[Tlc] TL-Hmong

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from Aim Sinpeng.
Thanks,
justin

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Laos seeks clarification of Thai FM's statements on Hmong
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/01/regional/regional_30101821.php


Laos will seek clarification from Thailand over Thai Foreign Minister
Kasit Piromya's statement that 158 Hmongs in a Nong Khai shelter were
asylum seekers, Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman Khenthong Nouanthasing
said Friday.

None of Hmong ethnic minorities who migrated from Laos to Thailand
should be regarded as "political asylum seeker" since they are normal
economic migrants, the spokesman said.

 Kasit said in a telephone interview from Washington after a meeting
with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week that 158 Hmong
who were being detained in a camp in Nong Khai province were asylum
seekers and eligible to settle in third countries.

Only some 5,000 Hmong in Phetchabun's Ban Huay Nam Khao shelter are
normal economic migrants who would be repatriated to Laos, Kasit said.

Khenthong said Laos and Thailand had previously considered Lao people
held in detention camps in both Phetchabun and Nong Khai provinces as
being illegal migrants, not refugees.

"I find it hard to believe that Mr Kasit, a senior diplomat with much
experience in foreign affairs, would make such remarks," the Lao
spokesman was quoted as saying by staterun daily Vientiane Times.

"But if he did truly make such a comment, I think it is a serious
infringement of our two governments' consensus that the illegal
migrant issue will be addressed by our two countries without
interference from third parties."

Vientiane Times reported that in 2006, the governments of Laos and
Thailand agreed to treat Lao citizens illegally entering Thailand as
illegal migrants and not refugees.

The Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman asked the Thai Ministry of Foreign
Affairs for clarification on the alleged remarks and whether or not
the Thai government had changed its stance on the issue.

Director of the Thailand-Laos Border Affairs Division of the
Department of Border Affairs, Colonel Kumron Kearwichyajane, told
reporters in Laos that the 158 migrants detained in Nong Khai province
will be returned to Laos after some 5,000 illegal migrants in a
detention camp in Phetchabun province return to Laos later this year.

The recently returned 298 migrants will be temporarily resettled in a
camp in Borikhamxay province while their paperwork is completed before
returning to their original home towns.


______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu