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INVESTIGATION The wrong way to end a secret war
By Brian McCartan
the Hmong and allow for humanitarian aid groups and human rights monitors
access to the remote jungle areas where they are in hiding.
The result was several hearings before Congress about the ongoing persecution
of Hmong in Laos and the resettlement in the US of tens of thousands of Hmong
then situated in Thai refugee camps. Another 15,000 Hmong were resettled from
Tham Krabok temple in Thailand's Saraburi province following a US government
agreement in 2003.
Many of them had been previously rejected by the US and did not
wish to be repatriated and settled at Tham Krabok when the camps on the border
were formally closed. The US turnabout came after the Thai government
threatened to forcibly remove the Hmong from the temple. There are currently
about 270,000 Hmong resident in the US.
US government proponents of more engagement with the communist regime sometimes
point to the number of Hmong in the Lao government, including a female member
of the politburo, Pany Yathotou, who serves as vice president of the National
Assembly. Yet while thousands of Hmong in Laos do live in relative peace with
the government, it is because they have not been stained by past association
with the CIA and thus are not targets for retribution.
Those who collaborated with the US intelligence agency, or even whose relatives
did, face a different set of circumstances. For instance, they are given marked
identity cards, if their citizenship is acknowledged at all. They are not
allowed the same freedom of movement and are effectively barred from government
jobs or other positions of official authority.
According to Hmong advocate Smith, House Resolution 402 has been virtually
ignored by the Bush administration and the State Department while diplomats
have singularly sought to increase bilateral trade and investment. True or
false, the indictment of Vang Pao by a US court has emboldened Thai and Lao
officials to press more assertively in repatriating Hmong refugees. Because the
US was willing to arrest the Hmong's top leader, Thai and Laos authorities have
wagered that Washington will look the other way as they ramp up their
controversial repatriation policy.
Still on the run
There are currently an estimated 1,000 or so Hmong still on the run in Laos,
according to independent estimates. Most are second and third generation
descendents of men who previously fought for the CIA. The Lao government claims
recent Hmong refugees are really economic migrants, who have fabricated links
to the CIA in order to gain asylum and passage to the US. "So many are
pretending because they want to give strong enough stories to go to the US,"
said Lao government spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy. "The root cause is a hope of
migrating to a third country, especially the US."
The Lao government claims that it has ceased all fighting against the Hmong and
that reports of Hmong fighters are a "fabrication". But rights groups say that
upwards of 1,000 Hmong are still being hunted by government forces. Amnesty
International and the US-based Fact Finding Commission have accused the Lao
military of killing 26 unarmed Hmong, mostly women and children, who were
foraging for food on April 6, 2006, in Vientiane province.
The Lao government denied that allegation, but rights groups note the communist
regime refused to launch an independent investigation into the deaths. The Lao
Human Rights Council in a recent statement presented at a US Congressional
Forum on Laos claimed that between December 2007 and January 2008, "189 people
were killed by both Vietnamese military and Lao government military attacks and
145 people have disappeared".
In a more recent incident, Hmong advocacy groups say Lao soldiers on April 10
ambushed a group of "jungle Hmong", killing Cha Meng Lee, his wife and their
infant daughter while foraging for food in the Phu Bia area of Vientiane
province. That armed action occurred on the same day that 67 Hmong from Ban
Huay Nam Khao were repatriated apparently against their will from Thailand to
Laos.
Reports by human rights groups and Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF), an
international non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian and
medical aid to the camp, have noted bullet and shrapnel scars on many of the
refugees they have treated. These descriptions are corroborated by photographs
taken by journalists of Hmong fighters and their families in Laos which
graphically depict their malnourished condition and recent battle wounds.
Most Hmong at Ban Huay Nam Khao are terrified of the prospect of being handed
over to the Lao authorities. Such fears have been compounded by recent stories
of mistreatment told by previously surrendered and repatriated Hmong and the
Lao government's refusal to allow third parties, including the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to monitor the repatriation and
resettlement of refugees.
Clearly, the Lao and Thai governments - and some say by extension the US -
would like to see the Hmong problem fade away as quickly quietly as possible.
Both Thailand and Laos are eager to put past animosities behind them and work
towards greater trade and investment, as witnessed by recent joint
infrastructure development projects.
