Following the deal Cambodia made with Australia in October 2015 to receive 1,100 asylum seekers, the corrupt constitutional monarchy will
receive $35 million in “development aid,” in full knowledge of its already
swelling refugee crisis. Called by some “a cruel deal,” it is not unlike the
agreement that was made between Australia and the small island nation of Nauru
not so long ago for the same purpose, and where the refugees were temporarily
detained. Amnesty International has criticized Australia for shirking its
commitment to the 1951 Convention of Refugees. Indeed, Cambodia is becoming a
veritable human dumping ground for profit.
The way Australia is handing off these refugees is not
unlike the way Cambodia, itself, has treated refugees from other countries,
including Vietnam and North Korea. For example, in 2009, Cambodia was pledged
$1 billion in investments from China for the return of 20 dissident Uighur
ethnic minority asylum seekers for their alleged involvement in political
riots.
Scott Morrison, the Minister for Immigration and Border
Protection in Australia has told journalists that the deal will benefit
everyone. On the other hand, David Manne of Australia’s Refugees and
Immigration Legal Center told the Sydney Morning Herald that Cambodia “is
barely able to look after the needs and rights of its own people, let alone
those of refugees.” Meanwhile, there is a “Stop the boats” attitude currently
gaining popularity in Australia (referring to the arrival of boat people on its
shores). Its obvious influence on politicians hungry to maintain popular
political support is considerable.
This is profoundly unsettling in light of the recent mass
exodus of Cambodian refugees from Thailand this past summer, caused when rumors
began to circulate that the ruling military junta was cracking down on illegal
migrant workers from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and other countries. Cambodians working
illegally in Thailand had mostly filled undesirable low-paying jobs that Thais
often reject - in agriculture, fishing, seafood processing, unskilled labor and
domestic work.
But the threat of arrest, especially in light of Thailand’s
notoriously squalid detention lockups, is not to be dismissed lightly. Human
Rights Watch recently published a 67-page report entitled, “Two Years With No
Moon,” accusing Thailand’s detention policies of not only being in violation of
international law, but risking children’s rights, health, well-being, and even
imperiling their growth.
Fear of house-to-house searches, the threat of arrest, or
even being shot and killed by the police were very real concerns for the
migrants while they resided in Thailand. Altogether, the relationship between
Thailand and Cambodia has been politically tense over the last few years,
resulting not only from various territorial disputes, including the conflict
over the Preah Vihear Temple area, but also the burning of the Thai embassy in
Phnom Penh by rioters in 2003.
The International Organization of Migration (IOM), a
UN-affiliated intergovernmental group, reported upwards of 246,000 Cambodian
migrants fled Thailand this past summer. This, in a country where a gathering
of more than 5 people can be manipulated by the authorities into being
designated a protest, and which is considered illegal. IOM estimates that
upwards of 380,000 migrant children of different nationalities are still living
in Thailand. Daily life for illegal workers is an anxiety-inducing one that
forces them to stay indoors and out of sight whenever they are not working.
Curfews are common. No one is quite sure where the rumor of the crackdown
originated; however, it caused many illegal workers lacking funds to turn themselves
in to Thai authorities, in the hope of being returned home somewhat safely.
Cambodia has a deplorable human rights record and is
infamous for using refugees as bargaining chips in bids for foreign aid. And
like many struggling third world nations, Cambodia is easy prey for huge
multinationals. Most recently, Toll Holdings Limited, an Australian company has
agreed to a joint-venture 30-year deal with the Cambodian government to restore
their defunct railway system that has been in a state of disrepair since 2009.
Toll received $84 million from the Asian Development Bank, none of which will
trickle down to the people living there. Approximately 3,600 families living in
makeshift homes along the tracks have been driven away from the rail lines that
run between Phnom Penh and Poipet on the Thai border, in order to make way for
new construction. Local bamboo drivers, who had made improvised train cars out
of bamboo and salvaged engines have been driven out of business.
Poipet, once a major railroad terminus, has been a transit
point for returning Cambodians, many of whom rushed to leave Thailand without
even claiming their final paychecks. What awaited them was not very promising.
Many were unsure if their homes would still be there upon their return. Land
grabs by various companies have become all too common. And as the companies
have brazenly expropriated land from farmers and communities, land-thefts have
been made all too easy due to the fact that all property records had been
destroyed decades ago when the Khmer Rouge seized power.
Around the world globalization continues to take its toll.
As it is in Central America [See The Children of Honduras, August 31, 2014 in
The Quiet American], indigenous peoples in South East Asia have been forced
into becoming migrants and refugees, attempting to flee their home countries
that have been ravaged and exploited by decades of colonialism, imperial
influence, war and, now, the neoliberal expansionist policies of the World
Bank, the IMF and a derivatives-driven market. Airport expansion projects and
rapid luxury apartment developments cannot possibly provide the required
sustaining economies to include millions of people displaced from villages,
farms and towns.
For now, many Cambodian migrants are caught between the
dangerous and unrewarding prospect of working and living illegally in a
junta-run foreign country that does not even pay very well -usually 200-300
bahts per day (the equivalent of $6-9 US) and trying to make the best of their
extremely corrupt home nation where there is little hope of finding work at
all.
