Thread: Sa Kaeo - End of Khmer Muslim visas sought

End of Khmer Muslim visas sought

Sa Kaeo (TNA) – The Royal Thai Army's Burapa Task Force, which oversees the border with Cambodia, will advise the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to consider suspending issuing visas to Cambodian Muslims after finding that increasing numbers are crossing the border and travelling to the kingdom's southern provinces, a senior officer said on Thursday.

Burapha Special Task Force Division 12 commander Col. Chaichaiyan Sothornchai said the special task force is investigating information that the southern insurgents were using the strategy to increase the Muslim population in the three southernmost provinces by encouraging Muslims from Cambodia and Burma to join their co-religionists in the South.

According to immigration records, Col. Chaichaiyan said, since 2005 almost 20,000 Cambodian Muslims entered Thailand legally via Aranyaprathet in the Cambodian border province of Sa Kaeo, and then travel on to the southernmost provinces.

Of that number, according to the records, only 10 per cent returned to their home country, Col. Chaichaiyan said, expressing his concern regarding the rising number of Khmer Muslims entering Buddhist Thailand.

"There are also a lot of Cambodian Muslims who enter the kingdom illegally," he added, "and they cannot be counted."

The question of not issuing visas should be addressed carefully, he said, and the Burapa Task Force would ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the Internal Security Operations Command to consider suspending issuing visas, temporarily, to Cambodian Muslims.

On Wednesday, Thai Army Rangers and provincial police arrested 48 Cambodians in the eastern province of Sa Kaeo, bordering Cambodia, at highway checkpoints there, while three more Cambodians were detained at the Aranyaprathet border crossing.

Of those arrested, eight are Muslims, travelling from Cambodia's Kampong Cham, who said they planned to go to Thailand's three southern border provinces to seek employment.

Bangkok Post