Thai To The Bone, But Still Just Second-Class

[Flashermac]

Take a walk through villages on the other side of the Tanao Sri mountain range separating Thailand and Myanmar and it's like you've never crossed the border. Everyone is speaking Thai.

 

By a quirk of history, the villages in this area were separated from old Siam and became part of what was then known as Burma. Yet the residents have always regarded themselves as Thai and speak mainly Thai.

 

But fate is turning in their favour, especially those who braved warring militias to flee into Thailand.

 

Like Boonserm Prakobpran, who is 61 this year, several thousand villagers in this area do not have Thai citizenship, thanks to that accident of history. Born in a village on the other side of the Tanao Sri mountain, Mr Boonserm is branded as Myanmarese. But with relatives in Prachuap Khiri Khan's Bang Saphan district, he insists he is Thai.

 

''I've known since I was a kid that I'm Thai because we know that we are Thais,'' Mr Boonserm says. ''Myanmar officials also call us Thai, and that's very right. What is very wrong is Thais calling us Myanmarese.''

 

Along the border, especially in the South, several thousand people are believed to be Thai by bloodline, but have no citizenship.

 

They are listed as ''stateless Thais'' who lack every fundamental right in their motherland.

 

Thiravut Senakham, a lecturer at Walailak University in the South, has been studying this group. He notes in his research articles that about 14,000 stateless Thais were surveyed and recorded by the state in 1997.

 

In the early 1950s, shortly after Myanmar gained independence from Britain, the government started to suppress various minority groups. Skirmishes raged in many parts of the country and the people who still considered themselves Thai were caught up in the battles.

 

Mr Boonserm said the government did not regard those Thais as citizens. They were accorded second-class status and forbidden from taking up official state posts. Yet that did not stop the government from recruiting them to help carry weapons or food during the fighting.

 

An easy target for rogue soldiers, the villagers were attacked numerous times and cruelly treated. When they complained to the Burmese authorities, diffidence was all they received. Mr Boonserm felt he and his wife could no longer live there, so they decided to escape into Thailand in 1971.

 

Soon after, the violence intensified. In one gruesome incident, more than 10 residents of his village were killed while celebrating Songkran, a family day held at Sing Khon temple. It followed a misunderstanding over the theft of a gun by Myanmarese militants.

 

That incident triggered a wave of migration from Tanao Sri to Thailand that continued into the 1990s.

 

Grocery shop owner Noi Prakobpran, 38, fled Tambon Sing Khon in 1992 with her parents and her husband after being forced into labouring for the authorities.

 

''They made my husband work as a carrier for weeks. People were being shot without any clear reason. So I felt there was no point in trying to live there any more and decided to take the risk of fleeing to Thailand,'' said Noi, now a core leader of the stateless Thais network in Prachuap Khiri Khan.

 

Neither Mr Boonserm nor Mrs Noi found the comfort they were seeking when they got to Thailand. Without Thai nationality they are treated the same as any illegal migrant.

 

They went from second-class citizens in then Burma to second-class inhabitants of Thailand. They have no official documents such as identity cards to gain access to state services. And it wasn't until the universal healthcare scheme was introduced that stateless people could get medical treatment.

 

But other services remain off-limits. As stateless people, they are restricted to the province in which they live unless travel permission is sought from provincial officials.

 

They also carry the social stigma of being branded as outsiders in their communities.

 

''The villagers elsewhere often yell at me at tambon meetings _ why have I joined them when I'm not Thai,'' Mr Boonserm said.

 

But the stateless Thais launched a campaign to gain fundamental rights and citizenship about 10 years ago with the help of some social advocates and senators. They started to document their community histories and family lines in order to develop an identity for themselves. They formed a network of stateless Thais and campaigned for regulations to address their plight.

 

Last week, the Senate passed a new law which paves the way for verification of their identities. It's now awaiting House approval before being published in the Royal Gazette and implemented.

 

Backing them is the Lawyers Council of Thailand. Surapong Kongchantuk is chairman of the council's human rights subcommittee on ethnic minorities, the stateless, migrant workers and displaced persons.

 

He says their situation is no less critical than that of illegal migrants. They do not have citizenship which allows them access to everything the country offers its citizens.

 

''It's sad if you know that you are Thai but you are treated like you are not,'' Mr Surapong said. ''Illegal migrants somehow still have citizenship, but these people don't and they have not received any support from the Thai state.''

 

Mr Surapong said the new regulation opens the door to citizenship for these people. However, it will take time as the regulation requires complicated procedures, especially those dealing with verification of their identities.

 

In the meantime, he said, the state can start righting the injustices with some form of compensation.

 

Mr Boonserm is satisfied with the regulation although every detail was carefully scrutinised to ensure no loopholes caused by legalese. For instance, article 3 was written in such a way that it excluded stateless Thais who entered Thailand in later years as well as new-born babies. The group pressured the Senate until it removed the clause, but Mr Boonserm said it still needs to be watched with an eagle eye as it's not finalised.

 

Verification, meanwhile, is still a long way off.

 

''But I still have hope,'' Mr Boonserm, a skilled shadow puppeteer, said. ''We are Thais like you. I just hope that I will be able to see the blue card [an official Thai ID card] before I die and our children can enjoy their lives like others.''

 

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