Home
orientalist 's Library tagged → View Popular
27 Jun 08
Koreans surrender
The North Koreans - 13 women, a boy and a girl - left their country and boarded a cargo boat to Laos, said Pol Lt-Col Wiriya Sujarit, who questioned them. They stayed in Laos for nearly a week before crossing to Chiang Saen where they surrendered to autho
-
INBrief
Koreans surrender
Kenya Airways Click Here!
CHIANG RAI :Fifteen North Koreans, including two children, turned themselves in to Chiang Saen police yesterday in the hope of being resettled in a third country.
The North Koreans - 13 women, a boy and a girl - left their country and boarded a cargo boat to Laos, said Pol Lt-Col Wiriya Sujarit, who questioned them. They stayed in Laos for nearly a week before crossing to Chiang Saen where they surrendered to authorities.
Pol Lt-Col Wiriya said they faced illegal entry charges.
Earlier, Chiang Saen police arrested a South Korean broker and his Thai wife who helped smuggle North Koreans into Thailand.
-----
Drugs stuffed in toad
JUSTICE :Stuffing drugs inside a dead toad and throwing it over the prison wall is the latest tactic used to get drugs to inmates at Chon Buri prison, said Corrections Department chief Wanchai Rujanawong.
Mr Wanchai said a warder recently came across a dead toad believed to have been thrown over the wall at night. Drugs were found in the toad's belly. The prison has since stepped up its security surveillance.
The prison was also urged to keep a closer watch on foreign inmates after they were found to have raised pigeons which could be used to carry messages for communication with the outside world, Mr Wanchai said.
-----
Bodies await ID
PHANGNGA :A total of 381 dead bodies from the 2004 tsunami have not yet been identified although they have been buried, authorities said.
The bodies were buried at the Bang Maruan cemetery in Takua Pa district and are awaiting identification by family members.
Nitinai Sornsongkram, head of the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification and Repatriation Centre in Phangnga, said earlier that 32 bodies had been identified and the families would be informed to collect them.
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next
23 Jun 08
Hmong forced to return to Laos after big protest march
The forced repatriation by Thai officials happened after about 5,000 Hmong marched out of the Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun on Friday, attempting to walk to Bangkok to draw international attention to their plight.
Sources in the North said some lea
-
Hmong forced to return to Laos after big protest march
Despite recent legislation in the US aimed at stopping the forced repatriation of Hmong people from Thailand to Laos, local authorities forced a large group of the minority hilltribe people to return yesterday.
The forced repatriation by Thai officials happened after about 5,000 Hmong marched out of the Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun on Friday, attempting to walk to Bangkok to draw international attention to their plight.
Sources in the North said some leaders of the march from the refugee camp were forcibly returned to Laos yesterday, along with a group of Hmong wanted by Lao authorities.
The sources said another 800 Hmong will be deported to Laos today _ some allegedly against their will. However, many have accepted money from the government to return to Laos after being in camps in Thailand for several years.
United Nations refugee officials were denied access to the camps.
The army forcibly broke up the protest march on Saturday and 500 to 600 Hmong have been locked up in provincial jails.
Army officers kept reporters away from the stand-off between their troops and the marchers.
The Hmong were blocked by riot police and troops on a road about 5km from the village of Khet Noi and forced to spend the night in the open.
The repatriation of the Hmong comes only weeks after the US government introduced legislation in Congress in an attempt to prevent them being forcibly returned to Laos.
The Hmong claim refugee status _ which they have been denied in Thailand _ and claim they fled persecution in Laos because they were part of a CIA-backed force that fought the communists in the 1960s and 1970s. The government insists the Hmong in Phetchabun are economic migrants.
About eight families were reportedly taken to Nong Khai by truck yesterday and then sent to Laos. Another 832 Hmong were put into buses and taken to Nong Khai for deportation.
A source said some in the buses were cr
21 Jun 08
Thailand ranked as one of worst places
among the worst places for refugees are Bangladesh, China, several European Union (EU) countries, India, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Russia, and Sudan, according to a 18-page report conducted by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).
Not that
-
Thailand ranks as one of the world's worst places for refugees due to its poor treatment of Burmese and Hmong asylum seekers and of the long-necked Padaung tribe, according to a survey released on World Refugee Day yesterday. Other countries listed among the worst places for refugees are Bangladesh, China, several European Union (EU) countries, India, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Russia, and Sudan, according to a 18-page report conducted by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).
The ranking is based on a country's treatment of refugees such as giving them the right to earn a livelihood, physical protection, access to the courts, and freedom of movement and residence in the country surveyed.
USCRI country director Dares Chusri said Thailand's ranking fell from the previous survey, particularly in terms of refugee freedom and residence, due to the forced deportation of Burmese and Hmong asylum seekers and the Padaung tribe, who fled their homes in Burma to escape armed hostilities between government troops and ethnic rebels more than 15 years ago.
