A Refugees International (RI) team is returning to Cambodia and Thailand to survey conditions of indigenous people and to promote opportunities for refugee resettlement in the United States.

In Cambodia, RI will concentrate on promoting development programs for the Phnong people in remote eastern Mondulkiri Province.  In 1999, RI helped resettle a group of Phnong refugees returning from Thailand.  RI arranged for food from the World Food Program and has supported Cambodia Family Development Services, a local agency, to establish micro-loan and other economic development programs.  In addition, RI, which is sending a Phnong student to law school in Phnom Penh, will look at ways to expand its scholarship program.

The aim of the trip to Mondulkiri, along with meetings with government, UN and other officials in Phnom Penh, is to find ways to augment the development and education programs for the Phnong.

In Thailand, RI will focus on two major issues: protection of the Laotian Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok and the expansion of opportunities for Burmese refugees in Thailand. 

For the last year, RI has worked closely with the U.S. State Department and the Thai government to help resettle up to 15,000 Hmong refugees from Wat Tham Krabok, a temple near Bangkok, in the U.S.  The resettlement program is going extremely well, although there are pockets of people who aren’t being resettled and whose status still needs to be defined.

Thailand also hosts more than 300,000 Burmese refugees, most from minority ethnic groups from eastern Burma, who have fled oppression by the military dictatorship.  It is possible that some of the Burmese could eventually qualify for resettlement in the U.S.  This would alleviate crowding in Thai refugee camps and give some Burmese, many of whom have waited in vain for decades to go home, an opportunity for protection in the U.S. An RI team, including Ken Bacon and Ghazal Vaghedi, will meet with government, UN and refugee protection agencies in Bangkok and visit refugees at Wat Tham Krabok, Tham Hien and in the area around Mae Sot.