BurmaNet News, June 19 - 21, 2004

[Editor]

June 19 - 21, 2004, Issue # 2500

“It is unfortunate and regrettable to realize that the renewed US
sanctions on Myanmar Burma are designed merely to make those who are
insatiably eager to put more relentless and fruitless political pressure
on Myanmar, emotionally satisfied.”

Information Sheet No D-3070, Myanmar Information Committee web site, 17 June.

INSIDE BURMA
S.H.A.N: Khun Sa death buzz raises flap
BBC Monitor: Burma leader urges "discipline-flourishing democratic nation"
at convention
Xinhua: Myanmar to build tourism resorts on southern archipelago

BUSINESS / MONEY
Xinhua: Myanmar tends to choose terminal not pipeline for exporting gas to
India

REGIONAL
AFX: Malaysian foreign minister criticizes Europe over cancelled ASEM
meetings
AFP: India and Myanmar poised for crackdown on Indian rebels in Myanmar

OPINION / OTHER
AFP: Humanitarian business as usual for Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy
party
AP: Myanmar's last rebels hover between possible peace and a half-century
of war
Irrawaddy: Has the UN High Commissioner for Refugees simply become an
instrument of Thai government policy?


INSIDE BURMA
______________________________________

June 19, S.H.A.N.
Khun Sa death buzz raises flap

Media and intelligence circles in Thailand were rocked yesterday by
reports of the death of ex-warlord Khun Sa, causing a furor, according to
one Thai intelligence officer, more intense than the death reports of
ex-dictator Gen Ne Win which occurred almost once a year until his actual
passing in December 2002.

A close friend of Khun Sa, who surrendered himself to Rangoon in 1996 and
has been under close protection by the military intelligence service
outside the capital since, assured S.H.A.N. she had just met Khun Sa's
12-year old daughter who returned to the border from Rangoon two weeks
earlier. "She told me her father was in good health", she said.

Other sources, including his nephew and delegates to the National
Convention, also assured S.H.A.N. Khun Sa's health had been the best since
he suffered a stroke in the late 1990s.

S.H.A.N. afterwards retraced the source of the report, a friend of the
Karen National Union's Gen Bo Mya and family. "Well, we heard he was
hospitalized 5-months earlier," he said in reply to S.H.A.N.'s query.
"Since then, we haven't heard anything about him. So..."

The source intentionally left his sentenced unfinished. He later admitted
he was not in a position to confirm whether or not Khun Sa had died.

Khun Sa a.k.a Chang Chifu, wanted both by Thailand and the United States
on drug charges, was born in Tangyan on 17 February 1934. He became a
government sponsored militia leader in 1960. Seven years later he fought
an opium war with the Kuomintang at the triangular area where Burma, Laos
and Thailand meet, an event that brought the romantic moniker "Golden
Triangle" into a household word.

He was arrested in 1969 and his forces went underground. Their kidnapping
of two Russian doctors in 1973 secured his release. He finally surrendered
on 7 January 1996 following a mutiny which broke the backbone of his army.

Note:All names except for Khun Sa are withheld by request.

______________________________________

June 19, BBC Monitor
Burma leader urges "discipline-flourishing democratic nation" at convention

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New
China News Agency)

Yangon, 19 June: Myanmar Burma leader Lt-Gen Thein Sein has called on
delegates attending the ongoing constitutional National Convention to make
efforts for ensuring emergence of a discipline-flourishing democratic
nation, official newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported on Saturday
19 June .

Lt-Gen Thein Sein, second secretary of the State Peace and Development
Council, made the remarks at the National Convention Convening Commission
(NCCC) coordination meeting here on Friday.

Thein Sein, who is also chairman of the NCCC, also called on delegates to
put aside discrimination of race, person, ideology and locality in
exchanging views, and to strive for adopting firm and durable basic
principles that can shape brighter future of the nation by taking both
good and bad lessons from the experiences gained throughout the history of
the nation.

The delegates had different intentions, aspirations and desires at the
beginning of the national convention, he disclosed, adding that however,
when several weeks have passed, delegates show more positive attitude in
submitting papers and holding discussions.

The delegates of national races and turned-in former anti-government
ethnic armed groups have made their different demands to the government,
it is learnt.

Myanmar's eight-year-adjourned constitutional National Convention resumed
on 17 May as the first step of the country's seven-point road map to
democracy. However, Myanmar's main opposition, the National League for
Democracy, boycotted the national convention.

