Prepared January 2010

“Australia remains committed to resettling Lao Hmong refugees, and encourages the Thai and Lao Governments to work with the UNHCR and countries that have agreed to resettle Lao Hmong.”
- Commonwealth Government of Australia

*UPDATE Feb 22 2010 – Hmong ‘resettled’
We requested that you write to the Embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (see below) about the deportation of 4,500 of ethnic Hmong from Thailand to Laos. The Government of Lao claims those deported have been resettled in new villages or their original homes. Please continue to take action (see below email action) whilst noting this new information.

In June 2008 the Justice and International Mission (JIM) Unit of Uniting Church (Victoria and Tasmania) asked supporters to contact the Government of Lao to ask that the persecution of ethnic Hmong, including Christian Hmong end. The JIM Unit pointed out at the time that the Government of Thailand has forcibly deported Hmong refugees back to Lao where they face the real threat of serious human rights abuses. This was despite the fact that Thailand has had international offers to assist in resettling Hmong refugees to Australia, the US, Canada and the Netherlands.

On 28 December 2009 the Government of Thailand forcibly deported 4,371 Hmong from the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in the north of the country back to Lao, denying them access to representatives of the UN High Commissioner of Refugees in the process. It took 5,000 baton armed Thai soldiers to clear the refugee camp where the Hmong had been living since 2004. Journalists, UN officials and human rights workers were kept 12 km away from the camp while it was cleared. Mobile phone signals in the area had been jammed for two days prior to the deportations. The Thai Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, claimed the removals back to Lao were voluntary. The Thai Government also claimed that it had guarantees from the Lao Government that none of the deported asylum seekers would face any retribution or persecution upon their return.

Among those deported were 158 Hmong, who were being held in another detention centre in nearby Nong Khai, and had been identified as “persons of concern” by the UN. This group had been promised UN assistance and resettlement to a third country. Australia, Canada, the US and the Netherlands were interviewing these people with a view to granting them permanent residencies.

The Age reported on 13 January, that hundreds of the Hmong who had been returned to Lao were being held in a detention camp in tents behind razor wire. The Australian Government has stated that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, The Hon. Stephen Smith, has repeatedly raised the situation of the Lao Hmong in discussions with his Thai and Lao counterparts. The Australian Ambassador in Lao is joining other representatives of foreign governments in Lao to press the Lao Government to guarantee the safety of the returnees and provide early access to them.

The Australian Government has stated that “Australia remains committed to resettling Lao Hmong refugees, and encourages the Thai and Lao Governments to work with the UNHCR and countries that have agreed to resettle Lao Hmong.”

General Persecution of the Hmong ethnic group
Amnesty International reports that thousands of ethnic Hmong are living on the run in mountainous jungle in Lao in constant fear for their lives. They are the descendents of rebel forces recruited by the CIA to fight against the communists when the Vietnam War spilled across the border into Lao. But despite no longer posing an apparent threat, they still are being targeted with significant force generations later by the Lao Government.

The Hmong live in scattered family and community groups in inhospitable regions and have to keep on the move in order to evade the Lao military, who have attacked them with semi-automatic weapons and grenades, both inside their camps and when they venture out to search for food. The Lao Government forbids journalists and human rights groups access to the part of Lao that the Hmong are thought to be hiding in.

Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the US Government has processed and accepted about 150,000 Hmong refugees in Thailand for resettlement in the US.

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