Refugee number on the rise

Refugee number on the rise

Human Rights

Despite recent measures taken by Rangoon to check the flow of migrants into Thailand, aid workers in Thailand are witnessing a significant increase in the number of refugees coming to the border, according to an informed source in Chiangmai. 

Beginning March, thousands of people fleeing to Thailand from Southern Shan State have been stranded in villages and towns between Mongton and Poongpakhem, opposite Chiangmai province, by the Army's order to put all non-local wayfarers to close scrutiny and interrogation. "Yet, almost 1,300 have arrived in Fang, Chaiprakarn and Mae Ai," said the aid worker. "Considering the odds they are facing across the border, the number certainly is suggestive, because from January to March, before the ban was announced, the monthly figures averaged at 1,000." 

This was due to three major causes, he explained: forced purchase of paddy from farmers, forced enlistment of new recruits for the Army and new forced relocations in some townships. 

"It didn't matter whether or not you were a rice farmer," he said. "Local military commanders said you must have paddy to sell or, if not, money to pay instead. Any plea you lodged with them, however much reasonable it was, just fell on deaf ears." 

The second cause was easily exemplified by a recent arrival's experience, according to him. 

Sawnanta, 45, of Wanmai, Mongpan Township, was told he could become a local militiaman if he wanted to be free from paying taxes and giving forced labor. "He enlisted and together with 40 others went to Loilem in February to receive a 45-day basic military training", he recounted. "When he came back last month, he was assigned to the battalion headquarters at Loi Mawma and issued a Burmese uniform together with the insignias. Downhearted, he asked for and got a three-day furlough to settle his domestic affairs. He then brought his wife and three children to the fruit orchards of Fang." 

The source added that military authorities had already notified village elders in Mongton and Monghsat, a neighboring township, on 10 May to pick recruits for them, 200 for the former and 250 for the latter. 

The third reason was the forced evictions still carried out in some areas, especially in Kunhing. Villagers on the islets on the Parng, a tributary of the Salween, were ordered to move out in March. "Since then, about 50 families have become homeless," he said. Those who had chosen to remain for one reason or another were being shot at on the spot by the patrols and boats belonging to the villagers had been seized. Places they saw smoke rising were also shelled." 

Among the arrivals in Fang was Nang Mya, 43, of Kun Pu, a blind woman. 

Shans, on their entry in Thailand, have to find a place when they can get work to support themselves and their families, because unlike Karen and Karennis, Bangkok refuses to recognize them as refugees. It was estimated by the Shan Human Rights Foundation that a total of 150,000 Shan asylum seekers had arrived in Thailand since 1996, the year Rangoon unleashed a three-year forced relocation campaign on an unprecedented scale in Shan State.