Myanmar Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt announced the road map in August
last year which was outlined as resuming the constitution-drawing National
Convention, undergoing a national referendum on the draft of the
constitution, holding a general election to produce parliament
representatives and forming a new democratic government.

The National Convention was started in 1993 following the 1990 general
election and adjourned in 1996.

______________________________________

June 20, Xinhua News Service
Myanmar to build tourism resorts on southern archipelago

Three Myanmar private tour companies will build resorts on four islands of
an archipelago in southern Tanintharyi division, a local news journal
reported in its latest issue.

The resorts to be built on the Myeik archipelago will become a major
tourist destination for travelers coming by yachts from neighboring
Thailand's border town of Phuket, the 7Day weekly journal quoted one of
the companies involved in the project as predicting.

Such tours will be arranged by 38 Phuket-based foreign travels and tours
agencies and one Myanmar company, it said.

Myanmar started allowing tourists traveling by yachts to visit the
archipelago in 1999.

In February this year, Myanmar held the first annual Salone Festival in
the Myeik archipelago, where Salone ethnic minorities inhabit, paving way
for promoting tourism in the area.

The forested and coral-fringed Myeik archipelago, made up of more than 800
pristine islands covering over 36,240 square- kilometers, teems with
wildlife and is almost totally devoid of tourism facilities.

To develop tourism in the area, especially to attract tourists from
Thailand, the border port of Kawthoung is being opened for the purpose.
Kawthoung so far has only two hotels, and hot springs in Kawthoung also
have the potential to be developed into a major tourist attraction.

Meanwhile, Myanmar is also implementing nine more beach hotel projects to
strengthen the accommodation capacity in addition to the existing seven at
the country's famous Ngapali Beach as part of its plan to enhance the
development of tourism industry.

According to official statistics, as of the end of March this year,
Myanmar had 570 grade-hotels with more than 17,200 rooms, involving an
investment of about 583 million US dollars plus 33 billion Kyats ( about
41.2 million dollars).

Meanwhile, tourist arrivals in Myanmar registered 205,610 in 2003, a sharp
drop of 33.8 percent from the previous year when it was 310,971, according
to other statistics. Of the number, tourists from Asia accounted for
121,392 or 59 percent with Thailand in the leading place.

The figures also indicate that contracted foreign investment in the sector
of hotels and tourism of Myanmar has amounted to 1.06 billion dollars in
43 projects since the country started to open to such investment in late
1988.


BUSINESS / MONEY
______________________________________

June 21, Xinhua
Myanmar tends to choose terminal not pipeline for exporting gas to India

Myanmar is tending to take an option of building a terminal in the
country's western Rakhine state instead of a pipeline for exporting
natural gas from huge reserves discovered there to neighboring India, the
local Myanmar Times reported Monday.

Quoting Deputy Minister of Energy Brigadier-General Than Htay, the report
disclosed that the option is being considered by the four partners of an
Indo-Korean consortium which is developing the large gas deposit found
early this year at block A-1, also known as the Shwe Field, off the
Rakhine coast.

The 3-billion-US-dollar terminal project, which would have an annual
production capacity of 3 million tons of liquefied gas, is likely to start
in 2005 and take two years to complete, the deputy minister implied.

The other option is an undersea pipeline that would transit gas to India's
West Bengal state through Bangladesh. The designing pipeline project has
been negotiated among nations concerned for several years, but agreement
has yet to be reached.

Meanwhile, it is reported that Bangladeshi authorities is deliberating to
allow laying of the pipeline across its territory.

The Shwe field, which holds a total of up to 14 trillion cubic-feet (TCF)
or 396.2 billion cubic-meters of gas, is being mainly developed by the
Daewoo. The Daewoo has a 60-percent stake under a production sharing
contract, while another South Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) possesses 10
percent and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Gas
Authority of India (GAI) 20 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's natural gas produced from the Yadana field in the
gulf of Mottama and the Yetagun field off Tanintharyi coast has been
supplied to neighboring Thailand to a total of 1 billion cubic-feet (28.31
million cubic-meters) per day since 1998 and 2000 respectively, meeting
one-third of Thailand's gas demand.

According to official estimation, Myanmar has a total of 87 TCF (2.46
trillion cubic-meters) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of
recoverable crude oil reserve as well as 711 million tons of coal as of
April 2003.


