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blackgang

That is very true, everyone is screaming but no one seems to do anything except point the finger at someone else.
And if Thailand has supported them for as long as has been said, then I can't blame them for doing something, maybe it is to force someone to shit OR get off the throne.

And OH YES, Air America was a more or less private entity and they [some of the people] did dabble in drug import/export, for a better word.
But AA was the air CIA, and they were not always on the up and up with everyone either.
Ya know they have another Air service now.

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Did you know the average male is 6 inches long, and the average female is 8 inches deep? So in New York City alone there is over 3 miles of unused pussy!

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stroller

Yes, ironically operating not in the "golden triangle", but in the "golden crescent" area now.

chitown

before youtube is banned....here is a video about the Hmong. There are several to watch in the group listed on youtube.

blackgang

OH Really, I didn't know they were there, white planes with a pretty green trim?? or are they flying Hercs and Cariboos

I bet that they are making more money than they did in SEAsia.

DrB0b

Does this count?

Mid

more poignant than ever .......................

bump

__________________
"Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement." - Arvind Ganesan, Human Rights Watch.

"I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check" - M.C. Escher

Mid

UN urged to end Hmong persecution
UPDATED ON:
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2008



The Hmong population in Laos is said to have gone down from 18,000 to 7,000 in recent years
[AFP]


Leaders of Hmong refugees in Laos have called for international help to stop the "genocide" of the ethnic group.

In a letter to the UN, a copy of which Al Jazeera has obtained, Hmong leaders have complained that their population has been reduced from 18,000 to just 7,000 in recent years.

The drastic fall in numbers have been attributed to large number of deaths due to attacks by the Laotian army, diseases and poor living conditions.

The Hmongs fought against the communist nationalists in Laos during the 1960-75 civil war, and were singled out for retribution when the war ended.

Retribution

The communist authorities are now allegedly targeting them for working with the CIA after the Vietnam War spilled over into Laos.

Tens of thousands of refugees were re-settled in Western countries, including the US, Australia, Canada and France, while others were returned to Laos under UN-sponsored repatriation programmes.

Many more crossed porous local borders to take refuge in China, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.

Thousands remained in the jungles of northern Laos, but these groups are frequently targeted by the Laotian army.



The UN refugee agency has previously raised concern over the forced return of Hmong refugees by Thailand.

The agency does not have an office within Laos and therefore is not able to comment on the Hmong people there.

english.aljazeera.net

Mid

Thailand begins Hmong deportations


Thailand intends to send back 8,000 Hmong back
to Laos under a repatriation pact
[AFP]


Thailand has started sending Hmong asylum seekers back to neighbouring Laos, where they fear political persecution.

Twelve Hmong were removed from a camp in Thailand's Petchabun province on Thursday.

The camp is estimated to hold nearly 8,000 Hmong from Laos, most of whom say they fear for their safety in their communist homeland.

Aid agency witnesses say they were sent back against their will, but Thailand insists they went voluntarily.

The deportations began as Samak Sundaravej, the new Thai prime minister, made his first official visit to Laos on Friday to discuss energy deals as well as the fate of thousands of Hmong.

Under a Laos-Thai repatriation pact, the Thai government is to send nearly 8,000 Hmong back to Laos.

According to the Thai military supreme command's border affairs office, which manages the Petchabun camp, the 12 volunteered to go back to Laos as a goodwill gesture prior to Sundaravej's visit.

Aid group's concerns

But the UN refugee agency is concerned about the repatriation because of reports that they were sent back involuntarily, a spokeswoman said on Friday.



A humanitarian aid group which works at the camp said one of the volunteers was a woman who had five children left behind at the camp.

Doctors Without Borders said the separation from her children suggested that her return was not voluntary.

The displacement of Hmong is a legacy of the Vietnam War.

During the 1960s and '70s, the US Central Intelligence Agency recruited Hmong fighters in Laos to attack neighbouring Vietnam's communist forces and their supply lines.

