Aug. 21, 2007
'I WANT TO SEE A TOMORROW': Thailand: Hunger Strike of Hmong Refugees Halted
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
Huntington News Network learned on Sunday evening, Aug. 19, 2007, that northeast of Bangkok, at the immigration detention center in Nong Khai, a group of 149 Hmong Lao refugees -- most of them children and teenagers -- on Sunday, Aug. 19 halted their hunger strike, after strong intervention by the U.N. and concerned countries.
Some of the Hmong refugees were brought Monday morning, Aug. 20 to the hospital, according to reliable sources.
"The refugees are held unnecessarily long imprisoned as illegal migrants after barely escaping from Laos to Thailand," said Kue Xiong, president of the U.S.-based human rights organization Hmong Lao Human Rights Council. “The already traumatized Hmong Lao asylum seekers were arrested by Thai police and are since then held in Thai detention prison as illegal migrants, under terrifying conditions -- since December 8, 2006,” he added.
Thailand has taken the position that the Hmong refugee crisis is caused for economic reasons, and not for fear of persecution.
“The UNHCR has classified all these 149 Hmong in Nong Khai as 'refugees' on the basis that they do face persecution and threats to their lives if returned to Laos,” said human rights advocate Rebecca Sommer, from the Society for Threatened Peoples International. “The traumatized ethnic Hmong refugees escaped to Thailand from a life as internally displaced families, running from Vietnamese and Laotian military attacks while hiding in remote mountainous jungle areas inside of the communist country of Laos.”
In Thai detention jail, the 149 refugees suffered in the overheated, overcrowded cells. “We are so afraid, they want to force us back to Laos. We go hungry here in the Thai prison, have no clean water to drink and everybody is getting sicker and sicker," according to a message of one refugee which was smuggled out of the prison prior to the hunger strike. "We need food and urgent medical help.”
Segregated by gender, the 149 Hmong Lao asylum seekers are held in two overheated, overcrowded cells -- with the only light coming through a tiny, narrow window, sources told HNN.
Thailand has already attempted to forcibly deport this group back to Laos, which sparked an international outcry.
The U.S., the Netherlands, Canada and Australia have offered to resettle them -- a move which was halted by Thailand.
“Four resettlement countries have come forward and said they will accept all these people so there is no reason to keep them locked up for nine months when they can leave Thailand and go start their lives in other countries," said UNHCR spokesperson Kitty McKinsey.
Since 2004, increased military activities in Laos caused the most recent refugee wave of over 8,000 Hmong Lao, many of whom lived hiding in the mountains of Laos -- attacked by military forces with chemical poison, long-range weapons, missiles and rockets.
"These military zones are off-limits for diplomats, politicians or journalists, but over the years various international journalists made it into these areas, and brought shocking eyewitness accounts and evidence of these atrocities," Sommer told HNN. "But Laos denies the genocide against the Hmong Lao hiding in the jungles, despite the evidence."
The 149 detained refugees, and 8,000 Hmong Lao refugees in Thailand’s temporary refugee camp await their forced deportation back to Laos as announced by Thailand “in the next two months,” regardless how many bullet wounds they may carry.
“It is obvious that most of the refugees cannot be sent back- Thailand must stop creating this fear mongering of 'sending them all back' and should instead focus on an accountable mechanisms under which the situation of these refugees will be determined in accordance to international human rights standards,” Said Sommer. “ The global community wants to see such screening mechanisms conducted by Thailand in partnership with the UNHCR, to ensure that human rights standards are taken into account in these decisions.”
“500 of my people surrendered last year, wounded, starving, they decided to come out of the jungle and hope not to be killed,” said one of the detained 149 Hmong refugees. “But all my people disappeared, and go unaccounted for, and I believe that they got all killed. I fled with some of us to Thailand, because we Hmong from the jungle always get tortured and killed, I escaped this persecution to seek asylum. I want to see a tomorrow, I do not want to die.”
The refugees held in Nong Kai in prison cells for the past nine months could already be in their offered new homeland overseas, Sommer told HNN. After the hunger strike ended, thanks to intervention by diplomats and the UN system, the refugees were given sufficient food and two water purifiers were placed in their cells, but their fate remains unclear, she added.
