This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BANGKOK 002636 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP, EAP/BCLTV, PRM. HQ USPACOM FOR FPA HUSO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREF TH BM BURMA
SUBJECT: BURMESE PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IN THAILAND: DOWN 
BUT NOT OUT 
 
REF: A) CHIANG MAI 87 B) RANGOON 440 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Robert J. Clarke, Reason: 1.4 (d) 
 
 ¶1. (SBU)  SUMMARY:   Nearly 2,000 out of 2,707 United 
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) persons of 
concern (POC) have reported to Thai immigration offices in 
Bangkok and three provincial offices in Northern and Western 
Thailand.  The largest number reported to the Mae Sot 
immigration office in Tak province, where 786 persons showed 
up to register and were later transported to the remote Nu 
Pho refugee camp on the Thai Burma border.  In Bangkok, 243 
more registered and await transport to border camps.  All the 
POCs who registered by March 31 know that they are eligible 
for potential -- even likely -- resettlement to a third 
country in the near future.  Burmese pro-democracy groups are 
still concerned and evaluating their tenuous status in 
Thailand and the effect the loss of some of their membership, 
many of whom have reported to Nu Pho as POCs, could have on 
their struggle.  The groups' Thai government contacts, who 
have so far allowed them to operate in Thailand, have been 
silent about the future, leading some Burmese activists to 
call this initial post-deadline phase a "honeymoon period." 
END SUMMARY. 
 
MOST POCs REGISTER FOR MOVEMENT TO REFUGEE CAMPS 
 
¶2. (U) Out of 2,707 POCs on a list agreed to by the Royal 
Thai government (RTG) and UNHCR as eligible for POC status 
and thus required by the RTG to be in the refugee camps by 
March 31, 1,995 voluntarily registered and 752 did not.  418 
persons were moved to the Ban Don Yang Camp in Sangklaburi 
Province, 410 persons to the Tham Hin Camp in Ratchaburi 
province, and 786 were moved to Nu Pho camp in Tak province. 
243 persons registered in Bangkok at the Special Detention 
Center (SDC), and another 49 persons were allowed to stay in 
Bangkok hospitals for medical reasons.  Those at the SDC will 
be moved at a later date to one of the border camps. 
 
PROCESSING TO CAMPS GOES SMOOTHLY 
 
¶3. (U) During a trip to Mae Sot on April 4 and 5, Poloff met 
with staff from the refugee relief assistance NGO, Thai-Burma 
Border Consortium (TBBC), and representatives of the UNHCR. 
Our contacts commented that in light of the relatively short 
notice (the official decision to enforce the March 31 
deadline was announced on March 7), the transfer of the 786 
persons who registered from Mae Sot town to the Nu Pho camp 
went very well. They noted that morale among the Burmese POCs 
was generally upbeat.  Even after the 5 hour drive from Mae 
Sot town to Nu Pho, the new arrivals seemed to be settling in 
well.  There was a shortage of permanent housing but 
construction for new housing had already begun.  Most of the 
POCs were scattered throughout the camp, residing in Buddhist 
temples, mosques, schools and community centers.  87 former 
staff and their families from Dr. Cynthia Maung's Mae Tao 
clinic were among the new arrivals and staying in some of the 
new permanent housing and assisting in the monitoring of 14 
unaccompanied minors, including several former child 
soldiers.  Approximately 17 persons (49 including dependents) 
were allowed to stay out of the camp for medical reasons, 
most of them pregnant women.  40 per cent of the POCs are 
Karen, another 40 per cent are Burman and the remaining 20 
per cent are of various ethnic groups, including some from 
the Arakan youth organization. 
 
¶4. (U) Many of the POCs had already sent complaints to NGOs 
about the spartan living conditions: thin mattresses on 
floors, no electricity, no cell phones and no computers or 
internet access.  Yet many, including several medics, medical 
doctors and teachers, also readily chipped in to organize and 
provide assistance.  Because of their help, UNHCR and TBBC 
noted, registration and movement to the camp went smoothly. 
 
