mainly Christian Karen and Karenni refugees from Burma who have been living as virtual prisoners in camps in neighboring Thailand, BosNewsLife monitored Friday, August 26. Initially about 500 Karenni refugees will be selected to be settled in Finland and New Zealand in the coming five months by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), followed by another 100 in Canada, England and Australia "as second move", said the Karenni Refugee Committee (KRC).
The developments came just days after BosNewsLife reported on the plight of up to 60-thousand refugees at the overcrowded Mae La refugee camp near the Burmese border, where seemingly never ending rain changed the slippery, rocky, roads into rivers this season.
Most of them are members of the pre-dominantly Christian Karen community, which is now fighting a fierce battle in nearby jungles of Burma, a country the military rulers call Myanmar.
MISERY DECADES
"Tens of thousands of mainly Christian Karen and Karenni refugees have been living in camps along the Burma/Thai border, some for more than 20 years, never able to leave the camps," said Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International (CFI), an advocacy group supporting persecuted believers in the region.
"CFI has been working for many years for the resettlement of stateless Karen and Karenni refugees to the United States, Canada, and other free nations to order to start new, free lives for themselves and their families."
However Jacobson warned that "it doesn’t appear that the United States will participate in the resettlement." He said that "although countries like Finland, New Zealand, England and others have initially agreed to accept some of the refugees, they will probably not act unless the United States is involved-as it should be."
"IMPORTANT STEP"
Yet other officials suggested it was an important step. "It came to my surprise. This is the first time that I’ve ever heard allowing our Karenni people to settle in third countries," said KRC Secretary Alexandra Pauk Pauk.
But the KRC also noted in a statement that "most nominees are still wondering whether they should" go as they expect an "insecure time and [have] no experience or knowledge of settling in third countries" and fear they "will loss all their identities culturally, socially, and even morally."
The number of refugees increased in recent years as forces of Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), a group of generals who govern the Asian nation by decree since 1988, stepped up attacks against Christian Karen people.
BUDDHISTS ANGRY
They also managed to convince militant Karen Buddhists to establish their own military group, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), and help them in their offensive against the mainly Christian Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).
Human rights activists say the Karen community, one of the largest ethnic minorities within Burma, and its blend of Christianity are seen as a threat to the military regime’s powerbase and ideology.
The ongoing fighting has forced 200,000 refugees, most of them Karen, to flee to neighboring Thailand where they are scattered across several camps. An additional 1.5 million Karen people are believed to be displaced within Burma.
Aid workers have criticized the UN for allegedly not doing enough to help Burmese refugees.
