23 June 2016: Myanmar’s Aung Suu Ki arrives in Thailand on Thursday who is set to visit the troubled Diaspora. She is expected to be welcomed by her adoring compatriots, hundreds of thousands of whom sought to have work and sanctuary from war across the border.
After almost half a century of military domination, it is Aung San Suu Ki’s highest profile overseas visit after her Pro-democracy party took power in the month of April.
Her government has sowed the seed of hopes for a new era of success that could sooner or later convince the army of the low-paid Myanmar labourers in Thailand to return home.
Last year Myanmar’s Junta rolled back its chokehold in politics that allows free elections in decades, while Thailand remains in a grief of a military that seized the power in 2014.
Aung San Suu Ki’s visit to Thailand is expected to receive a rock star greeting during her visit to a fishing village in Samut Sakhon later on Thursday.
It is learned that the port that is situated in the outskirt of Bangkok is the seat of Thailand’s huge seafood industry and home to more than 100,000 low-paid Myanmar labourers.
One of the Myanmar migrants, Thon Bahrami told AFP at the port that “We have problems here in Thailand. She might help us with labour rights people all around the world will listen to her,” she also said that the visit fills me with hope.
Low Pay Status:
According to the reports, some millions of registered Myanmar migrants have formed the backbone of Thailand’s manual workforce seeking to run off poverty at home.
It is learned that some ten thousands of the Myanmar workers work illegally and with some estimates set the total number of Myanmar nationals in Thailand to three million.
According to the Rights groups, the Myanmar migrants whether legal and otherwise are vulnerable to the corrupted officials, employment agencies and trafficking gangs. These migrant labourers are charged huge sums to get them work and paid poorly.
Apart from the low paid work, the status of the migrants is also being treated with ridicule and mistrust by many Thai’s.
Andy Hall, a migrant rights activist explained the sympathy of the migrants in the port town where they said that “They all want to go home, but they are just waiting for the financial situation in Myanmar to improve significantly.”
It is learned that after a half-century struggle for democracy, the nemesis of Myanmar’s generals, the Novel laureate Aung Suu Ki will meet the leader of the Thai Junta in Bangkok on Friday.
During this short visit to Thailand, it is uncertain whether she will schedule a trip to a refugee camp in Ratchaburi province on Saturday.
Thailand does not accept refugees and wants to send the refugees back to home. It is also learned that the refugees of the country’s soil have also been barred to citizenship.
It is uncertain whether she will visit the Thai centres where hundreds of Rohingya boat migrants, a Muslim group who have fled poverty and persecution in the western Myanmar.
As per the report, more than 100,000 refugees are holding camps in Thailand who have fled conflict in Myanmar.
According to the source, Campaigners say her failure to throw her moral weight behind the stateless minority is a boon to Myanmar’s Buddhist hardliners who loathe the Rohingya and say they are illegal immigrants.
Aung Suu Ki’s visit does not include any of the press conferences as she continues to fiercely control her government’s messaging.
