RIGHTS-THAILAND: Worries Rise with Tough Talk on Burmese Refugees

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jan 3 2003 (IPS) - Thailand’s much regarded open-door policy of offering refuge to people fleeing persecution from nearby conflicts may be on its last legs, human rights activists here say.

They hope that it is not so, but are troubled by signs that this humanitarian policy may soon change in the wake of ominous signs emerging from the country’s national security establishment.

On Friday, Forum-Asia, a Bangkok-based regional rights watchdog, added its voice to rights groups who have been objecting to plans by the Thai military establishment to clamp down on refugees from conflict-ridden Burma who seek sanctuary in this country.

On Dec. 29, Gen Winai Phattiyakhul, the newly appointed secretary general of the powerful national security council, said: ”From now on, Thailand would force refugees to go back to where they came from. Thailand would not welcome refugees from Burma and other neighbouring countries anymore.”

His words came in the wake of the military telling 64 members of the Karen ethnic community on Dec. 24 that they had three days to leave Thailand and head back to neighbouring Burma.

For military officials, the Karens who were subsequently arrested during a round-up belonged to a Karen rebel movement waging a separatist war with Burma’s military junta. They were ”members of the anti-Rangoon Karen National Union,” an army spokesman said.

Forum-Asia, however, disagrees, declaring in a statement Friday that the 65 Karens were ”unarmed civilians”.

The affected communities have appealed to the human rights commission and rights groups to come to their aid, since the Thai army has been warning the Karens well into this week that ”they would be pushed across the (Thai) border (to Burma),” Forum-Asia stated.

”I don’t agree with these steps,” Jaran Ditapichai, a member of the human rights commission, told IPS. ”We have appealed to the army not to send people back.”

But these words have done little to stop the chill spreading among the many refugees and political activists from Burma who fled their country due to persecution.

”There is a sense of fear and insecurity that the people are feeling due to what is going on,” said Masao Imamura, an analyst based in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai for EarthRights International, an environmentalist and rights lobby.

Signs of this ”climate of pressure” have become increasingly evident during the past year, admits Aung Zaw, editor of ‘The Irrawaddy,’ a Thai-based English-language magazine that focuses on Burmese and South-east Asian issues.

”There are a lot of dissidents, some having been here for 10 years, who have had to live carefully, playing hide-and-seek, due to signs coming from the Thai government that made them feel uneasy,” he added.

Last year, for instance, the Thai government announced it was hoping to close at least 10 camps along the Thai-Burma border where refugees from the Karen and Kareni ethnic groups live.

That came on top of Thai authorities’ crackdown on a rights group working for another ethnic minority group from Burma, the Shans.

Commentators attribute this trend to a move by the government of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to develop closer bonds with Rangoon.

The Thaksin administration’s policy of strengthening ties with Thailand’s northern neighbour is a marked contrast to the previous government, which kept Rangoon at some distance due to its notorious rights record.

Critics say that Burmese authorities can handle the flow of economic migrants crossing into Thailand, but they see red at the increasing number of those fleeing due to political reasons. ”So the planned crackdown helps Rangoon,” added an international aid worker. Currently, there are well over 100,000 people who have sought refuge in Thailand for political reasons, many of them living in camps in four provinces in western and northern Thailand. Others, particularly Burmese dissidents in exile, live in towns.

This number, however, is far less than the number of migrants from Burma – estimated at one million – and from Thailand’s other poorer neighbours Laos and Cambodia who have slipped into this country in search of jobs.

Bangkok, in fact, has been trying to control this flow of illegal migration. In 2001, it succeeded in getting some 560,000 Burmese workers to register with authorities to address this economic migration.

Most of the illegal workers are employed in the agriculture sector and in some factories, where they accept lower pay than locals.

Indrika Ratwatte of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the Thai government should not act in a manner that will squander its reputation as a country with an impressive humanitarian record.

”When it comes to refugees, Thailand has exemplary achievements since the 1970s, unlike other more developed countries in the region who closed their doors on refugees fleeing the Indochina war,” said Ratwatte.

Since 1975, Thailand, although not a signatory to the U.N. Refugee Convention, has opened its doors to over 1.5 million people fleeing conflicts from neighbouring countries such as Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma.

”The vast majority of Burmese refugees want to go back home, as was the case with those who came here during the Indochina war,” Ratwatte asserted. ”But they want to go back when the conditions are right, when they can return and live in safety and with dignity.”

Life in Burma, however, does not measure up to safe conditions, given the iron grip the Rangoon’s ruling military junta has on the society and the war the military is waging on some of the country’s ethnic minorities.

The Thai authorities should think again before calling for Burmese refugees to be repatriated, argues Jaran, the Thai human rights commissioner. ”The conditions in Burma are not safe for people to be pushed back.”