Dear DU hearts -- because I know that's what you all are in here -- I have a horrible story to tell, that needs telling out there in the world. And that needs some DU attention paid to it.
30 years of genocide in Laos is almost complete.
And I'm afraid I cannot tell this story in just a few words. All of this is based on the work of a friend of mine – who does NGO human rights work. She's sending me something to edit here, which I needs must go do. But if you could read this, and maybe check her site out, I would appreciate it more deeply than I can possibly express.
Not to belittle Darfur, but there’s another genocide that’s been taking place for 30 years and is almost complete. My friend went and collected evidence that the people that are being eradicated are not armed rebels. That was the story that kept international eyes off of what was happening. Serious journalists have gone in as well and come out with the same story. But still there’s a media blackout.
Her site:
http//:www.rebeccasommer.org
Here’s an article:
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/national/061209-staff-hmong.html Dec. 9, 2006
HMONG UPDATE: Thai Authorities Prepared for Deportation of 152 Hmong Lao Refugees
By HNN Staff
Although UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) officials in Bangkok were confident that the deportation of 152 Hmong Lao refugees was suspended, Thai authorities nevertheless prepared yesterday night for their deportation.
The 152 Hmong Lao refugees were part of a group of 194 Hmong refugees, rounded up in Bangkok city, in Thailand, and held as illegal migrants at Suan Phlu Detention Center for the past three weeks.
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/national/061209-staff-hmong.html These people are hiding in groups in the jungle. Have been for 30 years. Living on roots they dig out of the ground. Running away every day from the soldiers who are hunting them. The military uses all kinds of weapons on them, small and large, artillery – they even bomb them with chemical weapons. Most of them men are dead already, so these are mostly women and children.
The history is long and convoluted, and that is how it’s been kept secret. It’s in Laos. Back during the Vietnam conflict, Laos was neutral and the US could not station forces there. But the Communists did. So the US was operating at a disadvantage. Then the CIA recruited these ethnic minorities and indigenous groups to be fighters in the “Secret Army” – convincing them that by fighting the Communists they would be defending their homeland. You know the drill, I think.
Then basically we lost the war and left. They were okay for a year or two, but eventually the Pathet Lao took over their government, and it became the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and then they went after the Hmong with a vengeance, especially, of course, those they knew had worked for the CIA.
To make a long story short, while hundreds of thousands of Hmong and other peoples escaped, hundreds of thousands were imprisoned and killed, and I don’t know how many ran away into the mountain-top jungles. Inaccessible places. The Hmong had always lived in the highest places, so this was in a way home for them. And there were Hmong villages up there. But there were these bands of Hmong in hiding.
That was over 30 years ago. The Lao and the Vietnamese armies have gone after them and nearly completely wiped them out. Many of them have escaped into Thailand. Many over the years have been given refugee status and have been resettled – many to the USA, which is as it should be.
But in the last few years, the granting of refugee status stopped, and the resettling stop.
Bear in mind that all throughout this, Laos has maintained that these people hiding in the mountaintop jungles are armed rebels, so they do not deserve help, or refugee status, or the world’s concern. Once upon a time, that might have been true for some of them, perhaps. But over the years this whole thing has escalated so far, and the circumstances of those people have deteriorated so incredibly, that that no longer can be considered anywhere near the truth.
The military forces began over-running the Hmong villages that just happened to be there, chasing the inhabitants out into hiding. They were never rebels. The children and grandchildren of the CIA secret army weren’t rebels. Even if they wanted to be rebels, they don’t have the wherewithal, although people will say they do.
So this friend of mine went to Thailand and visited the camp there. The Xaisomboun camp in Petchabun, I think. She collected many, many statements for the UNHCR and also videotaped many, many statements. She also recorded and had transcribed and translated many satellite telephone calls from and to groups still in Thailand.
Her whole report essentially documents that these people are being wiped out in the most horrible way, while the rest of the world ignores it completely—because Laos says they are rebels. That’s it. They just say so, so that makes it so.
She has documentary footage of a little boy dying slowly in front of his horrified parents, with his belly slit open and his intestines and stomach hanging out – no blood, really, just a slow death. Just a slow horrible death for his parents to witness. Why? What was this little rebel doing? Trying to find a root to eat, probably.
So things have escalated and they have just erased many thousands, and are wrapping up the whole thing. There is and has been a media blackout. There aren’t very many Hmong left in Laos, and those that are there are completely surrounded by military.
Now there are 152 refugees in Thailand that they are about to send back to Laos – to their deaths.
A big enough outcry might stop Thailand from making them step across the border. Maybe.
She’ll have something to post later, which I will put up for her.
Rebecca also has a nice but horrifying documentary. There's a preview -- it's just the opening scene, it isn't really a trailer. She will put one together.
"Hunted Like Animals"
Ceci Fox Outlaw