Monday, 7 July 2014
Sao Mon* hasn’t left his small, fifth-storey apartment in Thailand since the May 22 coup.
The 37-year-old asylum seeker came to Thailand looking for a safe haven
five years ago, but now fears that at any moment, he, his wife and two
young daughters will be arrested and added to the swell of over 250,000
Cambodian returnees. But as Khmer Krom, Mon and his family could face
more than just economic consequences upon return.
“If they arrest us and send us back to Vietnam, I will die,” said Mon, who sorts chilies in his living room to make money without leaving the house.
Mon fled Vietnam in 2008 after police arrested him and his father for celebrating a moon festival
observed annually by the Mekong Delta’s indigenous Khmer Krom families.
Police beat Mon’s father until he was permanently crippled.
“We are Khmer, so we have to learn our language, but the Vietnamese always think for some reason the people are against them,” Mon said.
Though he shares the language, culture and religion of Cambodia, Mon
felt no safer in the Kingdom, where rights groups note that while Khmer
Krom are in theory recognised as citizens of the state, in practice they
struggle to obtain ID cards and constantly face the possibility of
deportation. The Minority Rights Organization (MIRO) estimates that as
much as 30 per cent of Khmer Krom in Cambodia are in effect stateless,
living without an official nationality.
Five months after leaving Vietnam, Mon raised enough money to again
smuggle his family across a border, this time hoping to obtain asylum
through the UN refugee agency in Thailand. Mon applied for asylum in
October, but in February the UN rejected his application. Since then,
Mon and monitoring NGOs attest that what was already a dicey security
situation for refugees in Thailand has deteriorated into complete
instability.
“For Khmer Krom in Thailand, the circumstances have gotten even worse as Thai authorities [started] raiding to collect
illegal migrant workers and send them back to Cambodia. Most of [the
Khmer Krom] are in hiding and locking themselves in their rooms,” Ang
Chanrith, MIRO executive director, said.
In 2009 and 2013, groups of asylum seekers were arrested and forcibly
deported from Thailand at Cambodia’s behest due to their political
activities. But now, Mon and others said they don’t even dare identify
themselves as Khmer Krom.
“It’s no secret that Thailand and Cambodia aren’t the friendliest of
friends, and that may have added an unwanted layer of complexity to the
situation,” US-based political analyst
Peter Tan Keo said. “The military junta may be reacting, negatively of
course, to Thai dissident Jakrapob’s presence in Cambodia . . . Indeed,
Khmer Kroms are seeking asylum during an extremely inopportune time.”
Advocates said alternative options are extremely limited: No other country in the region will host them as refugees.
“As long as the military is in power, they will be more vulnerable and
living in fear, but I don’t see much option,” said Ou Virak, Cambodian
Center for Human Rights chairman.
For now, Mon and his family are holding their breath for an asylum
application appeal. “I really miss my homeland . . . but I cannot go
back and I cannot stay here,” he said.
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