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News on Migrants & Refugees- 26 May, 2010 (English & Burmese)

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HEADLINES
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NEWS ON MIGRANTS
Thailand Crisis Followed with Concern by Burmese
Illegal Migrant Workers Fear Coming Crackdown

NEWS ON REFUGEES
Bangladesh Increases Pressure on Rohingya Refugees

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ေရြ ႔ေျပာင္း
လုပ္သမားမ်ားသတင္း
လူပစ
ြဲ ား သတိထား
ျမန္မာ

ာ
လုပ္သမားတစ္Uီး ပုဇန
ြ ္ကန္ ေရဒလက္တင
ြ ္ ၿငိၿပီးေသဆံုး

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NEWS ON MIGRANTS
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Thailand Crisis Followed with Concern by Burmese
Friday, May 21, 2010

Thailand's ongoing political crisis is being keenly monitored in neighboring Burma.

As Thai troops stormed the Redshirt rally site, Burmese living in Burma followed
reports of the dramatic events carried by short wave radio stations, the Internet and
satellite TV. State-run newspapers were careful not to report on the mayhem in
Thailand.

State-owned Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV), which has a monopoly on TV

broadcasting inside Burma, has a channel, MRTV-4, that carries foreign news
broadcasts, but only with a delay that allows censors to block any news deemed
potentially harmful to the ruling regime.

Meanwhile, Burmese journalists working for the Burmese services of the BBC, Voice
of America , Radio Free Asia and The Irrawaddy magazine in Chiang Mai relayed
comprehensive news reports to their listeners and readers, while bloggers also added
their accounts to the coverage.

Win Myint, a BBC correspondent in Bangkok, said security was a priority for him and
many Burmese journalists while covering the Bangkok events.

“We just don't know which direction the bullets will come from,” he said.
Exiled Burmese dissidents living in the West also followed the news from Bangkok
and other riot-hit cities closely. Many Burmese dissidents now in the West lived in
Thailand for several years before migrating to Western countries.

It's feared that the ongoing crisis will have an impact on Burmese living in Thailand
as many Burmese migrant workers lived and worked in the worst-hit Ratchaprasong
and Bon Kai areas, where shopping malls, banks and residential buildings were set on
fire by rampaging arsonists..

Irrawaddy correspondent Yan Naing reported from Bangkok: “The long Redshirt
protest has affected the livelihoods and incomes of thousands of Burmese migrant
workers in Bangkok, especially those who are working in the rally site areas as
housemaids, waiters and translators.”

Thailand relies heavily on migrant workers from neighboring countries, who usually
take tough, low-paying jobs in the construction, farming, and fishing industries.
Burmese women also come to Thailand where many work as house maids or in the
sex trade.

The instability in Thailand will increase the insecurity of illegal migrant workers, who
are in danger of losing their employment, forcing them to go underground and hide
from security and police officials.

Thailand currently has more than 3 million migrant workers from Burma, Cambodia
and Laos, with Burmese forming the largest contingent.

The Thai government recently ordered migrant workers to verify their nationality in
order to qualify for work permits. Many Burmese workers, however, remain
unregistered, risking arrest, extortion by the police and security forces and possible
deportation.

With the ongoing political instability in Thailand, the Burmese migrant workers in
Thailand could become further marginalized.

Burmese dissidents and NGOs operating and living in Thailand could also suffer
because of the current crisis. Several Burmese dissident groups, civil society and
media organizations, including The Irrawaddy, are based in Thailand, some of them
along the Thai-Burmese border.

Burmese predict that several Thai media personnel and human rights groups who have
constantly helped to highlight the Burma cause will be more occupied now by the
Thailand crisis.

The current Thai government is known to be critical of the Burmese military regime,
which, interestingly enough, unlike other members of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, has made no official comment on the volatile situation in Thailand.

