The Hmong refugees.
During the Vietnam War, the CIA enlisted more than 60,000 Hmong from The Royal Lao Army to form a secret army to disrupt communist supply lines and reque American pilots. Fierce mercenaries, the Hmong acted as an effective counter to North Vietnam's growing support base in Laos. After the communists had won and CIA left, a handfuk of senior Hmong were flown out, but the majority remaining faced communist retributions for siding with America. The Pathet Lao publicly announced that they would wipe out the Hmong and the attacks were intensified. Some Hmong groups fled deep into the jungle, where it has been estimated that 3,000 still live. The rest sought asylum in Thailand where they remainded until recently.
On December 28th. 2009 more than 4,000 Hmong refugees were rounded up by local Thai authorities and forcibly sent back to Laos. Rounded up is maybe a wrong expression. There were nearly one armed soldier per refugee present. The press or other witnesses not allowed near the camp and the refugees with crying women and children amongst them driven out like cattle in army trucks with hight sides, making sure that noone to take photos. A spokesman for Thailand's Prime Minister, Panitan Wattanayagorn said that the Thai government based these actions on Thailand's immigration law -which considered them to be illegal migrants, so they were dealt with accordingly.
Only six years earlier, under Thaksin Shinawatra's Premiership, the Thai authorities had helped resettle 14,000 Hmong refugees in USA. The Thai about-face on it's Hmong population sparked international furor, with most countries, with the US in forefront condemning Thailand for refusing to protect the minority group. Although Thailand actaually never signed the United Nations Convention on Refugees, the UN was outraged that the government had sent back unvilling refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres said at the time that; "To proceed would not only endanger the protection of the refugees, but set a very grave international example." In addition did all the main human rights organisations condemn the Thai government's actions.
Thailand's involvement in the US's socalled "secret war" in Cambodia and Laos is genarally overlooked. Allied with the US against the communists in Laos and Vietnam, the Thai military trained many of the senior Hmong leaders. But it is quite clear that times have changed. Today's no. 1 major foreign investor in Laos is Thailand and according to Joe Davy, a Hmong advocate, is deporting the Hmong just an example of political "fence mending" following years and years of border conflicts. "The main reason Thailand sent them back was pressure from Laos, which have always accused Thailand of harbouring elements of the Hmong resistance", Mr. Davy said.
US time Magazine reports that to ease international consern, Laotian authorities arranged for two official visits for foreign diplomats. One of the refugees, let us call him Pao Chang told that during one visit a senior commander gave him a script, ordering to tell the diplomats he was being looked after and had no desire to move. Those who refused to abide by the script were denied day passes to leave the camps. After unknown assiliants burned down camp farmland, Pao Chang decided he had to escape. He is now back in Thailand with a few Hmong families. If caught by the Thai authorities, he will be returned to Laos as illegal immigrant. This regardless of the UNHCR document that confirms him as a refugee.
He described the conditions in the camp as unbearable. They were given a flimsy house and a tiny plot of poor farmland. No school and only two nurses for thousands of people. -And always under the surveillance of armed guards.
Most the reports coming back from the camps inside Laos tells us that the true feelings -and stories first comes out after "the lights have been switched off". But to get a private moment with any of the refugees inside the Laos camps proves near impossible.
What will happen to the Hmongs in the future? The world that shouted out their protests a few months back seems to have forgotten already. Thailand's present government has such a poor record when it comes to refugees and human rights that it should be clear to the world that Thailand can not be counted on for the protection of these people. Rather the opposite. To ask Thailand to join -and lead United Nations Human Rights Committee is to my mind the same as Ku Klux Klan asking a coloured person to lead them.
But it is not Thailand alone that is at fault.The sivilized world and United Nations are as much to blame for closing their eyes to Thailands violations of human rights issues and the horriffic treatment of refugees.