Vientiane's desire for more foreign investment was underscored by its 1997
accession to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the more
recent promotion of the Asian Development Bank's Greater Mekong Subregion plan,
which envisions the integration of China, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and
Vietnam through road networks and more efficient trade and immigration
processes.
Hmong refugees, and those still in hiding in the jungles of Laos, however,
remain a sticking point to those grand plans. "We are bringing development,"
government spokesman Yong said. "There are less and less places where they can
do whatever they want. We do not allow slash and burn [agriculture] and growing
opium anymore. The only way is to join the mainstream of society."
"The camps [in Thailand] are a buffer zone, a relic of the Cold War, obsolete,"
he added. "There is regional integration now. We are working together to take
away all the barriers." Yong blames Vang Pao and his Hmong supporters in the US
for the still-steady flow of refugees out of Laos.
"For them it is a matter of life and death," said Yong. "If there are no more
camps, then [there will be] no more people to recruit to try to conduct
sabotage and they cannot pretend they are fighters."
Back-channel pressure
For its part, the US is not entirely sitting on its hands. According to the CRS
report, the US has recently urged the Thai government to halt the repatriation
of Hmong refugees until they establish a more transparent screening process.
The US Embassy in Thailand has also apparently won assurances from the Thai
Foreign Ministry that the 153 Hmong currently held in Nong Khai Immigration
Detention Center, situated on the Thai-Lao border, will not be immediately
repatriated.
Although listed as UNHCR "persons of concern" and in possession of UNHCR-issued
certificates, they were arrested in a raid by Thai authorities in December 2006
and have been held in detention ever since. The group includes several known
Hmong leaders who rights groups say have legitimate concerns for their personal
safety should they be sent back to Laos.
In mid-May, a letter signed by eight US senators, including both senators from
California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the US states with the largest Hmong
populations, was sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking her to
intercede with Thai authorities to prevent more repatriations. A State
Department official told Asia Times Online that the US is prepared to look at
any case referred to it by the UNHCR, and that there were plans afoot for
another large-scale intake of Hmong refugees.
In the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, the US Congress waived the restrictions imposed by the Patriot Act and
Real ID Act that may have categorized Hmong as terrorists and subsequently
prevented their immigration to the United States. The waiver means the Hmong
would no longer be automatically regarded as terrorists for fighting against
the Lao government, though they would still be subject to normal US immigration
screening processes and refugee quotas.
While the US has made exceptions, the Thai government has not. The European
Union, UNHCR, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights and rights groups such as
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have all spoken out against the
lack of third-party monitoring of the repatriation and resettlement of Hmong
refugees at Ban Huay Nam Khao. Critics of the repatriation process allege that
some of the returnees have been coerced or physically forced back to Laos.
Lao authorities are known to take the returnees to what it refers to as a
"welcome center" at Paksane in Bolikhamsay province in central Laos. There, the
former refugees are interrogated about their backgrounds. After several days to
a week or more at the center, the returnees are taken either to their home
villages or to a new settlement area at Ban Pha Lak in Vientiane province,
northwest of the town of Vang Vieng.
The Thai government has so far not allowed the UNHCR or other international
organizations access to the screening or repatriation process for the Hmong
refugees. Amnesty International claims the Thai screening process does not
follow fair and satisfactory procedures at an international standard. For
similar reasons, Human Rights Watch has consistently called for a stop to the
repatriations, most recently in March. So far only Medicines Sans Frontieres
has been allowed access to the camp to provide humanitarian and medical aid.
MSF has also called on the Thai and Lao governments to immediately stop
repatriation until there are international monitors and guarantees of safety
for the returnees.
Rights groups often point to the case of 28 Hmong who were caught outside Huay
Nam Khao in December 2005 and forcibly repatriated to Laos as evidence of the
abuses returnees potentially face. The group included 21 young girls and six
boys. The children all disappeared after being handed over to the Lao
authorities. Eight of the girls eventually fled back to Thailand with tales of
imprisonment, interrogation, torture and sexual abuse.
The Lao government denies those charges and now relies on photos and videos of
returnees uploaded onto Flickr, an Internet-based photo-sharing site, and
YouTube, a video-sharing site, to show how safe and sound returnees are in
Laos.
"There is a clemency policy. We do not put them on trial. We give them a
pardon," said spokesman Yong. "[The situation] will probably only be solved by
Thailand and Laos, cooperating to seal the opportunity ... The Thais agree this
is a bilateral issue. There is no reason for others to jump in."
Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be
reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
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