There is also concern about the security of Burmese dissidents and their offices in
view of the continuing crackdown on the Redshirt movement.
It has been learned that several international foundations that provide assistance to
Burmese groups in Thailand have asked them to prepare contingency plans in case of
renewed violence in Bangkok or in the North, where many Burmese work and operate.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=18522

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Illegal Migrant Workers Fear Coming Crackdown
By ALEX ELLGEE Tuesday, May 25, 2010

MAE SOT—“We lived like animals for the last week so we are happy to be back,”
Aung Tin Oo said softly, sipping his sweet coffee at a teashop outside a factory in
Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border. “But we are ready to go back at any moment.”

One week ago, as Aung Tin Oo began his early factory shift, news filled the factory
floor of immigration arrests taking place across Mae Sot. Before he had set up his
sewing machine for work, seven police vehicles appeared outside the factory and
some workers said a police officer was talking with the factory owner.

“We thought he might be making a deal with the policeman to hand us over,” said
Aung Tin Oo anxiously, smoking his Burmese cigar. As surreal as it sounds, factory
owners making “deals” is not a farfetched concept in Mae Sot, where money often
changes hands at the expense of illegal migrants.

Being one of the factory worker leaders, the responsibility was in Aung Tin Oo’s
hands to decide how the workers should react to the situation at hand, which
potentially could see all illegal migrants paying heavy fines or spending months in a
Thai prison.

Faced with such risks, he ordered the illegal workers to flee.

Within minutes, more than 200 workers had gathered their few belongings and fled
into the jungle surrounding the factory.

For seven days, Aung Tin Oo, a pseudonym, said the migrants slept on the ground in
the jungle, terrified that the Thai police would storm their makeshift encampment.

“Everyone was so scared, they slept right on top of each other, all huddled together,”
he said.

Aung Tin Oo and a few other men would creep out during the day to check on the
situation and get rice to feed the community. Every day they lived in fear that a local
villager would report their presence to the authorities.

Finally, the factory owner told them it was safe, and they should return to work.

“We’re still not sure when they will come back, but we were running out of money
and getting unhealthy in the jungle,” said Aung Tin Oo.
While the group was in hiding an unprecedented crackdown on illegal workers had
gone on in Mae Sot. Hundreds of migrant workers fled across the Moei River. Local
labor rights groups estimated nearly one thousand workers were arrested by local
police.

At one factory, 200 women were taken directly from the factory to the detention
center. Panic-stricken migrant workers raced into the jungle or into monasteries to
hide.

“Every year the policemen carry out crackdowns, coming around the factories
collecting money for the illegal workers,” said Myo Zaw, a representative for the
Yaung Chi Oo, a Burmese workers' association.

“In previous years, the factory owners could make deals with the police, but this time
is different. They haven’t been able to, and all they can do is close the factories and
send their workers into hiding.”

Myo Zaw said that he heard through sources in the Department of Employment (DOE)
that police have been told they must arrest more than 500,000 illegal migrants every
year.

He said that as a result of the Redshirt protests in Bangkok it might be possible that
the police in Mae Sot were making up for fewer arrests in other parts of the country
where police were too busy.

“It was such a big crackdown that the police might not come back, but we’ll have to
wait and see,” said Myo Zaw.

Since the crackdown, the police have yet to come back and Mae Sot has seen a steady
flow of workers coming out of hiding and returning to the factories that had closed.

However, as the last of the Redshirt protestors arrived back in their provinces on
government-sponsored buses, many illegal migrant workers are concerned attention
will once again focus on them.

Before the Redshirts began their encampment in central Bangkok, immigration

officials threatened a crackdown in connection with the nationality verification
registration deadline.

Commenting on the crackdown during the chaos in Bangkok, Ma Su, 24, a

construction worker in Mae sot, said, “No one expected the crackdown to take place.”

Now that things are back to normal in Bangkok, she said, “Thailand could be turned
upside down” as the police hunt down illegal migrants and carry out the previously
threatened crackdown.

