Thailand again sullies its human rights record

Deja vu is a French term meaning "already seen". Refoulement is also French, meaning "to force back". Upon receiving a report on Christmas Day that Thai authorities had just forced back 166 refugees to Burma, I knew that I had seen this before - at Christmas 2009 in fact.


An armed Thai soldier stands guard as Burmese refugees wait for food at a border police base in Mae Sot on Nov 9 last year. Before the year ended many of the refugees were forcibly sent back to Burma.

Indeed, only a year ago this weekend, a colleague and I had written an article in this newspaper decrying the Thai government's 2009 record on refugee protection. In late December 2009 - likewise seemingly calculated to coincide with the slowest week of the year - the army forcibly returned to Laos around 4,500 ethnic minority Hmong, among whom were 158 recognised refugees and many other asylum seekers.

A year later, only the facts had changed: the 166 refugees forcibly returned on Dec 25 had fled fighting in eastern Burma between the Burmese army and several ethnic minority armed groups. Of these refugees, 120 were women and children. They had taken refuge in Waw Lay village in Phop Phra district of Tak province, where authorities had likewise forced back at least 360 Burmese refugees on Dec 8, roughly 650 on Nov 17, and approximately 2,500 on Nov 10, 2010.

Along with the year-end symmetry, however, the human rights violations are the same. Everyone has the right to seek asylum, and those recognised as refugees have a right to not be sent back to fighting or persecution - the principle of non-refoulement.

The Thai government denied this right to the 166 people from Burma, all considered refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The fact that Thailand has not ratified the UN Refugee Convention makes no difference: like the prohibition against torture, non-refoulement is customary international law, meaning that it applies to all states regardless of their treaty obligations. Once again, Thailand has committed a clear and direct violation of international refugee law.

Despite the ugly precedent set a year earlier, this action still came as a shock, given that on Oct 7 the Thai Foreign Ministry had publicly denied any "plans to repatriate to Burma displaced persons after the [Burmese] elections". It was election day itself, Nov 7, when the first of roughly 20,000 refugees from Burma began to arrive in Thailand. And on Dec 6 - though after several incidents of refoulement had already occurred - Tak Governor Samart Loifa was quoted in this newspaper as stating that Thailand would not send refugees back as long as the fighting continued. This, sadly, was often not the case, for while most refugees have returned to Burma, many - like the 166 on Christmas - did so involuntarily. And the fighting has continued throughout.

My colleague and I concluded in our article a year ago that "Thailand's disregard for its international legal obligations should not go without a response by the international community", and I can only restate that now. UNHCR, which issued a statement in late December calling on Thailand to not forcibly return the 166, should condemn the action and reiterate its call vis-a-vis all refugees who remain in Thailand or may yet arrive. Embassies in Bangkok should do likewise, while countries on the UN Human Rights Council (which includes Thailand as a member and Thailand's ambassador to Geneva as its president) should also raise concerns about this violation.

Indeed, it is now too late for the 166 Burmese refugees who have been forcibly returned, just as it was in 2009 for the 158 Lao Hmong refugees. But given ongoing conflict in Burma, refugees from there will continue to cross the border during 2011. Thailand, regardless of which party is in power, must acknowledge and uphold its international legal obligations. Once is already once too often for human rights deja vu.

Benjamin Zawacki is Amnesty International's researcher on Thailand and Burma.

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General Vang Pao recovering from pneumonia

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- General Vang Pao is in the hospital Tuesday night, recovering from pneumonia.

The general was most recently seen at Hmong New Year Celebrations in Merced back on December 17th.

A family friend tells Action News, the general was admitted to a local hospital suffering from pneumonia related symptoms. The 81-year-old is expected to be released in a few days.

In the late 70's, General Vang Pao led thousands of Hmong through a violent crackdown by the Laotian government. That eventually led to a new life in America.

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La Crosse man gets probation as felon with firearm

MADISON - A federal judge gave supervised release rather than prison Tuesday to a La Crosse man who admitted being a felon in possession of a firearm, despite his 1994 sexual assault conviction.

District Judge Barbara Crabb could have sentenced Xiong Yang, 50, to a year in prison after he was cited in 2008 while hunting at Fort McCoy. But Crabb noted Yang's stature in the Hmong community, his work history, his guilty plea and failure to understand prohibitions against his possessing firearms.

