UN seeks access to Hmong deportees

The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, has asked the government of Laos to allow it access to the more than 4,000 Hmong asylum-seekers recently deported from Thailand.

The agency says some of those sent back to Laos have refugee status and need international protection.

In a statement, the UN also urged the Thai government to detail the assurances it recieved from the Laotian authorities on the treatment of the Hmong.

Thai officials, supported by hundreds of Thai troops, completed the deportation of the ethnic Hmong back to Laos on Tuesday.

The last members of the group crossed the border after the Thai army evicted them from a refugee camp the previous day.

Concerns 'groundless'

The UNHCR said the army had deported the Hmong from two camps, one in the northern province of Petchabun and another in the village of Nong Khai in Thailand's northeast.

UNHCR was given no access to people in the first camp, while those in Nong Khai were all recognised refugees," the agency said in a statement.

On Monday, Thailand also sent back a separate group of 158 Hmong with recognised UN refugee status, in a move the UNHCR said was a breach of international law.

A Lao government spokesman said the concerns were "groundless" and the Hmong being repatriated were illegal migrants who would be housed in resettlement villages.

Thailand and Laos reached an agreement in March to repatriate the Hmong.

'Humane' solution

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general has also voiced concern, saying in a statement that he regretted "that these deportations have taken place in the face of appeals from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and despite the availability of third country resettlement solutions for those recognised as refugees".

Ban also called on the Thai and Laotian government "to take to take all necessary steps to respect the rights of those concerned and to facilitate humane solutions".

The Hmong had sought asylum after their alliance with the US during the Vietnam War, fearing they could be persecuted by the Lao communist government.

Known as America's "forgotten allies", the ethnic group from the remote mountains in Laos were recruited by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to fight alongside US forces.

More than 300,000 Laotians, mostly Hmong, fled to Thailand citing political persecution after the Pathet Lao communists took power in 1975.

Most were resettled in third countries with many now living in the US.

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Laos tells UN it's too soon to visit Hmong

BANGKOK -- Laos denied the U.N. immediate access to 4,500 ethnic Hmong who were forcibly repatriated from Thailand, saying Wednesday it would "complicate" matters but that international observers could visit later.

Thailand deported the Hmong on Monday in a massive 24-hour military operation, ignoring pleas by the U.N., the United States and others that fear they could face persecution by the Lao government - particularly a group of 158 Hmong already recognized as refugees by the United Nations.

The repatriation all but ended the Hmong's three-decade search for asylum following their alliance with the U.S. during the Vietnam War.

The United States and rights groups have said the Hmong could be in danger if returned to the country that they fought, unsuccessfully, to keep from falling into communist hands in the 1970s.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees issued a statement late Tuesday saying it had formally asked the Lao government for access to the Hmong. It also called on the Thai government to make public the details of assurances it received from Laos regarding the treatment of the returnees.

Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing said it is too soon for visitors but that international observers would be welcome at a later date.

"If they came right now, it would complicate the process of resettlement," he told The Associated Press. "But after they are settled in their permanent place, then visitors will be allowed."

The Hmong were being held in a temporary camp where an interview process was under way to determine where they want to live, he said. For those without homes, two villages have been created, and each family is eligible for a house and a plot of land.

Among the Hmong deported was a group of 4,350 from a camp in Thailand's northern Phetchabun province that the U.N. refugee agency was never allowed to visit. A smaller group of 158 Hmong at a detention center in nearby Nong Khai had already been identified as "being in need of protection," the U.N. agency said in its statement.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Tuesday that the U.S., Canada, Australia and The Netherlands had offered to resettle the 158 refugees and it was now up to those countries and the Lao government to work out their future.

The United States and Australia both issued statements expressing concern about the deportation and called on Laos to allow U.N. access.

Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said Thailand has no reason to doubt pledges by Laos that the Hmong would be well-treated.

"In the past few years, we have sent more than 3,000 Lao Hmong back to their country - 18 times before - and there was no problem," he said.

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Senators issue statement on Hmong repatriation

UNDATED (WSAU) Senators from Wisconsin and Minnesota are calling on the governments of Thailand and Laos to protest Hmong refugees who’ve been forced out of a refugee camp. Thai military officials closed the camp on Sunday. The people who lived there were seen being ordered onto busses bound for Laos.

