa Tran and the audience who may be helping us out as we go. But I wanted to just, I was asked to give sort of a little bit of an overview. I know many of you have been tracking this situation quite closely and then talk a little bit about the meeting that Assistant Secretary Richard led the US delegation on and maybe some follow up, our thoughts on follow up to that meeting. And so basically US has been tracking Rohingya issues and migration issues in the region for quite some time. And on May 1st, when the Thai government uncovered a large trafficking and smuggling network and mass graves, things seemed to go into a tailspin on the migration situation and we were faced with a large number of migrants at sea in vessels run or manned by smugglers. And UNHR and IOM were reporting estimates of between four to 10,000 migrants potentially at sea. And as the news unfolded over the two week period, we were seeing very serious situations of migrants in desperate conditions in the crafts at sea. So United States main concern was to encourage governments in the nation and in the Southeast Asian nations to focus on saving lives, prevent more loss of life at sea as we knew that there were some deaths taking place already and to not push back boats out to sea. So with that, there were a lot of developments unfolding and the countries in the region were taking action, taking very quick action. And our Ambassador to Thailand will talk about this more but we were invited to participate in a multi-country meeting to talk about the issues and to talk about how the international community could assist the countries in the region with this. The US sent a large delegation with representatives from our human rights office and our INL office that deals with international narcotics and law enforcement. And at that meeting our main goal was to show support for regional leadership and cooperation, to encourage and urge saving of lives and providing for humanitarian needs, to ensure refugee protection and respect for human rights and to encourage governments to crack down on the smuggling and trafficking and address root causes, including both poverty and human rights issues in the countries of origin. We know that of the migrants that actually came, about just over 4,000 derived on land, many came from Bangladesh and estimates between 50 and 70% of the migrant population that ended up landing were Bangladeshi. And so we were looking at this as a regional issue. So, and I'm gonna kind of quote or paraphrase my Assistant Secretary's experience on the trip. She said that this was really the best and worst of humanity. As we're seeing the governments come together to take action and cooperate, we were also seeing incredible experiences of the migrants suffering from abuse by smugglers, being out at sea for between two and four months. And our Assistant Secretary visited with migrants in Malaysia and Indonesia, all of them telling of these harrowing experiences and being exposed to a lot of traumatic experiences. So, at the meeting in Thailand, the governments came together to talk about three different aspects of the issue. First it was, how are we gonna continue to work on saving lives and ensuring for protection for this population. Second was to look at the smuggling and trafficking issues. And then third was root causes. And then from that meeting, they produced the Thai government facilitated the conversation and they came out with a summary of the meeting which had a lot of very key commitments by the government. I'll finish there, and then hopefully we'll have a lot of time at the end for questions. Jessica, our next speaker is Ambassador Pisan Manawapat who is the Thai Ambassador to Washington to the US since February, so he's one of the newer ambassadors in Washington. But prior to coming to Washington, Ambassador Pisan was also Ambassador to Canada, Belgium, the EU, India and Luxembourg. Ambassador Pisan, please. Thank you very much, Mary. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak to her. I'd like to start in the absence of Assistant Secretary and Richard to pay a special thanks and tribute to her for her leadership. I call on her prior to her departure and any of her much genuine concern she had for the fate of these unfortunate migrants at sea. And over the weekend, I knew how hard she had been working in coordinating with the Pentagon, the US Embassy in Bangkok and between the US Embassy in Bangkok and the Thai military authorities. I also liked to commend the United States government for displaying this genuine and passionate leadership since the beginning of the crisis. Secretary John Kerry gave his Thai counterpart a telephone call to express the support for this initiative. Indeed, this initiative for the first time had brought countries of origin, countries of transit and countries of the final destinations together, together with concerns countries such as the United States and Japan and the international community, international organizations. On that one-day meeting besides 20 countries representatives there we also allowed some 40 embassies, officials, ambassadors and their representative to observe the meeting. So it was a very open, transparent, constructive talk and it was gratifying to note that Myanmar amongst countries of concerns and origin has sent one of the largest delegations up to eight comprising representative from various agencies. So they are here, they were there in Bangkok to constructively participate and try to find common solutions. We are not stranger to facing the international humanitarian crisis since the end of the Vietnam War. We have showed more than a million Indochinese refugees and up until now they are continue to be more than 130,000 displaced persons from Myanmar living in Thailand and not to count some 10,000 persons of concern in urban settings. People who refugees claim pending status determination by UNHCR and as we speak the 744 irregular migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh in addition to what Kunjesika already mentioned, the medium and long-term solution and that's why we decided to host this special meeting on the 29th of May and as Kunjesika mentioned participants constructively participated and come up with some practical and concrete proposals along the line of the three components of the immediate medium and solutions addressing the root cause. We continue to uphold this humanitarian principles. We will continue to be an active member of this special meeting that search for the implementation solutions through the three components. On the short-term solutions, even before the special meeting to be resized on the 25th of May, the prime minister ordered special operations. One big Navy warship acting as a floating platform together with six other Navy vessels, two aircraft and two helicopters were dispatched in the Andaman Sea to search for any irregular boats at sea seeking the help. And together with United States and Malaysian navies and Indonesian navies, we have found no vessels in Andaman Sea during the operation. The Myanmar and Bangladesh also joined in this humanitarian efforts in order to save life at sea. Bangladesh Navy was able to intercept a migrant boat leaving Bangladesh Cox Bazaar while the Myanmar Navy rescued some 900 migrants just off the coast in late May. On the medium-term solutions, the Thai government has continued its efforts to crack down on people smuggling and human trafficking syndicates. As of the 10th of June, we have made them, we have issues of arrest warrant to 89 persons, 53 already under arrested, more than 50 police officers were transferred pending investigations and there were an important arrest warrant to a three-star Army general with 13 charges and his bail has been denied by a criminal court. The anti-money laundering office already sees asset worth more than three million US dollar from this human trafficking network. We also cooperate closely with Bangladesh. Since 2013, over 830 illegal migrants have been verified as the Bangladeshi nationals and they have voluntarily returned with the assistance of both the government and on occasion IOM. These are just a few examples that after we have received them, after we have extended humanitarian assistance, we manage to work with countries of origin and send them back. On the longer solutions, even before the 29th special meeting, we have been working closely with our neighbor Myanmar. We have given 300,000 US dollar for humanitarian assistance to the Rakhine state for the government of Myanmar to provide immediate relief and stabilize the area. We also contributed to the livelihood of the communities, the two communities living as part of our agriculture livelihood development project. We also support the socioeconomic development in Rakhine state, including business matching program between the Myanmar business owners in Rakhine and the Thai business owner in the former capital, Yankong. We dispatch mobile medical unit to Rakhine and the invitation of Rakhine high ranking officials to participate in our emergency emerging leaders program. So I'd like to end my short presentation with a few key messages from Thailand. I think the number one, we're very serious in going after the culprits, the traffickers. International cooperation is indispensable. The number two is that the Bangkok 29th meeting was not meant to provide answer to all solutions. So we need to keep the momentum going forward. Countries who have pledged in any way must implement their pledge. Resettlement program have to be speeded up. Number three, when the spotlight shift to other emergencies elsewhere, as we have always seen in the past, regional countries always left with the burden to fend for themselves. So we need to sustain the international attention, international assistance, and the concept of the burden sharing. Number four, the message is the short-term objective of saving life. I think we can call that as an immediate pass. We have more or less broken down the criminal network in the recent past, but we cannot be complacent. We need to tighten and strengthen our intelligent sharing, law enforcement corporations, and other preventive and deterrent measures to undermine this business model of smuggling and trafficking people across the ocean. For the longer term, and this is my message to United States, both opinion makers, think tanks, and business community, it's vital to work constructively with the government, the local government, of the countries of origin. There is no point of making criticism and finger pointing. I think it has worked in the past for Thailand to engage with them constructively, and I'm sure that United States had both the resources and the power of persuasion with your business support. You can make their life better in the area so that they don't have to take these risky journeys My final term message is that United States ought to regard Thailand as your strong allies and partner in a fight against human trafficking. The government, this government has done more than any other previous Thai government in going after the traffickers. FBI agents, law enforcement agents in Thailand from United States have been working hand in hand. The practice, the training that you have among your law enforcement agencies is also the same practice that your law enforcement agencies have been sharing with the Thai counterparts. And you need the Thai counterpart in order to seek further cooperation from our immediate neighbors. So these trafficking issues is a regional and international issues that need to tackle together. So I hope very much that United States government will continue to send strong and positive signal that Thailand is your friends and partner in this fight against trafficking. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ambassador Pisan. Your next speaker is Janna Mason, who is a senior advisor for government relations and external affairs at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington. Janna, please. Thank you, a lot to talk about in a short time. So let me run through. I'm gonna give some statistics and other information, but happy to go into more detail in the Q and A. I think there are basically two aspects to this situation. One is the regional crisis in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The other is the Rohingya-specific situation in Rakhine State and Myanmar. I'm gonna talk largely about the first. I know Michelle and other panelists will talk largely about the second, but I will mention some specific issues regarding Rakhine State as well. So let me start on the regional crisis. Just to give a little background, some of it was mentioned by Jessica. Some of it you're probably very familiar with from the news. Irregular movements by sea in the Indian Ocean, particularly the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. Those movements have tripled since 2012. And when I say irregular movements, let me just start with a word on terminology. We talk about irregular movements. We talk about migration crisis. This is what we in the humanitarian community refer to as a mixed migration situation. Meaning you have people fleeing for various reasons. You have economic migrants. The persons largely coming from Bangladesh will probably fall into that category. You also have very clearly refugees or persons whose claim might not be certain. They're asylum seekers. But this is largely a refugee crisis as much as it is a migration crisis. For quick terminology, we refer to mixed migration. It's not the only region of the world where we're seeing this. Obviously we have this very recently been happening and still happening in the Mediterranean. It's happening in the Gulf of Aden. It's happening in the Pacific Ocean near Australia. It's happening right here in this region in the Caribbean. Mixed migration is nothing new, but the numbers that we're seeing, the multiplicity of crises we're seeing around the world at the same time is something clearly that's garnered a lot of attention lately. In terms of the most recent figures in the region we're talking about today, there's an estimated 63,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh. And to our knowledge, there aren't others, although until they're individually screened, you don't know for sure, but almost exclusively Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh who have made this journey in 2014. That was one calendar year. Another 25,000 in the first quarter of this year alone. So you combine 2014 with the first quarter arrivals in 2015, 88,000 people making this journey in this region double the number of such departures over the same period last year. As far as we know, since January of 2014, over 1,000, I think 1,000 to 1,100 deaths at sea. Again, that number isn't known for certain, but that's the minimum that we're aware of. As the ambassador, and I think Jessica mentioned, since May 10th when this crisis really garnered a lot of attention, roughly 4,000 Bangladeshis in Rohingya have landed in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. And in addition, another 1,700 on ships have for various reasons gone back and disembarked in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Everyone is always asking how many boats are still there? How many people remain in distress at sea? The number is unknown. Recently there were figures of 2,000, 3,000 or more. As the ambassador mentioned, there were aerial investigation done cooperatively with the Thai government and the U.S. government and others, and no new boats were found, but we have an estimate of possibly 1,200 NGOs and others in the region are telling us there could be roughly 1,200 still at sea, or it's possible that some of them disembarked in locations unknown, not known to authorities. So that's always possible. It's hard to come here and say we just don't know and please don't hold me to those figures. That's what we're hearing from a number of sources. Now UNHCR has had access to a number of these individuals and has interviewed them and heard the same horrendous stories of ill treatment and abuse on the seas and at the hands of smugglers and traffickers. The same things that Jessica mentioned, so I won't go into detail, but one thing is for certain is that as the crackdowns have intensified, the smugglers and traffickers have changed their game and instead of disembarking, they now hold people for ransom at sea or they just abandon them where they suffer lack of food, lack of medicine, sickness, death at sea or abandonment. It's not unlike in the Mediterranean, it's not so much of a drowning issue for the most part as just horrible treatment and succumbing to sickness and other situations. The response of the governments in the region obviously has varied and the governments came along at different levels. Indonesia and Malaysia of course announced at the foreign ministers meeting on May 27th that they would rescue and host these arrivals in temporary shelters provided that they're either resettled to a third country or return to their home countries within a year. We're very pleased to see that people have been rescued and have been able to disembark and this is where the short-term assistance and the median term and the long-term solutions will come into play. Thailand as you're aware has been cooperating and given us tremendous support and has even announced that it would send a floating platform to provide assistance at sea. And as was already mentioned, the Thai government cooperated very well with the US in conducting surveillance flights to search for people that were still in distress. The governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh have largely been characterizing this as a trafficking problem and calling on the international community to crack down on traffickers. But as I'd like to mention, because even though people have been desperate enough to turn in some cases to smugglers or have fallen prey of traffickers, again that doesn't negate what I said earlier about this being in large measure or at least in part, a refugee problem or a refugee crisis. The refugee convention makes very clear that people seeking asylum are not to be penalized for using irregular means of migration. People who are fleeing for their lives don't have luxury of getting legal visas or necessarily relying on legal means. So because they are victims of smugglers or traffickers doesn't make some of them any less refugees. At the same time, we clearly need to cooperate to crack down on smugglers and traffickers. UNHCR's operational response in the region has been similar to what we do in other regions where we're seeing this happening. We have recently registered approximately 1,000 Rohingya in Indonesia. We're currently in the process of screening or gaining access to asylum seekers in some of the other countries. Recently in Thailand, we distributed relief items to some Rohingya and have been counseling them as well. And we're definitely seeking wherever possible to step up this response. Like the situation in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, we do regard this as a regional situation that requires a regional solution with the assistance of the international community as the ambassador said. There's a lot that international community can and should do. Again, this is in addition to what needs to be done at the root of the issue in Roqueen State and elsewhere. But as long as people are fleeing, we need a coordinated response. We issued, along with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and with IOM, we issued a statement on May 19th and subsequently issued or came up with what we call a 10-point plan. We are the UN, we like to issue statements and 10-point plans, but I can assure you there is some real will behind it. And we've shared this plan cooperatively with regional governments. Real quick, I won't go through all 10, but I'll go through the ones that I think are the most salient. The first one clearly was focus on saving lives. And that has largely been done so far. It's probably not over yet. So the commitment to saving lives needs to remain. We think that's done largely through a vigorous search and rescue operation, as well as predictable and timely disembarkation. As long as people are stranded at sea, that's not protection. They need to know that wherever they show up, they can disembark and there will be assistance for them there and it will be safely, it will be safe and it will be timely enough to prevent undue hardships. And just so you know, we strongly believe there's not only a moral but a legal obligation to do this. I think last year, a couple of years ago, we issued, published a joint paper, UNHCR, with the International Maritime Organization, which lays out obligations of various actors in terms of rescue at sea. So I would commend that to you if you're wondering exactly who's supposed to do what. Second, another key component of that 10 point plan is that there needs to be adequate reception conditions. It does no good if people arrive sick and traumatized if there's nothing for them where they disembark. That's where UNHCR, NGO partners and others can step in and are certainly willing and able to do it to provide such assistance. We do call on governments to the greatest extent possible to avoid the use of detention for anyone who is or could be an asylum seeker. This is consistent