Fallen Pawns In US's Strategic Game

By Brian McCartan
January 8, 2010
Courtesy Of Asia Times Online

CHIANG MAI - Thailand's recent decision to send back more than 4,000 ethnic Hmong refugees to neighboring Laos has raised hackles with human-rights groups and stoked tensions with the United States and United Nations. The forced repatriation marks a controversial closure to the US Central Intelligence Agency's Vietnam War era support for the rebel Hmong, who continue in small numbers to resist the communist-run Lao government.

The Hmong have been a sticking point in normalizing Thai-Laos bilateral relations, which have gradually improved since the end of the Cold War and a brief border war fought in 1987-1988. For Thailand, the repatriation removes a potentially destabilizing factor in its continued internal political battle between the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and supporters of ousted former
premier, Thaksin Shinawatra. Appeals to Thai nationalism have already inflamed a row with neighboring Cambodia, which Thaksin's operatives have exploited to their political advantage.

At the same time, the move seemingly puts Thailand at odds with the US, though Washington may allow the issue to fade into the background as it bids, in its campaign to counterbalance China's growing influence in the region, to improve relations with Laos. The US has made overtures on several fronts to woo the government in Vientiane, including a decision in June to remove the country from a trade blacklist drawn up against communist nations.

On December 28, the Thai military, under the command of 3rd Army chief Lieutenant General Thongsak Apirakyothin, deported 4,371 ethnic Hmong from Huay Nam Khao camp in northern Petchabun province, where many had lived since 2004. About 5,000 officials, civil volunteers and soldiers carrying shields and batons rounded up the camp's residents and sent them across the border, where they were taken to the central Lao province of Bolikhamsai.

Prior to the operation, mobile phone signals in the area were cut and journalists and non-governmental organization workers were denied entry to the camp. Another 158 ethnic Hmong who had been held since December 2006 at a Thai immigration detention center situated at the border province of Nong Khai were deported later the same day. The group had earlier been recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as "persons of concern" due to fears of government reprisals for their past involvement with the Hmong insurgency.

The detainees were the subject of several critical reports by human-rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which detailed the abysmal conditions of their detention. The group was allegedly held in two cramped cells with poor sanitation and little access to sunlight, clean clothing or mosquito nets. They suggested the poor conditions were a cynical attempt to coerce the group to return voluntarily to Laos.

There are also as-yet unconfirmed reports that suggest an additional 450 Hmong living in Thailand's Lopburi and Bangkok provinces will be deported to Laos later this week. Between 250 and 300 of that group have been designated by the UNHCR as "persons of concern". The expulsion, observers believe, will be done on the quiet, since the Lao government announced on January 4 that it considered the repatriation of Hmong to be complete.

There is long-standing controversy over the Hmongs' status in Thailand. Both the Thai and Lao governments claim they are mainly economic migrants, an assessment that some human-rights workers and observers of the Hmong situation confirm. However, they say, several hundred from the Huay Nam Khao camp, and certainly the 158 people held in Nong Khai already recognized by the UNHCR, would be at clear risk of government reprisals if they were repatriated to Laos.

The Paris-based Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) released a report in May that quoted camp residents who detailed killings, gang-rape and malnutrition as a result of Lao army counter-insurgency campaigns against Hmong in conflict areas. The report said many of the Hmong in Huay Nam Khao carried bullet and shrapnel scars to substantiate their claims. MSF pulled out of the camp in May in protest against Thai military policies, including the intimidation of camp residents and restriction of third-party access, that impeded its humanitarian work.

The mass deportation raises new questions about whether the Thai military or Abhisit is calling the policy shots. Observers say that last week's operation was largely a military-run affair, with only token involvement of civilian officials. Much of the discussion between Laos and Thailand about the refugees and prior repatriations had been done through military officers, apparently conducted outside of regular diplomatic channels.

The timing of the forced repatriation, it seems, was significant. Just days before the surprise move, ministerial-level talks were held between Thai and Western embassy officials, including a high-level US delegation.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Eric Schwartz made a trip to Thailand in mid-December during which he discussed the Hmong refugee situation and paid a visit to Huay Nam Khao camp. Schwartz also presented Thai officials and military officers with a letter pledging that the US and several other Western countries were willing to resettle any Hmong that were deemed by international organizations as refugees.

European diplomats met with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya on December 22 to express their concerns about the planned repatriation. Meanwhile, nine US senators wrote to Abhisit on December 17 to protest the proposed deportation. In the letter, they decried Thailand's lack of transparency in screening refugees and urged the government to involve a third party in the process to ensure it followed international norms. Senator Patrick Leahy brought up the issue, as well as the plight of the Hmong in Nong Khai, on the senate floor on December 23.

Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, but many observers expected the Thais to abide by customary international laws that oblige governments to refrain from sending persons back to places where their freedom and security may be at risk on their return. But the forced repatriation was not entirely unpredictable considering previous smaller-scale expulsions of Hmong that were carried out in a climate of intimidation, including instances where camp leaders had been physically abused by Thai authorities.

The mass expulsion of the Hmong has predictably sparked outrage among Western governments, the United Nations and international human-rights groups. The New York-based Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Abhisit on November 20 requesting a halt to efforts to deport the 158 Hmong held in Nong Khai. The letter asked the Thai government to allow their resettlement in third countries, including the US, Canada, Netherlands and Australia, that had previously agreed to accept them.

Fair Weather Friend

Yet the US has also been singled out for criticism for all but ignoring the remnants of an ethnic army it helped to create during the Vietnam War era. The US has criticized the Thai government's decision to deport the Hmong, but observers of the situation say the response is diplomatically too little, too late.

Rather than publicly pressing Thailand and Laos for a screening process and acknowledge that some of the refugees may be former fighters in its Central Intelligence Agency-backed army, much of America's moves have been done quietly and seemingly with the aim of not rocking the boat. Past forced repatriations were greeted largely with silence by the American embassies in both Bangkok and Vientiane.

During an August visit to Huay Nam Khao camp, James Entwistle, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Bangkok, told assembled refugees that the US had no plans for a large-scale resettlement, but that it would consider people on a case-by-case basis through referrals by international humanitarian organizations, including the UNHCR.

Because the refugees were barred from leaving the camp, few if any were able to contact the UNHCR. There are also critical questions about the handling of the Nong Khai detainees. Just before their forced repatriation, the Nong Khai detainees were visited by officials from the embassies of the US, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia, who claimed that a resettlement agreement had already been worked out but that they would have to return to Laos first. The Hmong refused the offer, but were deported anyway.

That's because the Lao government has been repeatedly accused of discriminating against Hmong or the families of Hmong connected with the CIA during the so-called Secret War in Laos that lasted from the 1960s to 1973. During that conflict, thousands of Hmong fought for the CIA to prevent the country falling to communism and to help with the rescue of downed US airmen who conducted secret bombing of the country. The communist takeover in 1975 and a campaign of recrimination against Hmong who supported the previous government motivated a mass exodus of tens of thousands of Hmong to neighboring Thailand.

The bulk of the Hmong refugees were either resettled to third countries, most to the United States, or voluntarily returned to Laos by the late 1990s and the Thailand-based refugee camps were closed down. A further 15,000 Hmong who had taken refuge at a Buddhist temple known as Wat Tham Krabok in Saraburi province were resettled in the US in 2003.

Hmong resistance, however, continued in Laos in a low-intensity, hit-and-run conflict, led by an estimated few hundred rebels fighting an ideologically muddled struggle for survival and Hmong identity. While some surrendered to the Laos government in 2005 and 2007, others fled to Thailand, where they were joined by hundreds more who believed that by claiming persecution they would be able to resettle in the US or other Western countries.

The camp at Huay Nam Khao was established in 2004 to receive the new inflow of refugees. Human-rights groups have reported that Hmong refugees could face detention, torture, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings if forcibly returned to the country. The detention or disappearance of several Hmong leaders who had surrendered or voluntarily returned to Laos in recent years has lent credence to those reports.

There was also the detention of 28 Hmong who were forcibly sent back to Laos in 2005. After disappearing for a time, eight young girls eventually reemerged and fled back to Thailand with tales of imprisonment, interrogation, torture and sexual abuse. In a more recent incident, several camp leaders sent back from Thailand in 2008 were held incommunicado for several months in a Lao prison before being released in October that same year after Human Rights Watch issued a report critical of their detention.

Thailand has given reassurances that ignore on-the-ground realities. "If we look back on repatriations in the past, there has been no harsh treatment. There is no fighting or conflict in Laos," Abhisit said on December 23, according to news reports. Yet the Lao government appears so far to be following a worryingly similar pattern.

Potemkin Villages

Initially taken to Paksane, in Bolikhamsai province, the returnees will be questioned about where they originally came from and their involvement with Hmong insurgent groups and the US-led war effort. Following this process, Hmong who have villages and homes to return to are driven or flown to their home provinces. The bulk of these people are economic migrants. Other Hmong, a mix of former anti-government insurgents and their family members, are taken to one of two so-called "development villages". Here, the government claims, they are provided a house, land, food, farming equipment and start up agricultural supplies.

