Boat people to be deported

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• Pete Smith

  Discussion 3 : 30/01/2009 at 09:05 PM3

  LOCATED in a poor neighbourhood, Thailand is cautious about giving refugees a generous welcome. Doing so, it worries, might draw millions more across its borders, especially from Myanmar, a populous, wretched country with a ghastly regime. But there is no excuse for the astoundingly callous way Thailand has treated around 1,000 refugees from the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority group from Myanmar: beating them and casting them adrift on the seas without adequate supplies. Around 650 survivors have washed up in Indonesia and India in recent weeks; hundreds more may have drowned. This week Thailand was still dodging questions from the United Nations’ refugee agency about a further 126 Rohingyas whom the UN believes Thailand recently had in its custody but who may also have been dumped at sea.
  The army, the source of so much other trouble in Thailand, is to blame. The Rohingya operation was overseen by ISOC, an army unit formed to fight communist insurgents during the cold war, whose powers were restored by the military-backed government that ran the country for 15 months after the 2006 coup. The army’s denials have been undercut by photographs obtained by CNN, showing soldiers towing rickety boats full of Rohingyas out to sea and cutting them loose.
  Thailand’s new, fresh-faced, Oxford-educated prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, says that the government will investigate the allegations against the army. But the army in effect put Mr Abhisit in power, when its chief orchestrated defections by a chunk of the previous governing coalition that had been led by allies of Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister whom the army pushed out in 2006. Mr Abhisit’s dependence on the generals means he is unlikely to be able to probe army misdeeds very thoroughly. The colonel alleged to have organised the dumping of refugees at sea is also accused of overseeing an atrocity against Muslims in Thailand’s strife-torn southern provinces in 2004. Amnesty International, a human-rights lobby group, accuses the Thai army of continuing to torture suspected Muslim insurgents in the south.
  Not playing dominoes any more
  There was a time, after the passing of its liberal 1997 constitution, when Thailand looked like becoming a role model for democracy and pluralism in Asia. The country’s elite still want it to be seen as a progressive, democratic country and a serious diplomatic actor. Unfortunately, in recent years it has slid backwards. This started with abuses by Mr Thaksin, followed by the army’s 2006 coup, and then the tacit backing that Queen Sirikit, some generals and Mr Abhisit’s Democrat party gave to thuggish anti-Thaksin protesters, one of whose leading sympathisers is Mr Abhisit’s foreign minister.
  Yet, while soldiers act with impunity and royalist rioters get soft treatment, the country’s anachronistic lèse-majesté law is enforced rigorously. America and its allies long turned a blind eye to such stains on Thailand’s reputation, because King Bhumibol and his army were staunch anti-communist allies. Recalling that relationship, next month America is due to hold annual war games with regional allies in Thailand, a source of prestige for Thai generals. But the cold war is long over. President Barack Obama should threaten to move the games elsewhere until the Thai army is tamed. That would hurt the generals in their soft spot—their self-esteem—while doing little damage to America’s interests or Thailand’s people.

• max meier

  Discussion 2 : 30/01/2009 at 03:57 PM2

  Rohingya is one of Burmese tribe, they are Muslims and live in the area north of Sittwe in Myanmar very close to the Bangladesh border. But you are probably right that this guys are not rohingyas, it is well known that most of the boat people are Bangladeshi and invent the story of being rohingyas to maybe get a chance for political asylum. Just have a look at Karon Beach Phuket, those guys and ladies work in a lot of businesses there.

• yebaw

  Discussion 1 : 29/01/2009 at 03:46 PM1

  I don't think they are Burmese. How can we know that they came from Burma? If you show the picture of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, one of them may say that she is a famous Burmese singer. They know nothing about Burma. I have never heard that Rohingya is one of Burmese tribe. In fact they are from Bengladesh. The Thai government has nothing to do with them.