¶5.  (U) One problem noted in the media was the alleged 
presence of Burmese military intelligence on the Thai-Myanmar 
Friendship Bridge.  Several witnesses confirmed seeing a 
uniformed Burmese officer photographing POCs in the Thai 
Immigration compound at the foot of the bridge on the Thai 
side.  UNHCR and TBBC staff at the registration site could 
not, however, confirm the presence of Burmese intelligence in 
the actual compound as reported in some press reports. 
 
DR. CYNTHIA'S CLINIC: QUIET BUT STILL WORKING 
 
¶6. (C) Mae Tao clinic founder, Dr. Cynthia Maung, and several 
of her staff spoke with Poloff in an unusually quiet office 
at her famous clinic, which has been providing healthcare to 
Burmese refugees, internally displaced persons (IDP) and 
migrants for over 15 years.  Symptomatic of changes underway 
in the Burmese exile community in Mae Sot, the clinic had 
just a handful of outpatients there for treatment, but 
several beds were full with the usual patient load of 
pregnant women, new mothers and several cases of malaria. 
Dr. Cynthia lamented the loss of 87 of her 200 staff over the 
last 18 months, 30 of whom left last week.  "Our work here in 
Mae Sot will be affected the most," she said, adding that 
many of her office staff and most experienced trainers had 
left for Nu Pho.  Her immigration status in Thailand or 
"permit to stay" and those of 10 others at Mae Tao clinic is 
unaffected.  She also admitted that there is an unending 
stream of workers from inside Burma willing to replace the 
lost staff.  The problem is training them.  Dr. Cynthia noted 
that the clinic's work with IDPs inside Burma will be mostly 
unaffected as those working with medical "backpack" teams 
don't stay in Thailand anyway. 
 
BURMESE POLITICAL GROUPS: WORKING WITH LESS 
 
¶7. (C) On the political side, the Association for Assistance 
to Political Prisoners (AAPP) is now down to about 3 to 4 
core leaders, according to the group's Joint Secretary, Bo 
Kyi, who met with Poloff in Bangkok on his way to the United 
Nations Human Rights Commission (UNCHR) meeting in Geneva. 
At Bo Kyi's urging, Poloff agreed not try to contact other 
AAPP representatives in Mae Sot at this sensitive time.  Bo 
Kyi noted that the AAPP may move its office in Mae Sot in the 
near future and play a very low key role on the Thai side, 
although he maintained that his group's assistance activities 
to political prisoners inside Burma will remain mostly 
unaffected. 
 
¶8. (C) In Chiang Mai, ConGen hosted a lunch discussion on 
April 1 for Bangkok Poloff and Burmese information groups 
that conduct journalism and human rights documentation 
training.  Pro-democracy dissidents who also attended 
outlined many of the concerns highlighted in Ref A and 
expressed apprehension about colleagues and family who had 
already registered in Mae Sot town and been transported to Nu 
Pho camp.  All of the groups U.S. officers spoke with, except 
the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB), have 
lost staff.  Many of the senior leaders of dissident 
organizations had a POC letter from UNHCR but have either 
turned the letter in to the Mae Sot UNHCR or have just not 
shown up to register.  These exiles have made separate 
arrangements that allow them to operate in Thailand, either 
getting a Burmese "passport" with a Thai visa, or a work 
permit under Thailand's migrant labor scheme.  These are 
usually arranged with help through Thai intelligence and/or 
Ministry of Interior or Police and are usually under a 
different name. 
 
LOST SOME "FOOT SOLDIERS" 
 
¶9. (C) Representatives from Internews, the Open Society 
Institute (OSI), the National League for Democracy--Liberated 
Area (NLD-LA), the National Council of the Union of Burma 
(NCUB) and the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma 
(HREIB) all had a similar message -- we've lost many of our 
"foot soldiers" who served as office workers performing data 
entry, bookkeeping, and word processing, to produce the 
varied human rights and information publications along the 
border.  But the front-line leadership of many of these 
groups is, for now, OK. 
 
BUT THE WORK WILL GO ON... 
 