Yang became head of his household at age 9 when his father went missing in action during a Laotian civil war, according to his attorney, Kelly Welsh. The CIA recruited Yang at age 12 to fight the Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese allies. When the U.S. military withdrew from Vietnam, Yang fled with others to Thailand and then immigrated to La Crosse in 1980.

Yang was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1994 for first-degree sexual assault of an 8-year-old. Crabb said Yang also had relations with two 17-year-old girls before going to prison.

But since his 2004 release, Yang has worked "endless hours" with the Hmong Mutual Assistance Association and for the past two years acted as chief of the Yang clan, performing marriage negotiations and ceremonies, Welsh wrote.

Yang works third shift at ATK-Alliant Techsystems and has been a dedicated father to his two children.

He and his wife in 2008 were in their car with .22 rifles unloaded and cased, waiting for the sunrise to squirrel hunt at Fort McCoy, when a military police officer asked to see their permits. He had proper state and Fort McCoy permits, Welsh said, but Yang didn't realize he no longer could have a firearm after being convicted of a felony.

Crabb agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Altman that Yang's sexual assault conviction represents a "serious offense" but didn't qualify under federal guidelines as a "crime of violence," allowing Crabb to consider probation.

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In the Facebook era, Hmong stick to traditional courting

The age-old practice of pov pob, in which men and women toss balls at one another, has been transplanted from Asia and is a way to connect with their cultural roots.

Reporting from Fresno — The five young men, friends since high school, are here to meet girls.

So they carry tennis balls.

In the age of Facebook, the ancient Hmong courtship ritual of pov pob — looking for true love by tossing balls with potential mates at Hmong New Year — is making a comeback.

The tradition had been losing ground to the likes of friending and picking a match off a computer screen. Indeed, a standard question year after year for contestants in the Miss Hmong International Contest, roughly translated from Hmong, was, "Why would young people abandon the blessings of the New Year and their traditions for Internet dating? How can this be stopped?"

But over the last few years the number of ball tossers at Fresno's International Hmong New Year festival has been growing and many young Hmong say it's a reaction to casual Internet interaction.

"I'm not a player," said Neng Her, 25, at which his four friends laugh. "I do meet a lot of cute girls on Facebook. Maybe it's a way to find someone compatible, you know, have fun.

"But meeting someone at the New Year is different. It's about fate and destiny and stuff."

Brenda Lee, 30, a financial advisor who met her boyfriend last year playing pov pob, said modern forms of matchmaking make Hmong singles all the more eager for face-to-face relating.

"Facebook isn't real. It makes you hungry for the old traditions. This is a chance to see the person, see if he laughs when he drops the ball. All year, people wait for the new year. They come here from the world over to play pov pob and hope for love."

In the Laos and Thailand of old, the balls were made of colorful material and boys and girls courted one another by singing traditional love songs.

The words to those songs are now largely forgotten, banter is favored over warbling and woven cloth has been replaced by fluorescent felt stamped "Wilson." But for the most part, the tradition made it intact through the Vietnam War, out of Thailand refugee camps and here to these fairgrounds.

The Hmong have been in the United States about 35 years. The CIA recruited the isolated tribe, which lived in the mountains of Laos, to fight communists during the Vietnam War. In 1975, the U.S. retreated, leaving Laos under communist control and the Hmong hunted and on the run. An estimated 120,000 Hmong died.

Beginning in 1975, the American government resettled some Hmong in the United States. More than 150,000 Hmong have emigrated since then, including about 30,000 in California's Central Valley.

This history is made tangible during the colorful whirl of the weeklong festival which ends New Year's Day. Leathery old men wearing Vietnam-era U.S. Army uniforms walk past young Hmong breakdancers with swooped, choppy and multi-colored hairstyles.

Girls who usually favor jeans are resplendent in elaborate Hmong finery. Some wear the most traditional hat: purple and wrapped high, designed to give the face a heart shape accented by black and white checked ribbon. Others choose boxy hats topped with pink feathers, or wide brims dangling long strings of beads.

It's a tradition for mothers to chaperone during pov pob. The tiny mothers, stunted by malnutrition before and after the war, barely reach the shoulders of their American-born, college-educated daughters.

Coins are sewn to the costumes of men and women. The jangling of these symbols of hope and prosperity creates a swell of sound as steady as ocean waves, audible even over the Thai dance music, Hmong rap and traditional love songs blaring from competing speakers.

