The U.S. State Department's top official for refugee affairs says that if military-ruled Myanmar's upcoming election is not fair, asylum seekers from the country can not be expected to return there.
Eric Schwartz, who heads the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, arrived Thursday in Thailand to look into issue regarding asylum-seekers from Myanmar and Laos.
He said he held discussions Thursday with Thai officials who were sympathetic to U.S. concerns over the safety of asylum seekers now in refugee camps in Thailand. Schwartz will visit one of the camps Friday before going to Laos, where he will hold talks about ethnic Hmong returnees sent back from Thailand.
A top US official said Thursday he was "particularly concerned" about the plight of 140,000 refugees from Myanmar in camps along the Thai border ahead of the junta's upcoming polls.
Eric P. Schwartz, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, raised his worries in Bangkok after meeting Thai officials and activists ahead of a trip to the border camps on Friday.
The refugees have mostly fled a six-decade conflict between mainly-Buddhist Myanmar's junta and Christian Karen rebels, one of the few ethnic insurgent groups yet to sign a peace deal with the ruling generals.
"I'm particularly concerned about the continued situation of vulnerable Burmese in Thailand, about 140,000 of whom are in camps in the border area," Schwartz said at a press briefing, using Myanmar's former name.
Schwartz said that "continued repression and restrictions" in Myanmar's electoral process as it had unfolded so far suggested the polls later this year would "offer little change of conditions within Burma".
"If that does happen, elections will not alter the need of Burmese who fear persecution to have access to a protection outside of Burma."
He said it would be critical for Thai authorities "to continue to permit such refuge".
The United States, which has taken in more than 60,000 Myanmar refugees since 2005, has criticised the regime for effectively forcing the dissolution of the main opposition party of democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi.
Her National League for Democracy won the country's last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power by the junta.
Schwartz said the Thai officials he had met "seemed to recognise that it will be conditions on the ground and not the conducting of elections in and of themselves... that will be the key factor in determining whether it's safe for people to return".
In December Thailand defied the United States, European Union and United Nations by forcibly repatriating about 4,500 Hmong people from camps in the country's north back to Laos, despite concerns of persecution on their return.
Schwartz was due to visit Laos after Thailand and discuss the conditions of the returned Hmong.
He said he would also discuss the rights of these returnees to leave, especially a group of 158 recognised refugees who were sent back despite firm offers of resettlement in third countries, including the United States.
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Obama asked to name envoy to secretive Myanmar
Regime reportedly trying to build a nuke
President Obama has yet to appoint a special envoy for Myanmar, whose military-ruled regime reportedly is trying to build a nuclear weapon and plans to hold what U.S. lawmakers see as a flawed election this year.
U.S. officials have expressed disappointment with these developments, and members of Congress and activists say the appointment of a U.S. policy coordinator is key to holding the junta accountable for its bad behavior.
Currently, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is part of the foreign policy portfolio of Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
"Kurt Campbell has been very attentive to Burma, but he has a lot on his plate. We need someone who makes Burma their first priority," said Jennifer Quigley, advocacy director for the U.S. Campaign for Burma. "For us, 2010 is an incredibly critical year in Burma and it makes it that much more important to have a special policy coordinator."
In a June 8 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Jim Webb recommended Eric John, U.S. ambassador to Thailand, for the special envoy position.
"Ambassador John has spent many years in East Asia, and has long experience in dealing with the North Korean regime on issues that might be similar to those we will be facing in Burma," wrote Mr. Webb, Virginia Democrat who recently canceled a trip to Myanmar over reports that the junta was trying to build a nuclear weapon.
The Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008, requires the president to appoint a "special representative and policy coordinator" for Myanmar.
Mr. Bush nominated Michael Green, a former senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, to the position in November 2008, but the Senate didn't get around to confirming him.
A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators wrote to Mr. Obama on March 26, urging him to nominate someone to the position. They said there was "both an urgent policy need and an unambiguous legal requirement for this position to be filled."
In response to the letter, National Security Adviser James L. Jones wrote that the administration was in the process of nominating someone to fill the position. That letter was sent in April.
