06.07.2009: 
Myanmar refugee numbers swell in Thailand. Associated Press
July 6, Associated Press
Myanmar refugee numbers swell in Thailand
As the 50,000th Myanmar refugee to be resettled abroad recently left
Thailand for the United States, thousands of others fled their
military-ruled homeland to seek shelter under tarps and in temples along
the Thai-Myanmar border.
''We would be happier if we were back home as this is not our land, but we
will stay here because that side is not safe,'' said a 30-year-old medic
treating a child for malaria, pointing across an open field to Myanmar.
Escalated violence in rural Myanmar means despite the world's largest
resettlement program, Thailand's refugee population -- numbering more than
100,000 -- is not likely to diminish any time soon. More than 4,000 ethnic
minority Karen have crossed the border in the past month.
The exodus was sparked by fighting between the Karen National Union and
the Myanmar regime, a brutal conflict that has been going on for 60 years
as the Karen seek greater autonomy.
In addition to the refugees in Thailand, the aid group Thai Burma Border
Consortium estimates fighting has spawned nearly 500,000 internally
displaced people in eastern Myanmar and countless atrocities against
civilians.
Critics say Myanmar's army seeks to eliminate opposition from the Karen
and other ethnic minorities to seize control of the area's natural
resources, a valuable source of income for the impoverished country.
And with elections scheduled for July 2010, securing Karen State would
help the ruling generals claim the entire country was behind the vote and
their so-called ''road map to democracy.'' Critics have said the moves are
a sham designed to perpetuate military rule.
''The main thing is the election -- the government wants the Karen out of
the picture,'' said Ba Win, a teacher who worked as a government
veterinarian in Karen State for five years.
The latest round of fighting erupted in early June as government troops
and the allied Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, or DKBA, moved against
Karen military positions and a large civilian camp, sending villagers
across the border north of Mae Sot, a Thai border town 240 miles (380
kilometers) northwest of the Thai capital, Bangkok.
The Karen Human Rights Group says the government is also forcing Karen
villagers to join the DKBA and turn the group into a border guard force to
better control natural resources in Karen State.
Meanwhile, the thin tarps provided the refugees are not keeping the heavy
monsoon rains at bay, but they fear if the rain stops, fighting will break
out again.
No mosquito nets are available to stop the spread of malaria, and the
refugees depend on Mae Sot-based relief organizations and a nearby Thai
Karen village for food and supplies.
They won't return home unless land mines in areas surrounding their
villages are cleared. ''Fighting we can see and run away from, but land
mines can be anywhere,'' said the Karen medic, who like others declined to
give a name because of the refugees' precarious status.
A number of the displaced, living in tent clusters according to the
village of their origin, say they lost family members to mines during the
flight to Thailand.
Other newly arrived Karen refugees have taken shelter in temples and
schools along the border, but were wearing out their welcome as Buddhist
Lent celebrations began this week, said Kathryn Halley of the aid group
Partners, Relief and Development.
The new Karen refugees are to be moved into a single temporary camp, but
aid groups and the Thai military have yet to agree on an exact secure
location. Permanent camps in the area are too full to accommodate them.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says it will resettle 6,000 of the
112,000 registered Myanmar refugees in Thailand this year. The United
States, Canada, Australia and several Nordic countries participate in the
resettlement program that began in 2004 and is now the world's largest,
according to the agency.
Mae Sot-based aid groups say repatriation has slowed because of the global
financial crisis.
The newly arrived are unlikely to become candidates for resettlement
abroad and were not even aware of plans to move them to a new location
inside Thailand, a trip that will require climbing a muddy mountain pass
and crossing a river.
One 50-year-old Karen woman said she had traveled back and forth across
the Thai-Myanmar border three times in her life. ''I just want to stay
still now,'' she said. ''I am tired.''
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