Thai authorities moved the long-necked Karen people from their present village in Mae Hong Son's Muang district to a new holding centre in the same district last year.
Around 7,500 ethnic Hmong living at Ban Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun province have been forced to relocate to a barbed-wire camp by the authorities, who have also started to repatriate many of them back to Laos.
The USCRI surveyed a total of 60 countries which together account for 90% of the refugees in the world.
Unlike the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), which has recognised an improvement in Thailand's refugee policy, the USCRI viewed that refugee rights were still not well-protected here.
Last year, up to 22,000 refugees, mostly Karen, left Thailand to resettle in third countries.
The UNHCR has also recognised Thailand's efforts to treat the refugees better with the issuance of identity cards and the inclusion of refugees in
14 Mar 08
REFUGEES Thailand must not tarnish its name over Hmong crisis
Several days ago, the government returned 10 Hmong from Phetchabun to Laos _ all supposedly ''volunteers''. It seems that in at least one case, a Hmong woman with five children was ''repatriated'' without her children. Fortunately, Thai authorities at the
-
REFUGEES
Thailand must not tarnish its name over Hmong crisis
LIONEL ROSENBLATT
The Thai government has launched a dangerous trial balloon in its bid to repatriate several thousand Hmong from Laos. If the international community does not weigh in rapidly and effectively with the government, many Hmong will be forced back to Laos where they will face possible persecution.
Most of the 8,000 Hmong from Laos are in Phetchabun province.
Also under threat of forced repatriation are 150 or more Hmong recognised as refugees by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) who are being held in wretched conditions for more than a year in a detention centre in Nong Khai, perilously close to the crossing point to Laos.
These refugees have all been offered opportunities to resettle in third countries, but Thailand has refused to consider these offers.
Several days ago, the government returned 10 Hmong from Phetchabun to Laos _ all supposedly ''volunteers''. It seems that in at least one case, a Hmong woman with five children was ''repatriated'' without her children. Fortunately, Thai authorities at the last moment took her off the bus. Several Hmong told they were on the next list of volunteers did not know they had ''volunteered''.Medecins Sans Frontieres, the NGO in charge of the camp in Phetchabun, has expressed serious concerns about the grim future facing the refugees there.
Thailand should immediately cease forced repatriation of the Hmong to Laos. A significant proportion of the Hmong who fled to Phetchabun have ties to that war effort or are fighters who only recently abandoned their last ditch Hmong resistance in Laos.
Certainly such Hmong meet the key criterion for international refugee status _ a well-founded fear of persecution, if returned to their country of origin.
There are also non-refugees among the Hmong in Phetchabun who cross
18 Dec 07
20,000 Burmese resettled
-
INBrief
20,000 Burmese resettled
REFUGEES :A total of 20,878 Burmese refugees from camps in Thailand have been resettled in third countries since their resettlement programme started in January 2005, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
The figure was as of Dec 10 and 3,471 more of the Burmese refugees whose resettlement has been approved have yet to depart.
The largest number, 11,737, have gone to the US, 2,154 to Australia, and 2,132 to Canada. Other resettlement countries are Finland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.
Court clears interrogator
CAR BOMB PLOT :The Criminal Court yesterday threw out a complaint against a police interrogator filed by Maj-Gen Pairoj Theeraparp, a suspect in the alleged car bomb attempt targeting deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in August last year.
The army expert earlier accused Pol Lt-Col Jarupat Thongkomol, an interrogator at the Phahon Yothin police station, of malfeasance for seeking an arrest warrant against him.
However, the court found that the interrogator's move was an act of duty while Maj-Gen Pairoj had intended to avoid police interrogation.
Jitrlada still mentally ill
SCHOOL STABBING CASE :The Bangkok South Criminal Court yesterday postponed the first hearing of the case in which Jitrlada Tantiwanitchasuk was charged with stabbing four Saint Joseph's Convent school girls in September 2005 because she is still mentally ill.
The court rescheduled the hearing to April 21 next year after acknowledging a report on Jitrlada's mental condition from the Galaya Rajanagarindra Institute.
The 36-year-old woman who reportedly suffers from schizophrenia, severely injured the school girls aged 12-14 with two long knives on Sept 9, 2005.
BMA makes book of maps
BANGKOK HISTORY :A book of maps recording changes in the capital over the past century has been pro
23 Jun 07
An increasing burden on the state
-
FOCUS / NORTH KOREAN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS
An increasing burden on the state
By ANUCHA CHAROENPO
Chiang Rai _ The continuing illegal entry of North Koreans across the Mekong River into northern Thailand over the past few years has been a great concern to Thai security officials. They predict that the situation might worsen considerably over the remaining months of this year. ''We're certain that many more North Koreans will be fleeing from their country to Thailand especially in the upcoming winter season to avoid facing food shortages,'' said Surachai Thienchai, superintendent of Chiang Saen police station.