Ma Su was one of the lucky migrants who was able to go through the Nationality
Verification process before the deadline took place, and now she has a work permit
and a migrant “passport,” which enables her to travel freely around Thailand and be
legally employed.
However, Ma Su is in the minority, one of 82,700 Burmese migrant workers
who completed the national identification process out of 1.2 million workers from
Burma, according to the Department of Employment. The majority of workers in
Thailand, especially in Mae Sot, do not have work permits, let alone a worker
passport.

Aung Tin Oo said he has never had a work permit and none of his employers have
offered to help him get one. Most migrant workers still don’t trust the process, he
said, because they do not want the Burmese government to have records of their work
in Thailand. Their biggest fear is that in the future, it will give the regime an easy way
to tax their already low wages.

Many labor rights groups are quick to criticize the Nationality Verification scheme
and the broker agencies which charged immigrants up to 10,000 baht ($300) to guide
them through the process. The average migrant worker earns 80 baht [US $2.50] per
day in a factory.

Rumors still circulate around the migrant worker community of mass arrests at the
border and soldiers going to applicant’s homes in Burma demanding money from
their relatives for their illegal exit out of Burma. Whether the rumors are false or
not, mistrust remains.

However, many thousands still apply and lines of people, clutching their documents,
spilled out from the Thai-Myanmar Relations Office, which checks migrants'
documents before they cross into Burma.

During June, the Ministry of Employment expects some 1,800 workers to undergo the
process on a daily basis at the three Thai-Burma border checkpoints.

Waiting for his documents to be checked, Kyaw Oo told The Irrawaddy that he was
lucky because his employer in Bangkok had organized his trip to Mae Sot. He said
that he was excited to be able to travel freely around Thailand. Asked about a
crackdown, he said, “Everyone knows it’s coming, I am very lucky I will be legal.”

According to the employment office, the majority of applicants have come from
Bangkok where salaries are higher and employers are able to organize trips to the
border.

For the Mae Sot-based workers, few employers have helped out, in fear perhaps that
workers will leave their jobs in Mae Sot and travel to Bangkok if they are free to work
legally and to travel.

Last month, the Department of Employment announced that the verification

registration application deadine was over.

Andy Hall, a consultant to the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF),
said he believed Thailand is a more sensitive now to the issue of migrant workers
since the UN Human Rights Rapporteur referenced the issue, and this could prevent a
nationwide crackdown. The verification process should be reopened, he said.
“The main aim now is to reopen the registration so the rest of the migrant worker
community can become legal, and we can put an end to the misery workers go
through during the crackdowns,” Hall said.

A large population of illegal migrant workers still lives in Thailand, and it will be
affected by any pending crackdown. Workers will either be deported or hide out for
weeks, while their jobs go unfilled in most cases.

Migrant labor representatives believe the government should be making it easier for
migrant workers to stay in the country legally, because, they say, deportation violates
a number of regional and international conventions and tramples on the basic rights of
migrant workers.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18549&page=2

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NEWS ON REFUGEES
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Bangladesh Increases Pressure on Rohingya Refugees
By KRISTY CRABTREE Thursday, May 20, 2010

As the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh continues to worsen, Bangladesh

Foreign Minister Dipu Moni is insisting on their return to Burma “in the soonest
possible time.”

But promoting the Rohingyas' repatriation as the only possible solution to their
displacement overlooks an internationally recognized norm of protection for those
seeking refuge. This is the principle of non-refoulement. Basically, this principle
prohibits nations from expelling or returning a refugee to a place where their freedom
will be threatened or there is a risk of persecution.

This principle is recognized in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of

Refugees, and applies to refugees that are formally recognized as well as those who
lack an official status.

Although Bangladesh is not a party to the convention, the principle still applies
because non-refoulement is an international custom. This means that the principle is a
“general practice accepted as law” because it has fulfilled the two elements necessary
to become customary international law: consistent State practice and opinio juris. The
latter means it is a practice recognized by states as obligatory.

