Jan. 31, 2007
 
HMONG UPDATE: Hmong Lao Refugee Deportation Halted at Last Minute
 
By HNN Staff
 
New York, NY (HNN) -- According to Society for Threatened Peoples International (STP), the attempt to deport up to 150 Hmong Lao refugees from Thailand to Laos on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007, was stopped at the last minute after Thailand faced massive international protests.
 
On Friday, Jan. 26, 2007, 16 Hmong Lao refugees were involuntarily deported from Thailand back to Laos.
 
Hmong organizations claim that the refugees have been beaten and put in foot chains and dragged against their consent into the Laotian vehicles. Nobody knows what happened to them, after they were taken back to Laos. Hmong NGO's assume that they have been tortured, and possibly killed.
 
The deportation of the Hmong Lao refugees in Thailand’s Detention Center Nong Khai would have been a severe violation of International Law as they had been recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as “refugees”, said a UN official on Monday, Jan. 29, 2007.
 
The Thai government reacted to the protests of the European Union, US and Australia and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and stopped the repatriation at the very last minute.
 
"The women and girls were loaded onto buses earlier today [Jan. 30] and driven to the border,” said Brittis Edman, South East Asia researcher at Amnesty International. “Two of the women are eight months pregnant and one has a baby who had been born weeks earlier in the detention center. Two men were also put into the buses, having been taken from their hospital beds where they had been receiving care for a serious liver condition and a bullet wound to the face,” Edman said.
 
”For unknown reasons, the women and girls were later taken back to the immigration centre at Nong Khai in northeast Thailand." said Edman.
 
“We are very relieved that the deportation has been stopped, as the well - being of the lives of the refugees would have been endangered if they were sent back to Laos”, explained Rebecca Sommer, of the Society for Threatened Peoples International on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007. "It is a scandal how Thailand treats these Hmong who survived horrible atrocities in Laos,” Sommer added.
 
According to Sommer. it will be only a question of time until Thai officials will try again to force them back into the arms of their persecutors.
 
Western countries -- including the United States and Australia --agreed to resettle the Lao Hmong refugees as soon as possible.
 
Lao and Thai authorities claimed that the up to 150 refugees left Laos hoping for resettlement to America, and have lived prior to escaping to Thailand in cities.
 
But journalists and Hmong organizations provided recorded and photographed evidence that the refugees fled from Laotian military aggressions, after having lived in hiding for nearly three decades in remote mountain areas of Laos.
 
Mounting reports of mistreatment, torture and killings by Laotian authorities to those - who were captured, or surrendered -- creates strong objection by governments and the UN system to the forced deportation of the Hmong Lao refugees.
 
Background Information:
 
In December 2006, the Thai and Lao government reached an agreement that they would repatriate the 6,500 Hmong Lao refugees in Thailand back to Laos. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, and the UNHCR have condemned these deportations without any assessment by the UN system of Hmong refugees to Laos repeatedly.
 
In 2005 and 2006, Rebecca Sommer conducted hundreds of interviews with Hmong Lao who were seeking refuge in Thailand to document the extent to which Laos has committed crimes against humanity against the Hmong in-hiding in Laos.
 
In May 2006, Sommer, a German national based in New York City, published a report which describes massacres, rapes and other severe violations of human rights extensively. With the assistance of Hmong organizations she completed her documentary film "Hunted like Animals", where Hmong-in-hiding inside Laos – and the refugees in Thailand – tell their shocking tale of a life with death all around them.
 
"Supported by the US based Hmong community, we have mailed over 1,000 DVDs of “Hunted Like Animals” to governments and the UN system." said Sommer.
 
To see the clips of the film click here
 
http://www.rebeccasommer.org/index.html
 
“The comprehensive Report was submitted in May 2006 to the UN system, and governments. Everyone knows what's going on in Laos. If you watch "Hunted Like Animals", you will understand: it is shocking" said Sommer, who recently won the NYC Film Festival award for her film " Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations ", which was commissioned by the United Nations PFII.
 
According to the film and report, thousands of Hmong Lao are still hiding in the jungles of Laos. They are the descendants of former CIS soldiers (Secret Army) who stopped fighting long ago, and went into hiding from persecution by the new established Laotian government, after the US pulled out of the Vietnam Conflict, and Laos became communist. Nonetheless, to this day, Sommer explained, they are hunted down mercilessly by Vietnamese and Laotian military forces in Laos. From helicopters chemical weapons, bombs and grenades are used to eliminate them. They are surrounded by military bases. Human Rights activists claim that the Hmong are used for military training purposes. She added that anyone caught alive by the troops is in danger of torture, rape, mutilation and a cruel death. Many children who have not even reached the age of 10 have become victims of such massacres, too.
 
See film-clips: http://www.rebeccasommer.org/index.html
 
Read more:
 
http://www.earthpeoples.org/REPORT-Hmong-Rebecca_Sommer.pdf
 
http://www.gfbv.de/report.php?id=20&highlight=Hmong