'I WANT TO SEE A TOMORROW': Thailand: Hunger Strike of Hmong Refugees Halted
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
Huntington News Network learned on Sunday evening, Aug. 19, 2007, that northeast of Bangkok, at the immigration detention center in Nong Khai, a group of 149 Hmong Lao refugees -- most of them children and teenagers -- on Sunday, Aug. 19 halted their hunger strike, after strong intervention by the U.N. and concerned countries.
Some of the Hmong refugees were brought Monday morning, Aug. 20 to the hospital, according to reliable sources.
"The refugees are held unnecessarily long imprisoned as illegal migrants after barely escaping from Laos to Thailand," said Kue Xiong, president of the U.S.-based human rights organization Hmong Lao Human Rights Council. “The already traumatized Hmong Lao asylum seekers were arrested by Thai police and are since then held in Thai detention prison as illegal migrants, under terrifying conditions -- since December 8, 2006,” he added.
Thailand has taken the position that the Hmong refugee crisis is caused for economic reasons, and not for fear of persecution.
“The UNHCR has classified all these 149 Hmong in Nong Khai as 'refugees' on the basis that they do face persecution and threats to their lives if returned to Laos,” said human rights advocate Rebecca Sommer, from the Society for Threatened Peoples International. “The traumatized ethnic Hmong refugees escaped to Thailand from a life as internally displaced families, running from Vietnamese and Laotian military attacks while hiding in remote mountainous jungle areas inside of the communist country of Laos.”
In Thai detention jail, the 149 refugees suffered in the overheated, overcrowded cells. “We are so afraid, they want to force us back to Laos. We go hungry here in the Thai prison, have no clean water to drink and everybody is getting sicker and sicker," according to a message of one refugee which was smuggled out of the prison prior to the hunger strike. "We need food and urgent medical help.”
Segregated by gender, the 149 Hmong Lao asylum seekers are held in two overheated, overcrowded cells -- with the only light coming through a tiny, narrow window, sources told HNN.
Thailand has already attempted to forcibly deport this group back to Laos, which sparked an international outcry.
The U.S., the Netherlands, Canada and Australia have offered to resettle them -- a move which was halted by Thailand.
“Four resettlement countries have come forward and said they will accept all these people so there is no reason to keep them locked up for nine months when they can leave Thailand and go start their lives in other countries," said UNHCR spokesperson Kitty McKinsey.
Since 2004, increased military activities in Laos caused the most recent refugee wave of over 8,000 Hmong Lao, many of whom lived hiding in the mountains of Laos -- attacked by military forces with chemical poison, long-range weapons, missiles and rockets.
"These military zones are off-limits for diplomats, politicians or journalists, but over the years various international journalists made it into these areas, and brought shocking eyewitness accounts and evidence of these atrocities," Sommer told HNN. "But Laos denies the genocide against the Hmong Lao hiding in the jungles, despite the evidence."
The 149 detained refugees, and 8,000 Hmong Lao refugees in Thailand’s temporary refugee camp await their forced deportation back to Laos as announced by Thailand “in the next two months,” regardless how many bullet wounds they may carry.
“It is obvious that most of the refugees cannot be sent back- Thailand must stop creating this fear mongering of 'sending them all back' and should instead focus on an accountable mechanisms under which the situation of these refugees will be determined in accordance to international human rights standards,” Said Sommer. “ The global community wants to see such screening mechanisms conducted by Thailand in partnership with the UNHCR, to ensure that human rights standards are taken into account in these decisions.”
“500 of my people surrendered last year, wounded, starving, they decided to come out of the jungle and hope not to be killed,” said one of the detained 149 Hmong refugees. “But all my people disappeared, and go unaccounted for, and I believe that they got all killed. I fled with some of us to Thailand, because we Hmong from the jungle always get tortured and killed, I escaped this persecution to seek asylum. I want to see a tomorrow, I do not want to die.”
The refugees held in Nong Kai in prison cells for the past nine months could already be in their offered new homeland overseas, Sommer told HNN. After the hunger strike ended, thanks to intervention by diplomats and the UN system, the refugees were given sufficient food and two water purifiers were placed in their cells, but their fate remains unclear, she added.