REGIONAL
______________________________________

June 21, AFX European Focus
Malaysian foreign minister criticizes Europe over cancelled ASEM meetings

Malaysia criticized European countries Monday for cancelling two meetings
with Asian partners because of a rift over the attendance of
military-ruled Myanmar.

"Just because they are not satisfied with one country it should not then
cause the meetings to be abandoned. They should not try to impose
conditions, it's not productive," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told a
news conference.

A finance ministers' gathering next month of the Asia-Europe Meeting
(ASEM) group in Brussels and a September meeting of ASEM economy ministers
in Rotterdam have been cancelled, casting doubt over an October summit.

The July 5 meeting of ASEM finance ministers would have been the first
between the two regions since the EU expanded from 15 to 25 nations last
month.

Myanmar's partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
had insisted that, if the EU wanted to bring along its 10 new states,
Myanmar's military junta be represented at the Brussels talks along with
the two other most recent additions to ASEAN, Cambodia and Laos.

But the EU has a visa ban in place against the Myanmar regime, which EU
External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said had overseen a
"calamitous" deterioration in the life of its deeply impoverished people
and had failed to deliver on promises of political reform.

Syed Hamid said there was much to be gained through the meetings and "even
if we disagree we should not impose conditions."

The cancellation of the two ministerial encounters raises major doubts
over whether the October summit in the Vietnamese capital can go ahead if
ASEAN sticks to its stance.

The dispute has sharpened as the EU prepares to send its foreign affairs
chief, Javier Solana, to represent it at regular security talks of the
ASEAN Regional Forum in Jakarta on June 30-July 2.

Solana denied the EU stand would leave him isolated at the talks in the
Indonesian capital.
“We will not feel embarrassed at all. I think the embarrassment should be
for Burma," he said, using Myanmar's former name.

ASEM groups the EU, seven members of the 10-nation ASEAN, plus China,
Japan and South Korea.

_____________________________________

June 21, Agence France Presse
India and Myanmar poised for crackdown on Indian rebels in Myanmar

India and Myanmar are poised to launch a joint military offensive on
Indian separatist bases inside the neighbouring country, an official said
here Monday.

A mountain brigade of three battalions comprising about 3,000 personnel
had relocated their base from the northeastern state of Nagaland to
Manipur, bordering Myanmar, an intelligence official said on condition of
anonymity.

"The shifting of 44 Mountain Brigade from Nagaland to Manipur was done
primarily for effective counter-insurgency operations," the official said.

"We estimate about 2,000 rebels from various insurgent groups from India's
northeastern states of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland have well-entrenched
bases inside Myanmar," the official said.

Another army official said India and Myanmar were preparing for a joint
military crackdown on the separatists similar to a successful campaign
last year against Indian rebel bases in Bhutan.

"Sooner or later there will have to be some action on militant camps
inside Myanmar," the commander, who requested anonymity, told AFP.

A high-level delegation from Myanmar's military junta held talks at the
weekend with senior Indian army commanders in Dimapur, the commercial hub
of Nagaland.

The two-day meeting ended Sunday with officials describing it as "routine"
interaction for better coordination on matters of mutual interest.

But analysts say the meeting comes amid indications a joint military
operation is likely to be launched along the mountainous border separating
India's northeast from Myanmar's northern Sagaing region.

Dozens of separatist groups fighting against New Delhi or Yangon have been
active for nearly 40 years in the Sagaing region.

More than 50,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in India's
northeastern region since India's independence in 1947.

Myanmar recently assured New Delhi that it would not allow Indian
militants to launch attacks from its soil.

"We will flush out Indian insurgent camps, if any in our country," Myanmar
Foreign Minister U. Win Aung was quoted as saying.

"We have a policy of not allowing any insurgents to get into Myanmar. We
will take whatever action is necessary and cooperate with the Indian
government in this regard."

India and Myanmar share a 1,640-kilometre (1,016-mile) unfenced border.

Myanmar in 2000 launched a military crackdown on Indian rebel camps, but
was largely unsuccessful due to the hostile terrain and the strong
presence of the militants who possess heavy weapons.

Bhutan, at the urging of New Delhi, on December 15 launched its first
military operation in modern times to oust three rebel groups that had
carried out hit-and-run attacks on Indian targets from bases in the
Buddhist kingdom.

According to the Indian army, 650 rebels were killed or taken into custody
while eight Bhutanese troops and support personnel died.