According to police information, the first group of 40 North Korean migrants escaped from their country in 2003, followed by another 30 in 2004. The number of migrants went up dramatically in the years after, to 94 in 2005 and 367 in 2006, respectively.
The police have become more concerned as the number of North Korean escapees has risen to 235 already over the first half of this year.
Pol Col Surachai said his police station has worked with immigration police, marine police and navy officers to step up measures to prevent these illegal migrants from sneaking into the country.
He admitted that the task is difficult as these illegal migrants normally hide in the bushes along the bank of the river to sneak into the country. After getting across the Thai border, these migrants would turn themselves in to the police. They want to be caught so that they may have the good fortune of being deported to third countries such as the United States and South Korea.
The North Korean migrants begin their journey from their country via mainland China, then through Muang Mom village of Laos and finally into Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai province. They usually travel in small groups of 4-5 people.
Many of these North Koreans are women and children because young men normally had to join the military. The escapees have to pay an average of 150,000
18 Apr 07
Hmong girls want parents to live with them in Laos
Confusing ....
"The 21 girls were part of a group of 27 Hmong arrested by the Thai authorities in Phetchabun on Dec 2, 2005. They were later sent to a detention centre in Nong Khai province.
Thai authorities then forced them onto boats and secretly s
-
Twenty-one Hmong girls sent back to Laos two years ago have asked for help in being reunited with their parents on Lao soil, Vientiane's foreign ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy said yesterday. The girls have expressed a wish to be reunited with their parents and other family members living at the Huay Namkhao refugee camp in Phetchabun, he said. They want them to give up refugee status and return to Laos to take care of them.
Mr Yong said Lao Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith yesterday assured his Thai counterpart Nitya Pibulsonggram during a meeting which lasted more than an hour that the girls were in good health.
According to Mr Yong, the girls told Lao authorities that they did not want to return to the Petchabun camp anymore as life was too hard there. Instead, they asked the Lao government to seek cooperation from the Thai government and facilitate the return of their families to join them in Laos.
Earlier, the parents of the Hmong teenagers complained of forced separation by the Thai and Lao authorities and urged that they be allowed to reunite with their children.
However, Mr Yong said it was legally difficult to send the girls, who were illegal immigrants, back to Thailand again.
Two of the girls, adopted by families in Vientiane, had been awarded scholarships by the Lao government. Ten others were also from the Lao capital. Only nine were from the provinces, seven from Xieng Khuang and two from Xayaboury, said Mr Yong.
The 21 girls were part of a group of 27 Hmong arrested by the Thai authorities in Phetchabun on Dec 2, 2005. They were later sent to a detention centre in Nong Khai province.
Thai authorities then forced them onto boats and secretly sent them back to Thaphabath district of Borikhamxay province in Laos three days later without notifying Lao authorities.
Mr Yong said the Lao government has been unable to locate the other six girls who went missing after the forced repatriation.
Foreign Ministry spok
24 Feb 07
Saving North Korea’s Refugees
Who are these people jailed in China for helping refugees?
Despite a gradually hardening Chinese posture toward this humanitarian crisis (now entering its second decade), over the years a few private groups have been bravely spiriting refugees out of C
-
Washington
THE Bush administration can point to precious few successes in its efforts to curb North Korea’s mounting menace — even last week’s celebrated nuclear deal with Kim Jong-il’s government is, for the moment, little more than a written promise from a highly unreliable negotiating partner.
Yet inexplicably, the Bush team continues to overlook a spectacular opportunity to deliver freedom to tens of thousands of North Koreans, to pressure the country from within for fundamental change and to lay the groundwork for a peaceful, reunified Korean Peninsula. By fostering an underground railroad to rescue North Korean refugees living in China, the United States could do all these things at once.
On humanitarian grounds alone, the case for action on behalf of the wretched North Koreans in hiding north of their country’s border along the Yalu River is compelling. While the exact numbers are unknown, this refugee emergency may be second only to Darfur: the International Crisis Group speaks of scores of thousands of refugees, and recently uncovered Chinese official documents indicate hundreds of thousands.
As illegal immigrants in China (Beijing insists North Korean border-crossers are economic migrants, or worse), they live in constant fear and at terrible risk. Women are forced into the sex trade or coerced marriages; men and children on the run have less obvious utility and thus, by some accounts, correspondingly higher mortality.
