| |
Thailand's humanitarian reputation at risk
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Thailand's much regarded open-door
policy of offering refuge to people fleeing persecution
from nearby conflicts may be on its last legs. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
and human-rights activists are troubled by signs that
the humanitarian policies for which Thailand has long
been regarded 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 those of rights groups who have been objecting to
plans by the Thai military establishment to clamp down
on refugees from conflict-ridden Myanmar who seek
sanctuary in this country. On December 29, General Winai
Phattiyakhul, the newly appointed secretary general of
the powerful National Security Council, said: "From now
on, Thailand [will] force refugees to go back to where
they came from. Thailand [will] not welcome refugees
from Burma and other neighboring countries anymore."
His words came in the wake of the military
telling 64 members of the Karen ethnic community on
December 24 that they had three days to leave Thailand
and head back to neighboring Myanmar (formerly Burma).
As far as military officials were concerned the Karen,
who were subsequently arrested during a roundup,
belonged to a rebel movement waging a separatist war
with Myanmar's military junta. They were "members of the
anti-Yangon Karen National Union", an army spokesman
said.
Forum-Asia disagrees, declaring in a
statement on Friday that the 65 Karen 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 had been warning the
Karens that "they would be pushed across the border" to
Myanmar, Forum-Asia stated.
"I don't agree with
these steps," said Jaran Ditapichai, a member of the
Thai Human Rights Commission. "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 Myanmar who
fled persecution in their.
"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
Thailand-based English-language magazine that focuses on
Myanmese and other Southeast 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 Thailand-Myanmar
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 Myanmar, the Shan.
Commentators attribute this trend to a move by
the government of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
to develop closer bonds with Yangon. The Thaksin
administration's policy of strengthening ties with
Thailand's northern neighbor is a marked contrast to
that of the previous government, which kept Yangon at
some distance because of its notorious rights record.
Critics say that Myanmese 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 [Yanong]," said 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
Myanmese dissidents in exile, live in towns. This
number, however, is far less than the number of migrants
from Myanmar - estimated at a million - and from
Thailand's other poorer neighbors, 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 Myanmese 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 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."
Since 1975, Thailand, although
not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, has opened
its doors to more than 1.5 million people fleeing
conflicts from neighboring countries such as Laos,
Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.
"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
Myanmar, however, does not measure up to safe
conditions, given the iron grip Yangon'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
Myanmese refugees to be repatriated, argues Jaran, the
Thai human-rights commissioner. "The conditions in Burma
are not safe for people to be pushed back."
(Inter Press Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
