Dramatic Appeal to Thailand to save 8,000 Hmong refugees

With a dramatic appeal to save approximately 8,000 Hmong refugees the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) wrote on Thursday to the Thai government. „The life and health of these desperate people lie in your hands: please do not deliver these people out to the totalitarian state of Laos!“ said the President of the GfbV International, Tilman Zülch. The Thai Prime Minister, Samak Sundarevej, is expected on Friday in the Laotian capital, Vientiane, for talks among other matters on the fate of the refugees. The first wave of deportations could begin immediately after that.

The GfbV has eye-witness reports on many cases of the murder, mishandling and rape of helpless Hmong by Laotian security forces and fears that deported persons will suffer a similar fate.

Because the Hmong were recruited by the USA in the sixties and seventies to fight against the Communist Pathet Lao their descendents are being hunted mercilessly by the military. Recent reports state that Laos pays its soldiers six million Kip (about 450 euros) for every Hmong murdered. There are still up to 15,000 Hmong hiding under miserable conditions in the remote mountain forests of Laos. Many starve or feed on roots or wild fruit. They have no medical care. The Hmong try constantly to escape to Thailand. But they do not find security there either.

Laos has up the present time demanded that the refugees be given over and Thailand has not taken up the offers of third countries to take the Hmong. „Both countries regard the politically persecuted people as ‚economic emigrants‘ to justify the deportations“, reports the GfbV. The military decide behind closed doors whether individual Hmong should be granted refugee status. The representative of the GfbV at the UN in New York, Rebecca Sommer, criticises that the UNHCR has not allowed them to enter the refugee camp near the Laotian border.

448 Hmong refugees in all have been deported to Laos since November 2006, although many resisted under fear for their lives. The security forces had to force the people with tear gas and electro-shocks to board the vehicles. In January the forced deportation of a group of 153 Hmong — most of them children — could be stopped at the last minute by the sharp criticism of the international community.

The GfbV International has alarmed the UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-moon, the representative of the EU Commission in Bangkok, the ambassadors of the EU countries and the USA, Canada and Australia .