Having satisfied these requirements, the principle of non-refoulement is considered

customary international law, and therefore, binding on all states regardless of their
adoption of the 1951 Convention. Furthermore, the principle is defended in other
treaties which Bangladesh has signed, such as the Convention Against Torture and the
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This principle should protect the Rohingya
from forced or coerced repatriation to Burma.
Foreign Minister Moni’s plan for Rohingya repatriation not only goes against
customary international law but her request for the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees to pursue socio-economic development in Burma also falls short.

The reason for the flight of the Rohingya into neighboring countries is not the result
of a socio-economic problem. The root cause of their displacement is the lack of
recognition of their citizenship rights in Burma.

Without these national rights, their other basic rights, such as freedom to travel or
marry or practice their faith, are routinely violated, and the Rohingya are subject to
other gross human rights abuses such as forced labor and property confiscation.

Although they should be protected from compulsory return to Burma, many Rohingya
would be prepared to return to a Burma that recognizes them as citizens and provides
them with the full protection of the law like other citizens.

However, even recognized citizens in Burma are fleeing across nearly every border to
avoid wrongful detention and the lack of freedom of speech, press or association,
among other more violent human rights violations. Without significant changes in
Burma, the Rohingya cannot return. Repatriation can only occur when it is voluntary
on the part of the persecuted.

While the Bangladesh foreign minister’s remarks can certainly be viewed as

disregarding the internationally-recognized principle of non-refoulement, they should
also be regarded as a request for assistance. Perhaps she should be heard as a plea for
international, political action in Burma. Clearly Bangladesh and other Burmese
refugee-hosting countries like Thailand cannot go this path alone indefinitely.

Resettlement of Rohingya refugees must continue in countries like the US, Canada,
Ireland and New Zealand. Funding must also support local villagers living in the area
surrounding the camps. This is necessary to change the local perception of the
refugee camps from being a financial burden for the country to infusing the area with
international aid and development.

While it is inappropriate for Foreign Minister Moni to suggest the repatriation of the
Rohingya on any terms that are not voluntary, western states as well need to take
political action in Burma for the sake of all Burmese people.

Kristy Crabtree qualified in international law from New York University, and has
conducted field research with Rohingya refugees in the Kutupalong and Leda
camps. Her research has been published in Forced Migration Review, Infinity
Journal, the Journal for Muslim Mental Health and the Huffington Post. She worked
as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Gazipur and Cox’s Bazar.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=18506

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ေရြ ႔ေျပာင္း
လုပ္သမားမ်ားသတင္
မားမ်ားသတင္း
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****************************************************************
လူပဲြစား သတိထား
မဇၩိမသတင္းဌာန | ဗုဒၶဟူးေန႔၊ ေမလ ၁၉ ရက္ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ ၁၂ နာရီ ၃၁ မိနစ္

ယ္ဒီတာခင္ဗ်ား …

စစ္ကိုင္းတုိင္း ကေလးၿမိဳ႕နယ္မွာရွိတ့ဲ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ခ်င္း
မ်ဳိးသား ၁၄ ေယာက္ကို ပဲြစား ၂ ေယာက္က

မေလးရွားႏိုင္ငံမွာ
လုပ္ရွာေပးမယ္လို႔ ေျပာၿပီးေတာ့ တေယာက္စီကေန က်ပ္ ၈ သိန္းခဲြစီ
လိမ္ယူသာြ းပါတယ္။

ရန္ကုန္မွာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ၁၄ ေယာက္ကို တလေလာက္ထားၿပီး ႏိုင္ငံကူးလက္မွတ္ ပတ္စ္ပို႔ လုပ္ေနတုန္းမွာပဲ

ဲဒီ ပြစ
ဲ ား ၂ ေယာက္ ထြက္ေျပးတိမ္းေရွာင္သြားပါတယ္။ ေငြကေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔က
ျပည့္ေပးၿပီးသားပါ။

