Members of parliament in New Zealand held a public meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, to share the results of their fact-finding mission to the Thailand-Myanmar border, on Saturday.
“Their purpose is to witness the situation of refugees and the displaced persons along the border. They learned what kind of assistance [New Zealand] can provide,” a Myanmar national living in New Zealand who attended the meeting told DVB on the condition of anonymity.
Three New Zealand MPs Phil Twyford, Rachel Boyack and Teanau Tuiono, spent nine days along the Thailand-Myanmar border in September, meeting with Myanmar people living in exile, students refugees and migrant workers.
They also met with representatives from the National Unity Government (NUG), as well as the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), which is striking civil servants who refused to work after the military staged a coup on Feb. 1, 2021 and ousted the democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint – both placed in prison where they’ve been held by the military for over four years.
Myanmar shares a 1,500 mile (2,414 km) long border with Thailand, where conflict has intensified with ethnic armed and allied resistance groups since the 2021 coup. Hundreds of thousands from Myanmar have fled to Thailand to seek safety from military arrests, assaults and attacks on their communities, and now live precarious lives risking arrest and deportation.
The meeting in Auckland was an attempt to educate and inform the people of New Zealand as to the plight of Myanmar people since the 2021 coup, and to force the New Zealand government to pay more attention to them. It was hosted by Myanmar pro-democracy activists, the three New Zealand MPs, the New Zealand Asia Institute, and Auckland University.