While some of the recently returned Hmong are expected to be sent to Pha Lak, northwest of Vang Vieng, in Vientiane province, 120 of the Hmong from Nong Khai and 50 families from the Huay Nam Khao camp have already been sent to a resettlement site in a remote area of Bolikhamsai province. There are already allegations swirling among observers that the site has no electricity or running water, poor shelters and insufficient food. Vientiane claims that international observers will eventually be allowed to visit the two resettlement villages.

Vientiane-based diplomats, UN officials and US Embassy and US State Department officials have been taken to the Pha Lak resettlement village in Vientiane province several times in the past few years. Although the foreigners were allowed to talk with the Hmong there, and images and videos of the visits were placed on websites to highlight the trips by Lao government officials, critics say the events were highly stage managed. They note that because the US and UN officials were accompanied by Lao officials it would have been impossible for the Hmong to speak freely about their situation and treatment.

The UN requested permission to visit the newly deported Hmong in a December 29 statement and urged Thailand to give details of the assurances they were provided by the Lao government about the repatriated Hmong's future treatment. The UNHCR does not currently have a formal presence in Laos. The Lao government, however, immediately denied the UN's request, saying that a visit now would "complicate" matters, but that future visits by international observers would be possible.

A Thai government spokesman, Panitan Wattanayakorn, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Thani Thongpakdi, have both told the press that the Lao government would allow for the resettlement of the 158 refugees previously held in the Nong Khai detention center within 30 days and after they had been processed. A spokeswoman from the US Embassy in Bangkok recently reiterated that the US would be willing to accept Hmong refugees on a case-by-case basis. The Lao government has so far remained mum on the issue.

Instead. it has begun a campaign to put a pleasant face on the repatriation by posting photos and videos on popular websites Flickr and YouTube. For instance, a Hmong leader, Blai Shoua Her, was shown in a video arriving at Pha Lak village and claiming to having decided to remain in the village instead of going abroad after talking to fellow Hmong and Justice Minister Chaleun Yiapaoher.

Blia Shoua Her was a Hmong insurgent leader until a few years ago, when he fled to Thailand and was later detained in Nong Khai while attempting to secure resettlement in a third country. While it is not known why Blia Shoua Her would suddenly change his mind about staying in Laos, some suggest it indicates the early unraveling of any plans for the Hmong to be resettled in Western countries.

Nor will it likely mark the end of the Hmong problem. Despite government assurances of ethnic harmony in Laos and the appointment of a number of Hmong to senior Lao government positions, including one on the powerful central committee, discrimination against Hmong perceived to have been involved with the CIA during the war or who have had contact with insurgent Hmong is ongoing.

The situation is exacerbated by a Hmong diaspora, based mostly in the US, which remains galvanized by stories of communist persecution of their ethnic brethren. Some continue to believe that exiled former Hmong rebel leader General Vang Pao, 80, will some day lead them to victory. Those hopes were dashed in a peculiar US sting operation in 2007 that resulted in the arrest of Vang Pao and several associates on terrorism charges for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Lao government. Vang Pao was taken off the indictment list earlier this year, but prosecution of 11 other Hmong continues in California.

An attempt by Vang Pao last month to return to Laos to negotiate an end to the conflict was turned down by Vientiane, which said the Hmong leader was still condemned to death and if he returned the sentence would have to be carried out. Detractors say Vang Pao's announcement was actually a plot to further his personality cult by maintaining influence in the Hmong community and perpetuating the struggle. Unfortunately for the Hmong in Laos, such moves accentuate the regime's paranoia and make it more difficult to achieve a final peaceful solution.

Some Hmong groups based in the US have an interest in keeping at least a small insurgency active in Laos' remote jungle areas. To this end, they are known to provide satellite phones and other material support to relatives still in the jungle and on the run from the Lao army. The information gained from the satellite phones enables Hmong groups in America to claim the insurgency continues. This also allows them to solicit money from the Hmong community, some of which, their critics allege, goes into private pockets. A refugee community in Thailand similarly furthers their interests by keeping their predicament in the international spotlight.

It is difficult to say how the Lao government will finally treat the repatriated Hmong, but its stance of allowing only controlled visits gives the impression it has something to hide. To be sure, many Hmong live peacefully in Laos and thousands joined the communist cause during the war. And some US-based Hmong groups and advocacy organizations have further muddled the situation by overstating abuses and presenting rumors as fact.

The US, Thailand and Laos would clearly like to close this chapter in their joint history and move towards new terms of diplomatic engagement and economic exchange. But until Laos moves to embrace equally all the Hmong within its borders and provide transparent means for outside observers to access those repatriated, rumors will persist of their continued mistreatment and provide an atmosphere of ambiguity that will effectively leave the situation unresolved.

Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist

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