ဒီႏွစ္ ဇန္နဝါရီလဆန္းမွာ ကေလးၿမိဳ႕ ေတာင္ဖီလာ
ရပ္မွာေနတဲ့ တေယာက္နဲ႔
မည္မသိတဲ့

ပဲစ
ြ ားတေယာက္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ဆီ ေရာက္လာပါတယ္။ သူတို႔က မေလးရွားသြားခ်င္ရင္ က်ပ္ ၈ သိန္းခြဲပဲ
ကုန္မယ္၊ ၄ လ
တြင္း သြားရမယ္၊ မသြားျဖစ္ရင္ ေငြျပန္ေပးမယ္လို႔ ေျပာၿပီး က်ေနာ္တို႔ ၁၄ ေယာက္ကို
ရန္ကုန္ ေခၚသြားပါတယ္။

ဇန္နဝါရီလ ၁၃ ရက္ေန႔ကစၿပီး ရန္ကုန္တိုင္း ေက်ာက္တံတားၿမိဳ႕ ၃၅ လမ္း
ထက္ဘေလာက္မွာ

က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ထားပါတယ္။ ၃ ရက္ေလာက္မွာ ပတ္စ္ပို႔လုပ္ၾကရပါတယ္။ တလေလာက္ေတာ့
ေကာင္းေကာင္းမြန္မန
ြ ္ ထားပါတယ္၊ ေကြ်းပါတယ္။ ပတ္စ္ပို႔ ထုတ္ခါနီး ၅ ရက္ေလာက္
လိုမွာ လူလိမ္
ပဲစ
ြ ား ၂ ေယာက္က ထြက္ေျပးသြားတာပါ။

က်ေနာ္တ

ို႔ ားလံုး ရန္ကုန္က ခ်င္း
မ်ဳိးသားေတြကို
ကူ
ညီေတာင္းၿပီး ေနခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒီလ ၉
ရက္ေန႔က်မွ ကေလးၿမိဳ႕ကို ျပန္ေရာက္ပါတယ္။

ကေလးၿမိဳ႕ ေထာက္လွမ္းေရးတပ္ဖ႔က
ြဲ တာဝန္ရွိသူ ၂ ေယာက္က ဒီလ ၁၁ ရက္ေန႔မွာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ဆီ လာၿပီး
ပဲစ
ြ ားလိမ္ကိစၥကို ေမးျမန္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။
ဲဒီ ၂ ေယာက္ကို ရွာေဖြသြားမယ္လို႔ ဆိုပါတယ္။

က်ေနာ္တို႔ကေတာ့ ပ်U္းခံုၾကီးရြာက Uီးဘာလ္းဟလို Val Hlo ၊ Uီးဗ်က္ကိုင္း Biak Kai ႏွင့္ Uီးလိုင္ကုပ္ Lai
Kulh ၊ တာဟန္းက Uီးေက်ာ္ခဲြ Kyaw Khuai
ပါ
ဝင္ ၄ ေယာက္၊ ေတာင္ဖီလာရပ္ကြက္က Uီးဗ်န္လြဲ Van
Luai
ပါ
ဝင္ ၄ ေယာက္ႏွင့္ မြန္တာရြာက Uီးေဒးဗစ္ဆြမ္း
ပါ
ဝင္ ၃ ေယာက္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ဒီႏွစ

္ တြင္းမွာ ကေလးၿမိဳ႕နယ္ကေန မေလးရွားကို
လုပ္လုပ္ဖို႔္ ထြက္ခြာသြားတဲ့သူက
နည္းဆံုး

ေယာက္ ၂ဝဝ ေလာက္ ရွိပါတယ္။

လုပ

္ ကိုင

္ တြက္ သြားလာၾကရတာျဖစ္ေပမယ့္ က်ေနာ္တို႔လို လူလိမ္မခံရေ
ာင္
သိေပးတဲ

့ ေနနဲ႔
တင္ျပလိုက္တာပါ။

Uီးဘာလ္းလဟိုႏွင့္ ပ်U္းခံုၾကီးရြာသားတခ်ဳိ႕
ကေလးၿမိဳ႕နယ္၊ စစ္ကိုင္းတုိင္း

http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/edop/letters-to-editor/5397-2010-05-19-06-14-41.html
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ျမန္မာ

