[Tlc] TL-Hmong refugee update

[justinm at ucr.edu]

2007-0803 - AP - Lawmakers seek assurances from king of
Thailand on Hmong refugees

http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1342838.html

Lawmakers seek assurances from king of Thailand on Hmong refugees
By Erica Warner, Associated Press

Last update: August 03, 2007 – 3:30 PM

WASHINGTON — About a dozen House members, Democrats and
Republicans, have signed a letter to the king of Thailand
asking him to intervene to prevent some 8,000 Lao-Hmong
refugees in Thailand from being forcibly repatriated back to Laos.
The letter to King Bhumibol Adulyadej comes in the wake of
indictments against Hmong leaders in California in June in an
alleged conspiracy to overthrow the communist government of Laos.

Supporters of Laos' ethnic Hmong minority, who fought
alongside the Americans against communists in Laos in the
1960s, fear those indictments are backfiring against Hmong
refugees overseas.

The government of Thailand forcibly repatriated about 160
Hmong refugees to Laos shortly after the charges were handed
down in Sacramento against immigrants including former Laotian
Gen. Vang Pao. Thailand's Foreign Ministry said the events
were unrelated and that it was the government's policy to
expel people it considers illegal immigrants.

The letter to Adulyadej dated July 30 was initiated by Rep.
Frank Wolf, R-Va., and co-signed by lawmakers including
California Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter, Dana Rohrabacher
and Wally Herger, along with House members from Wisconsin and
elsewhere.

The Hmong, who began arriving in large numbers in this country
during the 1970s, mostly settled in California, Minnesota and
Wisconsin.

"I am writing out of urgent concern for the plight of some
8,000 Lao-Hmong political refugees and asylum seekers [in
Thailand] who are in imminent danger of forced repatriation
back to the brutal communist regime in Laos that they fled,"
the letter says.

"Your intervention is urgently needed ... I respectfully
request that you personally ensure their safety in Thailand
until they are resettled elsewhere."

A press spokeswoman at the Thai embassy in Washington did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vang Pao and 10 others, including a former Army Ranger who
worked with the Hmong during the Vietnam War, were accused in
federal court in Sacramento in early June of plotting to buy
nearly $10 million in military weapons and recruit mercenaries
for a coup against the Laos government. Vang Pao, a leader of
the Hmong-American community who led CIA-backed forces during
the Vietnam War, has been released on bail.

© 2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu