Apr 11, 2011
BANGKOK - THAILAND wants to close its Myanmar refugee camps and repatriate the more than 100,000 residents following their country's first election in 20 years, a government official said on Monday.'They have been in Thailand for more than 20 years and it became our burden to take care of them,' National Security Council chief Tawin Pleansri said after a meeting of the government body chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
'I cannot say when we will close down the camps but we intend to do it,' he said. 'We are now in the process of discussion with the Myanmar government.'
Most of the refugees in the camps along the border fled civil war-torn villages in the east of Myanmar, where power was recently handed to a nominally civilian government after almost five decades of military rule. -- AFP
