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A life in limbo; Thailand’s Myanmar refugee camps

05 Apr 2011 14:31

Source: alertnet // AlertNet correspondent

Ethnic Karen refugee children sit in Mae La refugee camp near Thailand's border with Myanmar. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom

MAE SOT, Thailand (AlertNet) – The smell of deep fried snacks mingling with sweet tea, the ladies with shopping baskets laden with fresh greens, the men puffing on cigars in teashops with blaring TVs, teenagers milling about stalls with the latest mobile phones and gadgets – it’s a typical market scene in any small town in Southeast Asia.

But this is no town. This is Mae La, a sprawling refugee camp an hour’s drive from the border town of Mae Sot in northwest Thailand.

It is home to over 45,000 people from Myanmar who fled their homeland as a result of the world’s longest running civil war between the national army and indigenous ethnic groups.

The official Thai term for these places – there are nine along the border housing some 142,000 people – is 'transitional camp'. But Mae La was set up 27 years ago.

Children who were born and grew up here know little beyond the thatch-roofed, wire-fenced existence.

Many residents have lived here since 1984, when the first camps were set up after government forces launched a full-scale offensive against ethnic Karen insurgents, pushing 10,000 Karen refugees across the border.

Then there are those who moved here more recently from different parts of Myanmar with the hope of being resettled in a developed country like the United States, Canada or Australia.

Some, like the young woman from central Myanmar whom I had tea with, just want a better life. “We’ve been here for about four years. Back home, the living is difficult and you cannot find work or money,” she said.

She and her husband now live in a stilt house whose former occupants have been resettled in America in what some critics describe as a “revolving door situation”.

DEPENDENT ON AID

With a host of support programmes, food aid and the prospect of possible resettlement, these camps offer a life far better than what most people have in Myanmar, attracting more people to cross the border, observers say.

The market at Mae La may be in full swing three days a week and motorbike taxis are readily available for residents who want to go out, but officially residents are not allowed to leave the camps so employment and livelihood opportunities are limited.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an NGO which has been working with refugees from Myanmar for 25 years, says people were initially self-reliant, but have become totally aid-dependent over the years because of the restrictions on their movement. 

“People do work outside the camps but officially they’re not (supposed to), so anybody outside is vulnerable to arrest, detention, deportation and that’s happening all the time,” TBBC deputy executive director Sally Thompson said.

The European Commission, one of the biggest donors to the camps, says it is gradually shifting its resources from humanitarian aid to skills and development assistance such as agricultural and computer training so that people become less dependent on aid.

Several donors like the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR have started programmes teaching people farming on land near the camp which gives them a small income and ensures they keep up their skills for whatever the future holds.

Together with its humanitarian aid office ECHO,  the European Commision is providing €13 million ($18.4 mln) to the camps for 2011.

“It is a fact that needs are growing and resources are constrained,” E.U. humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva told AlertNet during a recent trip to Thailand where she visited Mae La.

“So we have to prioritise how we use money here, in Myanmar and globally. We cannot just simply continue to feed like we do now.”

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS

For donors and aid agencies, there are three possible solutions for camp residents  - resettlement in a third country, some form of integration into Thailand or voluntary return to Myanmar.

As a first step, they are asking the Thai government to restart a screening process which has been dormant since 2005 to determine which people are genuine refugees as opposed to economic migrants.

"The fundamental problem with the refugee camps is there’s no screening procedure,” said Thompson.

“And that’s the responsibility of the Thai government. It’s not the responsibility of NGOs, camp committees, or refugees to decide who’s in and out of the refugee camp."

The governor of Tak province, where Mae La is located, has rejected the idea however. And observers say despite Thailand’s need for migrant labour, it is unlikely to openly agree to a plan where the asylum seekers receive some form of limited legal identity in Thailand.

Aid agencies and rights groups, meanwhile, say voluntary return is not yet a viable option because of Myanmar’s continuing repression of ethnic minorities.

Refugee International’s Lynn Yoshikawa said government action against ethnic rebel groups, including a recent flare up of tensions with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) which forced thousands to seek shelter in Mae Sot, showed Myanmar was unlikely to create the right conditions for people to return voluntarily and safely.

That leaves the resettlement option – but insiders say even that will not go on indefinitely.