OTHER IPS WIRE STORIES

• Rohingya Asylum Seekers Have Little to Cling To
• Japan Pushes 'Inclusive' Approach to Burma - Analysts
• Migrant Workers Yet to See Legal Win Become Reality
• Drought, not Dams, Behind Low River Levels - Experts
• As Water Levels Dip, Worries over Mekong River Rise

PREVIOUS IPS WIRE STORIES

• Villagers Build Lives Out of Unexploded Bombs
• Sand Dunes along Mekong Worry Activists
• Signs of Breakthrough Pick up, Scepticism Lingers
• NGOs Oppose Copper Project in Laos
• Anti-Opium Campaign Wins Converts from Overseas
• China's Plans to Dam Salween River Riles Critics
• Villagers Want Their Rivers - and Lives - Back
• For Exiles in Thailand, Burma is Both Near and Far
• Burmese Caught between Poverty in India, Oppression at Home
• Activists Cheer Pullout of French Firm from Lao Dam Project
• Electricity Changes Lives, But Has Cross-Border Impact

BANGKOK — The Burmese military government's notorious record when it comes to returning refugees is coming under scrutiny again, following hints of another possible repatriation from Thailand.

Even the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) may find it hard to escape such an examination, given the role it played in assisting tens of thousands of refugees from the Rohingya ethnic community return to Burma's Arakan state, located by the country's north-western border.

Besides the Rohingyas, who are predominantly Muslim, the hardship endured by returning refugees from another of Burma's ethnic groups, the Mon, also offers lessons of what could await the next wave of refugees asked to return to a Burma still ruled by a harsh dictatorship.

The Burmese government has made life hard for the Rohingyas through many blatant abuses, Chris Lewa, a refugee rights researcher at Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based regional rights lobby, told IPS. "There are some lessons to be learnt from the Rohingya repatriation, since the abuse violates the rights of refugees."

The catalogue of oppression she has documented in reports include instances of forced labour, land confiscation, arbitrary taxation, extortion, and other types of "economic oppression" due to a special business licence system that the junta has enforced.

But what is as troubling to her is the inability of repatriated refugees to access the only agency available to help them with such abuse - the local offices of UNHCR. "There is a severe restriction of movement, and returnees cannot go easily from village to village," she explained.

This makes visits by the repatriated people to the U.N. agency's offices a terrifying experience, she adds, since "the refugees need to get permission from local authorities, for which they have to reveal their reasons. And the Burmese government does not like complaints made about it to UNHCR."

The Geneva-based agency appears inclined to play down this fact, going by the tone of its statements distributed during this month's UNHCR Standing Committee meeting. Documents from the meeting that IPS has gained access to have the U.N. agency saying that the ground reality is conducive to refugees' return.

Thus, rights campaigners are not heartened by recent news saying that the UNHCR is preparing the groundwork for the return of more refugees -- - those from the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups in camps along the Thai-Burma border.

Between 1991-92, close to 250,000 Rohingyas fled their homes in western Burma due to repression by the junta against the Muslim minority. They found refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Thereafter, UNHCR assisted in a mass repatriation of the Rohingyas back to Burma from 1994 to 1995. This left only some 21,000 refugees in two camps in Bangladesh.

Refugee rights activists say the repatriation of the Rohingyas was "far from voluntary" - and say the situation is similar to when some 12,000 Mon refugees were sent back to Burma from camps in Thailand.

"What happened to the Mon is something to be avoided," Sally Thompson, deputy programme director of the Burmese Border Consortium, a humanitarian agency helping refugees along the Thai-Burma border, told IPS. "The Mon refugees had little choice about going back. Many felt it was too early to return."

This repatriation, which took place between 1995-96, followed a ceasefire agreement between Rangoon and the New Mon State Party (NMSP), an armed group battling the Burmese military in order to protect the rights of the Mon.

"The Thai government did not want the Mon refugees to stay in the camps after the ceasefire, so they had to return," Nai Kasauh Mon, director of the Human Rights Foundation of Monland, said in an interview. "There was no UNHCR presence to monitor this repatriation."

Today, nearly 10 years after the refugees were sent back, almost 90 percent of them have been unable to return to their homes, he admitted. "It is not safe to go back because of the human rights violations by the Burmese government. They have been resettled in 12 NMSP ceasefire zones."

According to Nai Kasauh Mon, repatriated Mon who go back to their villages could face extortion, forced labour and confiscation of land, among others.

Given how past repatriations have proceeded, and as talk shifted in March about the next possible wave of refugees, activists are pushing for the process to meet internationally recognised standards.

Thompson told a seminar here that UNHCR should guarantee that the Karen and Karenni refugees are entitled to voluntary repatriation, that they participate fully in the process leading up to moving back to Burma and that they are assured safety and dignity to pick up the pieces of their lives again.

"The decision to repatriate should not be one between the Thai government, the Burmese government and the UNHCR acting as mediator," she said.

The prospect of the repatriation of refugees follows a March decision by Rangoon to permit the U.N. refugee agency to enter the eastern regions of the country for the first time -- and begin work in the Karen and Mon states and the Tenasserim Division as a prelude to possible repatriation.

At present, nearly 120,000 refugees live in nine camps along the Thai-Burma border. Over 90,000 of them are from the Karen ethnic community, while over 20,000 are Karennis. In addition, Karen state also has some 200,000 internally displaced persons living in the jungle, according to reports.

A UNHCR official expressed hope that the eventual return of the Karen and Karenni refugees would be better than the stories of repatriation in the past. "We hope it will be better than what happened with the Rohingyas on the western side," Bhairaja Panday, deputy head of UNHCR's regional office, told IPS.

However, he cautioned against drawing parallels with the past incidents of refugees' return. Said Panday: "Every repatriation situation is different. And some of the realities that happened in western Burma will not be applicable in the eastern areas." (END/Copyright IPS)