World Refugee Day Reception - June 22, 2004

Refugees in Southeast Asia

I am delighted to be here to celebrate World Refugee Day and the courage and strength of the many refugees around the world who have endured such terrible circumstances in their home nations.

I am grateful to the many nations who have graciously allowed refugees to reside in their countries while searching for a permanent solution to their situation. 

And, I am deeply grateful for the work of all of you and your organizations which serve refugees around the world.

Most refugees I have met deeply desire to return to their home countries, but circumstance will not permit that – instead, many struggle to survive in refugee camps. 

In January of last year, I traveled to the Thai-Burma border to meet with refugees from Burma. 

As you may know, the ruling military junta in Burma, has engaged in a deliberate policy to eliminate the ethnic minorities.  

A scorched earth policy, destroying entire villages along with food storage and production sources, systematic rape, the use of humans, including women and children, as landmine sweepers, forced labor, also known as slavery, the refusal to allow the duly elected leader of the country to take office, and many other abuses have turned the country of Burma into one large concentration camp.   

But, the international community has turned a deaf ear to the cries of the  refugees and the Internally Displaced Persons inside Burma.

The situation in Burma is dire, and I would not hesitate to call it, according to international legal definitions, genocide.

My delegation visited refugee camps north of Mae Sot, Thailand and spoke with Karen refugees, Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims who all had fled the attacks of the SPDC on their communities.  We saw landmine victims, orphans and school children, who all had suffered from the actions of the SPDC.

Our visit with the refugee orphans was both heart-wrenching and a delight.  It was a delight to see these young children and to hear the songs they sang to us, but it was heart-wrenching to hear the amount of tragedy in these young lives.  

One group of four children, the oldest was 12, had lost their father; their mother could not take care of them so she brought them to the orphanage.  

An eight-year-old boy, who could not smile, had lost both parents, was then trafficked across the border to Thailand, somehow escaped from his “owners,” and reached the safety of the refugee camps.   

It is heartbreaking to know that many of the young children, including the orphans, in the refugee camps had watched family or community members being killed by the SPDC, wounded or killed by landmine explosions, raped, or even burned alive.

Many of the refugees around the world have fled similar situations.  

I have visited the refugee camps in the Sahara Desert in which the Sahrawi people have struggled for many years. 

And, I have visited with men and women of Kashmir who have been displaced by the terrible violence there.

Thank you again for the work that all of you do to serve these people who are in such dire situations.  Please let us know how we can help as you care for refugees in many nations.