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One million workers to be expelled

Ian Stewart

A million foreign workers in Thailand are expected to learn today they are being deported to free up jobs for Thai victims of the Southeast Asian financial crisis.

A further million in Malaysia could face the same fate.

A plan for mass deportations, drawn up last week by Thailand's National Security Council, goes before Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai today for formal approval.

The first step involves the expulsion of 300,000 illegal foreigners, most of them Burmese, over the next six months.

Under the scheme, employers of illegal labourers will be given 45 days to prepare for their repatriation, or face legal action.

In addition to cracking down on the country's 980,000 'black market' labourers, Bangkok also plans to cut down on the 300,000 registered foreign labourers by refusing to renew work permits.

Some 1.8 million Thais are now unemployed.

In recent weeks several thousand Burmese illegals have been arrested and sent home, where they are being press-ganged into forced-labour squads or the Army, according to Burmese exiles.

The fate of the 1.2 million legal foreign workers and 800,000 illegal ones - most of them Indonesian - in Malaysia is unclear.

Malaysian leaders gave mixed signals over the weekend over the fate of foreign workers. Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad indicated half of them faced repatriation but later, following talks with President Suharto, he said: 'We are not really going to expel them.' The clearest remarks came from the Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, who said any repatriation would be 'done judiciously'.

He said many could be redeployed as 80,000 workers were needed in plantations and factories.

Indonesia's unemployment rate is running at 10 per cent with a further two million expected to lose their jobs this year.

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