Calls to Cease Transport of Refugees to Burma

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – On February 5, Thai military and civilian officials sent three families of Karen refugees to a site in Burma. The group was comprised of twelve adults and children. They were being sent from a temporary refugee site at the Thai border, and moved to Ler Per Her, a camp for internally displaced persons inside Karen state, in Burma.  The fear is that by sending them to designated "return zones" in Burma, they are in serious risk of human rights abuses and landmines.

The families are part of a group of thirty families recently singled out to return to an area in Burma from which they fled after fighting in mid-2009. Thai military officials gave assurances to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that any returns would be voluntarily, but the return followed weeks of aggressive tactics to coerce the refugees to return.

In May and June 2009, approximately 4,500 Karen fled pervasive use of forced labor and a military offensive in northeastern Karen state by the Burmese army and their proxy-militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, against the anti-government Karen National Union and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army. They crossed the border and settled into Nong Bua and Mae U Su, two temporary refugee sites in Tha Song Yang district of Tak province in western Thailand. An estimated 2,400 of the refugees are living in rudimentary quarters in these isolated temporary sites close to the border.

According to a Human Rights Watch spokesperson, Thai authorities are cajoling and threatening Karen refugees to head back into harm’s way, while maintaining Thailand is not breaching international refugee law. The Thai government should reverse course before these refugees are harmed by mines or pressed into forced labor by the Burmese army.

Local Thai military officials claim there is no fighting across the border in Burma and assert that it is safe for the Karen to return. However, refugees at one of the sites told Human Rights Watch there has been extensive planting of landmines in their villages back in Burma, and they fear being used as forced porters by the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.  

It is unclear if more families will make their way back to Burma, but Human Rights activists continue to support the cessation of transporting refugees to potentially lethal landmine areas.

For more information, please see:

World News - Thailand: Cease Intimidation of Karen Refugees - February 5, 2010 

Bkhmer News - Thailand suspends repatriation of Karen refugees - February 5, 2010

Human Rights Organization - Thailand: Calls Made to Cease Intimidation of Karen Refugees - February 5, 2010