with what UNHCR says everywhere else in the world, including in the US when it comes to children and families fleeing Central America. So lest you think we're singling out a region or a government, this is consistent with our principles that detention is a last option. Obviously we need fair and effective screening procedures to determine who among these mixed flow of migrants needs international protection. And international protection could be because they are asylum seekers. It could be because they're stateless persons that UNHCR has a mandate for as well. It could be because they're victims of trafficking. It could be because they fear torture. There are various international legal obligations. If they are in need of protection, you need to figure out who they are, give them that protection. Individuals not in need of protection. Economic migrants, for example, can then legally be returned home. We would hope it would be done humanely, but then they would be subject to normal immigration enforcement measures. We also call upon governments, just like we're doing in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, to expand legal avenues for migration. Persons who are refugees, it takes a long time for them to find durable solutions. If there are other ways that they could get employment visas, that they can access other means to stay and work legally in a country, we call on governments to facilitate that. There would still be refugees and still on our books as long as they fear persecution in their home country. But just because they are legally refugees doesn't mean they have to live in limbo without any rights. So we certainly call on avenues for legal migration. And then the last thing, which goes back to what I said at the beginning, that this is not just a regional issue, it's an issue in Rakhine State. The last thing is addressing root causes. As long as people are experiencing war or violence or persecution, discrimination, xenophobia, denial of citizenship rights, they are going to flee. If these things can be resolved in their home country, as the ambassador said, that will certainly prevent people from feeling the need to flee and certainly prevent them from or discourage them from undertaking the dangerous journeys that we've seen. UNHCR does work in Rakhine State and elsewhere in Myanmar as part of the inter-agency humanitarian response. We're assisting internally displaced persons. We're assisting the entire community of Rakhine State, Rohingya and others. And we are collectively trying to improve the conditions and ultimately to work with the government to make sure that citizenship is granted and that full rights that go along with citizenship are respected. That's the ultimate solution to this particular problem. But again, as long as you have these situations, people will flee and when they do, that's where we need a regional response. Thanks. Thanks, Janak. Michelle. Thank you very much, Murray. And I will take over where Janne left it and get back to Myanmar because the boat crisis is just the most recent and visible manifestation of a very long ordeal of the Rohingyas over the past decades, but an ordeal that has become much more acute in the past couple of years. What we've seen in the past couple of years, the measures of persecution and repression have increased and I think that in itself explains the increase in the number of people who are leaving. But restrictions and movement which were prevalent in the northern part of the state have become stricter. Since the violence in 2012, you have about 140,000 who live in camps and that are increasing, becoming like ghettos. Inside Sitwe, there is a neighborhood that is completely closed with barbed wire and police around and people are not allowed in or out, which means their economy has completely crashed down. I have seen some of the few houses that were not burnt during the violence. People are not allowed to leave the house, so what they're doing now is destroying the house, selling the wood and moving into the camps. So there is an increasing restriction on the ability of the Rohingya who are already very poor to sustain their life and they are progressively pushed into misery. At the same time, new laws have been passed on marriage, on spacing of childbearing that are directed particularly at the Muslim population. The Rohingyas have been forbidden from using their own definition and there is an international right to self-identification. Diplomats have been asked not to use that word and I'm very grateful to the Assistant Secretary of State who when she was there did pronounce the word Rohingya and did not shy away from recognizing that right. Those who still had cards have been, these cards have been taken away. So we've seen really a very rapid restriction of all the rights of this population who basically are left now with one right which is to leave and it's one of the few countries that is not upset if part of its population is leaving. As a result, the Rohingyas are pushed from poverty to misery. They have no hope at all on what will happen to them and they have fear and they have fear because what we have seen in the country is a tremendous rise of hate speech promoted by radical group of monks but the hate speech that has been tolerated if not at times supported by the government who has recognized the monks who lead that movement as defenders of the nation and who have repressed other monks who are speaking much more positively in the name of their religion and who have been prohibited from preaching and that hate speech I think has now generated almost an anti-Muslim hysteria in the country which as elections get closer, we fear can only become worse. So what we are seeing in my view is a slow process of quite ethnic cleansing. I want to remind everyone that ethnic cleansing is not just a broad massacre, it can be just the very progressive restrictions of the rights of people as we are seeing. Now we do, I do certainly take the point of the ambassador that the relationship with the government of Myanmar must be a constructive one. They have a difficult issue to tackle and they have to tackle that issue as the government is going through major changes in the way the country runs itself. I appreciate that this is not easy and that certainly the long-term solution for the Rohingya which will have to come through the whole question of citizenship and that probably cannot be addressed before the election and will require some level of reconciliation in the country. It will require some Burmese voices that are critically absent to date. But in the meantime, I think there are issues that are very serious and on which the government must be kept under some international pressure. Humanitarian access to the Rohingyas is still very difficult for the UN and for INGO. Is it ad hoc? There is no way to assist these people as other internally displaced people or refugees are assisted in other parts of the world. The question of freedom of movement, the longer we accept that, the more it's going to be an established fact and the more it's going to be difficult to break. Now obviously today, the Rohingyas are scared to move out because they fear mobs. So you cannot work on the release, on an improvement of freedom of movement if you don't work at the same time on law enforcement for people who would breach normal behavior vis-a-vis different ethnicities. And finally, and to me perhaps most importantly now, we must really encourage the government to counter the hate speech.  And we haven't heard much of that right now. And I think it's acutely needed because we fear that in areas like the neighborhood I mentioned inside Sitwe, which is completely locked in backward among the Rakhine population, any spark could generate the sort of mobs we have seen two years ago. And we know with elections, tempers get hotter and I don't think we can relax and say that let's just wait for the elections and sort out the problem that Rohingyas on the long run. I think there are immediate concerns that should be addressed very seriously. And the last comment, the Rohingya represent 20% of the Rakhine state. The Rakhines are themselves the minority in Myanmar. They have claims against the government of not having been treated properly. We now have a tendency to see the Rohingya all good and the Rakhines are the bad guys because we hear the narrative of their most radical politician. I think this is something we have to break away from because on the long run, of course, there cannot be a solution for the Rohingya without the Rakhine being part of that solution. And so far, we have no idea on how to approach that and the government has not really suggested an approach and this will be critical, but that's I would say for the midterm. And on these notes, I'll give you back the call. Thanks, Michelle. Worked at Human Rights First, the Brookings Institution and Albright Stormbridge Group. Dan. Thank you. Thank you all for being here and thank you to my panelists and fellow panelists and CSIS. So I want to start with the focus on one of the key root causes of this crisis. You know, there's, we've seen a lot of the headlines in recent weeks talking about floating coffins, mass atrocities at seas that have really captured people's attention, but long before that there were these root causes of the persecution of the Rohingya and Michelle talked a little bit about that. So let me start with the destination first. A few weeks ago, just before the crisis really started, I was in Malaysia and met with several families who had just arrived, Rohingya families, and talked to them about the journey they had taken and just heard really heart-wrenching stories about, you know, how they find agents who take them out in small boats to larger boats than they're taken in and passed off to other traffickers. Now they paid already for that first journey. Now they come to the Thai-Malaysia border, to the camps, and then that's where they're held, they're beaten, tortured, raped. They're held for ransom and forced to call their families, relatives, and asked to come up with more money for their release. This is, you know, this is what was talked about before, where you found these, the crackdown on traffickers found these mass graves. So that's, you know, that's kind of the start of it. But when I talk to these people, you know, I asked them, went through these great trials, would you recommend to the family and friends that you have back in Rakhine State to take that journey? And without hesitation, they all said yes. So that gives you an idea of how bad that is. I mean, what it comes down to is that the Rohingya are people that are facing this, trapped between the nefarious network of human traffickers and the place in the world where, that is facing the highest risk of genocide anywhere in the world. That's, you know, earlier I had been to camps in Rakhine State, United Ten Genocide. We came out with a report called Marching to Genocide. That was last year where we looked at all the known precursors to genocide, hate speech, dehumanization, organized propaganda campaigns, systematic denial of rights. And we found that nowhere in the world are there more known precursors to genocide than in Burma today. And this was a report a year ago. But as they say, you know, don't just take our word for it, others have found that too. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum, their center for the prevention of genocide just last month came out with a report where they found all of these indicators leading to a high risk of further mass atrocities and even genocide. Another group, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights who we've worked closely with. This is a group of members of parliament from different countries within ASEAN, came out with a report where they used, you know, they looked at the atrocities prevention or the UN Office of the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide came out last year with a framework of analysis of atrocities crimes. And they found that nearly all of the common risk factors for atrocities are present today in Burma. And this is particularly significant because I think we have seen in the region increasing recognition of the Rohingya crisis, in particular as an ASEAN regional crisis and not just a domestic issue. And, you know, that report by ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights came out just ahead of the last ASEAN Summit and we saw something quite remarkable. The foreign minister from Malaysia made the statement that the Rohingya crisis should be treated as a regional issue. And this was all before the latest crisis came out and that just has really underscored that it needs to be treated as a regional crisis. So now, you know, that leads up to what the, what was the reaction when this really, really captured the attention when you had thousands of people out to sea. And unfortunately, the initial reaction was really bad. I mean, there was, you know, regional navies were literally pulling the ships of desperate people back out to sea. The US government as well was pretty silent the first few days, even when there was, you know, there was a call for a summit, but that was at the end of the month. And the crisis was going on a month before. Eventually, there was a summit before that. There were agreements, you know, to take in some of the desperate migrants, asylum seekers. But even after that, it took another few days before there was a real launch of search and rescue. So things got better, but the initial reaction was not good. The US government, you know, I do give credit to some officials like the assistant secretary, Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary, Ann Richard, who was supposed to be here today. And eventually, President Obama in recognizing that the root cause of this is in Burma, and that needs to be addressed and calling for the citizenship for the Rohingya. So now we're facing a situation where this is gonna go off of the headlines, but there still are people out there. We don't know how many people are out in the boats. We don't know what ultimately is going to happen to the people who have come on to the shores. So there needs to be a lot more attention to this. Now, in terms of what can be done, you know, first on the regional level, ASEAN should recognize the protection rights and should recognize the people who are coming to their shores as prima facie refugees and treat them as such. They should join the convention on refugees, and then ASEAN governments can help by placing pressure on the government of Burma to address this issue. The international community, particularly the United Nations, can take a lot stronger stance. It was mentioned earlier, too many people are going along with the government's demand not to recognize the right of the Rohingya to self-identify, not using the word Rohingya. We've seen some officials have been using that, but not all. There hasn't been enough of a push for Burma to live up to its commitments that it's made, one of those being the opening of an office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights within Burma and with full access in Rakhine State. Burma itself can do a lot, can reform the 1982 citizenship law to address the state of the Rohingya, can allow them access to humanitarian aid and can recognize their right to self-identify and all the rights that Michelle talked about that are being trampled. And they can take a stance against the so-called protection of race and religion laws, one of those being the population control law which was signed while the top State Department official of Tony Blinken was there. The President actually signed this law. So there's a lot more that Burma can do and there is a limit to, there's a lot of internal issues, domestic issues, so there is a lot of need for international pressure. So let me just end with what the United States can do. And the main thing is to put substance behind the statements. I mentioned there have been some good statements. We need to see some substance, some real consequences when there is the kind of backsliding and the dangers of genocide that I mentioned. One way to do that, the U.S. has given up a lot of the sanctions that were on Burma and gave up a lot of leverage, but there still are some there, particularly the specially designated nationals list for targeted sanctions. Since 2012, there's only been one person added for violence and human rights related abuses, despite the rampant human rights abuses that are going on. Another thing is just holding the government Burma to their own commitments. When President Tencent made 11 commitments to President Obama when he first visited, made his historic trip to Burma, only one of those can really be said to have been fully fulfilled. The others are either partial or completely ignored. One of those, as I mentioned, is the opening of an office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. So fairly simple things that can be done, that should be done, and then ultimately, the message should be clear that there won't be any further engagement on military to military relations, and then even on some diplomatic relations if things continue to get worse. So let me stop there and just say that this is, again, a key root cause of what we've seen. It's not gonna be easy to address long term the situation of the Rohingya, but we are seeing some hopeful movements. There's less of a concentration on the good news story of Burma and recognizing some of the abuses that have happened. There's more criticism from ASEAN, including former Malaysian Prime Minister who was talking about possibly kicking Burma out of ASEAN if they do not address this. But one thing is for sure that if these root causes are not addressed, then in the coming months, we will see those headlines coming back, talking about floating coffins and mass trustees at sea. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Our next speaker is Keith Luce, who is here in his previous, everybody else has been described in their current incarnation. Keith is in his previous incarnation here as a former Republican senior staff member for East Asia and the Pacific in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee until 2013. Just so everybody knows, Keith's current job is working on the National Committee on North Korea, which is not on the docket here today. Keith, over to you. Thank you, Murray. And thanks to CSIS for the privilege of participating. In her absence, I would like to commend Assistant Secretary Richard as well as her colleagues for their ongoing commitment and leadership toward addressing issues that have been highlighted here today. At the request of CSIS, my comments are going to focus more on the trafficking aspects, if you will, in general in Southeast Asia. And Ambassador Pisan, I'd like to thank you and commend you for your personal commitment on all the points that have been raised. Since you've been in Washington, I know that this has taken a lot of your time. And I know that your government in recent months has been making extra special efforts on trafficking as a whole, and I thank you for that. And I would also like to express thanks to Malaysia's Ambassador Wang, who I know Malaysia has been making special efforts as well in recent weeks with the crisis. My own understanding and perspective on human trafficking in Southeast Asia were initially forged by my participation in the 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff investigation into the trafficking and extortion of Burmese migrants and refugees in Malaysia and Southern Thailand. And I would like to thank US Ambassador James Keith at the time and Deputy Chief of Mission Rob Rapson, who were extremely helpful to the committee. I would also like to give special tribute to Malaysia's former Ambassador, John Maloudis Jardin, who unfortunately is no longer with us. But JJ, when he came to Washington and made it a personal commitment to improve Malaysia's standing in that area. The recent reports of graves along the border between Malaysia and Thailand are nothing new. In Bangkok in 2010, I visited with Thailand's Coroner porn tip, Ruzan Asanon, regarding the discovery of bodies and unmarked graves in Southern Thailand. The recent disclosure about the bodies along the border is simply another indication that the fundamentals bolstering human trafficking in Southeast Asia are not being adequately addressed. In addition, the graves are evidence and a reminder that migrants and refugees are often viewed as one of two categories in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In large part, they are viewed as commodities, items of commerce, like electronics or perhaps rice, supplying market demand for labor or sex. Throughout the region, they are also regarded as a public nuisance, as witnessed by the decision of multiple governments through the years, including recently, to send boatloads of human cargo, children and parents back into open sea. The plight of the Rohingya, as discussed here today, they're the statelessness and being held in disregard in Myanmar by the government, by pro-democracy leaders, by Bermans in general, and by other ethnic minorities, and largely ignored by the rest of the world, is also not news. The human trafficking element of this tragedy is emblematic of a larger reality in