Though all are welcome, the crowd is almost entirely Southeast Asian, except for the Mormon missionaries; white men wearing wildly patterned, billowy Hmong pants with short-sleeved white shirts and ties hand out pamphlets promoting Jesus' love.

In the center of the busy fairgrounds, sisters often toss the ball to each other, pretending not to notice the boys noticing them. Boys shove each other, trying to get one of their pals to make the first move and ask the girls to play. In the past it was an excuse to get close enough to woo, and it still is.

The age-old practice of pov pob, in which men and women toss balls at one another, has been transplanted from Asia and is a way to connect with their cultural roots.

Some toss the ball with shy elegance. Others like Houa Cha, 20, and Dara Yang, 22, throw hard and high, making one another jump for it.

The universal fits and starts of courtship play out:

"I believe in love. I believe you can sense something from that first moment at the New Year," Cha said.

"I don't believe you can fall in love just tossing a ball, but it's fun," said Yang.

Longer life spans and divorce have added many older pov pob players.

Zong Xiong, 76, sporting a white double-breasted suit, black bowler hat and scarf, tosses the ball with a line of giggling older women in traditional Hmong clothing.

"I came to meet girls from other villages," he said through a translator.

Potential romances are not limited to one's ball-tossing partner; men sidle up close to chat with girls tossing the ball to someone 4 feet away.

"I'm like an iguana, my eyes keep moving. I'm seeing all the other hot boys," said Kelly Her, 17.

Last year she met 20 suitors playing pov pob.

"And I'm still talking to three of them. It's a little like the TV show 'The Bachelorette.' "

Mitchell Xiong, 22, a public health student at San Francisco State, said that as she tries to balance tradition with her modern life, pov pob makes her think of her parents' marriage and the vagaries of love.

"Hmong love is different than American love. American love is 'I love you, I love you!' Hmong love is more quiet, small gestures. Like at dinner my dad will give my mom the best piece of meat. Hmong love is 'here honey, here's this nice bit of meat for you.'

"If I have to choose, I want to be loved the Hmong way."

Her boyfriend, Shelong Yang, 25, who designs characters for video games, doesn't believe in the love at first sight of Hmong tradition.

But he believes in keeping tradition.

"I don't know the words to the songs. I don't know all the history. But I'm Hmong and I feel when I play pov pob I'm keeping something important alive," he said.

"This isn't flirting on Facebook. If you court on the New Year you are expected to be polite about it. You are approaching a beautiful girl in a gaggle of other girls, probably with her mother behind her. It's real. Its intimidating, like approaching love should be."

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D.C. Everest Gaming Club expands Evercon to two days

WESTON -- D.C. Everest Gaming Club adviser Christian Ammon said if the club's annual gaming convention went for 10 years, he'd consider adding a second day.

Now, 11 years later, Evercon is back and, true to his word, Ammon and the rest of the club are adding a second day to the festival dedicated to all things gaming.

"Well, it's not a whole day, but a partial day. It's a step," Ammon said.
The convention will begin Friday, with an evening of more intense gaming with smaller tournaments and longer role-playing game sessions. Regular festivities including tournaments, costume plays, art shows, vendors, food, panels and workshops will be held Saturday.

"Friday night is going to be a chance for the gamers to really dig in and spend some more time playing games and doing what they enjoy," said parent volunteer Kris Peterson. "On Saturday, we try to rotate events every two hours, so it's more difficult to get into the more time-consuming games."
Dillon Kazemi, a 2010 Everest graduate who now attends the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, is returning to help the gaming club with Evercon. He said he has been pushing for a second day for a long time.
"I think it will open up who comes to Evercon," he said. "Saturday is really an opportunity for people to come and try out different games, and it can get crowded. Friday will be quieter."

Gaming club president Austin Thao said he'd like to see more Hmong-Americans attend the convention. He will run a "Street Fighter 4" video game tournament.

"It's an anime-style game, and it's popular with Hmong-Americans," he said.
Attendance at the event has increased steadily over the years. More than 600 people attended in 2008 and more than 800 in 2009. Still, Peterson said she isn't sure how the two-day convention will be received.
"It's a grand experiment this year. We don't know what will happen from year to year, so it's hard to judge," she said. "But we don't anticipate fewer people."

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