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Thailand imposes curfew on Karen re



Subject: Thailand imposes curfew on Karen refugee camps 

Thailand imposes curfew on Karen refugee camps 
05:59 a.m. May 21, 1997 Eastern 

UMPHANG, Thailand, May 21 (Reuter) - The district chief of the Thai border
town of Umphang
on Wednesday imposed a curfew banning night access to two refugee camps
which shelter
thousands of Karen refugees. 

District chief Charoen Singhayahu said he ordered the 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
curfew to maintain order at
the Taperu and Nu Pho camps, which house more than 13,000 Karen refugees. 

The order comes a day after Burma refused to take back 1,200 refugees who
wanted to return to
their homeland, a Thai army source said. 

The refugees had previously informed refugee officials they were willing to
return home and
Burma originally agreed to take them back but then changed its mind, the
source said. 

Nearly 100,000 Karen refugees, mostly family members and followers of the
rebel Karen
National Union (KNU) group, have been living in sprawling camps in Thailand
since 1984. 

But thousands of the refugees, used to living under KNU patronage, were
beginning to feel
insecure and have left the camps recently after the guerrilla organisation
began to lose power, Thai
military and refugee sources said. 

The KNU, which has been fighting since 1948 for greater autonomy from
Rangoon, suffered a
major setback earlier this year when Burmese troops sacked its major mobile
bases inside
Burma. 

Hundreds of refugees have returned to Burma and thousands of others have
left the camps to
work as cheap labour in Thai cities, refugee and Thai military sources said. 

Refugees who used to commute freely between the camps are now under strict
supervision by the
Thai authorities, who have warned that a lack of order poses a threat to
national security. 

The army source said the curfew in the two camps would eventually apply to
all 12 camps in Tak
province, which borders Burma. ^REUTER@