If Thailand allows the people there to enter to escape fighting and Mr. Hun Sen's troops gain control, there will be no other ''safe area'' inside Cambodia to which the Thai authorities can send refugees who fear return. For the sake not only of the Cambodians concerned, but also of fearful refugees everywhere, Thailand must not force them back. The erosion started in the United States and Europe. The U.S. interdiction of Haitian, and more recently Cuban, ''boat people'' set a precedent for how other governments are now treating refugees. Moves by European countries to keep out unwanted asylum seekers through visa restrictions, fast-track procedures and other legal barriers have had a similar effect.
Governments give all manner of excuses for denying asylum and pushing back refugees.
A frequent pretext is that such people are not truly refugees at all, but rather persons temporarily displaced by fighting who can return as soon as the shooting stops. These claims are, at best, usually half-truths, used by states to avoid their responsibility to assist victims of persecution. Thailand should refuse to follow the heartless path the West has taken. The writers are policy analysts at the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a nongovernmental organization that for 40 years has defended the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons worldwide. They contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.