Southeast Asia, where individuals, migrants, refugees, and others are bought, sold, traded, or otherwise mistreated. Human trafficking in Southeast Asia is an economic whirlwind of substantial force, which is caused partly by the juxtaposition of extreme poverty with new opportunities for economic exploitation opened by globalization. It is also facilitated by corruption, disregard by many local businesses as to the background and documentation of their employees, and the power wielded by criminal syndicate leaders and masterminds who appear to have largely gone untouched. On a different but related note, recent stories by the Associated Press have exposed the use of slave labor in the Southeast Asia seafood industry to meet international consumer demand, including in the United States and elsewhere. The committee's investigative piece of six years ago, regarding the trafficking and extortion of men, women, and children in Malaysian Southern Thailand, revealed that at that time, humans as a commodity were an integral part of the work of Thai fishing boats, sometimes trafficked, sometimes misled as to conditions of employment and duration of boat trips. In 2010, on a trip to the Indonesian island of Kaikachel, I discovered Bermans and ethnic minorities from Burma who reported they had fled the fishing boats. At that time, the International Seafarers Union of Indonesia estimated that over 5,000 Burmese and other migrants who had fled or were expelled from Thai fishing boats were stranded throughout the Archipelago. Well, what can be done today within Southeast Asia and by the global community to counter the effect of economic and other forces, including the labor and sex markets which facilitate trafficking? I have compiled at least seven key roles in the tragic drama of human trafficking in Southeast Asia. Number one is the role of competing public priorities, that the role of competing public policy priorities within governments. In the United States, we point to the Trafficking Persons Report, which has become an integral reference on a global scale related to trafficking. However, a whole and government consistent approach by the U.S. toward combating trafficking in Southeast Asia and elsewhere is not possible due to competing foreign policy goals, as it is with other countries. Not all U.S. officials in every federal department and agency support efforts to combat trafficking. Number two is the role of corruption. What will finally motivate governments in Southeast Asia to consistently and aggressively pursue prosecution of the kingpins of trafficking? Yes, there are arrests. Yes, there have been some convictions. There are press releases, there are pronouncements. This is great, but at the end of the day, the big fish are rarely caught. Number three, the role of the private sector in Southeast Asia and globally. Foreign investors in Southeast Asia should demand accountability to ensure that their workforce and that of their subcontractors does not include persons who are victims of trafficking, thereby setting an example for companies within ASEAN. What steps are companies taking, including in the seafood industry, to ensure that slave labor is not part of the supply chain? The California Transparency and Supply Chains Act and the Subsequent U.K. Modern Slavery Act of 2015 are indicators of likely future legislative activity in a variety of countries on the supply chain issue. Number four, the role of NGOs and civil society. Is it possible for Southeast Asian nations, including Malaysia and Thailand, to improve their view of civil society as being part of the solution rather than part of the problem? Number five, the role of ASEAN. As ASEAN moves toward greater economic integration, the incidents of human trafficking may accelerate, unless ASEAN leaders choose to implement a comprehensive strategy to tackle trafficking. Inaction by ASEAN will contribute to regional instability. Point six, the role of leaders in the region. Do the decisions by leaders in Southeast Asia and the Pacific to turn away boatloads of children, women and men, contribute to human trafficking? Point seven, the role of those in Southeast Asia dedicated to combating human trafficking. While the economic benefits for those involved in human trafficking often diminish incentives to facilitate real change, it is important to note that there are government officials, NGO representatives, business people, and other citizens in Thailand, in Malaysia, and elsewhere in the region, who diligently fight human trafficking. In what ways may these often courageous persons be empowered, reinforced in their efforts? It is also important to note that for decades, Thailand has served as a refuge, a safe place for persons fleeing from persecution and disruptions of life in neighboring countries and elsewhere. The Thai government has allowed UNHCR to actively operate within the country. Likewise, Malaysia has hosted UNHCR since 1975, a very significant accomplishment which has demonstrated immense cooperation on the part of the Malaysia government. Thank you. Thanks, Keith. So now it's your turn. We've thrown out a lot of different ideas from different perspectives and open the floor to questions and comments. Just like to mention that Ambassador Pisan kindly agreed to participate, despite the fact that he has a minister visiting, he will have to leave a little bit early at 3.45 to join the minister in a meeting. So if you have questions for Ambassador Pisan, please, maybe we'll take those first. And if you have questions, please wait for the mics and then identify yourself and give us a question, please. Thanks. Great, thank you so much for this really rich discussion. My question is for the ambassador, Kate Phillips Brasso with the International Rescue Committee. Before I ask my question, I did want to also say thank you to Thailand for continuing to serve as a place of refuge for hundreds of thousands of refugees from southeastern Burma. It's a very important part of the regional dynamic. Noted sort of a tension in the discussion that exists out there in the discussions about how to deal with the situation vis-a-vis the government of Myanmar. And that is whether taking proactive approaches like those suggested by Mr. Sullivan in terms of sanctions, et cetera, sort of a more forward-leaning approach is the way to go. And your comment about there's really sort of no point in finger pointing based on your experience and that positive engagement is really the way to move the needle forward on dealing with the source problems of this issue. I'd like to hear a little bit more about what those positive engagement steps look like from your viewpoint. We hear people talk about these in very general terms and it would be great to hear what you think are concrete steps that international actors can work with the government of Myanmar to take to stem the sort of source problems that we see in Rakhine State that lead to these deaths that see in the larger regional problem we're witnessing. Thank you. Before the election in Myanmar, I think the United States and the European Union adopted a policy of isolation and sanctioned. Thailand has been at the forefront among ASEAN countries in persuading the international community, Western governments, to adopt an engagement. And I think we had seen that it worked boycott and sanctioned and the policy of isolation didn't work. Myanmar was persuaded. People are proud. This is a proud country and it didn't want to be dictated by any other country. It has chosen its own pace of the democracy development. It held elections. It continued towards the path of reform. The other day, Deputy Secretary Anthony Blankin in a major statement before the US ASEAN Business Council also recognized the fact that there had been release of more political prisoners in Myanmar. So as I mentioned in my intervention, even before the crisis, we have been working closely in addressing the well-being of ethnic minorities, not only on the outside of the border, but in the Rakhine state. Our modest contribution and program may look small, but I think the fact that we were welcomed by the government, we were welcomed by the Chief Minister and the fact that we have extended our cooperation even-handedly. We are not playing one ethnic minority against another and all that, we have been very even-handed, transparent and with sincerity. I think as fellow ASEAN citizens and Buddhists, I think we know that this works by positive engagement. And I personally believe that you want to talk, you want to engage, but you want to give them respect in the sense that they have their own limitation, they have their own constraints, and if they can move forward, they will. They are smart people and this year and it's election year for them. And again, I wouldn't want to venture into their internal politics, but there is a need to recognize constraints. Thank you very much. I'm Kumar from Amnesty International. First question is a comment of Ambassador from Thailand. Ambassador, you mentioned that people of Myanmar and the government is very proud and they don't want any, they wouldn't appreciate any interference. You should understand that they could be proud people, but the interference comes when they don't know how to treat their own people in their territory. In this case, even go to the extent of genocide. So your statements actually encourages them. I am sorry to say Ambassador, behavior of Burmese or Myanmar generals to go after these Rohingya people. My comment, question for other people is that everyone talked about the root causes. That's obviously one root cause is obviously the situation, the treatment of Rohingya by the Myanmar government and also Democrats, not only government. Everyone has gang up against Rakhine, including the Democratic opposition there. You mentioned, you failed to mention the real issue behind the traffickers. The latest report is that the Australian government have paid traffickers, UNHCR. I'm sure they expressed concern. So there are two aspects. Here is one country, in this case, Australia, is paying traffickers for whatever reason. That's encouraging traffickers to traffic more and do all these abuses. So I want comments from other people about that as well. Thank you. So Kuma, the issue, is the comment or also a question? You were talking about the part? Second, if I could respond about Australia paying traffickers, thousands, by the way, that they have paid and the Indonesian government today had a press conference and even have evidence to that. Thanks. I just want to add that from the statistics of the UNHCR and our own finding, these irregular migrants, come from not only Myanmar, they also from Bangladesh. And