(Based on the post from the PEOPLE’s SPRING on 05 July 2025.)
There are about 250,000 Burmese living in the frontier
Thai-Myanmar Border Town of Maesot, either legally or illegally. They all must
pay, unofficially of course, the Thai Police in Maesot to live in peace there and
also earn a living among only 100,000 Thai locals.
As non-citizens, no Burmese has Thai Identity Card,
and they are all forced to carry a basic identity card called The Police Card
at the monthly cost of 600 bahts (roughly US$ 15). The Police Card allowed the
Burmese to be out and about in Maesot Town from 6 am to 8 pm. Outside of that
time they would be arrested if they are outside and required to pay the
arresting police a bribe of from 10,000 (US$ 250) to 50,000 (US$ 1,250) bahts.
On top of that Police Card the Burmese there have to pay for additional cards such as Motorbike Cards at the monthly cost of 1,500 bahts (US$ 40) to own and ride a motorbike and Sam-lor Cards at the monthly cost of 5,000 bahts (US$ 150) to operate a Three-Wheeler Bike carrier business.
The businesses such as restaurants, market shops,
hairdressers and beauty saloons, and whore houses must pay large bribes to
local police not to be raided and disturbed. Each Burmese prostitute working in
every Burmese Whore House in Maesot has to pay 4,000 bahts per month to the
Thai Police.
Ten Billion Bahts Corruption Industry in Maesot
According to Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn the Maesot MP
from the opposition People’s Prty, the bribes, including the Police Card fees,
widely collected to the annual amount of ten billion bahts (roughly 2.5 billion
USD) openly shared by the local authporities and local influential groups.
The illegal bribes are so lucrative that any Thai
police officer or any local administrator must bribe their superiors to get a
transfer to the Maesot Town. The current price for a position in Maesot is ten
million bahts. Thai government officials will die and kill to get a transfer to
Maesot. Other comparable lucrative position bribewise for a Thai police officer
is at the town called Mahachai, another big Burmese town like Maesot, near
Bangkok.
Thai Enquirer’s Reporting of Corruption in Maesot
Opposition People’s Party MPs have asked the
Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to treat police extortion of migrant
workers in Mae Sot, Tak, as a special case linked to organised crime and state
corruption.
Maesot MP Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn and Tak MP
Ratchapong Sroisuwan submitted evidence to DSI chief Pol Lt Col Yutthana
Phaedam, calling for an investigation into protection rackets run by
influential groups and state officials.
Wiroj said undocumented migrants are forced to pay
600 baht per month for a “Police Card” to avoid arrest, generating billions of
baht annually. He accused officials of harassing legally registered workers and
refugees to maintain the system.
The scheme is linked to human trafficking, drugs,
illegal businesses, and nominee structures using Thai nationals as proxies. An
estimated 200,000 foreign nationals live in the area, but only 60,000 are
legally registered. The People’s Party says the case meets the criteria for a
special investigation under the Special Case Act, citing cross-border crime and
national security risks.
Myanmar refugees take shelter in Thailand's Mae Sot
Tens of thousands of Burmese have fled across the
border to Thailand since 2021: The bamboo and leaf-thatch shelter in the middle
of a sugarcane field hardly looks like a safehouse. But that is where
23-year-old Sanjay - his choice of a pseudonym - and eight others have been
hiding out since fleeing conscription across the border in war-torn Myanmar.
They are now fugitives in Mae Sot, on Thailand's
western edge. They share their rudimentary home with a gaggle of ducks and
chickens, and several goats. "Back home I used to feel afraid every day
that they would come to take me into the army," Sanjay says. "Even
though we have very little food here - just rice and vegetables - no-one will
come to harm me. I feel free here in Thailand."
A narrow, muddy river, no more than a stream in the
dry season, is all that separates Myanmar from Thailand. Across it, tens of
thousands have fled since the 2021 military coup, seeking safety in the Thai
border town of Mae Sot.
The most recent arrivals are young men avoiding the national conscription which has been imposed by Myanmar's military rulers since February - it applies to all men between the ages of 18 and 35. With most of the younger generation strongly opposed to military rule, the law has triggered an exodus of young men.
Over the years Mae Sot has become an uneasy refuge
for Burmese on the run. It has the feel of Cold War Berlin about it, or of Casablanca
in the famous eponymous movie. It is a town full of exiles, planning
revolution, waiting for asylum offers, always fearful of spies and informers,
and living in a state of almost constant anxiety.
"I used to be a bad boy," Sanjay says.
"I did whatever I liked. I never listened to my mother. I was not
interested in politics." His life, and opinions, changed after the coup
when his father was jailed by the military, for helping the resistance. But he
never thought about leaving his home until his call-up papers came. "No
way was I going to fight for them against other Burmese people."
