thai policy

Official data from the UNHCR reports that there are nearly 300,000 Burmese refugees, most of them in Thailand. "Thailand has played host to Burmese refugees for more than two decades. Gross human rights abuses by the Burmese government have prompted the outflows and created grave problems for its neighbor (...) Refugees fleeing conflict are afforded temporary asylum until the conflict in the area from which they fled ends. The refugee population in the camps has expanded from little more than 20,000 in the mid-1980s to nearly 300,000 or more (the number is hard to track) and continues to grow." (www.burmeserefugee.org)

In 1984 10,000 refugees first crossed the border from Burma into Thailand seeking temporary refuge. For the first ten years, the problem was dealt with as if refugees would be able to return at any time, and NGOs coordinated the response. When the Burmese army gained control over the border areas, (between 1995-98 twelve camps were attacked and burnt) Thai policy shifted towards containment. People caught outside the camps were considered illegal immigrants. At this point the UNHCR entered and initiated active registration of refugees. In 2004 the Thai Burmese Border Consortium introduced community-based camp management, which has focused on keeping refugees in control of their own situation and as autonomous as possible. (Sally Thompson, Thai Burmese Border Consortium 2007)

Thai policy is constantly changing in its regard to the Burmese in Thailand who fall into one of two groups: urban refugees and border refugees in camps. Though members of both groups are refugees deserving of international protection, Thai policy toward each has differed.

The group of urban refugees consists principally of Burmese political dissidents who fled the Burmese government's violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 1988 but also includes some ethnic minority refugees who no longer feel safe at the border. Over the past decade, many of the dissidents have made their way to Bangkok to become urban refugees.

The group of refugees in border camps consists mainly of ethnic minority Karen and Karenni (and Mon) who have fled to Thailand as a result of conflict between the government and insurgent groups and gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the Burmese army in its counter-insurgency campaign. The Thai government has permitted refugees fleeing conflict to stay in the camps and receive basic humanitarian assistance delivered by private relief agencies. In 1998, UNHCR established three permanent field offices on the border to provide international protection to the refugees, but it has no role in providing humanitarian assistance to the camps. (There are also some 100,000 Shan refugees in the border region who do not have access to international protection or the camps).

"In Thailand, defining ‘the refugees’ is a delicate matter and a brief note on terminology is needed. The Royal Thai Government (RTG) is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees or its companion 1967 Protocol, and under national law, asylum seekers in Thailand are technically ‘illegal immigrants’. In strictly formal terms, legal refugee protection, and even the terminology of ‘refugee’, does not exist. Since the late 1990s, the official parlance of Thai policy has been expressed in terms of ‘displaced persons fleeing fighting’ (rather than ‘refugees’), ‘temporary shelters’ (rather than ‘refugee camps’), and their official status as illegal entrants under Thai law. However, in practice, the Burmese are recognized as de facto ‘refugees’ and as a group with genuine claims to asylum in the border camps. The general policy approach from Bangkok has been to ‘accept and assist the displaced persons on a humanitarian basis.’ The policy provides for ‘temporary shelter’ and Thailand will not push back asylum-seekers until the conditions allow. The Thai position also holds that before it is possible to return the displaced persons, it is necessary to communicate with the government of Burma and be sure that it is willing to cooperate in a future repatriation." (The repatriation predicament of Burmese refugees in Thailand: a preliminary analysis, Hazel Lang 2001)

"The introduction of third-country resettlement has opened a durable solutions window. In 2009, UNHCR expects 18,000 departures. Despite this remarkable burden-sharing effort, the camp population is not likely to dwindle rapidly because of a number of factors, including the irregular functioning of the screening and admissions system for the camps." (www.unhcr.org) The third-country resettlement program may also be considered a new pull factor to these camps.

"In Mae Hong Son, only 10% said they would prefer to resettle in a third country. In Chiang Mai, when asked where they would like to be living in three years’ time, 44% said they would like to be in a third country, 27% would like to stay in Thailand and 26% would like to return to Burma." (Margaret Green, Invisible Thailand : Documenting the Need for Protection 2007)

"“Chuwa ma yeh, ga ma ye” is an expression in the Karenni language that translates roughly as “between a rock and a hard place” or, more accurately, “difficult to move forward, difficult to go back.” The phrase aptly characterises the emotions of many of the 145,000 refugees on the Thai-Burmese border who, after decades of living in refugee camps with their eyes metaphorically turned towards Burma, are now being offered the possibility of resettlement to a third country. In 2007, more than 14,000 refugees from the camps resettled to third countries and as many as 20,000 are expected to resettle in 2008." (Hazel  Lang, Difficult to Remain : the Impact of Mass Resettlement)

Interesting to observe is that half of the population of the camps is under the age of 18...