Laos to educate Hmong returnees not to flee country again

Dec 30, 2009, 4:40 GMT

Vientiane - Communist Laos plans to educate some 4,508 Lao-Hmong returnees who were deported from Thailand earlier this week to make sure they do not flee the country again, state media reported Wednesday.

'Lao officials will educate the returnees to make sure they are not tricked into leaving the country again and to prevent them falling victim to human trafficking,' the state-run Vientiane Times reported.

Thailand on Monday deported more than 4,000 Hmong asylum-seekers from detention centres in Phetchabun and Nong Khai provinces, despite protests from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the US government and European Union.

The Hmong are an ethnic minority group that sided with the US military in its 'secret war' against communism in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.

The 4,508 Hmong were taken to Borikhamsay province, just east of the capital Vientiane, where they are to be kept at a 'temporary centre' in Paksan town, on the Mekong River, the Vientiane Times reported.

'Here government officials and local authorities would check the personal background of each returnee before, if possible, sending them to their hometown,' said the government mouthpiece.

'Those with homes would be sent back there, or otherwise to go to live with their relatives, while those who no longer had a home or had previously engaged in shifting cultivation would be relocated by the government,' it added.

More than 3,200 Hmong from Huay Ban Khao camp in Phetchabun returned to Laos voluntarily between 2008 and 2009, and where sent back to their homes or provided with land to cultivate by the government. The UNHCR as well as foreign diplomats and journalists were invited on several occasions to visit the Hmong returnees, albeit with government minders in tow.

Lao authorities have given assurances that the latest batch of Hmong are to receive similar treatment, but made no mention in state media reports of whether the UNHCR will be invited to the new camp to assess whether some were eligible for resettlement abroad.

The UNHCR has expressed concerns about the fate of several of the returnees who have been classified as in need of international protection.

In a letter from Geneva the UNHCR called on Thailand to provide details of the assurances the Lao government provided to Bangkok concerning the treatment of the returned Lao Hmong.

The Thai government never recognized the Hmong in Phetchabun and Nong Khai as political refugees, but classified them as economic migrants, who could be deported under the country's immigration laws.

UNHCR was never invited to screen the Hmong to determine their status as possible political refugees eligible for resettlement abroad, although it has classified the 158 kept in Nong Khai as 'persons of concern.'

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday criticized Thailand's decision to deport the Hmong, noting that among them were 'individuals the Thai government had reportedly assessed to be in need of protection.'

'The secretary-general regrets that these deportations have taken place in the face of appeals from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and despite the availability of third country resettlement solutions for those recognized as refugees,' the statement said.