100,000-plus refugees to be sent home

[Coss]

Thailand plans to close all refugee camps along its western border and send more than 100,000 Burmese back home now that a constitutional government has been installed in Burma.

 

National Security Council Chief Thawil Pliensri said the closure of the refugee camps was discussed at the agency's meeting yesterday chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

 

Thailand has provided shelter for about 140,000 Burmese refugees in Tak, Mae Hong Son, Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi provinces.

 

Most of the camp residents came from strife-torn villages in eastern Burma, which has been plagued by a decades-old conflict between the military and ethnic minority rebels.

 

Burma's new president, former premier Thein Sein, is one of several generals who shed their military uniforms to contest the November election.

 

Mr Thawil said most of these refugees have been in Thailand for more than 20 years.

 

"I cannot say when we will close down the camps, but we intend to do it," he said.

 

"We are now in the process of discussion with the Burmese government."

 

But Kitty McKinsey, spokeswoman for the UN Relief Agency in Bangkok, said it was too soon to send the refugees home.

 

"We have been working very well with the Thai government and we do understand that they don't want the refugees to stay here forever," she said.

 

"But the solution is not forcing people to go back to a country that is still dangerous. What we would really like to see is that the returns are done in safety and dignity, and they absolutely have to be voluntary," she said.

 

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya and newly-appointed Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin discussed the issue during their meeting on the sidelines of the Special Informal Asean Foreign Ministers' meeting at Bangkok's Shangri-La hotel yesterday.

 

Spokesman Thani Thongpakdi quoted Mr Kasit as saying that the Thai government would take part in running administrative work in nine camps managed by foreign non-government organisations.

 

"The Thai government will help provide training in education and human resources development as well as improve their quality of life to prepare them to return to Burma so they can play constructive roles in their country," said Mr Thani.

 

He added that Mr Lwin said Burma was ready to take the refugees back.

 

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[bust]

Wolf in sheeps clothing Coss

 

The day we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. So why don't we feel more excited?

 

Today, Burma's ruling military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), officially ceased to be. According to the country's state-controlled media, the SPDC was dissolved to make way for a new civilian government, ending more than 22 years of military rule.

 

So the junta has been “dissolved.†The word conjures images of the climactic moment of The Wizard of Oz, when Dorthy inadvertently kills the Wicked Witch of the West by throwing water on her. All at once, evil is banished from the land, as the witch is reduced to a steaming puddle. Then, if memory serves, Dorothy awakes from her dream, and all is restored to normal.

 

Unfortunately, this was not the scene that played out on MRTV, Burma's state-run television station, this afternoon. You would think, though, that a little stagecraft was in order, given that what actually did happen today was the culmination of nearly two decades of painstakingly concocted political fantasy.

 

So here's what transpired on this most historic of days: Thein Sein, a former lieutenant-general, was sworn in as president of the “Republic of the Union of Myanmar,†while two fellow members of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Council (USDP), former Lt-Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo and Sai Mawk Kham, and ethnic Shan civilian, formally became vice-presidents of the new government.

 

Thirty ministers were also officially appointed to their cabinet positions. All, without exception, are either members of the USDP (in most cases ex-army men dressed up as civilians) or generals actively serving in the armed forces. No member of any opposition party that participated in last year's sham election was given a government post.

 

In the most powerful ministerial positions, we have Maj-Gen Hla Min as the new minister of defense, Lt-Gen Ko Ko as minister of home affairs and Maj-Gen Thein Htay as both minister of border affairs and minister of national industrial development. These are the men who will provide some continuity in this time of great change, lest the shock of a transition to civilian rule overwhelm a populace long accustomed to seeing their leaders in uniform, rather than longyi.

 

Conspicuously absent from this lineup was Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the military strongman who first took the helm of the now-dead junta in 1992. Among his first acts as leader of the regime was to create the Union Solidarity and Development Association, precursor of the USDP. This move, which in retrospect shows Than Shwe to be a man of real, if deeply distorted, vision, set the stage for what happened today.

 

So why didn't Than Shwe write himself into the plot? Perhaps because, with his powers of prescience (aided, no doubt, by his personal astrologers), he could see that the story wouldn't end well. (But be sure that he's still there somewhere, pulling all the strings from behind the stage.)

 

For the people of Burma, the question is not whether this will all turn out badly, but whether it will ever end at all. Unlike Dorothy, we seem stuck in our nightmare, unable to rouse ourselves from Than Shwe's political fantasy of a “disciplined democracy†uncontaminated by popular participation.

 

So what does today mean for us? Are we really turning a new page in our history, or just sitting down to watch the latest sequel of a badly made horror movie? It certainly feels like the latter: It begins innocuously enough, but already a certain dread has set in, as we begin to see where this is all going.

 

After nearly 50 years of being ruled by fear, we've seen it all before. But at this stage, all we can say is that the worst is far from over.

 

http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=21045