Thais to Reject Refugees Who Prove Illegal

The Thai government will turn back all future illegal refugees from its Communist-ruled neighbor states, Interior Minister Prachuap Suntharangkun declared Monday.

Proclaiming what Radio Thailand termed a “prevent-and-deter action against all illegal refugees,” Prachuap, Thailand’s top law enforcement official, warned foreign governments not to interfere with Thai policy. He appeared to direct his remarks at the United States.

Like the United States, Prachuap said, Thailand prevents illegal immigrants from crossing its borders. He insisted that the Thais will treat humanely those refugees already in Thailand and will try to help them find sanctuary in third countries.

Figures from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which oversees the operation of the refugee camps here, show that more than 113,000 people await resettlement, while another 250,000 people, mostly Cambodians, are in border camps but are called “displaced persons” and generally are not considered for resettlement.

And according to Prachuap, no more outsiders will be allowed in unless they meet the international test of a refugee: a person fleeing persecution.

“Thailand has a problem of illegal entries at its borders nationwide, and if we allow a larger number of ‘boat people’ to stay in the country like this, where will the Thai people find places to live in the future?” Prachuap asked.

“If they escaped from Vietnam because of war in their country, we will consider the matter differently. But the present situation in Vietnam is normal.”

The vast majority of Indochinese held in Thai border camps are Laotians and Cambodians, but a renewed tide of Vietnamese boat people triggered Prachuap’s comments over Radio Thailand.

The subject is particularly sensitive since a number of Thai officials have been implicated in a smuggling operation involving boat people and contraband. The governor of Trat, a coastal province on the Cambodian border, has been replaced. Another 25 officials of the province will be replaced, according to the press reports.

Number Has Tripled

The number of Vietnamese reaching Thailand by sea has tripled in the past year, according to the U.N. refugee office, whose figures show that more than 11,000 Vietnamese boat people reached Thailand in 1987, compared with 3,886 in 1986.

Refugee officials say the increase was spurred by improved Thai policing of pirate attacks on refugee boats and by a dispute, now resolved, that reduced the flow of immigrants from Vietnam to the West, primarily to the United States, under the U.N.-sponsored Orderly Departure Program.

But the key factor in increased boat arrivals has been the development of a refugee pipeline from Vietnam, through Cambodia to Thailand. Payoffs are made to officials along the way, according to refugee accounts. The refugees travel by land to the Cambodian port of Kompong Som, then by boat to the Thai beaches east of the city of Trat, a far safer sea journey than the run across the Gulf of Thailand from Vietnam to southern Thailand.

On Jan. 28, with widespread coverage by the Thai press, the marine police forced a boat carrying 40 Vietnamese to turn back. Officers said they had determined that the Vietnamese had paid smugglers to bring them ashore.

Proof Is the Key

“If it is discovered that they entered the country by themselves, they will be allowed,” Somporn Klinpongsa, a top Interior Ministry official, said at the time. “But if it was proven that they had paid their way here to smugglers, then they will be sent to another destination.”

Somporn told reporters that an estimated 30,000 Vietnamese are encamped in a smugglers’ haven just across the Cambodian border, waiting for the chance to enter Thailand by boat. According to the now-resigned governor of Trat province, nearly 1,000 boat people have been forced back to sea in the last three weeks. One Thai official said they presumably returned to Cambodia.

Over the weekend, both the Bangkok office of the U.N. refugee agency and the U.S. Embassy issued statements questioning the developments. An embassy spokesman said the United States understands Thailand’s security concerns but is making its humanitarian concerns known to Thai authorities.

The U.N. statement was more pointed. It said, “It would seem to be in the interests of everyone concerned that the implementation of Thailand’s traditional humanitarian policy be restored.”