December 22, 2009
BANGKOK (AFP) - Rights groups and diplomats have expressed deep concern that Thailand is preparing to deport 4,000 ethnic Hmong held in the northeast back to communist Laos, where they fear persecution.
Thai authorities have reportedly deployed extra troops to Phetchabun province where the Hmong are held in camps, fuelling fears that they will fulfil a pact with Laos to expel the group by the year's end.
Thailand has also failed to renew an agreement with the only aid group providing assistance at the camps, which expires on December 31.
"It is shocking that the Thai army is now trying to use the Christmas and New Year holidays to push back more than 4,000 Lao Hmong, many of whom have escaped from political persecution, rights abuses and fighting in Laos," said Sunai Phasuk, a Thailand analyst at Human Rights Watch.
"This is brazen contempt for the most basic principle of refugee law."
The ethnic minority Hmong are seeking political asylum, claiming they face persecution from the communist regime in Laos because they fought alongside US forces during the Vietnam War.
Thailand says the group are economic migrants, and it has refused access for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to assess if any of the group are in fact refugees according to international criteria.
"We understand that the Thai government's own screening process found a number of people had international protection needs, which means they may well qualify to be refugees," said UNHCR spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey.
"We have long maintained no one with a valid international protection claim should be returned to Laos on anything but a voluntary basis."
A Western diplomat in Bangkok told AFP that there was reason to believe several hundred of the group would be found to be refugees if properly screened.
"We have very serious concerns about reports we have received that the Thai government is going to repatriate the Lao Hmong," she said, adding that there was a "sense of urgency" among the international community.
"We have reports that in the last few weeks there has definitely been an increase in the deployment of troops. Previously we didn't think that they had the capacity or the readiness to do this," she said.
The diplomat also voiced concern that a group of 158 Hmong held separately in Nongkhai province, who have already been screened and granted UN refugee status, could be included in the deportation.
This group has been offered resettlement in Western nations but Thailand has refused to allow that, although large numbers of Hmong have been resettled in the past, notably in the United States.
The Thai government assured Laos in September that it "stood firm" on the agreement to return the remaining Hmong, having already repatriated 3,059 since May 2008, but said it would be done on a voluntary basis.
Aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in May pulled out of a camp in Phetchabun where it fed about 4,700 Hmong, accusing Thailand of trying to forcibly repatriate the group.
MSF said the refugees recounted killings, gang-rape and malnutrition inflicted by Laotian forces.
The only aid group now active in Phetchabun is the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees, supported by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which said their agreement to extend help runs out at the end of December.
"We have been seeking arrangements to be made after this month but so far we haven't received feedback from the government," said UNICEF Thailand representative Tomoo Hozumi.
Sunai of Human Rights Watch called on Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to make an emergency intervention to prevent the deportations.
"Thailand risks sullying its reputation to allow the army to carry out this immoral and unlawful policy," he said.
