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2009-0310 - RFA - Lao Hmong Pressed To Return

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/hmong-03102009172518.html

RFA Home > News > Laos
Lao Hmong Pressed To Return
2009-03-10

Lao Hmong asylum-seekers get a high-level visit but remain determined not to go back to Laos.

AFP

THAILAND, Nong Khai : Hmong refugee families behind bars at a Thai detention center, Aug. 21, 2008.

BANGKOK—Lao officials have made a personal appeal to a group of minority Hmong asylum-seekers detained in Thailand's northeast Nongkhai province to return to Laos, bringing four Hmong leaders who returned last year to help make the case.

But Hmong sources said the effort fell flat.

“We would rather stay here—even with these living conditions. We would rather stay here and die in the detention center,” one Lao source said, referring to the Nongkhai Immigration Detention Center.

“The word from the government is for us to go back. That’s what they say. 'Once you go back, you can live anywhere you want.' But we don’t believe them. We won’t go back to Laos."

We don’t believe them."

Lao Hmong

Lao Maj. Gen. Bouasieng Champaphanh, chairman of the Lao-Thai border committee, along with Yong Chanthalangsy, former spokesman for Lao Foreign Ministry, spent two hours with three leaders of the 158 Hmong held in Nongkhai—and four leaders of Phalak village for returning Hmong asylum-seekers in northern Laos.

The two officials said the group could either return to Laos, where the government would provide freedom and land, or remain in the detention center indefinitely, according to knowledgeable sources. Transit to a third country isn’t an option, the officials said.

The 158 Hmong in Nongkhai meanwhile remain “persons of concern,” according to the Bangkok Refugee Center here, which works under contract with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“These people have ‘person of concern’ status from the UNHCR—all of them,” a Bangkok Refugee Center staff member said.

“We have already reviewed these cases and know their identification papers have expired, but they still have that status. Their status has been recorded with the UNHCR office.”

Long history

Many Hmong fought on the side of a pro-U.S. Laotian government in the 1960s and 70s before the communist takeover of their country in 1975.

More than 300,000 Lao, mostly Hmong, fled to Thailand after the takeover. Most were resettled in third countries, particularly the United States, though several thousand were voluntarily repatriated.

Thailand regards the Hmong as migrants rather than refugees and says they have violated Thai law by entering the country illegally. Thailand and Laos agreed in 2007 that all should be repatriated.

Some 1,800 Hmong were repatriated to Laos last year, but more than 5,000 remain at the Huay Nam Khao detention camp in Thailand, along with the 158 in Nongkhai.

Original reporting by RFA Lao service director Viengsay Luangkhot in Bangkok. Translated by Max Avary. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han. Executive producer: Susan Lavery.

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