Oct. 9, 2006
 
HMONG REFUGEE CRISIS: Thailand: Detained Hmong Lao Refugees Finally Released from Dark, Crowded Thai Prisons
 
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
 
Three U.S.- based human rights activists -- Xia Vang, Chue Hue Vang and Rebecca Sommer -- discovered the shocking conditions of 240 ethnic Hmong detained refugees, most of them women and children, held in Thailand’s prisons.
 
The detainees had fled the Laos government’s genocide campaign against the Hmong, hiding over 30 years in remote jungle areas of Laos.
 
"We immediately held a large press conference in Bangkok and the next day the story was in the headlines of Thailand’s news media,” Said Chue Vang, executive director of United Lao Council for Peace, Freedom and Reconciliation.
 
"We see some encouraging results of our lobbying campaign for the detained Hmong refugees," Rebecca Sommer, from the Society for Threatened Peoples International, told HNN. "We informed the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, which addressed this issue on the very same day with the Thai government,” said Sommer. "With also filed the situation at the UN, and now we’re seeing the encouraging results.“
 
In September, HNN reported the first success story, after the detained ethnic Hmong saw the daylight after month in darkness behind heavy bars. See:
 
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/national/060922-kinchen-hmong.html
 
“It happened exactly what we suggested to the Thai, UN and US governmental authorities,” Sommer said. “The 29 detained Hmong which were held in the worst prison conditions, in the City of Petchabun, were moved to the police station in Tamboun Thakthoun. There they joined the other 22 Hmong, and live in a open, large building were they can go outside any time.”
 
”We liked that location best, because the chief police officer and his staff treated the 22 detained Hmong fair and human: the Hmong group did not complain about any mistreatment,” Said Xia Vang, from the U.S.-based organization Lao Family. ”Now the 29 who saw for month nothing but darkness can enjoy some basic human needs, they can go outside, cook, the men are even allowed by the police to leave the area and find daytime jobs.”
 
Kue Xiong, the president of Lao Human Rights Council, a Hmong organization based in St. Paul, MN, said: “I have no doubts that Thailand starts to react to the growing pressure by Human Rights organizations; last but not least also the media helped a lot -- Thailand looks now a little better in this whole story."
 
“We are most grateful for Thailand’s action to release our people from the worst prison,” said Xia Vang. “Thai officials announced to have found a new location for the Hmong refugees, who reside since 2004 in Huay Nam Khao.”
 
The Thai Military will oversee the preparations before the more than 6,800 Hmong refugees are resettled to the new location, 1 1/2 km west of the current refugee settlement near Hmong Thai village Khek Noi.
 
“It will take a while, approximately 6 months to a year,” a Thai military official said. ”We will build a hospital, sanitation facilities, access to clean water and among other plans we may prepare some farmland for rice plantations, to ensure some basic food stability for these people.”
 
“This is all very positive and encouraging,” Rebecca Sommer. “But still, the refugees go hungry, there is no food assistance at large implemented by the Thai or the UN, this is now what we need to see happen as soon as possible.”