Thailand: We Won’t Send Back Refugees

A leading Thai security official predicted on Tuesday that more than 200,000 refugees from Burma would flood into northern Thailand if fighting broke out again in northern Burma, but added that refugees would not be forcibly repatriated, according to a Bangkok-based daily The Nation. 

Speaking at a conference on Thailand-Burma relations at Chulalongkorn University, Bhornchart Bunnag, the director of the Bureau of Border Security Affairs at the National Security Council, said that the outbreak of hostilities between Burmese government forces and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) could force more than 200,000 refugees into northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces.


Soldiers from the United Wa State Army ride in a vehicle in a street in city of Namteuk near the Chinese border. (Photo: Reuters)

He was quoted by The Nation as saying that Thai border authorities would continue to abide by the current policy of not forcing refugees back to unsafe areas.
“Any repatriation of displaced people would be voluntary,” he reportedly said.

Bhornchart’s statement is likely to raise eyebrows given the Thai government’s anti-narcotics policy and the fact that the 20,000-strong UWSA is frequently cited as one of the world’s biggest drug trafficking groups, notorious not only for opium and heroin production but for the manufacture of methamphetamines in recent years.

Observers said the Thai authorities will be very busy if Wa civilians in southern Shan State flee into northern Thailand. However, they generally acknowledged that the Thais will probably look to using the situation as part of a plan to eradicate drugs in the region.

Saeng Juen, an editor with the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News, said the Thai authorities will accept Wa civilians from a humanitarian perspective, but would move against those they considered linked with the drug trade.

The UWSA’s second in command, Wei Hsueh-Kang, is wanted in Thailand and the United States.

Four years ago, the US indicted eight Wa leaders after a court described the UWSA as “a criminal narcotics trafficking organization.”

Win Min, a Burma expert based in Chiang Mai, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that “Thailand wants Wei Hsueh-Kang, for sure.”

However, he said he doesn’t think an attack against the Wa can put an end to drug trafficking in the region.

“If the entire UWSA collapses, that will be another story,” said Win Min.

Hla Kyaw Zaw, a senior member of the Communist Party of Burma, based on the Sino-Burmese border, however, said that the Burmese government will try to discredit the UWSA leaders as drug traffickers as justification for attacking them.

The UWSA is widely rumored to rely on its drugs profits to maintain its large army and keep it equipped with arms. Its other sources of income are reported to be logging, zinc mining, casinos and taxation.

Thailand recently accepted a wave of refugees from Burma when an influx of some 3,000 to 4,000 displaced Karen were temporarily sheltered in  Tha Song Yang District following an offensive by the Burmese government’s troops and their allies, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, against the Karen National Union (KNU) in June.

However, observers generally agree that the backgrounds of the KNU and the UWSA are very different.

“Thailand will likely agree with the Burmese regime’s attack against the Wa,” said Saeng Juen.