POIPET, Cambodia - Some 188,000 Cambodians who help keep major Thai industries afloat
but often lack official work permits have streamed across the border
since the junta warned last week that illegal foreign workers face
arrest and deportation.
At a meeting in Bangkok yesterday, Cambodia’s ambassador and
Thailand’s top foreign ministry bureaucrat agreed to quash “rumours” of a
crackdown and to set up a hotline on labour issues.
Ambassador Eat Sophea also dismissed rumours of the shooting and
abuse of Cambodian migrants by Thai authorities among the factors
believed to be triggering the mass departures.
The junta which took power last month has insisted there is no
crackdown and tried to calm the panic that has seen the exodus of what
could be, by some estimates, the entire undocumented Cambodian
population in Thailand.
But if the meeting was intended to mend fences between the two
governments, Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng was in more combative
mood as he later placed blame for the crisis squarely at Bangkok’s
door.
After the military coup in Thailand, the Thai military leaders sent
illegal Cambodian migrant workers in without informing and
discussing with Cambodia, he said in Phnom Penh, adding that eight
people had been killed in traffic accidents linked to the exodus.
Source: Agency
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