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NEWS ON REFUGEES

A Sad, Sad Celebration

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NEWS ON REFUGEES
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A Sad, Sad Celebration

By JIM ANDREWS OCTOBER, 2009 – VOLUME 17 NO.7

When 10,000 Karen refugees fled a widening conflict along Burma’s eastern border into neighboring Thailand in early 1984, it was generally expected that they would return home in a few months with the onset of the rains and the withdrawal of Burmese government troops from the jungle.

The anticipated withdrawal never came, however. Government army units established supply lines, maintaining and consolidating their positions. The uprooted refugees stayed in Thailand.

Every dry season that followed brought fresh offensives by the Burma regime forces and new waves of refugees into Thailand. The fighting and regime abuses only grew in intensity—and 25 years later there are more than 140,000 Burmese refugees in nine camps along Thailand’s border with Burma. The number is steadily growing—despite an ambitious program of resettlement in the US and other Western countries.

In 1984, Thailand already had its hands full with a refugee crisis on its eastern borders. Foreign aid workers helping to care for Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian refugees interrupted their relief efforts there and moved to the far west of the country to assist Thai authorities tackle what they were told would be only a temporary problem on the Thai-Burmese border.

An Englishman, Jack Dunford, was among that vanguard of relief workers. He helped set up a consortium of nongovernmental agencies to provide food to the refugees on a short-term basis. Dunford soon found himself dealing with a long-term task, and the fledgling organization, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), took over his life.

As TBBC’s executive director, Dunford has seen the organization grow from a one-man refugee relief operation into a US $35 million a year charity supporting an ever-increasing number Burmese refugees—the majority of them Karen, but also including Mon, Karenni, Shan and others—who have fled the fighting and regime abuses in their devastated homeland.

“When I first began my work on Thailand’s border with Burma I never would have dreamt that we’d still be there 25 years later,” Dunford said at his modest office in central Bangkok. “At first, we hoped for change in Burma and that the refugees could soon return home. But, after 25 years, there is still no end in sight.”

The Bangkok-based operation, grouping 12 nongovernmental organizations from 10 countries, also carries out in-depth research into refugee-related and migrant issues, working with national governments, international organizations and the Thai authorities.

The responsibility of ensuring shelter and food on an ever tightening budget weighs heavily on Dunford’s shoulders. In its anniversary year, with regime-backed offensives sending new waves of Karen refugees into Thailand, the TBBC is fighting its own battles to survive.

Dunford’s latest executive report tells the organization’s many donors that the TBBC’s 25th anniversary in October is a “cause more for sadness than celebration, but also a triumph for hope and perseverance.

“Twenty-five years has been a long time for TBBC to maintain interest and support, and a long time to test the patience and goodwill of Thailand, the reluctant host,” he said. “But it has been an eternity for the refugees who have lost their homes and loved ones, continue to live in exile and yearn to go home.”

The refugees are housed in nine camps strung out along Thailand’s borders with Burma’s Karen, Karenni, Shan and Mon States and Tennasserim Division. Most of them are in remote, rugged mountain territory—the most accessible, Mae La, is more than 60 km from the nearest town, Mae Sot, which sits on the Thai-Burmese border in Thailand’s Tak Province.

The camps are run by the refugees, who organize everything from food distribution and house-building to schools and health care. “We provide what is needed but the residents do the work,” said Dunford. “It’s remarkable how well the system works.”

With the chances of refugees being able one day to return to Burma becoming ever dimmer and their numbers growing ever higher, the Thai government agreed in 2005 to an international resettlement program. Nearly 50,000 refugees have so far been resettled in 11 Western countries, most of them making new lives in the US.

Only refugees registered in 2005 can leave for resettlement, however, and with a steady stream of new arrivals and a rising birth rate, camp populations have been increasing rather than going down.

To add to Dunford’s headaches, some government donors also recently began to push for changes in humanitarian policy.

“Two years ago, the European Commission said ‘Enough is enough,’” Dunford said. “It was felt in some circles that the Thai government was too complacent in handling the refugee problem as long as international donors foot the bill, and that refugees should be more self-reliant.

In fact, a few years ago, nongovernmental organizations working on the border together with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, presented the Thai government with proposals to allow refugees to leave the camps on a temporary basis and work locally.

“We have no problem with that idea,” Dunford said. “Refugees cannot be confined indefinitely. They need to be able to lead useful lives. The problem is that this has not happened.”

