[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 24 (Tuesday, March 8, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               HMONG REFUGEE CRISIS IN THAILAND AND LAOS

                                 ______


                           HON. DUNCAN HUNTER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 8, 1994

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, the trade embargo against Vietnam has been 
lifted by President Clinton, but one of the remaining unsolved issues 
of the Vietnam war is the current plight of Hmong refugees who remain 
in camps in Thailand. The Hmong refugee crisis in Thailand is, in part, 
the result of the Thai Ministry of the Interior's [MOI] policy of 
forcibly repatriating Hmong back to the Communist government in Laos. 
By the end of this year MOI plans to close the Hmong refugee camp at 
Ban Napho and to send all Hmong in Thailand back to Laos--by 
mandatory--forced--repatriation.
  Mr. Speaker, this misguided policy of mandatory and forced 
repatriation is in part being financed by the U.S. taxpayer and is a 
slap in the face to the Hmong--and to America's Vietnam veterans who 
fought with them. Dr. Jane Hamilton-Merritt, a distinguished Lao-Hmong 
scholar and journalist, details this terrible abandonment and betrayal 
in the following San Francisco Chronicle piece which I believes is 
important to include as part of the public record:

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 11, 1993]

                   The Hmong: Forgotten Vietnam Vets

                       (By Jane Hamilton-Merritt)

       ``To be an enemy of the United States can be unpleasant. 
     But to be a friend of the United States can be fatal.''--
     Senator Daniel Moynihan.

       Senator Patrick Moynihan's words are chillingly applicable 
     to the Hmong tribal people of Laos, many of whom are now 
     political refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand.
       These staunch former allies of the United States and 
     Thailand in the critical Lao Theater of the Vietnam War now 
     report coerced repatriation to their sworn enemy, the Lao 
     People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), one of the few Marxist-
     Leninist regimes left standing.
       Today's situation for the 50,000 Hmong in United Nations 
     camps in Thailand is extremely grave. Since 1991, over 15,000 
     Hmong have fled these camps in fear that they would be 
     forcibly repatriated to Laos and persecution. Word has gotten 
     out from some of the 12,000 Hmong in Na Pho Camp--the last 
     stop before repatriation to Laos--that they steadfastly 
     refuse to return to Laos and are prepared to die in the 
     camps--by their own hands, if necessary.
       Why is this happening? What went wrong?
       During the 1960s and 70s, the Hmong, or ``Meo,'' were the 
     tough, courageous and loyal allies who, with U.S. backing, 
     kept the North Vietnamese army at bay in northern Laos, 
     gathered intelligence for the Thais and the Americans, 
     rescued downed U.S. and Thai air crews, and provided security 
     for U.S. navigational sites in Laos that provided vital 
     control functions for air strikes against targets in 
     northern Laos and North Vietnam.
       Hmong did this at great loss of life. Not just soldiers, 
     but old people, women, and children also died and suffered in 
     large numbers.
       When the Communist government came to power in 1975, it 
     launched a campaign to eliminate or silence those who had not 
     sided with them. On the list were senior military, police, 
     and civilians of the Royal Lao government, minorities allied 
     with the United States and the royal family. The 
     extermination of the beloved royal family in ``seminar'' 
     camps is a shameful story, well-hidden by Vientiane's 
     diplomatic salesmen.
       Much of Laos became a gulag where opponents were sent to 
     concentration-like camps where they were tortured, starved, 
     denied proper medical treatment and forced to perform slave 
     labor. Intent upon eliminating the old order which included 
     their longtime enemies the Hmong, large numbers of Communist 
     Vietnamese and Lao soldiers followed the Hmong, hunting them 
     down like animals. The Lao Communist regime was so ruthless 
     in this ethnic and political ``cleansing'' that from 1975 to 
     the present more than 10 percent of the population fled.
       Tens of thousands of Hmong escaped across the Mekong River 
     to Thailand from where many were resettled in the West along 
     with a million other Indo-Chinese refugees. However, many 
     Hmong remain in camps in Thailand.
       While many Hmong want to return to their Lao homelands, the 
     fact is that they cannot return safely because the current 
     Lao government remains perhaps the most closed, secretive and 
     repressive in the region. Even the U.S. State Department 
     report on human rights concludes that the Lao people are 
     denied many basic freedoms, including no trial by jury and 
     imprisonment for suggesting a multiparty system.
       Yet, in 1991, a Hmong repatriation program began that 
     included the U.N. and the governments of Thailand and Laos, 
     sponsored and partially financed by the United States. This 
     program is wrought with problems and because meaningful 
     protection of returnees to Laos cannot be provided, common 
     sense and conscience dictate that the repatriation of Hmong 
     to Laos be suspended.
       Recently, Representative Toby Roth, in whose Wisconsin 
     district many Hmong live, took up the Hmong cause by calling 
     for congressional hearings. ``Many of the Laotian refugees, 
     particularly the Hmong people, fought against the spread of 
     communism in Southeast Asia . . . To simply force these 
     people back into Communist Laos is to sentence them to 
     certain retribution for their commitment to defeating 
     Communism.''
       In 1969, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights reported, 
     ``Screening [to determine refugee status] is conducted in a 
     haphazard manner with little concern for legal norms. 
     Extortion and bribery are widespread. And despite an 
     observatory role, the office of the U.N. High Commission for 
     Refugees (UNHCR) in Thailand has proven incapable of ensuring 
     a reliable and fair procedure.''
       Since 1969, the U.S.-based Lao Human Rights Council has 
     assembled a distressing compendium of evidence showing 
     involuntary repatriation of Hmong to Laos, of abuses against 
     returnees by the Lao government, and of a pervasive 
     atmosphere of desperate fear in the camps.
       This past July, Hiram Ruiz of the U.S. Committee for 
     Refugees, reported that Hmong he interviewed in Thai camps 
     were ``no longer primarily concerned about the Laotian 
     government being Communist, but are worried about being 
     persecuted as a minority. They say that only if they can 
     return to autonomous Hmong areas can they be safe.''
       While the Thai people have been generous and patient with 
     the large numbers of refugees on their soil, without U.S. 
     leadership, the Thai will feel that they are left holding the 
     check for the final phase of the refugee resettlement and the 
     fate of the Hmong will not be honorably resolved. ;
       President Clinton asserts that the United States is 
     committed to ``reinforcing democracy and protecting human 
     rights [as] a pillar of our foreign policy.'' By helping the 
     Hmong, Clinton can put his words into action. The United 
     States and Thailand should publicly acknowledge the Hmong 
     contributions and sacrifices of Hmong soldiers and intercede 
     with the Lao government on their behalf.
       The Royal Thai government should be supported by free 
     people everywhere to allow the Hmong not wishing to return 
     now to Laos to take up temporary residence in northern 
     Thailand until such time as they may return without fear of 
     persecution.
       There is no more time. The bill for decades of service by 
     the Hmong to the United States and to the soldiers who fought 
     and died in the Lao secret theater of the Vietnam War--has 
     now irrevocably come due.

                          ____________________