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On the Deportation of Burmese Refug



Subject: On the Deportation of Burmese Refugees from Thailand


ON THE DEPORTATION OF BURMESE REFUGEES FROM THAILAND

This is somewhat long and I apologize for that.


Response to: bfullerton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Question on Refugees in Thailand in soc.culture.thai 

>1:57 pm  Mar  9, 1994
>
>
>Help! I need some information.  I was wondering if Thailand is
>sending back refugees back to Myanmar or to other parts of the
>country.
>
>From some hearsay, thailand is sending back political refugees
>that fled Burma and the government is wanting to send all refugees
>back to their original homes.
>
>I have not been able to find any documentation or news articles to
>this.
>
>Can anyone help?
>
>thanks
>
>Barb Fullerton
>bfullerton@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Ms. Fullerton,

The Royal Thai government deports Burmese with great regularity,
both political and non-political refugees.

There are two kinds of deportations going on.  The first is of
"illegal immigrants," the second of refugees.  I'll deal with
"illegal immigrants" first.

Upwards of 200 "illegals" per week are trucked from the Immigration
Detention Center on Suan Phlu Road in Bangkok to a spot eight
kilometers from the Thai/Burmese border.  This spot is not far
south of the town of Sanghklaburi near the Three Pagodas Pass. 
They are driven two kilometers past the last Thai border police
checkpoint and dumped without provisions.  A representative from a
western NGO tries to meet the trucks in order to give them some
food and usually, this is possible.  This arrangement however is
informal and could be restricted at any time.

Realistically, the deportees have two choices.  They can walk the
eight kilometers to Burma and try to make their way home or to a
refugee camp, or they can head back to Thailand (usually Bangkok). 
About 20% opt for Burma, the other 80% head for Thailand.

The refugees have to pass the Thai border police checkpoint two
kilometers up the road but that is no problem.  The border police
are perhaps the single most corrupt organization in a government
suffering from widespread corruption.  For 3000 baht a head (120 US
dollars) the refugees are allowed past the checkpoint and begin
their journey back to the cities of Thailand.  Most will make it
past the occasional checkpoints thrown up at roads in the border
areas, but more than a few will be recaptured in periodic sweeps by
Thai authorities and deported again, thus further enriching the
border police.

For the 20% of deportees who head back to Burma, they will find a
new refugee camp called Hlackani eight kilometers down the road
just over the Burmese border.  This brings us to the other kind of
deportation going on.

Farther to the south on the Thai side of the border is Loh Loe
refugee camp.  It had until recently been home to some 8,000
refugees and the Thai army had agreed with the UNHCR not to force
the camp to move across the border.  The army has reneged on this
agreement and the camp is in the process of being dissolved.  The
refugees are being split between another camp and Hlackani. 
Hlackani is a new refugee camp and almost all of the several
thousand refugees living there are Mons.  Another 300 refugees
arrived there yesterday.  All of the refugees from Loh Loe camp
must be moved by the onset of the rainy season in less than three
months.  

The problem at Hlackani, other than the lack of housing and
facilities, is that it is located a few meters inside Burma.  It is
also within easy walking distance of a Burmese army outpost.  The
camp runs for a few hundred meters, following a tree-covered stream
that has cut a deep valley.  The camp sits at the bottom of the
valley and juts up the hillsides.  Just beyond the end of the camp
is a small army outpost of the New Mon State Party.  The NMSP is in
no position to defend the camp if the Burmese are serious about
attacking.

As long as cease-fire negotiations are going on, there is little
danger of the tatmadaw (aka the Burmese army) attacking, but they
have just moved two battalions up to positions close enough to
attack the NMSP headquarters not far away.  It is not yet clear
whether the negotiations are faring badly or if it is merely
intimidation.  If the talks break off however, an attack on the
refugees as punishment is not out of the question.

