Nov. 20, 2006
 
HMONG REFUGEE CRISIS: Crackdown on the Hmong in Hiding Near Vietnam Border
 
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
 
A Hmong Lao group hiding in a mountainous military training area in the Bolikhamxay province of Laos, near the border of Vietnam, was surrounded by Laotian military ground troops starting Nov. 10, 2006.
 
197 people -- mostly women and children -- of the ethnic Hmong group, known under the name of its main leader "Sai Ying Vang" surrendered during the attack, during which many Hmong people were killed.
 
According to Rebecca Sommer, who represents the Society for Threatened Peoples International at the United Nations, group leader Sai Ying Vang reported that the 197 who surrendered were not killed, but arrested by the soldiers. Three Hmong men secretly followed the arrested group of 197, and observed that they were walked out of the jungle by the soldiers at gunpoint, direction Mouang Mok.
 
The traditional Hmong group leader reported in a recorded solar panel satellite telephone call to U.S.- based Hmong organizations that the attack was conducted by three military battalions stationed in strategic locations where they usually shoot towards the locations of Hmong-in-hiding with chemical weapons, rockets and bombs on a daily basis. They use airplanes and helicopters, dropping bombs on areas were they suspect that the Hmong are hiding.
 
Human rights advocate Sommer told HNN that the Hmong group observed prior to the ground troops "crackdown" on them -- which started on Nov. 10 -- that those 3 military bases sent ground troops which were spreading out and approaching the group in-hiding from all directions, leaving little choice of escape to another mountain area. Still, about 100 people were able to run away, and are hiding near by -- underground.
 
The military ground troops are reported to have returned to the military camps on Nov. 13, 2006 where they continue bombing from the base camps towards valleys and locations, where the Hmong people are hiding.
 
The survivors of the Hmong group are hiding in caves, and foxholes, in order to close the entrance holes to avoid contact with the chemicals which are bombed at them on a daily bases. They go hungry, and are starving. They are too afraid to come out, to surrender. In the past, numerous groups surrendered to the Lao authorities, while some were left alone, others were placed in prison, many were killed. Usually women and young girls are used as sex slaves, in the military base camps in the remote mountains, were the UN system, and NGO’s have no access to monitor the fate of those who came out of a life in hiding, attacks and starvation.
 
This particular group which is surrounded, trapped and attacked as many other groups-in-hiding throughout Laotians military training areas and provinces, do not even have a choice to surrender, they are bombed and have to run and hide, sources told HNN.
 
The three military battalions -- which are at this moment severely attacking the survivors of the group are known as: 615 and 257 and 117 under the command of Thong Dy, who is known throughout the area to be extraordinary cruel to those who do surrender.
 
Sommer told HNN that the Sai Ying Vang group had merged a while ago with a world famous group of Hmong in-hiding known under the name of its traditional leader Waleng Lee. That group was visited 2 years ago by courageous BBC filmmaker Ruhi Hamid and her husband Misha, Sommer added.
 
Supported by the U.S.- based Hmong community, and its fact-finding commission FFC, they were carefully guided into the military training areas -- after days of walking through the jungle they met Waleng Lee’s group, which included more than 250 Hmong people. Today, only 61 people are left, 15 families, according to Ed Szendrey, a commission member of FFC. The rest were killed or died from hunger, as they could not forage for wild growing food because of being attacked on a daily basis, he said.
 
The leader Waleng Lee, who is one survivor of the recent crackdown on the group Sai Ying Vang which he merged with -- sent a hearfelt message via the satellite telephone to the filmmaker Ruhi Hamid and Misha, her husband, on Nov. 10. The message said: “Please help us, we are attacked, we are not able to endure this any longer, we need to be rescued.”
 
Ruhi Hamid, a credible journalist from a reputable broadcasting company (BBC) went out of her way as a journalist. Facilitated by Amnesty International, Hamid, accompanied by another credible journalist, Nelson Rand, who visited another Hmong group went on an awareness raising tour to the UN system and the US state department, Congressmen and Senators.
 
They spoke about what they witnessed while visiting the two groups.
 
“I repeated over and over that these people are not rebels," said Ruhi Hamid, “But to this day no action has taken place to rescue the many Hmong groups trapped and attacked in the military zones of Laos,” Hamid said. "That these people are forced to live in isolation, that they are internally displaced people, that they face elimination, that they avoid contact, they are not going after the soldiers at all."
 
Sommer said BBC freelance director Ruhi Hamid and her husband Misha are currently in northern Nigeria, and expressed their feelings yesterday: “ This is indeed a shock to us that the poor people have been hunted out of the jungle rather than saved by the International community whose duty it is to protect people. It will now be impossible to monitor what happens to these people, they are in the hands of the Lao authorities and past experience tells us that they will not be treated fairly. These are frightened people with many children who have never known anything but the jungle -- it will be very difficult for them without proper supervision of their welfare.”
 
Ruhi Hamid, Misha, Nelson Rand, Philip Blenkingshop -- all professional journalists -- became human rights advocates campaigning for the rescue of the Hmong people in-hiding, and that should tell everyone something, Sommer told HNN.