Thai Officials Preparing to Shut Down Border Camps : Refugees: The plan to relocate thousands of Cambodians onto neutral territory draws objections from the U.S.

The Thai government convened a high-level meeting Monday to discuss plans to move tens of thousands of refugees from camps along the Cambodian border into “neutral” camps deeper inside the country.

The United States has raised serious objections to the plan, citing humanitarian concerns. The suggestion, made public two weeks ago by Thai Prime Minister Chatchai Choonhavan, has the support of international relief agencies, the European Community and the United Nations, which oversees the border camps.

While the proposal has been around for some time, Suvit Suthanukul, the chief of Thailand’s National Security Council, disclosed over the weekend that a decision to close the border camps had already been made. He said that Monday’s meeting of permanent secretaries from the Interior, Defense and Foreign Affairs ministries was held to discuss setting up the new camps.

“The decision has already been taken by the prime minister,” Suvit said in a telephone interview. “Our duty is to discuss ways to execute that order. But we have not reached any conclusions. More discussions are necessary.”

The national security chief said that one of the topics discussed was how to find other sources of financial assistance to keep the new camps operating since U.S. opposition to the policy raises the possibility that Washington would halt its assistance. The United States now pays about 25% of the $58-million annual cost of running the camps.

The United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBRO) runs a string of 10 Cambodian refugee camps from Ta Luan in the south to O’trao in the extreme northeast, with a total camp population of 270,000. One camp, Site 2 north of the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet, has a population of more than 170,000, making it the largest concentration of Cambodians in the world after Phnom Penh, that nation’s capital. (The third largest is in Long Beach.)

The reason being given for moving the refugees is that, since the camps were opened in 1980, they have been openly administered by the three guerrilla groups fighting the Vietnamese-supported government in Phnom Penh. The Thais said they are displeased at recurring reports of factionalism, political repression and corruption in the camps.

For example, Site 2 is administered by the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, an anti-Communist group supported by the United States. Site B is administered by former Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s guerrilla followers, and Site 8 is a camp of the Khmer Rouge, the hard-line Communist group whose bloody reign in Cambodia lasted from 1975 until 1979.

Not only do the guerrilla groups administer the camps but they also use them as virtual rear supply bases for their struggle inside Cambodia. Many Western observers doubt that the factions could survive the loss of their camps, if only because much of the food donated for refugees is siphoned off for the guerrillas.

Chatchai has said that many Cambodian civilians would return to their homes but have been prevented from doing so by the guerrilla groups. His idea is to move refugees to neutral areas as a step before repatriation; those who insist on following the guerrillas could move back into Cambodia with those groups.

Chatchai is believed to have been convinced by his advisers that the time has come to re-evaluate Thailand’s traditional support for the guerrilla coalition in light of Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodia last September and the guerrilla groups’ failure to reach a political compromise with Phnom Penh.