Mae Sot: The first group of Burmese refugees from Mae Sot boarded planes for the United States this morning from the airport at the Thai border town.

Thirty-one individuals from eight different families stopped at Don Muang International Airport in Bangkok before flying on to the US for permanent resettlement later today. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, and the International Organization of Migration, or IOM, helped arrange the resettlement.

In January, the US entered into discussions with the Thai government over the possible resettlement of up to 4,000 Burmese refugees in the US. The US Embassy in Bangkok began processing applications for the resettlement of 2,000 UNHCR-recognized Burmese refugees that month. The first 2,000 are scheduled to leave for the US before the end of the year. The first group of Burmese, from Bangkok, left for the US in May.

Seven of the families had members affiliated with Burmese political opposition groups, including the Democratic Party for a New Society, or DPNS, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, or ABSDF, and the Mae Tao clinic, which trains medics and provides free medical treatment to Burmese migrants in Thailand.

The departing refugees, some of whom have lived in Thailand for 15 years, expressed mixed feelings about resettling in the US.

“I do not want to go to a third country,” said DPNS member Nyein Chan.
“But I have no choice but to accept the UNHCR’s arrangement because I can not stay here [in Thailand] anymore.”

A member of the armed student group the ABSDF said even though he was going Stateside, he was not turning his back on politics and his colleagues.

“In fact I would like to stay here with my comrades,” Myint Naing said. “I am not betraying Burma’s revolution. At this time, however, the situation will not allow us to stay here so we are leaving for the [US]. When we get travel documents we will come back to help our comrades,” he added.

Ta Ei, a medic at the Mae Tao clinic, was more upbeat, saying the resettlement provided him the dream chance to study.

The eighth family to resettle the in US are not refugees, say several Burmese residents in Mae Sot, but are Burmese migrants with a reputation for swindling other Burmese migrants, merchants and refugees of their money. One resident accused the family of deceiving other Burmese in Mae Sot into lending them tens of thousands of baht, and promising to repay the loan with high interest. But the money was never repaid.

“I do not know how they gained refugee status; they are robbing real refugees of the opportunity [to resettle in a third country],” said Tin Maung, a Burmese dissident living in Mae Sot, at the airport this morning.

“The real refugees have not got PoC [Person of Concern status] yet, while the fake refugees are leaving for a third country for resettlement,” he added.

In July more than 200 Burmese refugees will go to third countries, with the assistance of the UHNCR and IOM in four batches. The remaining three groups will leave on July 18, 20 and 23, according to refugees and UNHCR officials.

Until January, the UNHCR was charged with the responsibility of screening Burmese refugees. But the agency temporarily stopped accepting applications, at the request of the Thai government, until a more restrictive government-controlled screening procedure was announced on March 22.

Thailand will not permit the refugees to integrate locally. The Thai authorities only reluctantly permit the refugees to remain, and every year impose more restrictions on them, often to appease the Burmese regime. Thailand has important trade and economic relations with Burma that are of much greater concern to Bangkok than is the fate of the refugees.