Bhutan said its forces had destroyed all 30 camps run by the militants.


OPINION / OTHER
______________________________________

June 20, Agence France Presse
Humanitarian business as usual for Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party
- Hla Hla Htay

Hungry children, tired mothers and workers dispensing food and medicine --
it's hardly a typical scene for the headquarters of a political party, but
for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) it's business
as usual.

Myanmar's opposition -- the thorn in the side of the ruling junta --
celebrated the 59th birthday of its iconic leader Saturday, but every
Tuesday, the day of her birth, is marked with an outreach program for
needy families.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the last year in detention after her convoy was
attacked by pro-government thugs, and her party has endured a crackdown
that saw its headquarters closed down, only to be reopened in April.

As with previous periods of repression though, the NLD immediately began
rebuilding itself and already the ramshackle but cheery building in
downtown Yangon is alive with activity once again.

"Each week on this day, we distribute food and medicine for impoverished
young children brought in by their mothers," said a female staff member,
who like most of her colleagues preferred not to be named.

"We chose this day to honour Auntie Suu, who happened to be born on a
Tuesday," she said.

Despite a heavy monsoon downpour, dozens of sickly children arrived with
their anxious mothers, most of whom looked tired and underfed themselves.

"Since it has been allowed to function again after almost one year, we
have resumed our regular activities, such as this one on Tuesday," another
female member of staff told AFP.

"For several years now, we have been inviting poor mothers with children
aged between six months and five years to come and collect food and
medicine as we are able to offer to help nourish their underweight
children."

"There is no discrimination between members and non-members... any child
whose parents are too poor to afford such basic needs is very welcome,"
she explained as she placed a wailing two-year-old on the scales.

The NLD's Women Central Committee is at the heart of the community
outreach programs, which are sorely needed in this impoverished country
whose economy has been run into the ground by mismanagement and harsh
economic sanctions.

As well as their political activities, the NLD women organise talks on
HIV-AIDS and family planning, and raise funds by selling items like
T-shirts printed with Aung San Suu Kyi's portrait and the slogan "Freedom
>From Fear".

"I've been with the NLD for the past three years because I want democracy
very much, and there are many others like me who have joined up for that
very reason," one young female member hailing from northern Myanmar told
AFP.

The women of the NLD have spent the past few weeks gearing up for Aung San
Suu Kyi's birthday, one of the party's landmark events.

"June 19 is not only Auntie Suu's birthday but it has taken on special
significance since 1997 when it was universally declared Myanmar Women's
Day," one of the organisers said.

Officially, however, Women's Day falls on July 3 and is led by Prime
Minister General Khin Nyunt's wife, Dr Khin Win Shwe, president of the
Myanmar Women's Affairs Federation.

More than 400 democracy activists from around the country gathered at the
headquarters Saturday to join in the celebrations, as the United States
led renewed calls for Aung San Suu Kyi to be freed "immediately and
unconditionally".

Monks offered prayers and received alms in a dawn ceremony, before
speeches from party leaders, a march to Yangon's iconic Schwedagon Pagoda,
and the release of nine white "peace" doves.

"The whole world demands the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, not only the
NLD," said Hla Pe, a member of the party's central executive committee.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the US "salutes Aung San Suu
Kyi on her 59th birthday".

"We look forward to the time when she will be able to celebrate her
birthday in a free and democratic Burma," he said, using the country's
former name.

One elderly female member expressed her regret that Aung San Suu Kyi, who
has endured three long stretches of detention at her lakeside residence,
was so often unable to join in her birthday festivities.

"I'm especially saddened that she has not always been able to celebrate
this great event together with us as a free person," she said tearfully.

______________________________________

June 20, Associated Press
Myanmar's last rebels hover between possible peace and a half-century of
war – David Longstreath

The metallic clang of an M-16 round being ejected from the chamber makes
everyone inside the jungle hut freeze. After 55 years of fighting in the
world's longest running insurgency, it's to be expected.

A colonel in the rebel army of Myanmar's Karen insurgents is teaching a
raw recruit how to handle the rifle. Meanwhile, on a field outside where
troops often drill, young boys play the volleyball-like game of sepak
takraw.

Veterans of brutal, endless combat build simple homes on their rebel base
and plant corn and tobacco. Inside the houses, guitars and anti-personnel
mines hang side by side, symbolic of insurgents who hover between a
hoped-for peace and generations of warfare.