A Western diplomat in Bangkok commented: “Thaksin Shinawatra was in power at that time, and his government was quite sympathetic to the idea. Thaksin was a businessman first and foremost, remember, and he saw the refugee camps as so much wasted labor potential. He might also have been concerned about Burmese moves to create an economic zone on the border and the effect this would have on Mae Sot’s economy.

“But then came the military coup in Bangkok and everything was put on hold. With Thai generals in control, national security was the main issue.”

Refugee policy is now back on the table, however, and the TBBC is hopeful that donors can agree on ways forward under the present Democrat-led government.

“The current situation is that the Thai government is sympathetic to the idea that refugees should be allowed to earn an income, but within the camps,” said Dunford. “We need to look for creative ways to pilot new livelihood projects that benefit both the refugees and local Thai communities.”

For the TBBC, its donors and most Western governments, linking Burmese refugee support with the Thai economy and social structure is the only practical way to deal with rising camp populations.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) also supports the idea. “The ILO position is that refugees should be extended the right to work,” Tim De Meyer, the ILO East Asia subregional office’s senior specialist in international standards and labor law, told The Irrawaddy.

“It’s the right and smart thing to do. There is a labor market for migrants in Thailand, and there are benefits on both sides. Thailand is getting a return on the services it extends to migrant workers.”

Even if the Thai authorities allow Burmese refugees to leave the camps temporarily and take up employment, there are still big logistical problems to overcome. Most of the camps are located in remote areas with few employment opportunities, and even the most accessible, Mae La, is an hour’s bus ride from the factories of Mae Sot, which depend on migrant labor.

The Thai authorities are now allowing almost any kind of occupational training schemes in the camps. But without long-term possibilities of using newly acquired knowledge and skills, few employment options remain open for the refugees.

Some skills, however, can be put to good use within the camps, which have suffered a damaging “brain drain” because of the resettlement program.

“The resettlement in the US and elsewhere of people with useful skills and qualifications has created huge challenges,” said Dunford. “The camps have lost 75 percent of their qualified residents—teachers, medical staff, administrators. Some schools lost all their teachers. But we are meeting the challenge—the system won’t collapse. These communities are incredibly resilient.”

Dunford’s dour optimism is based on 25 years’ experience of overcoming formidable challenges, most of them arising from the never-ending task of raising funds to feed and shelter thousands of homeless, often destitute people with no other means of support.

The TBBC is only now clawing its way back from an existential threat in 2008, when the global food crisis resulted in a doubling of rice prices within three months—forcing the organization to take the painful, unprecedented step of cutting rations in the camps.

“We were able to meet international dietary standards, however, and we pulled through,” Dunford said.

The crisis gave Dunford and his staff new strength.

“It put us into ‘supercharge’ mode,” he said. “We raised an additional $7 million in the second quarter of 2008.

Even our staff, families and friends had to dip into their pockets. We were very encouraged to find out that people cared when we were really in trouble.

“We now have enough money to cover the 2009 budget, although for 2010 we have to start all over again.”

Dunford’s energetic optimism has carried the TBBC through 25 difficult years. It’s probably based on the certainty that not even the indifference of some Thai government officials or a realignment of some donors’ policies will shake the resolve of the civilized world to shoulder the burden of the Burmese refugees.

“Policies may change, priorities may shift, but you may rest assured that no Burmese refugee will go hungry through the neglect of concerned governments,” a Western diplomat told The Irrawaddy.

The 6 Baht Lunch

Residents of the nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border exist on a rice-based diet that meets international nutrition standards but which provides for little variety. The cost of one camp meal amounts to about 6 baht (US 15 cents).

Monthly rations per person are:

Rice                  15 kg (7.5 kg for children under five)
Fortified flour     0.25 kg (1 kg for children)
Fish paste          0.75 kg (for adults and children)
Iodized salt        330 grams (for adults and children)
Mung beans       1 kg (500 grams for children)
Cooking oil        1 liter (500 ml for children)
Dry chillies        40 grams (for adults and children)
Sugar                125 grams (250 grams for children)

Residents supplement their diet with fruit and vegetables grown and sold or bartered within the camps. Some households keep a few chickens or a pig, but space is very limited and meat is therefore a rarity.
Supplements are provided for malnourished children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, hospital patients and residents diagnosed with tuberculosis, HIV and other chronic conditions. School lunches are provided for about 9,000 children.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16896&page=3

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http://khitpyaing.org/news/Oct09/201009c.php

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http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/news/regional/4040-2009-10-20-13-28-22.html

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2009-10-21

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http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/world_food_body_wish_to_help_rat_infestation-10212009151605.html

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http://www.kicnews.org/?p=1102

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