US congressmen visit Hmong returnees in Laos

Mon, 11 Jan 2010

Vientiane - Three US congressmen visited Hmong refugees who were deported to Laos from Thailand last month despite international concerns that the returnees would face persecution at home, state media said Monday. "There is no indication of discrimination or harassment or mistreatment of the people in Phalak village," Eni Faleomavaega, chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, said at a press conference in Vientiane on Saturday.

The Hmong are an ethnic minority group that sided with the US military in its "secret war" against communism in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. Tens of thousands of Hmong fled to Thailand to after the communist forces took over Laos in 1975.

Thailand deported 4,508 Hmong, who had been living in refugee camps since 2004, back to Laos on December 28, in an effort to stem the continuing Hmong migration.

Faleomavaega and congressmen Mike Honda and Anh Joseph Cao were allowed to visit Phalak village, 70 kilometres from Vientiane, where the Lao government has settled about half of the Hmong who were repatriated from Thailand last month, the Vientiane Times reported.

The visit was facilitated by the Lao government to counter media speculation that the Hmong returnees were being executed, the government mouthpiece said.

"Right now there is a lot of misinformation," Faleomavaega said. "There have been accusations made that the Hmong people coming from Thailand are being executed by the government of Laos. That is a very serious accusation."

He said an estimated 100,000 Hmong are living in the US, "so some may have relatives and may make up these stories just to get the attention of our two governments or just to find out what is going on here."

The congressmen thanked the Lao government for allowing them to see the situation for themselves.

The US normalized economic relations with Laos in 2004, which allowed Lao businesses to export products to the US at lower import tariff rates.

Last year, the US government lifted a ban on Export-Import Bank loans for US citizens to invest in Laos, to encourage new investment there.

Laos, one of the world's few remaining communist states, has been courting overseas Laotians to return home to invest in the country, one of the world's poorest.

The government's treatment of the Hmong returnees is deemed an important litmus test for the success of that campaign, Thai diplomats said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/303024,us-congressmen-visit-hmong-returnees-in-laos.html.