[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 129 (Friday, August 4, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1627-E1628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      REMEMBERING OUR HMONG ALLIES

                                 ______


                       HON. GEORGE P. RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 3, 1995
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, 1995 marks the 20th year since the fall 
of Long Chieng, the CIA headquarters in Laos, where the Secret War was 
staged.
  The Hmong suffered tremendous casualties as a direct result of their 
alliance with the United States during the Vietnam War. The Hmong 
heroically acted as our counterinsurgency force for over 10 years 
fighting some of Ho Chi Minh's best divisions to a standstill. These 
courageous actions disabled North Vietnamese forces, preventing them 
from waging war with Americans in South Vietnam.
  Mr. Speaker, I call my colleagues' attention to Jane Hamilton-
Merritt's article that appeared in The New York Times and urge that we 
remember our former Hmong allies who are now refugees of the Secret 
War. At this point, I wish that the article be inserted into the 
Record.
                [From the New York Times, June 24, 1995]

                       Refugees of the Secret War

                       (By Jane Hamilton-Merritt)

       Buried in the sweeping foreign aid package passed by the 
     House on June 8 is an amendment that could rescue thousands 
     of desperate refugees. The amendment would end the forced 
     repatriation of Hmong refugees in Thailand to Communist Laos, 
     where they face persecution by a Government with one of the 
     worst human rights records in the world.
       The Senate should preserve this amendment when it takes up 
     the bill, later this summer. It is the least Washington can 
     do for the Hmong. They are being persecuted in part because 
     they were persecuted in part because they were valuable 
     allies in America's ``secret war'' in Laos that accompanied 
     the war in Vietnam.
       Perhaps 30,000 Hmong are trapped in Thailand in refugee 
     camps and in jails, and some have spent years in hiding. Many 
     are military veterans who were recruited and trained by the 
     C.I.A. to fight North Vietnamese troops in Laos. An ethnic 
     minority in the country, the Hmong aided the American effort 
     throughout the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations.
       Fighting to save Laos from a Communist takeover, the Hmong 
     helped us by gathering intelligence, rescuing downed American 
     pilots and sabotaging the entrance of the Ho Chi Minh supply 
     trail into South Vietnam.
       Speaking on behalf of Hmong veterans and their families, 
     William Colby, the former Director of Central Intelligence, 
     told the House Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific affairs last 
     year that for 10 years the Hmong kept Hanoi's army in 
     northern Laos to approximately the same battle lines it held 
     at the beginning of the war, though the number of troops 
     increased from 7,000 to about 70,000 by the end of the 
     conflict--troops that were not available to kill Americans in 
     South Vietnam:
       For the Hmong, the sacrifice was enormous. Perhaps 10 
     percent of the population--30,000 people--died.
       In 1975, the new Communist regime in Laos singled out for 
     persecution Hmong who had been allied with the United States.
       In the last two decades, tens of thousands of Hmong have 
     been killed or imprisoned in 

[[Page E 1628]]
     ``seminar camps,'' which are essentially concentration camps.
       Many others escaped across the Mekong River to northern 
     Thailand, and others have resettled in the United States, 
     France, Australia and Canada.
       Before the end of this year, camps in Thailand will close 
     and 30,000 Hmong and Lao refugees will be forced back to 
     Laos. This is all the direct result of a misguided 
     international program known as the Comprehensive Plan of 
     Action, which has been in place since 1989. The program, 
     developed to resolve the problem of the Vietnamese boat 
     people, also affects other Indochinese asylum-seekers such as 
     the Hmong.
       The plan was drafted by State Department and United Nations 
     officials with no public debate--although it is financed in 
     part by American tax dollars. It has been responsible for the 
     forced return of thousands of refugees, including the Hmong, 
     to repressive countries, though the State Department refuses 
     to acknowledge this.
       A March report from a fact-finding mission to Thailand 
     sponsored by Representative Steve Gunderson, Republican from 
     Wisconsin, concludes that the State Department had not been 
     truthful.
       The fact-finding team charges the State Department with 
     ``deception'' and ``whitewash'' to ``cover up misdeeds of 
     officials involved in helping pressure and force Hmong/Lao 
     refugees from Thailand to Laos'' and also to ``cover up their 
     persecution and murders'' in Laos. The report accuses staff 
     members of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 
     of giving ``misleading'' information to Congress that claimed 
     that forced repatriation of the Hmong was not occurring.
       Mr. Gunderson's findings confirm what has been reported for 
     years by Hmong victims and their families in the United 
     States, journalists and human rights organizations.
       In a 1989 report about screening of Hmong refugees and 
     asylum-seekers in Thailand, the Lawyers Committee for Human 
     Rights warned: ``Screening is conducted in a haphazard manner 
     with little concern for legal norms. Extortion and bribery 
     are widespread.''
       Opponents of the House provision in the foreign aid bill 
     claim that it will cause greater numbers of refugees and 
     could cost the United States more money. But as 
     Representative Bill McCollum, Republican of Florida, pointed 
     out in a recent House floor debate, the bill would not 
     increase the number of refugees admitted to this country.
       The amendment, he said, is about ``getting the United 
     States out of a scandalous international program.'' And, he 
     said, ``It is also about allocating what few spaces we do 
     have for refugees to those who need and deserve our help.''
       The Hmong veterans in Thailand are in a sense America's lst 
     remaining P.O.W.'s. They fought with Americans and we left 
     them behind. It is well within Governement's powers to save 
     the Hmong veterans and their families.
       The amendment to the House bill, proposed by the Chairman 
     of the International Operations and Human Rights 
     Subcommittee, Representative Christoper Smith, Republican of 
     New Jersey, is a start and should be supported in the Senate. 
     We can help these people without significantly adding to this 
     country's refugee population and to our financial burdens. It 
     would be the humane and just thing to do. It is a moral 
     obligation.
     

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