Senators Russ Fiengold, Herb Kohl, Al Franken, and Amy Kloboocar have signed a statement calling for international monitors to oversee the repatriation, and strongly condemning the decision to close the camp.

Many Hmong family members in the U.S. say their loved ones will face religious and ethnic persecution because the Hmong helped U.S. forces in a secret war against the Communists in Laos in 1974 and 75.

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Hmong families fearful for deported relatives

Yang Vang (Nyiaj Yaj) in Craigieburn with his mother Mab Yai and children Ywj Pheej (in his arms), Tsha Lij and Pa Nub Wi.

UNTIL yesterday, Craigieburn man Va Yang, 56, was looking forward to a family reunion with two cousins waiting in a refugee camp on the Thai border to come to Australia.

Speaking to one of his cousins by phone last Friday, he excitedly told him that international officials were ''coming to help them get out of Thailand''.

The pair had already been recognised as refugees by the UNHCR, and granted visas two years ago by the Australian Government, he said.

But instead of taking up a new life in Australia, they were among 158 Hmong people herded out of the Nong Khai detention camp and put on buses to be deported to Laos on Monday.

Mr Yang is now fearful for his cousins' safety. Both are married, one with six children and the other with four.

Mr Yang fled Laos more than 30 years ago after his father was targeted by the communist government for working for the CIA.

He said that the Laotian Government had set up a camp for forcibly repatriated Hmong refugees last year, and some of them had since ''disappeared''.

Chai Vue, a committee member of the Hmong Australia Association in Melbourne, said he phoned Hmong living near the Thai border yesterday and learned that the refugees were caught off-guard by the sudden arrival of Thai soldiers who were there to deport them.

Mr Vue said that the Australian Government had a responsibility to press the Laotian Government to allow those deported to come to Australia, as it had already ''put up its hand to resettle them''.

The former Howard government agreed to accept 200 Hmong from Thai refugee camps under its offshore humanitarian program, Mr Vue said.

''About 40 0r 50 were supposed to come to Australia in March 2007, but their flight was cancelled because the Thai Government refused them exit permits,'' he said.

Yang Vang, president of the Hmong Australia Association in Melbourne, said he had been due to meet a friend from that flight, when he was told it was cancelled.

The Hmong are the third-largest ethnic group in Laos and mainly live in the mountains. About 600 Hmong live in Melbourne, mostly around the Craigieburn, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park and Greenvale areas, Mr Vang said.

A spokesman for the Immigration Department said last night: ''We are aware of the group and, subject to them continuing to meet the standard requirements for humanitarian visas including health and character requirements, they will be able to enter Australia.''

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U.N. Demands Access to Lao Hmong Deported By Thailand

GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday it had asked Laos to grant it access to more than 4,000 Hmong asylum-seekers deported from camps in Thailand.

In a statement, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees also urged the Thai government to detail assurances it had received from the Laos communist government on future treatment of the Hmong, who say they face oppression if sent back.

"The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has today formally approached the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic seeking access to Lao Hmong who were deported from Thailand on Monday," the Geneva-based agency said.

Some of those sent back were recognized by the UNHCR as having refugee status and needing international protection, it said.

The expulsion sparked criticism from the United States and Europe.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was concerned about the expulsion of the Hmong, who "included individuals the Thai government had reportedly assessed to be in need of protection," his office said in a statement on Tuesday.

Ban "regrets that these deportations have taken place in the face of appeals from the (UNHCR) and despite the availability of third country resettlement solutions for those recognized as refugees," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Ban urged Thailand and Laos "to take all necessary steps to respect the rights of those concerned and to facilitate humane solutions," Nesirky said.

Known as America's "forgotten allies," the Hmong sided with the United States during the Vietnam War and many fled Laos in 1975 when the communist Pathet Lao took power. Tens of thousands have since been resettled in the United States.

The UNHCR said that despite Thailand's "long history as a country of asylum," it had deported the Lao Hmong from two camps, one in the northern province of Petchabun and another in Nong Khai in the country's northeast.

"UNHCR was given no access to people in the first camp, while those in Nong Khai were all recognized refugees," it said.

A Lao government spokesman said on Monday the concerns were groundless and the Hmong being repatriated were illegal migrants who would be housed in resettlement villages.

Thailand and Laos reached an agreement in March to repatriate the Hmong.

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