(For info.)

MANEELOY CAMP IS HISTORY

(Kao Wao Reporter and AFP, December 27, 2001)

Despite demonstrations by asylum seekers against the
closure of the camp, opponents from rights groups, and
the international community, the well-known Maneeloy
camp on the morning of December 27, 2001 before the
New Year, has been forcibly relocated.  Students from
Maneeloy camp were moved to a new center near Tham Hin
refugee camp at Suan Phung district in southern
Thailand by the authorities.  About 400 ethnic
refugees and Burmese students were transported in 10
trucks by the Thai military and police personnel and
moved to new center.  The new center Tham Hin, is
located about 10 km from the Thai-Burmese border in
Suan Phung district.  The students claimed earlier the
facilities at the new shelter are not up to Maneeloy's
standards and is unsafe, being too close to the
border.

Interior Minister Purachai Piemsomboon told reporters
earlier the final decision was made at a joint meeting
among the ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs,
the National Security Council (NSC), the U.N, and the
local government of Ratchaburi province where the
refugee camp is located.  He said the closure of the
camp would go smoothly for all parties concerned,
including the office of U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), who started preparations for the
move eight months ago.  Thai officials said it was
time to shut down the shelter for good, where nearly
4,000 refugees have been repatriated to third
countries.  They agreed to the closure of Maneeloy
after confirming that 100 Burmese people had entered
the center without permission and should be treated as
illegal immigrants and prosecuted.

Inside the camp, asylum seekers held a hunger strike
starting December 11 that sent some refugees to Pak
Thor local hospital, Ratchaburi Province. Until the
deadline, the hunger strike changed into a silent
sitting by just drinking water.  "We all demanded the
Maneeloy camp to be extended for another (6) months,"
said Nai Aung Win, the Chairperson of the Overseas Mon
National Students Organization (OMNSO), who joined the
strike with other members of Burma Students
Association  (BSA).  He was concerned that "the
decision to close down Maneeloy camp and to relocate
it to Htam Hin new site will marginalize us (political
activists) and treat us as normal refugees or
displaced persons," a situation that will put their
lives in danger.

Outside the camp, hundreds of local Thais protested on
Monday to call on provincial authorities to close the
camp this week.  Protestors carrying banners rallied
in front of the Ratchaburi provincial hall, 100
kilometers west of Bangkok, demanding officials to
shut the Maneeloy Holding Center.  Maneeloy center was
opened in 1993 and has been home to thousands of Burma
students who had fled the 1988 crackdown on
pro-democracy activists by the military junta.  Many
of them have resettled in third countries through
programmes of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees.

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