Community | December 28, 2009 | 23 comments

Thailand deports Hmong people to Laos

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8432094.stm

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Progresshiv
I taught English to Hmong people who had come to America in the early 1980s. They had at one time been employed by the C.I.A. in our fight against the North Vietnamese. However, when it became apparent that we were going to lose the war in Southeast Asia, the C.I.A. abandoned the Hmong people and left them open to reprisals.

The Hmong men and women I taught were some of the friendliest, most candid, and gentle people I had ever met. They were in various stages of culture shock after having to enter the U.S., because they had lived rural, agrarian lives before the war. Now their relatives are being evicted from Thailand and are being sent back to Laos, even though the Hmong "say they face persecution in Laos because they backed US forces during the Vietnam war."

War is a terrible tragedy that keeps wrecking lives long after the bombs have stopped falling.
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  2. tags:
    Refugees,  Thailand,  Vietnam War,  Laos,  2 more
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23 comments // Thailand deports Hmong people to Laos

  • artemis6
  • Satoshi
    • 0
      Satoshi  

    • This is a pretty tragic situation as I was in Laos and Thailand this past summer and I sincerely hope that others can be more aware of this situation and be a voice for the Hmong people.

    • 2 years ago
  • cjwempo
  • RaceBannon
  • Kaotik
  • JaneBond007
    • 0
      JaneBond007  

    • "That was too close....innocence that makes them vulnerable to many people...Thailand did the right thing to those Hmong people for Laos...security who the real one begun and have an identity of Nationality."-JB

    • 2 years ago
  • Ihatethemall
  • Progresshiv
  • Kaotik
  • Logos51891
    • 0
      Logos51891  

    • Forceful Eviction from a country is a violation of Human Rights isn't it? What does the UN have to say about this? Oh yeah, the UN doesn't say anything.

    • 2 years ago
  • NickerBocker09
    • 0
      NickerBocker09  
    • Logos51891:

      I found this...it just backs up what you say.

      "According to international law, forced eviction is a gross violation of human rights, depriving women, men and children of the human right to adequate housing."

    • 2 years ago
  • Progresshiv
  • Kaotik
  • calm_incense
    • 0
      calm_incense  

    • Little frustrates me more than when countries with the capacity to care for refugees instead choose to send them back to the dangerous and hellish regions from which they risked their lives to escape. It'd be the moral equivalent of sending Jewish refugees back to Nazi Germany, where the Holocaust would await them.

      That said, there are MANY minority ethnic groups that face similarly dire conditions in Asia. Cultures and languages without support from representative nation-states are doomed to fade away generation by generation.

    • 2 years ago
  • NickerBocker09
    • 0
      NickerBocker09  

    • I was just walking by my TV and saw CNN interviewing some passenger from a plane. They were asking him questions about how the flights are being operated now with the terrorist alert, and the annoying anchor thought it was weird they wouldnt let people use the bathrooms mid-flight (which happens all the time actually). I also heard him say "the terrorist didnt just yell at adults, but children!".

      After reading this story I'm disgusted. I know its nothing new but its just another testament to the complete failure of the American Mass Media. They wonder why people think news is boring? Perhaps its because they report on rediculous stories like people not being allowed to use the bathroom midlfight because of terrorists!!! Wtf.

      Anyways, I realize I'm pointing out the obvious. I just felt like it was the appropriate place to rant considering its related.

    • 2 years ago
  • Progresshiv
  • NickerBocker09
  • pinto1203
  • Incredulous
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • Yes indeed. This is so tragic. I am glad you sent this story to me. I can at least in my own way keep them in my thoughts and wish them well. Although I can only imagine what horrors await them in a country as unfriendly as Laos. It is truly a shame that people like this are merely chess pieces that can be sacrificed without anyone shedding one tear.

      Boy the CIA sure has a lot to answer for with all the terrible things they have been involved with since their inception. Its no wonder that the last Administration was so full of intrigue and barbarity.

      I really do hope that if there is a God that he will have mercy on these Hmong and allow them to live in peace.

    • 2 years ago
  • Kaotik
    • 0
      Kaotik  
    • jubal:

      I am Hmong, you wanna know what awaits us? Genocide... yes, my people are being hunted and killed because we helped the US during the Vietnam War. Does America give a fuck, no... why, because like you said, we're nothing more then chess pieces. They don't even mention us in history when the Vietnam War is taught or talked about in schools, to them we don't exist... No one knows about how the Hmong people rescued down pilots behind enemy lines, about the military intelligence given to Americans about the Ho Chi Minh Trail anytime the NVAs and Pathet Laos were on the move, or about my Great Uncle Captain Lee Lue a T28 fighter bomber pilot who was a part of The Ravens (Ravens FAC)

      If genocide occurs anywhere else in the world, America is quick to help. Genocide on the Hmong people has been going on since America withdrew troops from Vietnam and Laos. Hmong people still talk, we still hear about what is going on over seas... Men and sons hunted and killed, families ambushed and slaughtered, women (mother and daughters) raped, no food, no time to stop, always on the move... that is how the Hmong people live everyday over there in Laos.

    • 2 years ago
  • NickerBocker09
    • 0
      NickerBocker09  
    • jubal:

      Dont be quick to say that your people are the only ones who dont get rescued from genocide by America. There are dozens of genocides the American people dont do anything about.

    • 2 years ago
  • Kaotik
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