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Myanmar ready to shoot workers depo



Subject: Myanmar ready to shoot workers deported from Thailand

Myanmar ready to shoot workers deported from Thailand

 .c Kyodo News Service  

  
BANGKOK, Nov. 13 (Kyodo) - By: Varunee Torsricharoen Some border authorities 
in Myanmar have threatened to shoot Myanmar workers being deported to Myanmar 
from Thailand, reports reaching Bangkok on Saturday say. 

The threats are exacerbating an already intractable problem that has also 
left many deported Myanmar workers starving in the jungles along the 
Thai-Myanmar border as they try to avoid the authorities in their homeland as 
well as those in Thailand. 

According to sources along the border, Myanmar is refusing to recognize the 
illegal immigrants being sent home from Thailand as citizens, has closed many 
border crossing points, and has threatened in other cases to throw migrants 
into jail for up to nine years for entering Myanmar ''illegally.'' 

Thailand is trying to repatriate as many as one million people from Myanmar, 
Laos, Cambodia and some other countries who had been working illegally in 
Thailand. 

For years, the Thai government turned a blind eye as hundreds of thousands of 
people fled repressive governments and economic hardship at home, 
particularly in Myanmar, to seek freedom and work in Thailand. 

But with the economic meltdown that began in July 1997 having thrown at least 
1.4 million Thais out of work, the government decided to deport all illegal 
workers who failed to get work permits by Nov. 3. 

The process has, however, turned exceedingly ugly. 

Already several hundred illegal workers from Myanmar, mostly members of the 
Shan ethnic minority, have sneaked back into Thailand in Mae Hong Son 
Province after being deported by Thai authorities and then detained in their 
homeland as ''stateless'' immigrants there. 

Now, according to Sai Myint, a 27-year-old Shan, he and some 40 other Shan 
workers were jailed by the Myanmar authorities soon after they were trucked 
into Myanmar Nov. 9. 

''They claimed we were illegal immigrants despite the fact that we are 
Myanmarese, so we waited until they were inattentive and we stole away from 
the jail,'' he said. 

In a report from the province in Thailand's far north, Sai Myint was quoted 
as saying he and the others are now hiding in the jungle because they fear 
arrest in Thailand as well as at home. 

''We are hiding, but we are also starving, especially the children,'' he 
said, adding at least one member of his group has already died after the 
initial 3-kilometer walk into Myanmar. 

And the situation is unlikely to improve soon. 

Myanmar shut border points after five exiled students took over the Myanmar 
Embassy in Bangkok in early October and held hostages there for 25 hours. The 
ruling junta in Yangon took the action because they felt Thailand was too 
lenient with the student exiles. 

Adding to the overall problem, as of the Nov. 3 deadline for obtaining work 
permits, only about 106,000 of the estimated one million unskilled workers 
from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar in Thailand were given permission to remain 
and take jobs. The rest are to be repatriated. 

Even those ''lucky'' enough to get work permits can take jobs only in one of 
37 provinces and must work in only 18 business sectors, including 
agriculture, fisheries, construction and mining. 

And even those work permits will expire Aug. 5 next year. 

Illegal workers are widely sought by Thai businesses seeking to exploit their 
low wage rates, but the many Thais who are now unemployed claim the migrants 
take jobs away from them and that their willingness to work for extremely low 
wages drives down wages for Thai workers as well. 

Thailand's minimum wage for unskilled labor ranges from 130 to 162 baht daily 
(about 3.5 to 4.3 dollars), but illegal workers will work for only one-third 
that amount. 

Thai labor law requires all workers, illegal or not, to be paid minimum wage, 
but the threat of deportation meant many illegal workers could be easily 
intimidated into accepting wages far below the minimum. 

AP-NY-11-13-99 0416EST