[imText1]The situation for North Korean refugees in Thailand is better now than it was a few years ago, explains Tomoharu Ebihara, the director of the Thai-based Association for the Rescue of North Korea Abductees (ARNKA), but there is still much to do to improve conditions in this important gateway for refugees trying to make their way to safe third countries like South Korea.
Ebihara, in Seoul this week to take part in North Korea Freedom Week and publicize the case of Anocha Panjoy, a Thai woman kidnapped by North Korean agents in Macau during 1978, is a Japanese professor at a Thai university. He is also a passionate advocate of the rights of the approximately (Thailand does not release official figures) 1500 North Korean refugees entering the country every year.
Although Thailand refuses to grant refugee status to North Koreans who enter the country illegally, it does not repatriate them, unlike China, and does, upon payment of a fine or after a short period of imprisonment, willingly send them onward to Seoul. This makes it a very favorable destination for North Koreans who would otherwise face a much less certain future in many of the other countries in the region.
However, there are two problems, says Ebihara. One is the aforementioned lack of refugee status for North Koreans; the other is that Thailand is seriously short of funds to deal with them.
In an interview with The Daily NK, Ebihara explains, “In the police station, due to a lack of budget, they face problems whenever they arrest North Koreans.”
For example, ARNKA, in concert with Life Fund for North Korean Refugees, a Japanese NGO, provides medicines to police stations where North Koreans are detained.
Another issue, the one with the greatest security implications for South Korea, is the real lack of interpreters who can interview new arrivals and potentially weed out the tiny minority of North Korean agents from the mass of desperate people trying to escape Kim Jong Il’s North Korea.
Indeed, just one week ago, two North Korean spies were arrested in Seoul. Under the command of the newly formed Reconnaissance Bureau of the North’s People’s Armed Forces, the two confessed that they had been sent to gather information on the whereabouts and activities of Hwang Jang Yop, a high profile North Korean defector whose pro-democracy activities particularly irk the Kim Jong Il regime.
The two men, Major Kim Myong Ho and Major Tong Myong Kwan, were able to get to Seoul easily along the well worn trail for legitimate refugees which runs through Thailand.
As two of the “25 to 30” refugees per week who are sent to South Korea from Thailand, the status of the spies would not have been adequately investigated, Ebihara explains, which is ultimately why the life of Hwang Jang Yop was put in danger. On some occasions, “They even have to employ interpreters to interview them out of the chief of police’s pocket,” according to Ebihara.
Nevertheless, the situation contrasts favorably with that of three years ago, Ebihara says. Then, there was no system for the North Koreans and there were too many of them for the facilities being employed to house them. Things are better now, he believes, but remain imperfect.
Ebihara says he hopes that improvements to both funding and the status of refugees in Thailand can be stepped up in 2011, a year when Thailand is likely to be leading the UN Human Rights Council. Ebihara is working, he hopes, on making 2011 the year when the North Koreans who enter Thailand annually finally earn recognition for what they are: refugees. If that happens, North Koreans would no longer be arrested on entry into the country, no longer be sentenced to prison or fined, and would be able to travel on to their chosen destination with the respect they deserve.
“We need to press the Thai government again,” Ebehara says. “Once it is elected to the Human Rights Council, it should take care of refugees or abductees more. Why don’t North Korean refugees get refugee status from the Thai government at all? We have to push about it to the Thai government once again.”