"We have not signed a formal peace agreement. What we have is a
gentlemen's agreement," says Col. Ner Dah Mya.

The rebels say the agreement amounts to an unsigned cease-fire while the
two sides pursue peace talks.

The Karen National Union, which has fought for autonomy from the central
government since Myanmar gained independence from Great Britain in 1947,
is the last major rebel group not to have made formal peace with the
country's military rulers.

In a country plagued by half a century of rebellion, the junta has reached
cease-fire agreements with 17 armed groups since 1989 although ethnic
tensions across the country persist.

The Karen fighters were not invited to a constitution-drafting convention
being held in the capital of Yangon, far from the rugged Thai-Myanmar
borderlands that is the heartland of the Karen, many of whom are
Christians and racially different from the Buddhist Burmans, who form the
majority.

"We do not want to play their game," said the colonel, echoing criticism
in the West and inside the country that the convention was being
stage-managed by the military.

The convention, billed by the junta as a first step toward democracy,
began May 17 without the participation of the main opposition party,
headed by detained pro-democracy activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi.

But the gentlemen's agreement between the junta and rebels is holding, Ner
Dah Mya says, and many of the war-weary Karen hope a permanent peace can
be solidified after more talks.

However, distrust of the government runs deep, and Karen soldiers haven't
put their weapons aside.

"We are not sure what will happen. We have to be ready," says 2nd Lt. Yo
Awe Lah as he lights a cheroot.

With his right arm disabled in a battle eight years earlier, the
lieutenant would have been discharged from most armies, but the thin ranks
of the Karen National Liberation Army are filled with everyone from old
veterans to fighters barely in their teens.

This base near the Thai border serves as their headquarters and until
recently carried a distinctly military air. But prospects for peace have
somewhat softened its martial edge and more families have moved in to set
up permanent residence.

Smoke from a nearby cooking fire drifts through the crudely built
structure where Ner Dah Mya is holding his informal training session. A
light afternoon rain falls.

The officer is the son of the aging Gen. Bo Mya, the most prominent
resistance figure in Myanmar who led the Karen for decades, having joined
the cause back in 1947 when he served as a policeman under British rule.

His son is proud of the warrior lineage.

"We like to call ourselves freedom fighters," he says, handing the assault
rifle back to the soldier, one of perhaps the last generation of Karen to
know nothing but war and deprivation.
_____________________________________

June 19, Irrawaddy
Has the UN High Commissioner for Refugees simply become an instrument of
Thai government policy?  - Sarah Duffy

As Thailand’s policy towards Burmese refugees becomes increasingly
restrictive, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees appears to be quietly
endorsing the new measures. It is easy to criticize the UNHCR for its
complicity but more difficult to understand the root causes of its
inability to act when faced with situations that compromise its mandate.

In March, Chulalongkorn University hosted a seminar on the repatriation of
Burmese refugees. At this meeting, the National Security Council and the
Ministry of Interior revealed the new refugee status of determination, or
RSD, procedures to be implemented by the Thai government.

The old system, not much different from the new, was halted last January
when UNHCR was requested by the Thai authorities to suspend processing
applications from Burmese asylum seekers. The suspension left “ten of
thousands of vulnerable people in a legal and practical limbo,” according
to New York-based Human Rights Watch in its February report. Now, the
screening of refugees is to be conducted by Provincial Admissions Boards,
under the Thai government’s control. Only persons fleeing fighting will
qualify for protection, those who do not qualify will be classified as
“illegal immigrants” under the Thai Immigration Act and will be subject to
deportation, regardless of whether they face a significant threat of
persecution in Burma.

UNHCR has to try and hold on to its humanitarian objectives while at the
same time remain on good terms with the hosting state who has other
concerns such as political and economic security. —A UN official

UNHCR has a mandate to use its offices to provide assistance and
protection to refugees. Essentially the agency’s role in its work with
Burmese refugees, only formalized in 1998, has been one of mutual
assistance and co-operation with the government. As Thailand is not a
signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the
main international treaty for protecting refugees, UNHCR relies on the
permission of the Thai government for its presence.

The agency’s involvement has done nothing in terms of widening the
admission criteria used for RSD, despite its pressure on the government to
include those fleeing the effects of fighting. Consequently, the criteria
used is not in keeping with the internationally accepted convention
definition of a refugee—a person who has a well-founded fear of being
persecuted and is therefore unable, or unwilling, to avail themselves to
the protection of their country of nationality.