After the conflict ended in 1975, many who fought on the American side fled Laos, fearing persecution.

International monitors have been barred from the country but the Laos government says the Hmong will be safe.

Detention woes

In a recent incident, Hmong secretly filmed themselves locked up in the Nong Khai immigration detention centre.

Up to 153 people were filmed crammed in a temporary holding cell since December 2006. More than half were children.

They had staged hunger strikes, and some were threatening to kill themselves if they were not released soon.




In Video

Watch Hannah Belcher's report on the "new villages"

Some 15 months ago, Thai immigration raided a poor suburb of the capital, Bangkok, along the Bang Sue Canal. They rounded up more than 150 Hmong.

At the time, most were carrying UNHCR refugee certificates.

The group was sent to prison despite having their UNHCR special status.

Several countries have agreed to take them, yet every day they wait to hear their fate.

Since then, hundreds of Hmong have fled the area.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

english.aljazeera.net

panama hat

Yes, it is. This situation makes me quite sad, very sad actually. Sucha small number of people, yet treated so badly.

I do place the blame, the current blame, on Thai authorities. I am certain that the Hmong would be suported financially 100% by other nations if required (if they not already are), but the treatment Thais mete out to those less fortunate (Burmese, Cambodians etc . . . ) is indicative of how the Buddhist principles are only applied to oneself.

Norton

In other words a "minority". As with all minorities, they have no financial, military or political clout. Always the target of bad treatment ranging from extermination to being blamed for all the ills of a particular country. If Thailand wants to send them back to Lao where it is pretty clear the Hmong are routinely persecuted, then the international community has a moral obligation to "convince" Thailand otherwise by imposing disincentives and incentives for doing so.

__________________
There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

Norton

As we well know, governments seldom act in a manner consistent with the religious majority of their nations. If this was the case the world would likely be a much better and safer place.

Jet Gorgon

Chills me to my bones. Model village? What will these people do? Work? Food? Meds? Nice little PR shots of the kids in a school room. Remote village with no access by aid groups? Scary.
I've been to refugee camps in Japan (also hidden far away) and Thai. These people just want to get their lives back, work, feel safe and at home.

blackgang

But still, you can not just walk across a border and say, "Well now I am here, gimme a place to live and a job with a nice paycheck, I will pay ya back later as I forgot my wallet in my other pair of raggedy cutoffs"

No it don't work like that to everybodys betterment. And all it does is fuck up everyones lifestyles and things that they have worked hard for for a good many years.
An I do feel sorry for the refugees, but they have to take care of their own house, if you got a house full of snakes, would you expect to move into a neighbors house and he go over and kill all your snakes while you work his job and live in his house?
Fuk no, you will have to go in there and kill thm snakes, you let em take over, now it is up to you to get rid of em, not his place to do it for you.
Maybe ya make it and maybe ya don't and get snake bit, but it is your country/home so if ya want it, god damn it fight for it, or you can cry to the USA and they will come and get it together for you, even tho everyone will be denigrating them for it and be looked down upon by everyone in the world that thinks that you are correct but will do nothing but run their Ray Carey Mouth and do nothing.
Look around, it is happening all over the world as we speak, Hamas keeps shooting rockets at Israel, Israel keep bombing them, but they say they will not stop as long as Israel is a country/state, and going for world damnation of Israel but will not stop the rockets,, Whose fault is it??

I think if you shoot rockets from a kids doll house then you can expect return fire at that doll house.
IMHO

Jet Gorgon

But, BG, they were dragged back across the border to Laos. You mean when they went over to Thailand as refugees? Fek, the Laotians put their king in a desolate cave to rot.
I don't know everything here either. Most of these folks lived in shanties roadside in Thailand, from what I heard. We need Mid to give us a summary (SUMMARY, MID, SUMMARY).

