(Commentary) – In an environment where domestic issues dominate the 2011 Thai elections, proposed changes to the Thai government’s refugee policy have been put on the backburner–at least for the moment.
In the run-up to polling day, political debate is focused on the influence former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has over the Pheu Thai party, a possible amnesty for him paving the way for his return to Thailand and an amnesty for the protestors charged after last year’s bloody demonstrations.Policy issues such as increasing the minimum wage, education initiatives and healthcare continue to resonate but have taken a backseat in the last stages of the campaign.
Veerawit Tianchainan, the founder and executive director of the Thai Committee for Refugees Foundation (TCR), an independent foundation promoting and protecting the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons in Thailand and in the Asean region, said the reason why the refugee issue is not a campaign issue is because, “There is no real difference among political parties as they don't have a policy on the issue of refugees. It does not have value in local politics.”
Veerawit is skeptical that the election will make any difference to the lives of the refugees in the border camps.
“I personally don't see the difference that could be made to better the lives of refugees,” he said.
Yet while the refugee issue may not be registering in campaign debates in 2011, the issue of what to do with the camps, some 25 years old, remains.
Prior to entering the campaign period, the Abhisit government issued a series of announcements suggesting their eagerness to overhaul the current arrangements regarding Burmese refugees in Thailand and particularly the 140,000-plus refugees living in the nine state-run camps along the Thai-Burma border.
Last year, National Security Council chief Tawin Pleansri, following talks with his Burmese counterpart, announced the possibility of closing the nine state-run border camps and repatriating 140,000-plus camp refugees after the elections in Burma in November last year.
He repeated this call in April but has remained vague about the exact timing of the closures. The proposal was widely criticized by human rights groups as unrealistic and unsafe, at least in the short-term.The UNHCR Regional Coordinator for Southeast Asia, Jean-Noel Wetterwald, said, “The UN refugee agency is the first to say we would like to close refugee camps.” However, the endorsement was conditional on the environment being right for a safe return of refugees.
”What is needed on a global scale is for the international community to engage the new national and regional authorities in Burma to promote appropriate conditions for a voluntary return in safety and dignity,” said Wetterwald.
In May, the Thai government showed interest in the Australian government’s proposed agreement with Malaysia to swap 800 asylum seekers in return for 4,000 refugees currently living in Malaysia. In Australia, the proposed agreement is highly controversial because Malaysia, like Thailand, is not a signatory to the UN convention protecting the rights of refugees. The UNHCR is yet to endorse the agreement.
Thai Foreign Minister, Kasit Tiromya, after initially supporting a swap arrangement, refined his position to one of wait and see and pushed for a regional rather than bilateral response to the issue.
The Pheu Thai Party does not have a public policy position on refugees. Should the influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra be strong within the party, it may continue his legacy of criticizing Burmese refugees living in Thailand and building business and political ties with the Burmese junta.
TCR director Veerawit wants the next government to take “a human rights-based approach to reform the Thai government policy and treat refugees with human dignity as the citizens of a neighbouring country of Thailand in Asean”.
“For Thailand to advance in the global arena, it is important for Thai policy makers to review the human rights platform in our national and international policies and reconcile differences to meet international human rights standards,” he said.
