False dawn on the Myanmar
border By William Corliss
CHIANG MAI - Thai National Security
Council Secretary General Tawin Pleansri recently
announced a proposal to repatriate over 140,000
refugees living in camps along Thailand's border
with Myanmar.
The apparent justification
for the proposed push back is that Myanmar's
general election last November and the subsequent
creation of a cabinet of mostly retired military
leaders has led to a legitimate transition to
democratic governance after almost five decades of
military rule.
Bangkok's proposal,
however, is based on the still-unfounded
assumption that a cosmetic makeover of Myanmar's
leadership corresponds with an improvement in the
human rights situation in
its border areas and fails to
consider several critical concerns.
Despite the establishment of a new
"civilian" government, the border communities from
which many of the mostly ethnic Karen refugees
initially fled and may soon be forced to return
remain plagued by serious threats. By any measure,
Myanmar's eastern border regions are still in a
state of war pitting government forces against
armed ethnic insurgent groups.
Myanmar's
military continues indiscriminate
counter-insurgency operations against ethnic Karen
insurgents and recently launched an offensive
against the Shan State Army-North, an armed
organization in the eastern Shan State that
previously negotiated a ceasefire agreement.
Over the past two decades, Myanmar's
military government had succeeded in alleviating
insurgent threats and instability through a series
of ceasefire deals with nearly 20 different armed
resistance groups. However, three of the largest
insurgent groups, the Karen National Union, the
Karenni National Progressive Party and the Shan
State Army-South, refused to put down their arms
and continue to operate along the Myanmar-Thai
border.
During the Cold War, Thai security
officials quietly supported and in instances armed
ethnic insurgent groups situated along its border
with Myanmar to create buffer zones from perceived
cross-border threats. The demise of the Communist
Party of Thailand diminished the main security
rationale for maintaining that strategic
insulation.
Concomitant with the
improvement in Thailand's security environment and
growth of its economy has been increasing
commercial links with Myanmar. Bilateral economic
ties built initially on logging and fish
concessions in the late 1980s have evolved into an
increasing reliance on Myanmar natural gas imports
to fuel the Thai economy. By some estimates, over
30% of Thailand's energy supplies now come from
Myanmar.
Those commercial linkages will
soon intensify. Thai construction firm
Italian-Thai Development Pcl recently signed a
reported US$8 billion contract with the Myanmar
government to invest in the Dawei port project in
southern Myanmar. The trade-promoting megaproject
has been touted as a future growth engine for
Myanmar and will create further incentives for
Thailand to prioritize economic interests over
humanitarian commitments.
It is
significant that Myanmar's "democratic" transition
has side-stepped ethnic minority groups' autonomy
aspirations. Instead, the Myanmar military
continues its decades old counter-insurgency
operations in ethnic areas which pose serious
threats to livelihoods. These include the forced
relocation, conscription, illegal taxation and
indiscriminate shelling of civilians, according to
rights groups.
Repatriated refugees would
not only face the dangers of being caught in the
crossfire of an ongoing armed conflict. They would
also be subjected to systematic abuses from the
military ranging from forced portering to their
declaration of free fire zones in civilian
inhabited areas.
Returnees would also risk
life and limb by returning to areas strewn with
land mines by both the military and insurgent
groups. A 2009 report by the non-government
organization Landmine Monitor identified 721
landmine casualties in Myanmar in 2008. The report
indicated that the government has not yet
developed an assistance program for landmine
survivors.
Given this environment of
impunity, any attempt at safe and successful
resettlement would amount to a fool's errand.
Refugees forced to return to a war zone in Myanmar
will inevitably return to Thailand as refugees
again. On last November's election day, over
20,000 civilians crossed into Thailand to escape
fighting around the border town of Myawaddy.
Thousands more have crossed the border since.
A premature large-scale push back of
refugees coupled with plans to close existing
camps would undermine the sizable investment made
by Thailand and international donors in
establishing mechanisms for refugee assistance and
regulation. Repatriation in tandem with the
dismantlement of these mechanisms would be costly
and counterproductive in that a new system for
humanitarian assistance would need to be
reestablished once the refugees returned, as they
inevitably would.
At the same time, a
government-led involuntary push back would elicit
harsh condemnation from international rights
groups and jeopardize economic and strategic
relations with Western countries that put a
premium on human rights issues in their annual
country reviews. Last year's forced resettlement
of over 4,000 Hmong refugees to Laos resulted in
calls by US Congress members to consider blocking
Thai military personnel from participating in the
annual US-sponsored Cobra Gold joint military
exercises.
A similar move against over
140,000 refugees from Myanmar would likely provoke
an even stronger outcry and undermine further
Thailand's standing in the international
community. That would include sharp scrutiny of
Thailand's current role as chair of the United
Nation's Human Rights Council and raise wider
questions about the country's overall democratic
direction. Influential advocacy groups in the US,
meanwhile, would mobilize their considerable
bipartisan support in congress to call for
punitive measures against forced repatriation.
For over three decades, Thailand has
graciously provided a safe haven for refugees who
have fled conflicts in Indochina and the ongoing
civil war in Myanmar. But the current policy push
for resettlement of Myanmar's refugees will prove
to be a false dawn as long as pervasive insecurity
exists in its border regions. While Thai leaders
may reap improved relations with Myanmar, any
short-term economic benefits gained from
repatriation would pale in comparison to the
long-term diplomatic and humanitarian costs.
William Corliss, a pseudonym,
has over a decade of experience researching
Myanmar-Thai relations.
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