ာ
လုပ္သမားတစ္Uီး ပုဇန
ြ ္ကန္ ေရဒလက္တင
ြ ္ ၿငိၿပီးေသဆံုး
Tuesday, 25 May 2010 09:53

ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံေတာင္ပုိင္း၊ နန္ယန
ြ ္ၿမိဳ႕ ရွစ္ကီလုိ ေစ်း
နီးရွိ ပုဇြန္ေမြးျမဴေရးကန္မွ ျမန္မာ
လုပ္သမားတUီး
ပုဇန
ြ

္ စာေကၽြးရင္း ေရဒလက္တင
ြ ္
က်ႌၿငိ၍ လူပါညပ္၀င္ၿပီး ေသဆံုးခဲ့ေၾကာင္း သိရသည္။

ေသဆံုးသူမွာ
သက္ (၂၅)ႏွစ

္ ရြယ္ ပသွ်ဴး(ေခၚ)မိုး ဆိုသူျဖစ္ၿပီး တနသၤာရီတုိင္း၊ ေကာ့ေသာင္းၿမိဳ႕၊
ေရႊျပည္သာရပ္ကက
ြ ္မွ ျဖစ္သည္။ ၎တြင္
သက္(၂၀)
ရြယ္ ဇနီးျဖစ္သူ မိေလး(ထား၀ယ္)ႏွင့္
ရွစ္လ
ရြယ္ သမီးငယ္တစ္Uီး က်န္ရစ္ခဲ့ေၾကာင္း သိရွိရသည္။

လုပ္ေဖာ္ကိုင္ဖက္ျဖစ္သူ မခင္စန္းက “ က်မခင္ပြန္းလည္း
စာသြားေကၽြးတယ္ေလ။ ကန္ခ်င္းကပ္ပ၊ဲ

ေလွကေရထဲမွာ ေမ်ာေနေတာ့၊
နားသြားၾကည့္တယ္။ လူကိုမေတြ႔ဘူး၊
က်ႌပဲ ျမင္ရတယ္။ က်မကို
ေသဆံုးသူရ႕ဲ ဇနီးကေခၚတယ္။ က်မတို႔ ေရာက္လာေတာ့ က်မေယာက်္ားက မန္ေနဂ်ာကို ေခၚတယ္။
ေဆးရံုေရာက္ေတာ့မွ ေသၿပီဆိုတာ သိရတယ္။ ေမလ(၂၂)ရက္၊ စေန ေန႔ည (၁၁)နာရီေက်ာ္
ခ်ိန္မွာ
ပုဇန
ြ ္စာေကၽြးရင္း ျဖစ္တာပါ”ဟု ေျပာသည္။

ေသဆံုးသူ
တြက္ နစ္နာေၾကး ရရွိခ့ျဲ ခင္း မရွိဟုလည္း မခင္စန္းက ေျပာျပသည္။

ေလာင္းကို တနဂၤေႏြေန႔တင
ြ ္ မီးသၿဂိဳဟ္ခဲ့ၿပီး ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း သိရသည္။

ဆိုပါ ပုဇန
ြ ္ေမြးျမဴေရး ကန္
တြင္း ေသဆံုးသူႏွင့္ ဇနီး၊ မခင္စန္းတို႔ လင္မယားႏွင့္
သက္ႀကီးသည့္
ျမန္မာတစ္Uီး စုစုေပါင္း
လုပ္သမား (၅)Uီးရွိေၾကာင္း သိရွိရသည္။

http://www.ghre.org/mm/news/500-2010-05-25-09-55-30/

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