Expelled Hmong Imprisoned in Laos

Around 50 Hmong refugees who were forcibly repatriated by Thailand to Laos on Dec. 28 have been imprisoned in Paksan jail, according to the Fact Finding Commission (FFC), an American based NGO.

It is suggested that the group may have been isolated because of their role as leaders in the camps and during the “secret war,” when the CIA hired the Hmong as foot soldiers to prevent the spread of communism during the Vietnam War.

Hmong refugees sit inside a Thai police truck during an operation to deport thousands of ethnic Hmong asylum-seekers to Laos in December. (Photo: Reuters)

Using a secret network of undercover researchers called “blackbirds,” the FFC were able to get confirmation on Tuesday morning about the group’s imprisonment.

“We received confirmation from our contact that around 50 leaders have been imprisoned,” said Bhou Than of the FFC.

“We are very concerned about what is happening to them and expect that more will face similar detention in the coming months.”

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Amnesty International confirmed that one group has been separated from other returnees and expressed concern about their treatment by the Laos government.

“We are aware that some of the leaders have been separated from the group, taken out of Vientiane and remain unaccounted for,” said Benjamin Zawacki, a Bangkok-based researcher for Amnesty.

“Our primary concern for them is torture, which we know is often employed in Laos’ prisons and could be used as a punitive measure for them bringing shame to Laos or for information gathering.”

He went on to add that Thailand has not only broken refugee law by expelling the Hmong but has also gone against the UN treaty against torture, which Thailand has signed and ratified.

“Under that treaty they are obliged not to send anyone back to a country where they are at risk of torture,” he said.

In an opinion piece published in the Bangkok Post on Jan. 13, the US Ambassador to Thailand, Eric John, said the Thai authorities said they had conducted their own screening process and 800 of the Hmong refugees were identified as having protection concerns and “should not be returned involuntarily.”

However, the names of these people were never handed over to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) or any potential resettlement country, John said, and “the lack of transparency during the repatriation process made it impossible to determine if the return was voluntary.

“The US was disappointed at the Thai decision to deport 4,689 Laotian Hmong asylum seekers back to Laos on Dec. 28, 2009, despite clear indications that some in the group required protection,” John said.

One thousand of the refugees are reported to have been allowed to return to their villages and stay with their relatives. However, the remaining returnees are thought to be held in “camps” around Laos, according to eyewitnesses.

According to an undercover FFC researcher who recently made a clandestine trip to one of the camps in Phak Beuk, three thousand are being held there in terrible conditions.

 “Our researcher went to the camp yesterday and told me that the people are only receiving small amounts of rice,” Bhou Than told The Irrawaddy.

“They aren’t being given any medicine, no clothes, no shelter, no doctors and he told us that 500 are sick with malaria...they are just living on the ground and being controlled by Lao soldiers with AK47s—we are very concerned by this news.”

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald on Jan. 12, reporters approached a camp at Paksan on the Mekong River, where “hundreds of Hmong hilltribes people stood barefoot in the dirt behind three metres of razor wire as loudspeakers ordered them to move away from the gate.”

“Blue tarpaulins blocked much of the view of the camp, but the tops of scores of tents could be seen in close rows. No grass or paved areas could be seen, and there appeared to be no permanent buildings,” the Herald said, adding that the reporters were escorted from the camp and told not to return.

Despite the information leaking out of Laos, the communist regime continues to claim that the refugees are being treated well.