¶10. (C) While HREIB, which conducts training in human rights 
documentation and reporting and other capacity-building 
activities, doesn't have a human resources problem, the 
ability of its staff and trainees to travel easily and to 
train in Thailand, is severely limited at this time.  The 
"fee" for one-way travel for three persons from Mae Sot to 
Chiang Mai (350 kilometers) is now up to 7,000 baht ($185), 
including a complementary Thai intelligence escort.  One 
training session can cost over 30,000 baht ($790), just for 
travel expenses.  Without these special arrangements, 
trainers and trainees would be subject to arrest by police 
and immigration.  Most groups operating in Mae Sot feel that 
they are relatively safe on their own in the town of Mae Sot. 
 But when HREIB last year tried to conduct training, the site 
was raided by Thai immigration on the second day and everyone 
was asked to leave. 
 
..PERHAPS MORE ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
¶11. (C) The real change of focus for HREIB will most likely 
be their trainees.  They expect that most of their future 
trainees now will come from inside Burma, from ethnic Karen, 
Kayah, Karenni and Shan groups who don't operate much on the 
Thai side anyway.  HREIB staff admitted this was not 
necessarily a bad thing but will require a shift in where the 
training sessions are held, who does the training and the 
frequency of follow up sessions. 
 
NLD AFFECTED BUT STILL TALKING ACTIVELY 
 
¶12. (C) Nyo Ohn Myint of the NLD-LA stated that his group is 
among the most affected  -- down to 5 members from a high of 
230 several years ago.  The leadership now has to pull 
"double duty," attending meetings in Thailand or abroad, 
while trying to maintain day-to-day production of 
newsletters, email alerts and funding proposals.  Ngo Ohn Myi 
noted that Mae Sot almost seems like a "ghost town".  Most 
activists felt more at risk there than in Chiang Mai, where 
they can blend with the much larger urban population.  He 
added that outside Chiang Mai many Burmese exiles are 
frequently subject to pressure for bribes by police, whether 
at traffic stops or anywhere in public.  (Note: Poloff noted 
four checkpoints along the drive east from Mae Sot to the 
provincial capital of Tak. End Note.) 
 
¶13.  (C) While the NLD LA and representatives from the Burma 
Fund, Win Min and Aung Naing Oo, were lamenting their 
situation in Mae Sot, they perked up when they spoke of 
activities inside Burma.  They claimed to have regular, back 
channel communications with Aung San Suu Kyi (ASSK).  (Note: 
Embassy Rangoon notes that ASSK,s ability to communicate 
with anyone outside of her compound remains highly restricted 
and no independent observer is known to have seen her since 
UN Special Envoy Razali visited Burma in March 2004. End 
Note.)  Win Min stated that the NLD has plans for a 
coordinated public action on June 18, ASSK,s birthday, which 
may include work stoppages, stay at home campaigns, or 
complete avoidance of major public area, such as temples, 
markets or other public gathering places. 
¶14. (C) The National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB),s 
Political Defiance Committee (PDC) representative in Mae Sot 
told poloff that he was enthused by recent public statements 
by Buddhist clergy critical of the SPDC and the 
"unregistered" vehicles seized from Khin Nyunt cronies, some 
of which were apparently donated to temples and now must be 
returned to the GOB (See Ref B).  The monks claimed that some 
senior monks had criticized SPDC leaders not only for their 
failure to control corruption, but also for involving the 
clergy by donating contraband to temples.  Poloff's PDC 
source also gave details of recent arrivals in the border 
area,  including two eyewitnesses to the May 2003 Depayin 
incident which led to the deaths of at least 70 persons and 
the re-arrest of ASSK.  The arrivals also included three 
former immigration and police officers with former military 
intelligence connections who fled Burma for fear of arrest. 
 
KAREN GROUPS MOSTLY UNAFFECTED FOR NOW 
 
¶15. (C)  Karen National Union (KNU) executive committee 
members David Tharckabaw and Mahn Sha Lah Phan (also of the 
NCUB PDC), told poloff that they see the POC deadline to 
report to camps as just another victory for the "business 
interests," a win over the "nationalist interests" in the 
Thai military and government.  Both said that they still have 
local support from the intelligence and military community 
along the border, but appeared uncertain about how long they 
can hold out against Thai business goals of developing 
"national economic zones" in Tak province and beyond.  They 
said they expected the U.S. to intervene if there were a 
"crackdown", i.e. arrest and deportation by the Thais.  They 
sensed the Thais are so preoccupied at the moment with 
problems in the South of Thailand that they hadn't much time 
to worry about the Burma border.  The recent failure of 
cease-fire talks and their apparent "down-grading," where 
only a SPDC regional commander was present who would only 
discuss certain areas of Karen territory, was not well 
received by either KNU membership or the Thais after the KNU 
delegation returned last month.  Subsequently, pressure from 
the Thai to come to some sort of cease-fire agreement has 
lessened. 
 
