The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC)’s quick and effective respond to the fear and desperation of the Cambodian migrant workers forced to cross the border back to Cambodia by the Thai military is laudable and merited to be given a thumb up. Let’s segregate things accordingly. The fact that they entered Thailand illegally and hired by Thai legal businesses by hundreds of thousands to look for a chance, an opportunity and a promise to earn income two or three times higher than what they should have earned should they worked in Cambodia against expected risks of exploitations and abuses is another thing. On the other hand, the forced exodus of those migrant workers with their families including young children culminating in the crossing back to their homeland, a situation remotely expected by the RGC and the provincial authorities bordering Thailand, had been handled appropriately, beyond the thought and imagination of those poor souls and the people all across the country. Cambodian soldiers and military trucks took good care of the exhausted and frightened workers and help them get back to their home provinces. Volunteers with the Cambodian Red Cross, Scouts and youth groups have worked diligently to provide a steady supply of food and water.
A sense of solidarity and the extending of helping hands should have become an example across time and space, and not only when misery and mistreatment by unkind and immoral foreigners struck. As a result, a wake-up call forces the hands of the RGC to facilitate the access of migrant workers to seek for status of documented workers with an almost no cost to migrant workers to apply for passport and requires only a twenty-day waiting period from the date of application. It is hopeful that regional passport offices would be in the thinking process of the RGC, as the free-flow of workers could be agreed upon and implemented when the ASEAN Economic Community is established.
It was a time when Thailand has allowed up to 200,000 Cambodian migrants to enter Thailand and work illegally in agricultural and construction sectors, on top of some 400,000 who received legal work permits from Thailand among the more than 2 million documented migrant labourers working in Thailand. Cambodian illegal migrant workers were taking immense risks expecting to earn some money which they lost all hopes to earn enough at home in order to pull themselves out of real poverty. Many migrants hope to earn enough to buy a used motorbike that they will use as motodop or moto taxi, or to put a roof over their head good enough to keep themselves cool when it is burning hot, dry when it rains, or to save enough that they can pay the doctors when a child or an old parent gets ill. There were stories about abuses by their employers who are Thai legal business enterprises and owners. For these migrants their lives, by destiny or by devious curses of their past lives follow the path of cruel entrapment expressed by Cambodian folk proverb, saying: “In the water you are the meal of the crocs, on dry land you are the feast of tigers, foraying through forest you step on thorny branches, and coming to the market you had to pay bribes to the police.” For them they have no ways out of poverty that the United Nations had only defined in terms of economic poverty and measured globally as earning less than one dollar and a half (US$1.50) a day, which is unpractical and unreasonable for Cambodian poor who live in a clustered society where rich and poor can see each other on the streets, in towns, in the villages and where the pictures of income and wealth inequality are observed with amazement by the poor and displayed extravagantly by the rich. Sooner, there will be the Rolls Royce’s, the Porsche’s, the Lamborghini’s cruising the narrow and busy streets of Phnom Penh. Four-Wheel drive and other luxury vehicles have inundated showrooms and car sale lots thus satisfying the search for comfort and the expression of individuality of a rising number of successful business people, young professionals, and the off-springs of rich families. All year long, rain or shine high-ranking government officials and some or a majority of their staffs travelled to the provinces, districts, communes and villages on weekends “to assist the local authorities,” or “to strengthen the political bases”. Reasonably, they need reliable vehicles for their busy schedules and their safety. Their trips and their physical presence complement video conferences, official letters, instructions and guidelines, and above all put them in contact with real people that they serve. On the radius of zero to a few hundred kilometers, thousand pairs of eyes from “the center” meet the realities of the lives of people they serve, evaluate their needs, touch their heart, and probe their feeling that made social researchers and analysts irrelevant. Supply-siders of Reagan years (in the US) had their mantra which dominated all other economic thoughts of that time: “High tide lifts all the boats, big and small,” could be true in Cambodia, meaning that even poor Cambodians could enjoy larger and well to extremely well paved and well maintained roads for the Rolls Royce’s, the Porsche’s, the Lamborghini’s etc…
Thailand had accepted illegal Cambodian migrant workers for their legal businesses, if this is not the case, this would have been a systematic human trafficking and exploitation of human beings of a grand scale that blinds Thai authorities from the border-check points to the places of works. Economic benefits for Thailand have been huge, but the risks for illegal Cambodian migrant workers have been also on the rise. Uncertainties open wide the door for limitless and even cruel and inhumane exploitations. For personal social and economic reasons, illegal Cambodian migrant workers have agreed to the so-called “normal exploitations” to the delight of some Thai people and legal business organizations. Cambodian migrant workers had no choice. They had no way out. A case in point, as written and published in The Nation, “the Thai-Cambodian Border Trade and Tourism Association of Chanthaburi province has predicted the Cambodian workers would return to Thailand within a few weeks because Thai wages are at least three times higher than those in Cambodia.”
Less than a month, since the 22 May Thai military Coup d’Etat, Cambodian migrant workers legal and illegal were the target of a political cleansing by the Thailand’s military junta. There has been a plan in place, namely:
(1) It began with the political campaign saying “illegal labourers a threat to Thailand,” eliminating all the goodness of the economic benefits reaped by Thailand and the pledge of friendship cooperation and good-neighbourly relations between Thailand and Cambodia.
(2) Then there were reports, true or created, about the killings and beatings of Cambodian migrant workers by Thai armed forces which are traditionally and notoriously known to be mean and cruel beyond comprehension when dealing with Cambodians. This creates fear for the worst that caused the “forced exodus” of the Cambodian migrant workers.
(3) In the meantime preparations were made by Thai Labor Ministry to move documented workers from the pool of more than 2 million available workers to replace Cambodian migrant workers.
(4) And later on, a smoke-screen had been figured out by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to confuse and manipulate the international opinion about “the crackdown,” saying that “the crackdown was aimed not at individual workers but at human trafficking to punish procuring persons, the employers and benefit-reaping officials.”
NCPO, arbitrarily, targets Cambodian illegal labourers as a (national security) threat to Thailand, not Thai human traffickers, not Thai procuring persons, not Thai employers and benefit-reaping officials, as falsely stated by NCPO. In hindsight, had the NCPO targeted the relatively less vulnerable Thais who are the wrong-doers in comparison with the most vulnerable Cambodian illegal migrant workers by honestly announcing and carrying out the crackdown on Thai human traffickers, procuring persons, employers and benefit-reaping officials, there would not have been the “forced exodus” of the Cambodian illegal migrant workers back to Cambodia. The NCPO’s plan is despicable. It is discriminatory. It defies civility. It is inhumane. Its hypocrisies will never foul the international opinion.
It is humanly proper for the NCPO to adequately and promptly express sincere apology to those suffering migrant workers. Compensation should be another step to be taken by the NCPO. Failure to do so is tantamount to shame, cruelty, and disregard of human dignity.
June 23, 2014
Professor Pen Ngoeun
Advisor,
University of Puthisastra, Phnom Penh, Cambodia