Shans calls for refugee camps in Thailand

Shans calls for refugee camps in Thailand

Amid warnings by some Thai government agencies to send back Karen and Karenni refugees to Burma as early as possible, Shans in Thailand have decided to campaign for the establishment of havens for hundreds of thousands of their countrymen who have fled from Burma.

Some 50 representatives from Shan organizations and individuals that participated in the two-day seminar, 15-16 September, made their decision yesterday.

"The Burmese don't want us and are doing all they can to ruin our lives," said a participant from eastern Shan State. "We had to work for them when we should have been working in our rice-fields. They then demanded we sold them our produce at K. 300 per basket when the price was K. 1,200 at the market. They confiscated our land at will for themselves or to sell them to Wa and Chinese. What could we do except flee?"

He claimed that a few years ago, eastern Shan State, roughly one-third of the whole area of Shan State (160,000 square kilometers), had a population of 2.5 million. "Now they say there's only 1.9 million. So where has the good part of the 600,000 absentees gone if not to Thailand," he asked.

According to Shan Human Rights Foundation's report, Dispossessed, 300,000 people from southern Shan State were forcibly relocated in 1996-98 a third of which had escaped into Thailand. No statistics have been kept since, but estimates run as high as 200,000 more coming in 1998-2001.

Of which a mere 8,241 are being taken care by the Shan humanitarian organizations:

The elected 7-person Campaign Committee for Shan Refugees was led by Shans born in Thailand: Thanu Wittayakarnyuthakul (Chairperson) from Maehongson; Bawdin Kinawong (Vice Chairperson) from Chaingrai and Prasert Pradit (General Secretary) from Maehongson.

"We'll try to get at least 'temporary shelters' for them," Thanu a.k.a Ood vowed.

Only Karens and Karenni were permitted by the Thai government to set up refugee camps. The majority of Shans, known as invisible refugees who are ethno-liguistic cousins of Thais, in the meanwhile, have been designated illegal immigrants.

One participant however expressed disappointment with the absence of some prominent members of the Shan community who are against setting up camps. "I think they should have been invited", he confided to S.H.A.N.; "Those people don't have any better alternative to offer anyway and anything they said would easily have been voted down."