Nth Koreans flee on "underground railway" to Thailand

CHIANG SAEN, Thailand, May 17: When they first set foot on Thai soil, North Korean refugees breath a sigh of relief -- the threat of being sent back to torture and even death is over.

But the Thai side of the Mekong is far from journey's end.

Ahead of them lie months, possibly years, of pain and anguish in overcrowded police cells while an administration in Seoul that is reluctant to let in North Koreans en masse for fear of antagonising Pyongyang crunches through their asylum claims.

As the numbers of North Koreans smuggled in via China then Laos and Myanmar grow from a trickle to a steady flow, Thailand's inability to cope is becoming all too clear.

''There are many people in Bangkok who show an interest in the problem but very few willing to take charge and pay close attention to it,'' said a police officer in Chiang Saen, a border town where many fugitives land after crossing the Mekong from Laos or Myanmar.

Even if the Thai-Lao border were not an unpoliceable 1,800 km, keeping them out by brute force does not seem to be an option.

''When we tried to push them back out, they sank their boat and started swimming ashore. So we had to swim out and save them or the human rights activists and NGOs would have condemned us,'' a senior Chiang Saen police officer said.

GROWING PROBLEM, SHRINKING BUDGET

After China cracked down on fugitives from Kim Jong-il's isolated communist state three years ago, forcing many back despite concerns they would be tortured or killed, Thailand emerged as an attractive route for those seeking a new life in South Korea.

Playing a good guy role in the international community, Thailand, which has 30,000 workers toiling illegally in South Korea, chooses to deal with the problem quietly.

But the numbers are swelling rapidly.

In Chiang Saen, a now sleepy outpost once alive with the comings and goings of the nearby ''Golden Triangle'' opium trade, more than 160 have arrived so far this year.

That compares to 157 for the whole of 2006 and 94 in 2005, local police records show. In the whole of northern Thailand, 293 have arrived this year, up from just 40 in 2003, the first year North Koreans started to get caught.

However, local police and immigration officials say Bangkok is giving them no extra help in terms of manpower or budget.

They have no Korean translator, forcing them to rely on Korean students or missionaries from the nearby town of Chiang Rai, or Chinese-speaking locals who can communicate with those refugees who have picked up Chinese during their 2,000 km trek.

One group arrested last week -- four women, a man and two babies, all sunburnt and covered in mosquito bites -- were kept at the police station for four days before they were questioned. Delay is one of the immigration police's few weapons, a deliberate tactic they hope will filter back up the tracks of what is now a well-organised ''underground railway''.

''If we start interviewing them today, their coordinators on this side will just tell their people on the other side to send more of them tomorrow. Our strategy is to delay the inflow as much as we can,'' one policeman said.

Often, the poorly paid border patrolmen end up digging into their own pockets to pay for food for the new arrivals while they wait for questioning, and then appearances in court.

''They bring us all sorts of trouble. Often, we have to spend our own money buying them food or other necessities,'' said one sergeant as he began a whip-round to buy milk for the two babies.

HUNGER STRIKE Nearly all North Koreans caught are charged with illegal entry and end up spending a token 10 days in prison as they are unable to pay the maximum 2,000 baht fine (200 baht a day).

They are then put in line for deportation to ''a third country'' -- nearly always South Korea -- although the process can drag out for months.

Last month, 400 North Koreans went on hunger strike in Bangkok's main immigration detention centre to protest at being kept for months in overcrowded, sweaty cells while Seoul weighed their claims for asylum.

Eventually, Seoul agreed to take 20 a month, human rights workers said, although there were also suggestions the real total could be higher.

But with at least 60 arriving every month, more backlogs and more hunger strikes look inevitable.

Immigration officials on the border say they are now under unofficial orders to stretch out the time it takes for a refugee to get to Bangkok, from the normal 30 days to 45.

Meanwhile, the various ministries and agencies in Bangkok that should be dealing with the issue -- the immigration police, National Security Council and Foreign Ministry, among others -- appear to be busy passing the buck.

Nearly 1,000 km away on the border, it is easy to see Bangkok as too mixed up in its own domestic politics to care, especially since September's military coup ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

''They haven't got time for anything else,'' one border police officer said.

REUTERS>