Myanmar labourers remain in Thailand despite rumour

[webfact]

Myanmar labourers remain in Thailand despite rumour
By Digital Content

CHIANG RAI, June 17 -- As Cambodian workers continued to flow back to their home towns in large numbers due to a rumour that the Thai side has planned to eject all foreign labourers from the country, the situation at the Thai-Myanmar border has, on the contrary, remained normal, as no Myanmar workers were trying to go back home.

The atmosphere at the Thai-Myanmar border at Chiang Rai's Mae Sai district was still active as usual, where the local immigration office has seen the usual stream of Myanmar workers coming and going across the border like before; the opposite of what is happening at the Thai-Cambodian border.

Immigration Division 5 commander Pol Maj Gen Apirat Niyomkarn said his staff have inspected the border checkpoints in the northern region, which are under the jurisdiction of the division.

It was found that the numbers of Myanmar labourers crossing into Thailand from Nakhon Sawan province, as well as through the Mae Sai and Mae Sot border checkpoints has remained the same.

None of the Myanmar workers were trying to leave Thailand en masse to return home like the Cambodians crossing over the borders on the eastern and the northeastern regionsy.

Meanwhile, small numbers of Cambodian workers were seen returning to work to Thailand through the Thai-Cambodian border in Thailand's eastern Chanthaburi province, a relatively small amount once compared with the figure of Cambodians returning home yesterday.

Local officials, entrepreneurs and tourism associations are urgently clarifying the situation to Cambodians, ensuring that what they heard were just rumours without any basis in fact. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2014-06-17

[webfact]

Myanmar migrants arrested, but not main target in Thai crackdown



BANGKOK: -- A heavy crackdown on undocumented migrants in Thailand has so far mostly targeted Cambodian workers, although there have been frequent reports of arrests of Myanmar workers, according to organizations working with Myanmar migrants in Thailand.

“There is no big crackdown on Burmese immigrant workers like on Cambodians,” said Win Tun, joint secretary of Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Federation, a group of agencies that recruit Myanmar workers for jobs in Thailand.

He said there was a lack of information regarding the number of Myanmar workers that have been arrested and repatriated by Thai authorities since early June.

“But many Burmese nationals made calls to the Myanmar Embassy and reported about the arrests, these mostly took place in Bangkok and Mahachai [sea port in Samut Sakhon Province], where many Burmese migrant workers stay and work,” he added.

Kyaw Thaung, director of the Myanmar Association in Thailand, a Bangkok-based organization that provides assistance to Myanmar migrants, said he also received reports of arrests during the ongoing crackdown by the Thai military regime.

“We don’t have an exact figure of the number of arrested people, but we received calls and reports from our network about regular arrests,” he said. “Some groups of arrested people number between 10 to a 100.”

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/myanmar-migrants-arrested-main-target-thai-crackdown/

-- Thai PBS 2014-06-17

[Thailand]

"He said there was a lack of information regarding the number of Myanmar workers that have been arrested and repatriated by Thai authorities since early June."

Seems to make a mockery of the headline?

[richard10365]

I think the Burmese workers started the rumor. haha...kidding

[AnotherOneAmerican]

ChiangMai

The grass area in the road between Superhighway Tesco and the moat usually has 100 workers standing around.

Been none there the last week, and all the condo sites are empty too.

So where have they all gone?

Edited June 17, 2014 by AnotherOneAmerican

[thumper101]

The picture hardly represents an image of illegal migrant workers..... more like a creche.

I don't think removing a few dozen illegals is anything different from the day to day work of the immigration authorities, as has been over the years.

Is it all of a sudden.... wrong to deport illegals,to the extent immigration now must halt the work they have been doingf for years????

Is that what it has come to?

If you can't be bothered to go through the system legally then you must be reomved.... that goes for all the ilegal farang too.

[bangon04]

I think the Burmese workers started the rumor. haha...kidding

well the photo above will do wonders for reassuring the migrants...

[Thailand]

The picture hardly represents an image of illegal migrant workers..... more like a creche.

I don't think removing a few dozen illegals is anything different from the day to day work of the immigration authorities, as has been over the years.

Is it all of a sudden.... wrong to deport illegals,to the extent immigration now must halt the work they have been doingf for years????

Is that what it has come to?

If you can't be bothered to go through the system legally then you must be reomved.... that goes for all the ilegal farang too.

A crèche? And just look at the matronly "teaching staff" standing in the background.

It's likely that a very large proportion of the workers are illegal but that has been the way here and other countries for years,simple payoffs to the authorities by the intermediaries usually funded by the illegal workers themselves from the money they have to pay to the intermediaries.

Thailand has turned a blind eye to this,again for years, because it was convenient to have all the cheap labor in a booming economy, illegal or not. The recent coup and some untimely remarks by the authorities has caused the exodus and many will not come back,illegal or otherwise.

Maybe timely as it is likely thanks to recent events Thailand is quite likely to go in to recession, negative growth in the past few months etc. Many projects stalling, tourism in the doldrums.

Chances are many of the workers would not have jobs to come back to. So maybe the untimely remarks were were not quite so untimely?

[Somtamnication]

Never mind the Cambodians. When the Burmese leave, the entire construction industry will come to a standstill.