No Forced Repatriation: Thai FM

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By SAW YAN NAING

Friday, October 22, 2010

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Ethnic Karen refugee children from Burma pass the time at the Mae La camp outside Mae Sot near the Thai-Burma border on October 14, 2010. (PHOTO: Reuters)

Thailand will repatriate Burmese refugees staying on the Thai-Burmese border only when peace prevails in Burma, said Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.

He made the statement on Friday when he visited Mae La refugee camp in Tak Province where some 40,000 Burmese refugees are staying.

Speaking to a camp committee, Kasit said the Thai authorities would not send the refugees back by force, but will only send them back if political situation in Burma gets better after the general elections on Nov. 7.

“We will be repatriated voluntarily when the situation in Burma is secure for us,” a committee member said, adding that they would not be sent back if there was still armed conflict in their home areas.

Kasit denied a previous remark made in the US in September that he is working on a plan to repatriate refugees and Burmese intellectuals to Burma after the elections.

Speaking in the US, Kasit said he would “launch a more comprehensive program for the Burmese people in the camps, the displaced, the intellectuals who run around the streets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai province, to return to Burma after the elections,”  adding that the Thai government would also assist the return of the Burmese people.

Mae La refugee camp host refugees mostly ethnic Karen who fled from Burma due to human rights abuses conducted by Burmese government troops in their villages.  There are about 150,000 refugees living in nine refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border.

Meeting with 13 Mae La refugee camp committee members and representatives of the Karen Refugee Committee, Kasit listened to reports about the lack of clean water in the camp, the difficulties of health care and food supply.

Traveling in a convoy of about 20 vehicles with heavy security, Kasit along with representatives of nongovernmental organizations including the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, the International Rescue Committee, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees arrived at Mae La camp at 2 p.m and left the camp at 5 p.m. 

From Irrawaddy News