“We request the cooperation of Thai people abroad in delaying their travel back to Thailand,” the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington D.C. said in a Facebook post. It stipulated that, according to a decision approved by the Prime Minister himself, Thais were asked to delay travel to Thailand from 2 April 2020 until 15 April 2020.
The post was shared widely. One Thai expatriate wrote as a caption: “Are we not your citizens?”
That is the question being asked by Thais abroad, who feel increasingly left behind by the government’s round-about measures to reduce inbound travel from foreign countries – including their own citizens trying to fly home. This recent announcement comes on top of other requirements that came into effect on March 21, stating that Thais would be required to present a ‘Fit to Fly’ health certificate and a certification letter from the Thai Embassy, a Thai Consulate Office or the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam stated in the government’s announcement: “We have not closed the country…Thais still can return home as is their right.” However, he declared that the Thai government had to be doubly stringent in their measures and so are asking overseas Thais to delay their travel.
But after the chaotic implementation of the previous set of requirements, with UK-based Thais mobbing the London embassy, there is skepticism as to how open the Thai government is to having its overseas citizens return.
“Every country – I emphasize, every country – is trying to bring their people back – trying in every way possible,” reads the top comment on the D.C. Embassy’s announcement. “Only Thailand doesn’t want people to return… Are Thai people worthless? Can you ask that question to the government for me, Ambassador?”
Nick, a Thai biomedical researcher working in DC, echoes those sentiments deeply. As we spoke, he was preparing breakfast before a meeting. He had expected to go home in March, but due to work restrictions and the cumbersome nature of the ‘Fit to Fly’ documents, he decided to stay until April. Now, he won’t be able to return until after April 15. But since the US death toll is expected to peak mid-April, he’s uncertain that the Thai government won’t extend this new “recommendation” to after April 15.
“Right now, Thais living abroad are burdens of the state, right?” He said. “What is the value of being a Thai citizen then, what is it?”
New York has become the unlikely epicenter of the pandemic with two Thai deaths in New York and another one in DC. The US is the hardest hit of all countries, with the highest daily death toll of any country so far at over 1,000 deaths. “Everyone wants to know when this will be over,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted. “The truth is: We don’t know. No one knows.”
Some of his friends are students whose classes have been moved online and want to return to Thailand to continue their studies. “The news is very scary, their parents are worried, the death toll is increasingly high. They want to go home but it’s very difficult. They can’t buy flight tickets,” Nick says. “And as we know in America, going to see a doctor is not easy. The clinics are overwhelmed.” As New York hospitals overflow, the thought of approaching a hospital for a ‘Fit to Fly’ certificate seems, in Nick’s estimation, nothing short of ridiculous.
The Thai government’s increasing reluctance to have its people come home stands in stark contrast to the bravado that accompanied the “Wuhan rescue” in February. At the time, AirAsia considered its flight to Wuhan to evacuate 138 Thais a “humanitarian mission.” Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul greeted the returnees in person at U-Tapao airport.
But this only came after a Thai student’s plea went viral on Facebook. Her classmates at Wuhan University from the United States, Japan, and Indonesia had been contacted by their embassies. “I’m still waiting for help from the Thai government,” she wrote. “I’m waiting with hope.” After a national outcry, the plane was chartered within the week.
There has been no similar viral moment for Thais abroad now. The government maintains that the airports are open and that its citizens are free to return. But all incoming flights have now been canceled until Monday evening.
Nick emphasizes that the MFA has been as helpful as they can be in this tense time. When the ‘Fit to Fly’ regulations were issued – not from the MFA but from the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) – the embassy in London worked on its own initiative to find a Thai doctor studying in London to certify ‘Fit to Fly’ certificates for UK Thais wanting to return home. It is the government, he says, that is failing them.
“The government doesn’t think we’re their citizens. They don’t think we’re part of the population they have to protect. They might say, there are 70 million people in Thailand we need to protect – so those outside, we don’t have to protect then? Like, you’ve left the country so we can’t help you? You don’t need to make it better,” Nick says of the government. “But now, beyond making it worse, you are making us feel like we are citizens that have no value to the Thai state.”