Page 1 of 2 Hmong still hinder Lao-Thai links By Brian McCartan
CHIANG MAI - With global media attention on the Thai military's alleged
mistreatment of a group of refugee boat people from Myanmar, a larger and
potentially more controversial refugee tragedy is unfolding on Thailand's
northeastern border with Laos.
Thailand agreed last week to repatriate the remaining 5,000 ethnic Hmong
refugees to Laos by June of this year. Both Bangkok and Vientiane see the Hmong
refugees as an outdated vestige of the Cold War and a hindrance to greater
economic integration. The Hmong are the persecuted remnants of a guerilla army
trained and paid by the United States to fight a covert war in Laos from
1961-74 against communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces.
When the Pathet Lao won and established a communist regime in 1975, hundreds of
thousands of Laos, including many Hmong, fled to refugee camps in neighboring
Thailand. Several thousand remained to carry on a desperate resistance against
government forces in remote jungle-covered mountains.
On the run for decades, 4,000 to 5,000 Hmong fled the jungle in recent years to
Thailand. By 2007, there were some 8,000 Hmong in Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in
Thailand's Petchabun province. Another 2,000 or so armed Hmong and their
families surrendered to the government between June 2005 and May 2007. An
estimated 1,000 Hmong still remain on the run in Laos.
The United States, like Thailand, would clearly like to see the problem go away
so that it can improve ties with the Lao government and counterbalance China's
growing influence in the region. The US in recent years offered to send
soldiers to Laos to help build roads and schools; Laos declined the offer.
Meanwhile, Washington has shown scant interest in resettling the latest batch
of refugees, which would require a legal waver due to strict post-9/11
immigration laws that bar anyone who has ever taken up arms against a
government.
In a sign of the US's shifting attitude, it is currently prosecuting former
Hmong resistance leader and ally Vang Pao and several other Hmong in the US for
allegedly plotting to overthrow the Lao government. The new Thai government has
curiously prioritized Lao relations, with Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya making
his first trip abroad to Laos and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva scheduled to
visit on January 23.
The newly agreed six-month deadline for returning the Hmong to Laos marks an
escalation of a previous program initiated by the two sides in May 2007. That
agreement allowed Thailand to send new Hmong asylum seekers back to Laos
immediately on arrival in Thailand. Last February, the Thai Foreign Ministry
announced its intention to send back approximately 200 Hmong per month, with
the aim of repatriating all the refugees by the end of 2008.
Human-rights groups, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
and several Western governments, including the United States, have called on
the Thai and Lao governments to ensure that any repatriation process is
independently monitored and that asylum seekers are screened in accord with
international norms.
Thailand is a party to neither the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees nor its 1967 protocol, which sets out rules for taking care of
refugees and their repatriation or resettlement. Screenings by the Thai
authorities at the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp have been carried out without
international monitoring or disclosure of its procedures or criteria for
repatriation.
Thailand has also denied requests from the UN, diplomatic missions,
non-governmental organizations and journalists to observe repatriations. The
only exception was a July visit allowed for foreign diplomats with 300 Hmong
awaiting repatriation. But even that visit was conducted under the watch of
Thai security forces. The Thai military continues to claim that all Hmong
returnees are volunteers.
Coercive returns
Critics claim that many Hmong have been coerced to return to Laos. They point
in particular to a recent incident over the New Year where an estimated 300
Thai police and soldiers in riot gear surrounded Huay Nam Khao camp, ostensibly
due to rumors of a planned fire in the camp as a protest by inmates. After a
protest march against repatriation held last June, 837 Hmong refugees were
rounded up and sent back to Laos the next day.
On the other side of the border, Laos has likewise rejected independent
international monitoring of its handling of the returned refugees. Instead, it
has conducted an aggressive public relations campaign, aimed at diplomats and
international delegations, to demonstrate the government's goodwill toward the
returned Hmong. The exercise has included published photographs on the popular
Flickr photo-sharing website of repatriations, resettlement villages and
government-sponsored trips by resettled Hmong to Vientiane to tour museums and
a zoo.
It has also included government-arranged trips for journalists and diplomats to
the resettlement village of Phalak in northwestern Vientiane province, where
the government claims it has provided housing, electricity, farmland,
machinery, water and irrigation systems. Thai government and military officials
were taken to Phalak in September.
On December 10, US ambassador to Laos Ravic Huso, chief of the embassy's
political and economic section Harvey Somers, the European Union's commissioner
to Vietnam and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' regional
representative were all taken to Phalak village.
Lao government spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy says that the claims of
human-rights groups are unfounded and aimed at causing misunderstanding. He
claims that the visits and the government's public relations campaign have done
much to persuade diplomats and international representatives of the Lao
government's goodwill toward the Hmong.
Advocates for the Hmong say Phalak, and another town like it in Bolikhamxay
province, are simply Potemkin villages and the trips well-orchestrated
propaganda exercises. The December visit, they say, has been used by the Lao
government to claim that their resettlement efforts have international
approval, including American support.
They claim that behind the facade returned Hmong face persecution for their
former support of the US Central Intelligence Agency-led American war in Laos
in the 1960s and 1970s. Those claims are backed by recent reports by
international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch (HRW), which have alleged torture, killings, arbitrary detention
and sexual abuse against Hmong returnees by Lao security forces.
That includes a HRW report condemning the forced repatriation of eight Hmong
camp leaders and their subsequent detention by Lao authorities. The eight
returnees had been involved in the June protest, and although they were
released soon after the report was published, the move raised serious doubts
among Hmong remaining in Huay Nam Khao camp and observers about their safety in
Laos.
It's unclear if Thailand's willingness to repatriate all the Hmong refugees
also includes the 158 Hmong detained now for 25 months at the Immigration
Detention Center in Thailand's Nong Khai province. All are either former Hmong
resistance leaders or their family members. They claim this gives them a
genuine fear for their safety if handed over to the Lao authorities. The group
also claims that when they were originally arrested, in Bangkok and Petchabun
province in 2007, they were carrying certificates showing they were recognized
as refugees by the UNHCR.
The group was taken to Nong Khai in preparation for repatriation, an attempt
that was only halted after a hunger strike. The Thai government, in February
2007, offered to allow resettlement to third countries and several foreign
governments, including the United States, Australia, Canada and the
Netherlands, agreed to accept the refugees. Soon after, for unknown reasons,
the offer was rescinded.
The UNHCR has not been allowed access to the refugees since August 2007, making
it impossible for the organization to facilitate resettlement to a third
country. Held in cramped and unsanitary conditions, the group has repeatedly
threatened to commit mass suicide as a form of protest. The group includes 92
children, eleven of which have been born in the detention center.
Economic imperatives
Relations between Thailand and Laos have improved steadily following a brief
border war in 1987-88. Laos has in recent years become an increasingly
important economic partner for Thailand,
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