Thailand’s relationship with the agency took a nosedive last June when
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra accused it of violating Thai sovereignty
through the conferring of Person of Concern, or POC, status on refugees
without informing Thai authorities. In the case of Thailand, the agency
granted POC status to persons who met the criteria under the convention
definition but could not be formally determined as refugees due to Thai
policy, which fails to recognize anyone as a refugee.

PM Thaksin’s allegations, quickly refuted by the agency, appear to have
been fuelled by Thailand’s growing fear over dissident activities being
conducted on its soil and the government’s desire to forge closer economic
relations with Burma’s military government. The incident also appears to
have spurred the government into tightening the already restrictive
system.

The new policy effectively breaks Thailand’s obligations under some of the
most basic principles of international law. Despite Thailand’s failure to
ratify the main refugee convention it is still bound by obligations to
protect asylum seekers. Especially relevant is its obligation under the
principle of non-refoulement, which requires states not to return refugees
to any country where they are at risk of facing persecution or torture.
Under the new policy thousands will be left unprotected and face the risk
of rape, torture, arbitrary detention and various other human rights
abuses if forcibly repatriated.

What surprises some observers is why UNHCR, the agency entrusted to
provide protection to refugees, has sanctioned the new measures. The
justification given at the seminar for the agency’s inability to act by
Bhairaja Panday, assistant to the regional representative of the UNHCR,
was an explanation of the organization’s limitations in upholding refugee
protection principles.

First, he argued that General Assembly resolutions, if brought against
Thailand for the government’s violation of international law, are not
effective due to their non-binding nature, and second, international law
is weak and lacks enforcement. Panday’s arguments hold weight—the agency
is in a weak position to challenge the government’s policies.

The agency’s work in Thailand is facing difficulties and constraints, a
UNHCR official says. Its involvement in the protection of refugees is, to
some extent, at the mercy of its host and donors. The agency is almost
entirely funded by governments, NGOs and individuals. With the agency’s
role having been reduced to observer status, its function in providing
protection will be undermined and its mandate and guiding principles
compromised.

Despite being mandated as a non-political agency, politics and the
interests of governments often end up governing UNHCR’s actions.
Intervention into the affairs of a host state is problematic as it may be
considered as interference with national sovereignty, as was the case with
the granting of POC status. With no mandate to intervene politically
against the government, the agency is helpless to effectively deal with
the situation.

“UNHCR has to try and hold on to its humanitarian objectives while at the
same time remain on good terms with the hosting state who has other
concerns such as political and economic security,” adds the UNHCR
official.

However, even under these constraints, some say that UNHCR still retains a
significant amount of autonomy and operational discretion in its
decision-making that should not be ignored. Does the agency therefore have
an obligation to break its silence and push for the review of these new
measures? Finding a compromise to the predicament is no easy matter,
especially when the integrity of the organization is at stake.

Another policy issue that has gained attention recently is the
repatriation of refugees. Repatriation has always been the long-term goal
of both the agency and the Thai government. When Rangoon granted UNHCR
permission to visit Burma in March to begin the enormous task of preparing
parts of Burma for the refugees’ return, some took it as a guarantee that
refugees would be pushed back prematurely. This complaint is unfair—UNHCR
has been pushing for access to Burma for over a decade to begin what
cannot be done overnight.

In March, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond, in an official statement,
guaranteed that “an acceptable [political] settlement is an essential
prerequisite to refugee repatriation.” However, when Panday outlined the
agency’s guidelines on voluntary repatriation at the Chulalongkorn seminar
later that month, he gave an indication that the theory behind the
agency’s model guidelines of repatriation are not what are now used in
practice—which gives cause for concern.

The principles guiding voluntary repatriation have gradually been
stretched by the organization and definitions that once seemed clear now
are less so, as Panday indicated. Will “voluntary” repatriation even
require the consent of the returning refugee in the future?

It seems UNHCR is left with two choices regarding the endorsement of
Thailand’s refugee policies: either to withdraw in the name of its
principles or to participate in less than ideal conditions. Regardless of
its decision, the agency’s effectiveness in protecting refugees from
danger is likely to weaken.

The dilemma on how to balance protection needs with the legitimate
concerns of the Thai government is not new. Nevertheless, despite
constraints on its work, the UNHCR’s presence in Thailand remains
indispensable to the protection of refugees.