Commentary: Can Thailand face up to its responsibility?

[Mid]

Commentary: Can Thailand face up to its responsibility?
Htet Aung Kyaw

Apr 28, 2008 (DVB)—While many are talking about the suffocation of 54 Burmese migrants in southern Thailand, some lawyers and labour activists are asking the authorities to allow the two million other Burmese migrants in Thailand to vote in the 10 May Burmese referendum.

Burmese embassies around the globe invited local Burmese nationals to vote from 25 to 29 April in advance of the 10 May referendum on their country's future. But nearly two million Burmese migrants in Thailand were not included in that invitation. Why? Are they not Burmese citizens?

According to the 2008 referendum law, people who have left the country and are living abroad illegally do not have the right to vote.

But Aung Htoo, a senior legal officer in exile and secretary of the Bangkok-based Burma Lawyers’ Council, claimed that migrants do have a legal right to vote.

"According to Thai immigration law, those who hold Thai work permits are living and working legally in Thailand. So they have right to vote just as every citizen has," says Aung Htoo.

In fact, the Burmese authorities do not allow anyone to cross the border checkpoint into Thailand. But everyone knows nearly two million people currently on Thai soil have crossed at that check point in the last 20 years. However, their names are still listed as eligible to vote in Burma in the May referendum even if they left the country a decade ago.

"That is one of many factors that could jeopardise the chance of a free and fair referendum in May, as over one million people will be absent from the vote. No doubt the authorities might count them as 'Yes' or absentee votes rather than delete their names from the electoral roll on time,'' Aung Htoo added.

Htoo Chit, director of the Khao Lak-based Grassroots Human Right Education and Development, agrees with Aung Htoo.

"Many workers in our areas have urged me to do something to enable them to vote in the May referendum," Htoo Chit says.

"I also believe they have the right to vote as a basic human right which I tell them every day. But I can do nothing without the authorities’ permission."

Khao Lak beach is near Phuket city where the 54 Burmese workers who suffocated in transit were heading. The GHRE was set up there after the 2004 tsunami and opened some primary schools for the children of thousands of Burmese migrants living along the coast.

Many of those who now work in the fishing industry, on rubber plantations, in construction, or at beach tourism sites came to the country in the same way as those 54 Burmese workers.

"In this situation, no one can go back Burma to vote. So what can we do for them?" Htoo Chit asked.

Nobody can answer his question yet. But some observers urged the new Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej to help in this case, particularly as he has suggested the Burmese generals study the Thai referendum.

Even he didn't give details of this suggestion during his one-day trip to Naypyidaw in March, the Burmese opposition wants him to urge the junta to allow free debate and international observers which were clearly seen in the Thai referendum.

Two weeks ahead of the vote, there are clear differences between the pre-referendum conditions in Thailand and Burma. Dozens of activists from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy have been arrested, beaten and threatened for calling for a “No” vote and free debate while senior ministers and senior officials from the USDA are travelling freely around the country to campaign for a “Yes” vote.

The government-controlled media, TV, radio and newspapers are openly urging the people to vote 'Yes' while the opposition has no access to the media.

"That why we are calling again and again for international observers," says Thein Nyunt, spokesperson for legal affairs for the NLD.

"Teams from Thailand, ASEAN, China, India, Bangladesh or the United Nations are all welcome," he said, although the junta rejected the UN special envoy's proposal for election observers.

Given this scenario, the Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej, who has said that the Burmese generals meditate and claims the country lives in peace, must again urge the general to learn the reasons for the success of the Thai referendum when he meets his Burmese counterpart general Thein Sein in Bangkok on Tuesday.

Otherwise, he will fall into the same role as Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa who refused to recognize the result of Zimbabwe's election which was lost by his counterpart Robert Mugabe.

Many observers compare the situation in Zimbabwe today to the likely situation in Burma if the junta rejects the opposition's “No” vote in the May referendum.

Like South Africa, Thailand neighbours one of the worst dictatorships in the world, and just as South Africa has a duty to improve conditions in Zimbabwe, Thailand has a responsibility to bring about a better situation in Burma.

Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma radio and TV station.

english.dvb.no

[Texpat]

Let's get this straight.
Illegal Burmese are working in Thailand.
Labor activists and lawyers want to give them the right to vote in Burmese elections.
Here's an idea.

Send them criminals (yes, they're criminals) packing back to Burma if they want to vote. Fcuk! They left Burma to work illegally in Thailand and then bitch because they want to vote back home. The gall of these people. If they've got work permits or valid visas, it's a different issue.

This world is going to hell in a handbasket because of the nancy-boy (thanks FF) activists.

[Mid]

not that simple Tex , and that hell in a handbasket feeling is a symptom of a world getting smaller

Grey or gray (see spelling differences) describes any shade between black and white.

wikipedia.org

[Marmite the Dog]

Can Thailand face up to its responsibility?

There's a first time for everything.