Mid

The Refugee Experience in Thailand


During the two decades after the communist takeover in Laos in 1975, several hundred thousand Hmong took the dangerous journey on foot through the Laotian countryside and across the Thai border, formed much of the way by the Mekong River. The fortunate who survived the trip ended up in one or more first-asylum refugee camps: Ban Vinai, Nong Khai, Ban Nam Yao, and Chieng Kham.

Three Waves

The early Hmong refugee movements have been divided into three waves. First-wave refugee groups are typically made up of those who have the most to lose by the change in governments, and the Hmong were no exception to this pattern. Lasting from 1975 to 1977, the first wave of Hmong refugees mostly included soldiers from the secret army and their families.

A second wave of Hmong arrived between 1978 and 1982, a period when both lowland and highland Laotians fled drought and crop failure, compulsory farm collectivization enforced by the Lao communist government, and attacks on the resistance movement. These were also the years of the largest exodus of Indochinese refugees, a period when 21 first-asylum, processing, and transit camps were set up in Thailand, in addition to some encampments for Khmer refugees on the Thai–Cambodian border that were not designated as camps.

The numbers of Hmong refugees increased as a third wave (1982 to 1986) brought additional asylum seekers. By 1987, about 75,000 Laotian refugees were known to be in Thailand. Of these, the majority—about 54,000—were hilltribe people, mostly Hmong in Ban Vinai and Chiang Kham camps.

Neither Western governments nor their Indochinese counterparts were willing or able to reach a political solution to the refugee situation. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia remained relatively closed, and development assistance from the West was minimal. Repression of the Hmong in Laos, declining economic conditions in that country, and the availability of food and medical attention in the camps contributed to the steady flow of Hmong refugees into Thailand.

snip

cal.org


..............................................


Minority Politics in Thailand: A Hmong Perspective *.
By: Gary Y. LEE

This paper will attempt to examine some of these assertions, and to shed light on the main reasons why the Hmong are perceived to be more difficult to integrate than other hill tribes in Thailand. There are many accounts in Thai, English and French on this subject, but they are mostly from the perspectives of government officials or foreign researchers. Being myself a Hmong who have many years of close association with the issues involved, I will speak mainly from the point of view of the Hmong themselves. I hope that this may help bring a better understanding to the manners in which these tribespeople have interpreted their situations and reacted to it now or in the past.

snip

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate that the real issues in minority politics in Thailand still remain the question of citizenship and land tenure. Until these problems are solved, and not sidestepped as they are now, Thailand is likely to continue having tribal discontent and destitution (Hearn, op.cit.: 193). At present, there are few incentives for the highland population to co-operate in government projects, for whatever action is taken about their legal status will not immediately change the situation for the better unless the people "are included as full and equal partners in any development strategy that may be undertaken" (McKinnon, 1978: 14). Many villagers have been brought under the watchful eye of Thai authorities through its many dry season roads built up to the hills in the past few years. However, they will be influenced by anti-government groups as long as they are not given a direct role to play in the management of public resources and in the execution of programmes for the national interest. This is particularly the case when many tribespeople, despite their desire for a peaceful existence, are forever at the mercy of unscrupulous traders and officials or are serving as buffers between the Thai Government and insurgents in the remote areas of the country.

hmongnet.org


..........................................

blackgang

As I said, they came as illegal immigrants, and I stand by what I have said, sure it is to bad, but why make it hard on other poor people that have stayed in their own country and now are put at a disadvantage because of it.
If you do not like what is happening in your country and want it changed, then change it, do not run off to another country and cry about it and expect someone to come and do your fighting for you.

as an example,, look at what is being said by all the peaceniks and do gooders about the USA for trying to do something,, YEA the dirty rotted bastards invading "Sovereign nations" all that old shit,, fuck em,,if they want it changed then get a gun and change it yourself asshole.

Mid

lorsonbooksandprints.com

blackgang

Fine, next time I see anything even close to another country being mean mouthed by you for trying to interfere in something that is none of their business,, stand by bro..

AntRobertson

Isn't that exactly what you are doing when arsing on about all the illegal immigrants in the US?

Mid

climate-changer.com