Laos: 8 Lao Hmong Children Captured By LPDR, 26 Killed As Senator Jim Webb Arrives

2009-08-13 07:25:20 - “In apparent preparations by the LPDR regime in Laos for the visit of Senator Jim Webb, to seek to pacify and eliminate remaining enclaves of Laotian dissidents, the Lao government soldiers of the LPA have launched at least four major and intensified attacks on Laotian and Hmong civilians, and religious and political dissidents, in Phoua Bia mountain area of Laos since July 26, 2009, that have continued up until the most recent reported attacks today, on August 13, 2009,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA) in Washington D.C.


Washington, D.C., and Vientiane, Laos, August 13, 2009

In apparent preparation for the visit of U.S. Senator Jim Webb to Laos, the Lao Peoples Army (LPA) has launched massive and intensified attacks against unarmed Laotian and Hmong civilians in Laos in the Phou Bia Mountain area, and in other locations in Laos, in an apparent attempt to wipe out political and
religious dissidents groups and those living independently of the authoritarian, and communist Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) military junta.

The LPDR regime in Laos is a one-party, communist military junta intimately allied with North Korea and Burma. In June and July of 2009, the LPDR regime has held official state-sponsored rallies and meetings in support of North Korea and donated Laotian elephants to the Stalinist regime in North Korea in support of its Marxist-Lennist regime and nuclear weapons program.
www.pr-inside.com/laos-north-korea-hold-rally-prior-r1402606.htm

“Many Lao Hmong children were also brutally mutilated and kidnapped during the recent attacks which clearly rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the LPDR regime and LPA military officials.”

Smith further stated: “Redundant and credible, direct sources from Laos report that over 150 LPA soldiers have surrounded and attacked Lao Hmong civilians in the Phoua Bia mountain area of Laos alone leaving 26 killed and at least 4 wounded, including unarmed Laotian and Hmong women and children as well as dissident Christian and animist believers and supporters of the 1999 October Laos Student Movement for Democracy.”

“Amnesty International, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF – Doctors Without Borders), Journalists Without Borders (JSF) and independent human rights and humanitarian organizations have documented the LPDR regime’s recent human rights violations, atrocities and war crimes against Lao and Hmong civilians and dissident religious and political groups in Laos, including peaceful Lao student demonstrators of the October 1999 movement for democracy that continue to be imprisoned in Laos,” Smith continued.
www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA26/003/2007
asiapacific.amnesty.org/aidoc/ai.nsf/Index/ENGASA260042004
asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA260042000?open&of=EN

“Independent journalists from the New York Times, Time Magazine, the British Broadcasting System (BBC) and Al-Jazeera news have done extensive investigative reporting in recent months and years documenting the Lao military regime’s attacks against Lao Hmong civilians and political and religious dissidents in Laos,” Smith concluded.

“During the attacks by the LPA, the Lao government has also captured eight (8) young, innocent Lao Hmong children during its recent military campaign in the Phou Bia Mountain area of Laos,” said Mr. Vaughn Vang, Director of the Lao Hmong Human Rights Council, Inc.

Vaughn Vang contined: “These Lao Hmong children, who were captured and separated from their parents by the recent attacks by the LPA military forces in Laos include: Chou Vue, 2 years old; Cher Yang, 3 years old; Chue Vue, 5 years old; May Vue, 8 years old; Yia Vue, two months old; Pang Ntxhee Yang, 4 years old; Mai Chou Vue, 6 years old, Mai Dub Yang, 5 years old.”

“The Laotian and Hmong civilians of the Phoua Bia mountain area, and elsewhere in Laos, are appealing to the United States, United Nation, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to save these 8 young children who have been captured by the Lao soldiers in Phoua Bia during the recent attacks. The whereabouts of these children are unknown and since they are children, they will be likely be be tortured and killed by the LPA military and LPDR regime in Laos,” Vang continued.

According to Mr. Vang: “Sadly, Ntshiab Vue, an innocent Lao Hmong child, a little girl, only a couple months old, was found with her head brutally shot off her body and laying next to her dead mother, Mrs. Cha Lee Vue, who had also been tortured and killed by Lao soldiers during the attack.”

“We are told, by some of the Lao Hmong survivors of the recent military attacks in Laos that the LPDR soldiers of the LPA used the little, innocent and sweet Lao Hmong girl, while she was still alive, for target practice and eventually shot her head off of her body; once she was captured and tied up; they mutilated her little body and continued to fire their weapons, over and over, into her little lifeless child’s hody for target practice, until her head just eventually came off after so many bullets severed her head,” said Mr. Vang.

The following are the names of some of the other Lao Hmong civilians in the group in the Phou Bia mountain area that were killed during these attacks that parallel the visit of U.S. Senator Jim Webb’s visit to Laos and Southeast Asia: Mrs. Cha Lee Vue, 24 years old; Ntshiab Vue, two months old, Mrs. Cha Lee Vue's baby; Kong Yang, 28 years old; Nou Moua, 18 years old, who was brutally raped, tortured, and killed by Lao soldiers of the LPA during the attacks.

Vang concluded: “Additional Lao Hmong civilians that were left wounded during these attacks: were Vue Thao, 58 years old; Yeng Kong Thao, 5 years old; Vang Moua, 20 years old ( who was Nou Moua's sister) and Nhia Vang, 18 years old."

Lao military attacks against Laotian and Hmong civilians and political and religious dissidents hiding in the jungles and mountains of Laos has intensified in recent months. The LPDR, like its ally North Korea, is using food as a weapon to starve and kill Lao Hmong civilians and opposition groups, according to T. Kumar of Amnesty International and other independent sources.

Dr. Jane Hamilton Merrit, historian, author and human rights advocate, has documented human rights abuses against the Laotian and Hmong people in recent months and years as well as in her book "Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans and the Secret Wars for Laos" (Indiana University Press). Dr. Hamilton-Merritt has be asked to testify in the U.S. Congress on numerous occasions and is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
www.tragicmountains.org

Nearly 5,000 Lao Hmong refugees in Ban Huay Nam Khao, Petchabun Province, and Nong Khai, Thailand are facing forced repatriation by Thai and Lao military officials back to the LPDR regime in Laos that they fled.
www.msf.org.au/media-room/press-releases/press-release/article/t ..

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