Refugee Camp Inmates Suffer Due To Thai Policy

[Lite Beer]

REFUGEES

Camp inmates suffer due to Thai policy

By Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation on Sunday.

Expert damns harsh attitude of govt, public; calls for sympathetic approach

Thailand's policy of keeping refugees from Burma in nine camps along the border has caused untold suffering and shows that the government does not know how to handle refugees.

This was particularly the case for 60,000 refugees "not registered" by Thai officials, said Veerawit Tianchainan, executive director of Thai Committee for Refugees (TRC).

Most Thais were not aware that 140,000 refugees had been kept in camps along the border for 26 years, he said.

Veerawit, who spoke during the global launch of Amnesty International's annual Human Rights Report 2011, alleged that the Thai Army had "recently stop distributing food" to the unregistered refugees.

"The government has stopped screening them [for registration] since 2006," said Veerawit, and "had tried to force them back to their home country".

In Tak province, the governor wanted to conduct a head count of refugees in the camps, in order to evict unregistered refugees, Veerawit said. "This is not a good trend."

He urged Thais to be more sympathetic to refugees: "When the Thai media talks about refugees, they talk about 'problems' and not about ways to treat refugees better.

"The Thai media produces news based on information provided by the Thai government and they have their own agenda," he said, adding that refugee camps had become a sort of "Bermuda Triangle" where reporters could not enter. "What happens inside the camp, you don't know."

Veerawit admitted that Thai attitudes towards people from Burma were shaped by school education, which still treats Burma as "the national enemy". Many Thais also failed to make a distinction between migrant workers and refugees.

However, there was a glimmer of hope, he said, as the Thai government had been more receptive over the past six months and agreed to get high-level officials to meet with leaders of NGOs to discuss the issue.

Mohamad Nasim, chairman of Thailand's Rohingya Human Rights Association, was among the audience at the Foreign Correspondents Club on Friday and spoke about hardships faced by people detained at the Immigration Detention Centre at Bangkok's Soi Suan Plu.

He said 44 Rohingyas were now held there, and one had died in detention.

"I want to know how much longer they will be detained," said Mohamad, who himself is a stateless refugee living in Thailand for the past 23 years. He said two more Rohingyas have died elsewhere in Thailand while being detained.

"We have nowhere to go."

According to the just released AI annual global report, some refugees were "forced to return [to Burma] or prevented from crossing the border into Thailand" last November when clashes broke out.

"This was also true throughout the rest of the year in relation to smaller groups of refugees escaping sporadic fighting across the border," the report stated. "In Waw Lay village in Phop Phra district in Tak province, Thai authorities forcibly returned 166 Burmese refuges on 25 December, at least 360 on 8 December, roughly 650 on 17 November, and approximately 2,500 on 10 November."

The report also said that unregistered migrant workers are "forcibly removed" to Burma, and were "subject to trafficking and extortion by both Thai officials and a [burma] government-backed ethnic minority militia", putting them "at risk of serious human rights abuses"

-- The Nation 2011-05-15

[CNXpuuyaibaan]

so this is a 'Buddhist' country? what a sad story of humans inhuman treatment of fellow humans

[geriatrickid]

The apologists are silent.

[krishnak]

The apologists are silent.

very strange ,right??? i would like to know what K.Animatic, K RUBL and the other have to say about this???

[Chang_paarp]

This will help their case in getting the "Unauthorised arrivals" from Australia they have put their hand up to accept.

[mccw]

This is a total discrase.

I don't see why when there are so many Burma workers everywhere some need to be locked up. It's like the one from the more peaceful areas with papers can work but they're the ones who need it less; may aswell let the refugees who really need it be the workers

[robint]

Aussie assylum seekers will be queueing up to come here 555

[Scott]

Thailand isn't a signatory to the Convention on Refugees, so refugees, per se, don't exist in Thailand. But just to make some clarifications about the different groups, here's a brief list and description:

1. Refugee--These are people who are outside their country of origin and who face persecution for a variety of reasons (political being the most common).

2. Displaced persons--These are people who are outside their country due to a temporary situation. Once the situation is corrected, they should be able to return. Everything from internal fighting to natural disasters can result in displacement.

3. Undocumented Aliens--these are usually workers who have come across the border for one reason or another. Usually they are looking for work and sometimes classed as Economic Migrants. Some in this group may actually be refugees. The key factor is that they do not have documentation.

Every group should receive the full protection of the laws of a country. Refugees should also be accorded certain international regulations regarding their specific status.