The Nation News (23/4/99)

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<bold>Come home, Burma tell workers

</bold>

BURMA yesterday urged its illegal workers in Thailand to return to help
in the agricultural and industrial development of their country and
promised they will not face persecution, a minister from the military
government said yesterday.


Illegal Burmese in Thailand who had voluntarily crossed the border to
seek better employment are welcome to return whenever they want
regardless of their ethnicity, Burmese Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung
Win told reporters yesterday.


" Whenever they want to go back they can always go back because they have
their homes and families in our country. Let me assure you, we will not
take action against them," he said while attending the three-day
International Symposium on Migration, in Bangkok.


Burma is in need of labour for its own development projects, he said.


Maung Win disputed the unofficial figure that almost a million Burmese
have been illegally working and living in Thailand, saying the exact
number is impossible to determine because the two countries share a long
border.


" According to our information, we believe this figure is inflated," he
said.


Maung win rejected criticism this week from human rights groups and
international labour unions that most of the Burmese migrants in Thailand
had fled the country because of political persecution.


He claimed that 95 per cent of the Burmese here had left Burma for
economic reasons.


The same group of critics of the Burmese labour and human rights record
yesterday handed a statement to Deputy Prime Minister Sukhumbhand
Paribatra, the host of the symposium's session yesterday.


They called on countries attending the symposium to treat and regulate
undocumented migrants and migrant workers according to international
conventions and treaties.


The group accused the military government of Burma of having one of the
worst records in treating its own citizens and workers.


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