In Myawaddy, on the other side of the river from
Mae Sot, the Burmese army has just suffered another humiliating defeat. Hundreds
of its troops had to surrender when their bases were overrun by a coalition of
insurgents. Reinforcements sent to try to retake the town have been ambushed
and bogged down in forested mountains to the west of Myawaddy.
A string of similar defeats suffered by the military in recent months - in Shan and Kachin States to the north, and in Rakhine State to the west - have left the army desperately short of recruits. Thousands of soldiers have been killed, wounded, captured or have deserted.
Sanjay did not want to be one of them. So, his
mother helped him escape, travelling with him on the long and perilous bus ride
to the border. With his Myanmar ID card he was able to get a two-week pass to
come into Thailand. That has expired, but he is fortunate to have an uncle
already in Mae Sot, who is helping support him. He is, however, forced to lie
low in the fields, risking arrest and possible deportation each time he makes a
journey into Mae Sot. But he has no regrets.
Mae Sot is now a warren of safehouses, whole streets accommodating largely undocumented refugees. Some are well-established dormitories, funded by foreign aid organisations. Others are improvised; empty shophouses in the main market, partitioned inside with plywood and plastic tarpaulins to make rooms just big enough for a family to lie down.
In one of the better safehouses, is a family of
five that had just arrived a week ago, carrying some clothes, a few blankets,
and nothing else, except their five-year-old son's favourite toy car. The
eldest son is 19, and the family made the decision to leave their home near
Yangon when his military call-up papers came.
"I could not accept my son being forced to
fight against other young men," his father said. They described a
gruelling journey from Yangon lasting 15 days, through the Karen State hills
and then across the river at night into Thailand. The bribes and fees they had
to pay consumed all their savings. That morning, the father, a former railway
worker, had just been out trying to get a job. Wages in Mae Sot are often
pitifully low, yet he was unable to find anything.
The town is both a sanctuary and a prison for those
who have fled from Myanmar. Thailand is not a signatory to the United Nations
Convention and Protocol on Refugees and does not give official protection to
those fleeing the war in Myanmar. Most of the fugitives have few or no
documents.
The Thai authorities largely tolerate the influx -
people have been coming over the border for decades, and Mae Sot is now an
almost entirely Burmese town. But without papers they are not allowed to travel
outside it. Money is a constant problem; the police charge 600 baht every month
for a card which is supposed to protect them from being detained at
checkpoints, but many Burmese are still picked up and forced to pay much larger
sums for their release.
"There are a lot of mental health
challenges," says Nay Chi Win, the co-ordinator of Joy House, an
innovative community centre set up last year to help refugees deal with the
stress and depression they often feel.
"We hear about a lot of suicide cases, or
people talking about suicide. They feel useless. Back in Myanmar they might be
an engineer or a doctor, but here they are stateless. They cannot continue
their education. They cannot support their families. Sometimes they stop caring
about their lives, using drugs or alcohol."
Sanjay has decided to follow the example of many
other young men and go back over the border to fight. At least, he said, he
will feel useful. But the brutalities of combat are not for everyone. Getting
accepted in one of the volunteer People's Defence Force units requires four
months of very tough training by the experienced fighters of the Karen National
Union. Many do not make the grade.
Other young men with technological experience are
being used in the drone squads, helping to construct, adapt and pilot the
drones which are playing an increasingly important role in the war, dropping
small explosives with pinpoint accuracy to undermine the morale of the
soldiers.
"I miss my leg," said the 27-year-old former PDF fighter, speaking in a Mae Sot back street. He is a former IT technician who joined the resistance after the coup but lost his right leg when he stepped on a landmine. "It was the right thing to do."
His advice to those draft dodgers who want to
contribute to the struggle is to think about their skills: "Joining a
strike team and fighting is not the most important thing. We need technical
people for our drone squads, and we need people to go overseas and do
fund-raising."
Meanwhile, Thailand - which for years has pretended
it can manage any overspill from the conflict over the border as a localised
issue between the militaries of the two countries - has admitted that the
military regime in Myanmar may be crumbling, and that it must brace itself to
accommodate tens of thousands more coming over the border.
The fighting in Myawaddy has brought a more visible
Thai military presence to Mae Sot. They can be seen doing sentry duty along the
banks of the river, looking across to the casinos and scam centres which have
blighted this part of Myanmar in recent years, to the now insurgent-controlled
border posts, and to a handful of defeated Burmese soldiers who hunkered down
for a few days on the opposite bank.
But despite the reminders of Myanmar's fighting on
their doorstep, those who have just arrived in Mae Sot are still enjoying a
sense of relief.
The father-of-three worries about education for his
boys. Undocumented Burmese cannot attend Thai schools, and most of the Burmese
language schools in Mae Sot charge fees. He and his wife hope their eldest boy
can study online to fulfil his ambition to be a doctor. But, he says, they are
glad they left Myanmar. "In the past week I have slept better than at any
time since the coup."
