The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday confirmed that four Taiwanese boats have been detained by the Burmese military and Taiwan’s representative office in Bangkok is in the process of negotiating with Myanmar to release the Taiwanese on board.
MOFA Deputy Spokesman James Chang (章計平) said the ministry was notified of the capture of two Taiwanese fishing trawlers last Wednesday night and was informed of the two additional vessels yesterday.
All four boats, headed by Taiwanese captains, were reportedly fishing in Burmese waters without proper permission and were rounded up by the Burmese navy along with 13 other vessels. The boats left the Thai island of Phuket on Wednesday, press reports said. They reported being chased by Myanmar’s military the following day, before radio contact was lost.
MOFA reported that the crew on all four vessels were foreign except for the four Taiwanese captains and an engineer. The boats and Taiwanese are unharmed, Chang said.
“We are doing everything we can right now to communicate with the Burmese government. We have set up a special task force to expedite the release of the men and the boats,” he said.
Two of the boats have been identified as the Pingtung County-registered Ho Yi Fa (和益發號) from Linbian Township (林邊) and the Ming Cheng Yi (明正鎰號) from Donggang Township (東港).
Initial information from Myanmar authorities indicates that the Ho Yi Fa had 12 people aboard — a Taiwanese skipper and 11 Philippine sailors and fishery workers — while the Ming Cheng Yi had 10 — a Taiwanese captain and nine Indonesian workers, Chang said.
The other two boats are the Hung Fa 128 (洪發128號), with two Taiwanese on board — the captain and the first engineer — and the Ching Ming Tsai 130 (金明財130號), Chang said.
The Fisheries Agency is still confirming the details of Ching Ming Tsai 130, he said.
In addition to mobilizing staffers at the Bangkok representative office, the ministry is relying on the Taiwanese business community in the totalitarian state to help lobby the government, Chang said.
Reports from Bangkok indicated that a staff member at Taiwan’s representative office in Thailand filed a visa application with the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok in preparation for traveling to Yangon to assist in handling the matter.
Because it usually takes three days for the Myanmar embassy to process a visa application, the Taiwanese official would not be able to depart Bangkok for Yangon before yesterday or today at the earliest.
If necessary, Taiwan will also seek the assistance of other countries, he said, declining to say whether the government would ask Beijing for help.
Chang said it was unclear whether the Taiwanese men would be put on trial in Myanmar, but as far as he knew, the matter has not entered the judicial phase.
Meanwhile, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said two of the boats should have arrived at the port of Yangon on Monday.
Under the law of the sea, a nation has the right to outline an exclusive economic zone stretching up to 200 nautical miles (370km) from its shores and claim the right to exploit the resources within that area.
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