¶16. (C)  Our KNU contacts stated that, by their estimation, 
the Burmese Army (BA) along the Karen front is in a shambles. 
 Low morale, poor health, sanitation and food, and many 
instances of human rights violations indicate a demeaned and 
undisciplined BA force, they said.  The KNU said the Burmese 
soldiers are easy to track and to evade, often are commanded 
by very junior officers, and often use child soldiers as 
porters or to lay landmines.  One recent SPDC defector told 
them, "We are officers in name only."  (Comment: Local 
religious and community leaders in the Karen State capital of 
Hpa-An told visiting Embassy Rangoon officers on April 7 that 
"there is no question" the GOB is the most influential 
authority in Karen State and that BA troops are in "firm and 
confident control" of almost all territory in the state.  End 
Comment). Only a few active KNU members opted for POC status 
and transfer to camps, so Tharckabaw and Mahn Sha claimed 
that their administrative and organizing activities inside 
claimed KNU territory in Burma will remain unaffected. 
However, the KNU executive committee members did appear 
concerned about their communications and public relations 
platform in Thailand being more restricted or even taken 
away.  Poloff inquired about the former "rebel capital" of 
Manerplaw, which was taken by the Burma Army in 1995 and was 
at one time home to representatives from various ethnic rebel 
armies, nearly all of which now enjoy cease-fire agreements 
of one kind or another with the SPDC.  The KNU contacts 
maintained that they could easily retake it but don't have 
the resources to maintain and hold it as a base if the Burma 
Army were to mount a counteroffensive 
 
¶17. (C)  Poloff also met with the executive members of the 
Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People CIDKP).  They 
described their position as "tenuous," but said the RTG 
tolerates them as long as they remain exclusively in Mae Sot. 
 This does not really present a problem, as their relief and 
education activities, focused across the border in Karen 
state, do not require them to go beyond Mae Sot (and as long 
as there is not significant spillover fighting along the 
border).  The CIDKP noted that since former Burmese Prime 
Minister Khin Nyunt,s ouster in October 2004, there has been 
an increased tempo of attacks by the SPDC as well as more 
reports of human rights violations. 
 
¶18. (C)  Comment: After granting several extensions, the RTG 
stood firm on its March 31 deadline for "urban refugees" to 
register to enter camps to await resettlement.  The RTG 
message and position was: you are either a refugee in the 
camp, a POC in the refugee camp awaiting a resettlement 
interview, or a registered migrant worker.  At this time, the 
RTG does not seem inclined to pursue a course of all-out 
door-to-door arrests and subsequent deportations of Burmese 
who do not fall into these categories.  (Note:  NSC Chief 
General Winai recently reiterated privately that the RTG has 
no intention of doing any such thing.  End Note.)  While many 
of the Burmese pro-democracy movements based here believe 
that this latest development will have an impact on their 
effectiveness, most of them also acknowledge that they are 
still able to continue to perform limited work under "special 
arrangements" with their "Thai friends," i.e. sympathetic 
Thai intelligence or security authorities.  Many Burmese 
political activists view the movement of the POCs to the 
camps as a significant uptick in the ebb and flow of Thai 
restrictions on their activities, but many of their groups 
had already been losing people to resettlement over the last 
year and a half. The RTG deadline just speeded up this 
process.  It should be remembered that the registrants 
choosing to go to the camps believe that they will be 
resettled within a relatively near future, many to the United 
States.  One longtime Australian expat in Chiang Mai, an 
ardent supporter of the Karen and many Burmese activists, 
noted to Poloff, "Maybe the Thais are doing the Burmese 
activists a favor," by insisting on the POC deadline.  END 
COMMENT. 
 
¶19. (U) This message was cleared by Chiang Mai and Rangoon. 
BOYCE