Encouraging Illegal Behavior

A sign that pouring into Thailand is sustainable?

The Foreign Ministry complained yesterday that local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were hampering Thailand’s efforts to prevent illegal entry by North Korean defectors. The ministry’s complaint came after police rounded up 59 North Koreans in Pathum Thani province on Tuesday, the third mass arrest in four months.

Thailand already has measures in place to prevent North Koreans sneaking into the country, but its efforts to prevent illegal entry have been hampered by local and international NGOs that encouraged North Koreans to flee their country, said deputy ministry spokesman Kiattikhun Chartprasert. However, he did not name any groups specifically.

While we should be grateful that Thailand will probably never send refugees back to North Korea, we should be concerned that it will become more costly to hold more refugees. We “organizations” tend to count on the good nature of the Thais without concerning about the cost to them.

It’s one thing to not give damn about China, which repatriates refugees, but it’s another to not care about a country that actually respects human rights. For a country that’s transitioning back to democracy and fighting an insurgency in the south, Thailand should not be devoting more and more of its limited resources to process thousands of refugees.

In other words, in order to encourage Thailand to remain a safe haven for North Koreans, governments and NGO’s ought to reward the country as an incentive to keep accepting refugees.

After all, when was the last time LiNK or other human rights organizations thanked a country outside of its embassy?