in fact, up to 60% of them come from Bangladesh. And we have them work with the government of Bangladesh to return them. And obviously, this is also, if I heard the Assistant Secretary and Richard correctly, if they are identified, proven, as economic migrants, then the efforts will be made with the countries of origin to return them safely to their countries of origin. So we are not talking about one ethnic minority, one particular problem in Myanmar. And I think it's important to notice that in the 29th May special meeting, the countries of concern have more or less agreed on a list, a series of practical recommendations. And I think that it would be, it would not be correct to focus on one particular problem in one country alone on these irregular migrants' problems. I don't know, does any of the other panelists want to address the issue of Indonesia's charges that Australia paid traffickers, guys with boats, to take refugees away from Australia back to, toward Indonesia? Seems, I don't know, it's a charge. I don't know if it's fully proven at this point. But sorry, do you want to address that charge? But I will say that, as you all know, Khmer governments around the world often take dramatic steps to try to avoid individuals arriving on their shores. Again, it happens in many parts of the world. I mean, for many years, Australia has taken steps that UNHCR has vocally raised concerns about in terms of some of the offshore processing, as they call it. UNHCR has been very direct in our claims that we don't agree with the US Supreme Court's interpretation of the Refugee Convention when it comes to interdicting Haitians in international waters. So just to say that it's not a new phenomenon, it seems that it's happening in many regions all at once, which is why we're calling on coordinated frameworks among the governments in the region, say Europeans in the Mediterranean and in Southeast Asia, to address the immediate search and rescue and immediate obligations. But over the long term, what we call burden sharing or responsibility sharing among the international community, both in terms of assistance in place, not just humanitarian assistance, but development assistance to the hosting countries. Maybe Australia doesn't need it as much, but certainly countries that are the first line of defense and that have problems with providing for their own population. You don't want to set up tensions between refugees and host communities. So more in the way of development assistance as well. And in the long run, refugee resettlement and other visas available to try to take some of the immediate pressure off as well. Michael. Hello, Michael Martin from Congressional Research Service. I got a couple of questions. First, specifically to Ms. Mason. And in particular, given the ambassador's comment, it's unfortunate that he just left. But the numbers on the breakdown of these people at sea, they are getting conflicting reports. Hida said his figures are 60% are from Bangladesh, 40% presumably from Burma. Now, within that Bangladesh community, some of them may be Rohingyas, an ethnic group. So you have ethnicity and nationality conflation going on. Myanmar or Burma also says predominantly Bangladeshis, not our nationals, although they don't recognize the ranges as their nationals. So I'm not sure exactly what category the then saying government will put those people into. So if you could give us some information on your perception from UNHCR and the interviews on roughly what is this breakdown, nationality, ethnicity. There's some confusion about that. I know it's a varying environment. Now getting, my other question is based on the comments by Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Luce, with respect to some pressure or response that could be placed on the then saying government to address the root causes inside their country. There's some feeling, and I'm from CRS, I have no personal opinion on this or professional opinion, but there are some people who feel that not adequate pressure has been applied. That everybody saying domestic circumstances can't do anything, gotta leave them alone for now. For Ms. Mason, UNHCR has been wanting to have an office in Burma, Myanmar for several years now. It was on the 11 commitments list, as Mr. Sullivan pointed out. Is any effort being made to get a permanent office in Myanmar, as well as for some of these other countries, Thailand, Malaysia, for example, to sign up on the convention on refugees and to recognize and work formally, more officially with UNHCR. For example, Bangladesh with the camps that are in Cox's Bazaar. And then for Ms. Yucum, similarly for the US government, is there any consideration being made to follow up on Assistant Secretary Malinowski's statement that it's time that Burma recognize these people as citizens and stop discriminating against them? What actions are being taken? Are any of them along the line of what Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Luce suggested? Sorry for going on so long. It's like that. Take up in the order Michael gave them. So we'll start with Jana, then we'll go to Dan and Keith and then to Jessica, does that make sense? Sure, on the breakdown, we're not gonna be able to give you 100% because for some boat arrivals, it's just unknown at this point. We're still in the process of getting access and screening. I have a specific breakdown. I mean, overall, if I had to guess, maybe it's 50-50, something like that. But keep in mind, when we say from Bangladesh, you're absolutely right. There's a very large percentage of Rohingya who've been refugees in Bangladesh for many years. Some of them have made this voyage as well. But in that case, they would be counted as by our screening as Rohingya, not Bangladeshese. So for example, of the 18 persons who we've had access to in Indonesia who have disembarked, roughly 1,000 Rohingya, about 800 Bangladeshese. 1,100 people in Malaysia, all I know is roughly 30% Rohingya, 70% Bangladeshese in that case. The boat's taken back to Bangladesh as far as we know, that was all Bangladeshese. In Thailand, some people are still being determined, so we don't have the breakdown between Rohingya and Bangladeshese. It's not clear. But you can see, it depends where the boat is, where they've gone. So you could have 70, 30 in one place, 60, 40. But definitely it's not 90, 10, 80, 20. It's probably somewhere in the 50, 50, 60, 40% range. Just on your second question about opening an office in Myanmar, that's easy because you're referring to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that is still trying to open offices there. UNHCR has offices all around Myanmar and are providing assistance. Yeah, absolutely. On a statistic, I just want to mention an anecdote to show how difficult it is to count. One of my colleagues was recently in one of the camps in Sitwe, and the boat that was rescued by Myanmar offloaded the Rohingya at night in the camp, then went to Bangladesh, offloaded the Bangladeshese and he says, see, this is a economical migration movement. They're all Bangladeshese. So it's going to be very difficult. I think it's going to take time and we need to give time to the agencies who are working on that to really identify who is who in that movement. But there are obviously some games being played. Dan or Keith, do you want to comment? Sure, I mean, I think there's a couple more questions back that way, but yeah, I would just say that, you know, the numbers are very, very difficult, but it goes back, as I was saying, this goes back many years, many years of policies of persecution and past instances where the Rohingya had been pushed into Bangladesh. So it is complicated and on the numbers, you know, it's, everyone we've talked to on the ground too, it's tough to get exact numbers, but I think the important thing to remember is that the specific case of the Rohingya here is you are dealing with people who are fleeing from conditions that are risking genocide and some people would argue that it already is a slow-earning genocide, people have said, you know, you can get into debates about the exact definition of genocide and how you do that, but the fact that there are mass atrocities that have happened, this needs to be addressed. And I think as to your questions, as far as the need for pressure, I mean, mostly I'm just, yes, I think that that, you know, everything I mentioned, I think steps need to be taken. We absolutely recognize the great reforms that have happened, things like on-sense on-sense-suji being released and being allowed to go into parliament and the release of over a thousand political prisoners. The problem is that all those kind of reforms have been reversible and are being reversed. There's new people being picked up as political prisoners and all the things that were laid out at the beginning with on-sense-suji reform in the constitution and allowing her to run have not happened. There's a host of other kind of things, even beyond the Rohingya issue that Burma's facing, that beg for a response that, you know, the elections are coming up, the constitution, according to the constitution, the military is still guaranteed 25% of parliament. So there's a whole bunch of issues and reasons, even beyond the Rohingya issue, but that is such an intense one that I really think that there needs to be outside pressure. Just to follow up, we continue to remain concerned about all these issues that Dan just highlighted. I won't go into a lot of detail, but the restrictions of freedom of movement, the forced labor issues, freedom of religion, impeded access to medical care and food, reaching internally displaced persons. We're very engaged with the government on these issues and continue to, our ambassador in Yangon continues to hit on these issues. And just to sort of a little bit, getting back to the conclusions from the May 29th meeting, in the root causes, we talked about, the need to address human rights. And I think the US feels that the heat needs to remain on high on following up with the countries on all these issues and to get the international community to support the commitments made in that meeting. But they're both UNA entities. So you could be working on behalf of your colleagues, for example, on that. Second, there are other countries and other aspects with respect to refugees that I did address that you didn't comment on. Second, just to Ms. Yukon, Yukon, concern, engagement, yes, but my question was specific actions that may be taken that are being taken to respond to statements that were made by US officials publicly about, is the US engagement concern limited to meeting and saying expressing an opinion? Or is there some consideration