Reforms in Myanmar May Spark Refugee Return The pastor stood before more than 300 young Burmese refugees gathered for morning prayers in a weathered, jungle church. There's a time for war, and a time for peace. Sixty-three years is long enough for killing," he told them. Hope to see you all soon in our beautiful land. Simon Htoo's buoyant words would have been unlikely just a few months ago, but surprisingly rapid reforms and cease-fires under way in Myanmar are opening the prospects for the return of one of the world's largest refugee populations - some 1 million Burmese huddled in frontier camps and hide-outs across five countries. The looming task for the international community will be massive. One of the least known Diaspora of recent times includes an array of ethnic groups and religions - Buddhist, Christian and Muslim - driven from their homeland by oppression of political dissidents and brutal military campaigns against Myanmar's minorities. The fighting and human rights abuses still persist in some areas, and even if stopped, many refugees say the hatreds, suspicions and double-crosses of decades passed must be overcome before they feel safe enough to return. One of the ethnic groups, the Karen, has been waging a guerrilla war for greater autonomy for 63 years from iron-fisted military regimes. The Kachin took up arms again last year. Signing a cease-fire is very easy - you can do it in a few minutes - but implementation is a different matter. That depends not on the smiles on their faces, but their sincerity, what is really in their hearts. Maybe it's another trick," said Htoo, a Karen Baptist pastor, after his sermon in this camp sheltering more than 50,000 refugees. When they do return, the refugees will emerge from Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Malaysia and China, a refugee mass that with the Iraqis and Afghans ranks among the largest in the world. Their living conditions vary vastly. In the fetid settlements of Bangladesh, as many as 400,000 illegal Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, hover on the edge of existence. Others live in a well-established string of U.N.-recognized camps along the Thai border, home to three generations who have known no other life. Most would be returning to border regions of razed villages, minefields, traumatized people and almost nonexistent support systems in a country that is already among the world's poorest. Many fear that with the world quick to applaud Myanmar's reforms, pressure will mount to force them back before conditions are right. People in the refugees camps must be given a choice: to go home, stay in Thailand or be resettled abroad. We don't trust Burmese politics because things are still very unclear," says Dr. Cynthia Maung, a refugee doctor they call "Mother Theresa of Burma" whose Thai border clinic has treated thousands. Nobody is going back now. Although preliminary plans for repatriation are being discussed among aid organizations and refugee leaders, roughly 1,000 are still fleeing into Thailand every month, says Jack Dunford, veteran head of the Thai Burma Border Consortium, which provides basic food and supplies to the Thai camps. Thailand insists that there will be no forceful repatriation "until the situation is safe," Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi told The Associated Press. No timeframe has been set for their return.