With a very small exception, the policy of the Royal Thai
government is that any Burmese outside a refugee camp (about
80,000) or the UN safe area (a few hundred more) are illegal
immigrants.  RTG policy does not recognize any Burmese as
legitimate refugees except those in the camps.  Even those in the
safe area are "illegals" whom the Thai government has decided, at
the behest of the UN, not to deport.  There is talk of some legal
provisions being made for migrant laborers but nothing has happened
yet.

Estimates vary on the number of Burmese in Thailand but excluding
the 80,000 in the camps, there are probably about 400,000, maybe
more.  The densest concentration of them is in the border
provinces, particularly Ranong (where 200+ died several weeks ago
when their overcrowded boat went down).  They are tolerated here
because they make up almost the entirety of unskilled laborers in
these areas and whole types of industries and businesses would
collapse if they were forced out.  As the government's policy is to
consider them illegal but not to go looking for them, these
laborers are exposed to severe exploitation from employers who can
turn them over to Immigration in cases of wage or working condition
disputes.  To get a look at what this kind of exploitation can look
like, check out a report just released by Asia Watch & The Women's
Rights Project of Human Rights Watch entitled "A Modern Form of
Slavery: Trafficking in Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in
Thailand."

Military and police authorities of Royal Thai government make a
special effort to target politically active Burmese refugees for
deportation.  This isn't just refugees who are involved with the
ethnic insurgencies or the student/rebels, but those who practice
non-violence as well.  The Thai authorities have for some months
past been carrying out a severe crackdown on Burmese exiles who are
active in trying to publicize human rights violations in their
homeland.  The government's policy is that all gatherings of
Burmese for any political activity is illegal and this policy is
carried out with vigor especially against Burmese who publicly
protest against SLORC's policies or against official Thai
collaboration.

When members of the All-Burma Student's Democratic Front or other
politically well-connected groups are picked up by Thai
authorities, they can almost invariably bribe their way out of the
Suan Phlu Detention center.  Those few who can't and are deported
will probably be able to make contact with ethnic rebels on the
border and eventually rejoin their units or return to Bangkok.  The
Thai government at one time was handing some of these refugees
directly back to SLORC, which was promptly "disappearing" them. 
Public outcry, especially from western refugee and human rights
groups caused the Thai authorities to stop this practice and it has
not yet resumed.  A resumption has been threatened.

The driving force behind the current crackdown appears to be the
Thai National Security Council, some of whose members have
financial interests in companies doing business with the Burmese
regime.  Not all elements in the Thai government are in agreement
with the crackdown and the deportations, but those in ascendence
right now are the most hard-line and it is the explicit policy of
Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the NSC to force the ethnic
insurgents to surrender (i.e. sign a cease-fire with the SLORC) or
have all Burmese refugees forcibly repatriated and the border
closed.

There has been of late, a great deal of talk on soc.culture.thai
about some of the farang critics of Thailand and the Royal Family. 
The farang critics have generally been mean-spirited and have
little purpose other than to goad the Thais on s.c.t.  Rather than
criticize, I will ask the Thais on s.c.t. to be aware of what is
happening and then to be embarrassed for a moment.  Not just for
the Thai businessmen who exploit the laborers and clear-cut the
forests of Burma, but embarrassed that most RTG border police
officers routinely extort bribes from refugees, that some RTG
Immigration officers do the same, that the officers on the National
Security Council let personal venial motives drive national policy,
that unknowingly or unwillingly, 20,000 Burmese women and girls,
most of whom will now die of AIDS, have with the complicity of RTG
officials been imported to service men in the worst and most unsafe
brothels in Thailand.  

And embarrassed most of all, that so many officials could carry out
these policies and practices in the name of the King's government.
Were I the King, I would cry to think that after so many years of
laboring to build up this Kingdom, so many officials are still
capable of this.

--strider

  March 11, 1994

               In the face of human suffering, silence is
               complicity, neutrality a crime.

                                 Elie Wiesel