of additional actions being taken along the lines of what Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Luce suggested? Again, I'm not sure the status of the OHCHR negotiations in terms of opening an office there. They are a sister UN agency and when we strongly encourage that because it makes our job a little bit easier than in terms of division of responsibility and what we can achieve. Yes, we're part of the UN, but we're a humanitarian agency and can only do our work if we have that neutrality and objectivity respected. And unfortunately in Rakhine State, perceptions of bias against, I would say unfounded perceptions of bias against the UN and against NGOs, particularly suspicions maybe on the part of some of the non-Muslim populations that outside agencies are favoring Muslims have made our work very, very difficult. So any effort that or any presence on the ground that makes that division of responsibility more clear and enables us to do our work would be better. And you had a question about our work in other countries in the region. Could you clarify that? Right, yeah, we work in all those countries. We have for a long time, we do refugee status determination. This is one thing where you have to look not only what governments say, but what they do. In Thailand, for example, we are still negotiating access to some of these people and it's true, they don't recognize, they're not a party like many countries in the Southeast Asia, they're not a party to the refugee convention. We argue that the fundamental obligation under the refugee convention not to send people back to persecution, that's customary international law and it's so important it's binding on everybody, but some of the other provisions are not if you're not a party. So they don't recognize the status of refugee. Nonetheless, as has been mentioned here, for decades and decades, they have hosted hundreds of thousands of refugees on both borders, not to mention the large number of urban refugees who are in Bangkok. So we can certainly find areas to criticize and we have concerns about detention, we have concerns about other things Thailand is doing, but you can't talk about Thailand who without being a party to the convention has hosted hundreds of thousands for decades, we have to give them a lot of credit for that. Likewise, we have a large urban refugee population in Malaysia, we've also been working in the camps in Bangladesh. So even though with this population, it's creating some real challenges and pressures, those countries in the region have been hosting and doing a lot and giving us access to a lot of refugees for many years. Are you gonna, that's fine. Um, sorry, sorry. Yeah. I'd like to make one point on the whole question of the pressure. I think, and I'm certainly no apologies for the US government, but the narrative of the US government has been right spot on right now. It's not really biting. And of course we all say, can you increase the pressure? Can you have more impact on what you do? I think the key problem there is that the partners of the US, the EU, the UK, et cetera, have been very subdued on this question. And I think it's going to be very difficult to have the US saying we are going to up the ante if the others don't do that. So the first step would be to get a better community of partners addressing that with all the countries who are trying to help Burma in this opening up. I know there's still, sorry. Sorry, I just wanted to add to just in, you know, in addition to the engagement, the ongoing engagement, and I failed to mention it before. As part of this recent crisis, we've contributed $3 million to the IOM appeal for assistance. We're looking at, we're reviewing the UNHCR appeal. And in the past two years, we've contributed about $109 million towards assistance in Rakhine State and in the affected countries to address Rohingya needs as well. So just wanted to point that out. Well, unfortunately it's four o'clock, which is the bewitching hour. I'd like to thank our speakers, our panelists very much for the engaging and insightful conversation. Thank you all. And sorry, there's still hands up, but time is up, sorry. So please join me in thanking our panelists.


So, I want to lean into this conversation about casual relationships in particular, because I have noticed that roughly about 80% of those of us in midlife are experiencing more casual relationships than serious relationships. And there's a couple reasons for this. It's kind of interesting. I was speaking to a guy at the jacuzzi earlier today, and he was asking me for, this is a guy I know. I think he's in his mid-40s, nice guy, school teacher, you know, really good human being. I feel he is a good human being anyway. He's divorced, couple kids, and he was telling me how there was a woman he really liked, and he said, basically, I'm looking for something casual and nothing serious. And he thinks he might have scared the woman away based on that. I said, yeah, he probably did. And he goes, Jonathan, I really liked her. Well, you led with the wrong scenario. You should say I'm genuinely looking for a fully committed relationship, something serious. But he thought, since it wasn't with her, he shouldn't say that. A lot of men state they want casual when they actually want a serious relationship because they don't maybe want a serious relationship with you. So in the beginning stages, when a guy says casual, I suggest calling them out. Is that definitively casual, or is it you don't want to imply that you want something serious with me and take that off the table? Take that off the table. Look, I get it. But let me ask you a question, dude. I want something fully committed. Do you want something fully committed? I'm not expecting you to want it with me. I just want to know where you're at. And he actually said to me, he goes, yeah, I'm going to start saying I want a fully committed relationship. It just didn't occur to him because he thought, because so many men are afraid of making a promise they can't keep. I'm going to repeat that. So many men are afraid of making a promise they can't keep. So take that off the table for them. Make it easy for them by stating, look, I want something serious, but I also know it takes time to get to know someone. In fact, this is why I'm such a big proponent. That's what my girlfriend and I have done is we laid our cards on the table right from the after we agreed, we wanted to see each other. And by the way, we literally bypassed the dating process. We spent, we saw each other twice and we went immediately into exploring a relationship. We were very intentional. We were very intentional because we laid the cards on the table. We use radical honesty, which means being vulnerable, authentic and transparent without compromising your boundaries. But it's how we set the standard by laying, what is laying on the cards on the table? Look it, it requires a couple of things. You have to have a strong connection with the other person. You have to be intentional on what you want, okay? And you have to be self-aware. You have to know your own problems. Look it, I just shared about my mom. So I have a capacity to lean in really fast and get scared and then lean in really fast and get scared and lean in fast and get scared. That's my patterning. Now I'm aware enough to know that it doesn't have to be my experience. It's just my patterning, okay? So I'm aware of that. So I shared that with her. Now a lot of women would say, oh my God, this guy is needy. He's weak. He's a simp. He's a beta male. I am far from being a beta male, okay? But I don't need to sell myself on whether or not I'm an alpha or not because I've certainly accomplished more than most human beings on the light. But I'm getting into the point is I know my deficiencies. I know my red flags and I asked her to share her red flags. It takes a level of awareness. This is why when I wrote my book, What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway, A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Help, and Spiritual Work. By the way, there's a link in the description below to signing up to my group, getting a copy of my book, signing up for a free discovery call. By the way, if this content is resonating with you right now, please hit that like button. Please subscribe to my channel. Please share this with friends. Why I'm suggesting this is if you want to really accelerate the process of getting to know someone because here's the bottom line. These days we're meeting total strangers. I highly recommend reading the book Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. When you're meeting strangers, it takes more effort to build trust with another human being and it requires better communication skills. And let me tell you something, ladies. You guys are just, you think you're so good at communicating, but I've got to tell you just because you can vomit your feelings doesn't mean you're good communicators. Watch the TV show Couples Therapy on Showtime, Couples Therapy. The women are just as bad as the man at communicating their feelings. This is why I highly recommend checking out the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. By the way, Jonathan, all you do is recommend books. Folks, for 15, you can spend $150 and change your life in one year. Let me repeat that. You can literally grow from the inside out so you become a better partner for a person by reading or audio version of books or watching them on YouTube.   And no wonder we're in such a dysfunctional society. Thank God the younger generation is adopting therapy more so than those of us that are tail end baby boomers or Gen Xers. And they yell just because I feel like your children about to touch fire. I'm trying to say, wake up.   That's it. We're all dysfunctional for the most part. Look, I'm your big brother.  I'd have my shotgun out. I'd point at the guy's face and I'd say, what's your intentions with my little sister? You've got to do that for yourself. How are you going to figure out who's casual and who's serious? Because the bottom line is this. If you're in a casual relationship, then I invite you to be empowered and step back a little bit. Be empowered and step back a little bit. What stepping back is, is listen, is not giving more than them. I always say a relationship is like a two lane street. You're traveling on the street at the same speed, but let him travel a little bit more. Don't go ahead of him. Now I'd say interrogate the motherfucker. Be radically honest right from the get go. I'm sorry.   Let me reframe that. A guy who's in serious about a relationship will jump through more hoops. The guy who's not serious about a relationship, he won't jump through any hoops. Listen, I'm sorry to say this.  How many of you are in unlabeled relationships? A lot. Why are you giving your vagina to a guy? I'm sorry. I'm seeing it this way. I know you don't like this.  Okay. I'm yelling. Chill out Jonathan. I'm passionate about this because I witness mistake after mistake after mistake, you give your power away to men. You are in charge of your relationship destiny. A guy is not in charge of your destiny. You're in charge of your destiny.  So listen, eight out of 10 guys you meet are going to operate from casual. Now here's the deal.   You ask him radically honest questions. You get deeper than the surface. And I got to tell you guys are terrible at doing this. I also recommend reading this book, Why Men Love Bitches. Bitch stands for babe in total control of herself, ES. Be in your empowerment. Be in your empowerment. By the way, there's another book I haven't recommended in a while. I highly recommend reading this too. Read Dale Carnegie's How to Win and Influence People. This is a great book to learn how to really connect with human beings that are strangers in your life. Because if we're meeting total strangers, we need a level of trust.  Read the book Eight Dates by Drs. John and Julie Gottman. At least read chapter one together, which is all about commitment. Listen, most men are good guys, but they're winging it. They're winging it.   For the family, it was easy when that was the blueprint. That was the traditional blueprint. For us, midlife, that blueprint doesn't exist. You know what it is? It's like I've got burnt in my divorce. I don't want to pay alimony. I don't want to pay for someone else. And you ladies, you don't want to be a nurse or purse either. So this is why it's partially dysfunctional, the traditional expectation. So I want you to look at it from a different vantage point. Okay, you're not going to find most men that are intentional like me. It's just not going to happen. So understand you have to find the diamond in the rough, like the guy at the jacuzzi, the guy who genuinely wants a serious relationship, and you just got to call them out. Stop giving men a pass and start calling them out.  And if they don't, you're on to the next one.  Look it, online dating sites have better success than the swipe apps. I mean, it is literally a lottery on the swipe apps. The dating apps, listen, I met my girlfriend through match.com that's a plug for match.com. We met over a year ago. We met a year ago before we physically met.  She read it and said, wow, I appreciate what he wrote. She made the first move. And even then I kind of reject her because it's distance, but that's another story. Anyway, listen, I know men give mixed signals. The reason being is we're all messed up, we're all messed up. And I got to fix my computer here for a second. And most guys are doing the best they can. Most guys are doing the best they can. Don't judge the man, judge the circumstances because most human beings have had tough childhoods and maybe are tough, tough adult lives. So why not get better at being in a position where you're empowered rather than giving your power away to a man? That's my invitation for you. All right. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know. Hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. Hit the bell so you can be notified of videos. We're going to start our Q&A section. Listen, I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do.  I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm asking you to turn to someone, a pat, a teddy bear pillow, and give Iter them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives.


Go There we go, that was good Transition What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the channel on me for rabbit here on a setto on the Xbox one I have been going back and forth with 505 games to try to find out why right button doesn't work as Handbrake. I still do not have a solution for that I am in the works going back and forth with them emails trying to find out what the exact issue is So once I come up with a fix I will let you guys know I am loading into a Lobby with I believe six other people just random drift lobby here on the setto. I did not get my e30. I only got Corolla So we're gonna see how this works since I don't really Drift the Corolla much So but I think we need to change the gear ratio some Try that All right, we're gonna give this a shot here. I Believe I'm gonna have to judge my cockpit view So I'm gonna do that real quick. Hey here. We go. We got the view set haven't drifted Corolla much So they take me a minute to get used to I wonder where everybody else is. I wonder what they're running You'll find out how they run the short course What if I hop in on this short course? Get that That one guy I know with the litchi server right now Wrong way is not set for that. I need to get rid of some of these. I don't need to know I mean, I guess they need that Here we go Leave that guy spawned just to fix his car. So this Corolla Not bad. I don't really drive the Corolla much. I usually drive an e30 so Trying to see what everybody else is doing You get that guy that's just hitting people We're gonna wait for that Corolla to come back. All right, let's see what we can do Like this Corolla takes a little bit more throttle Yo, but I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it Come on the inside of you Check.  I Think it's because of the little section running. Oh, I lost e-brake I try and catch up to this guy's door Like I said before I am still trying to meet a contact with the devs and find out why Right button doesn't work for ham rake even though it can be a sign Doesn't work. I do like the fact Don't hit him almost hit him. I'm gonna mess up bots with him now Like he did for us Trying to get doors here in a settle Trying to stay in second. I think the shorter gear ratios that I've changed are good for this section, but not for that long Sweet closer, but this is I think the first actual time I'm Tandeming or trying to tandem here on a settle online So my car because I do have some damage We're gonna come back and try and meet up with this guy again so I Want to get a couple you guys on here on a settle so we got a settle on the Xbox one Let's uh Try to set a time to get some of you guys off lines get some tandems and such coming on Was he falling the Supra now? Because that's e30. I think it's e30 We're gonna try and hop in maybe we can get a train. Oh, he's falling a Supra Okay, you got it though. Here we go with these guys Yeah, I think that was contact between the Corolla and the Supra. Dude's got skill in that Corolla Working on it getting there. He's guys probably does this all the time We got a super another Corolla chasing us down there This view I believe definitely helps. I got scared. He didn't Brave dude super brave All right, here we go I think we have four of us now I saw that I should the clutch kicked it what I did That was so good That was such a nice entry in the tech guy transitions, all right, I'm definitely This guy's driving right now. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, that dude's bumper Go catch up I was right there last turn Try to catch up to this guy again We're way for the come out. Whoo. We were getting doors save it a little bit. Oh, sorry Just that we got the other black Corolla in the mix We got a super behind us running trains here on a settle That's who's gonna lose it. It was trying to get way too much angle. I tried to a way too much angle there I'm gonna wait for this Corolla lost it I Feel like I do better when I'm following I don't know why I don't feel as much angle Because I have something to judge these two are Definitely in there breaks fast enough That's you slide into real damage for good smooth as I said that he goes off course, but I Mean What do you make mistakes, right? I'm gonna get out of the way let these guys go by Get back in train with these two So definitely having a blast here right now this little Corolla tandem session going on right now Got the two drift hard Drive hard What is that? Are you doing so we can't hop back out and get in this tandem door session for a few for the end It's episode off you guys want to see more a set of course I don't forget to tap like but subscribe if you are not already a subscriber Big shout to you guys I want to make a huge thank you to everybody and subscribe to channel I have broken 300 subscribers. It's kind of a it's kind of a awesome thing to have right now Looking forward to keep going more and more every day So if you guys want to see more a set of course, like I said don't forget to tap the like button You know the more likes on the videos the more I will do them Wait for these two corollas to pop around So I can try and jump in get some more tandems with these guys and hop right in with these two Tap just tap Getting a lot closer but I'm trying to not hit them so Trying to keep my distance a little bit this guy This guy I know right here. You know this guy. I know he's a pretty good corolla drifter This guy no funny Right there right on his bumper transition Oh my gosh, so I didn't hit him I would have felt so bad if I hit him. All corolla dorsif right now. Oh my god. I thought he was getting so off Sorry dude, drinks. Oh He lost it. I feel like we're gonna probably lead this time 30 this time is actually doing what we're running. So the other two corollas go trying different track now Where'd they go? Oh, I think it probably wants to repair their cars High-speed entry. Oh my gosh So I think we're gonna try and run they're running a different section now see what these guys are running now But we end this episode off. I think they're running the wall section probably I don't know if we can run the wall section Definitely gonna try it as I say that we don't do a bad job of that There's no dig my gear ratio is right for this He's probably got different gear ratio sets than I do Start good in these sections You got the other corolla behind us now a little too close to end in there Don't think that's gonna do it here for this episode here on a set of course I hope you guys enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I had a lot of fun Please guys definitely have to shoot these guys a message and let them know that that was a lot of fun So until next time guys As you know, you can follow my Facebook, Twitch, Twitter and Instagram all of which are found in the description box below As always once again, thank you guys for all the subscribers that are subscribed to my channel Shout out to you guys. I do appreciate all the support as well as Until next time guys like thank you guys for watching See if we can't get it and then