Yet the North Korean refugees who end up as victims of exploitation, violence or crime in China may be the lucky ones. A far worse fate awaits those whom China “refouls,†or deports to North Korea in violation of Beijing’s commitments under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. North Korea regards fleeing Kim Jong-il’s paradise as an act of disloyalty close to treason. Captives forcibly returned to North Korea face prison, torture and death, attesting to the refugee status that
04 Feb 07
Lao Hmong refugees in Thailand await political deal
This is pretty good--that is, there are numbers and an UNHCR quote--esp from AFP
-
HANOI (AFP) - Thousands of Lao Hmong are stuck in limbo in Thai camps as Bangkok and Vientiane discuss their fate in a case mixing the Vietnam War legacy with the quest of poor villagers for a better life abroad.
ADVERTISEMENT
Around 6,500 people from the ethnic minority group live in Phetchabun camp in northeastern Thailand, where they are awaiting a diplomatic solution between the neighbours and the possible intervention of a third party to help them.
Until mid-2006, the communist rulers of isolated Laos refused to address the issue, which they dismissed as "a Thai internal affair".
But more recently, Vientiane has said it is willing to take back those Hmong who can prove they are Lao citizens and not from another country, as long as no third party is involved in the repatriation process.
The issue is far from resolved. Politically, it is highly sensitive.
Some Hmong, a hilltribe people, were allied with the United States during the "Secret War" in Laos that was part of the wider Vietnam conflict.
After the war ended in 1975, according to various estimates, around 150,000 Hmong fled persecution by the victorious communist regime, finding new homes mostly in the United States and 26 other countries.
Hmong made up about half of all the Lao nationals who fled the country, experts say.
Others hid in the dense Laotian jungle where a handful of fighters have until recently fought a low-level insurgency which, their supporters say, has been met with brutal repression from Lao forces.
Fuelling the exodus since then have been villagers hoping to escape rural poverty in Laos, one of Asia's poorest nations.
"The migrations in Thailand are part of the chain migrations that have happened since 1975," said Grant Evans, a Laos expert at Hong Kong University.
"In the early days after the war, people escaped because they were scared. Now, many see it as an opportunity to join families in the United States."
But the US resettlement programme
23 Dec 06
Laos, Thailand agree Hmong not refugees
Thailand and Laos yesterday agreed the ethnic Hmong sheltering in Phetchabun province are illegal immigrants, not refugees, and they will take care of the situation without the help of international organisations. Defence Minister Boonrawd Somtas said aft
-
IMMIGRATION / UN HELP 'NOT NEEDED'
Laos, Thailand agree Hmong not refugees
ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT
Thailand and Laos yesterday agreed the ethnic Hmong sheltering in Phetchabun province are illegal immigrants, not refugees, and they will take care of the situation without the help of international organisations. Defence Minister Boonrawd Somtas said after a General Border Committee meeting with his Lao counterpart, Lt-Gen Douangchay Phichith, that the two countries were working to verify the nationality of the 6,000 Hmong at Ban Huay Nam Khao.
The Hmong are economic migrants who crossed the border into Thailand with hopes that they would be able go to third countries, Gen Boonrawd said.
The Thai side will take their photos and send them to Laos for verification, he said, adding if they are found to be Lao nationals, Vientiane could take them back.
The two countries have yet to discuss the timeframe of the verification and repatriation process, he said.
Gen Boonrawd added that those who were found not to be Lao would be dealt with at a later date.
''It is a matter for our two countries and it is not necessary to ask an international organisation for assistance because these people are not refugees,'' he said, in an apparent reference to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
UNHCR spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey said any countries who are signatories of the Refugee Convention could conduct a screening process on their own. But she added that the UNHCR would be more than happy to help if needed.
On Monday, a senior adviser to the government said the UNHCR would be invited to check the transparency of the process to define the status of the Hmong.
But the two defence ministers as well as the Foreign Ministry made it clear they would deal with the issue alone.
Lt-Gen Nipat Thonglek, head of the Department of Military Border Affairs, told the Bangkok Post he had recently discussed the Hmong issues with US officials, who emphasis
14 Dec 06
Laos Demands to see proof before transfer
This is unusal or a break from form--Laos saying it might take Hmong back--but it's from Hanoi and from the unreliable AFP.
AFP is reliable in never getting the history quite right: Here in the 2nd paragraph: "when the Vietnam War spilled in their countr
-
November 30, 2006
HANOI (AFP) - Laos will take back ethnic Hmong refugees living in camps in Thailand if authorities there can prove the individuals are Lao citizens, a government spokesman in Vientiane said Thursday.
Thousands of Hmong live in camps near the border, claiming persecution in their communist-ruled homeland where many of them or their parents fought with US forces when the Vietnam War spilled into their country in the 1960s and 70s.
"There were negotiations between the two sides, and the Thais requested Laos consider receiving those people back to Laos," Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy told AFP by telephone.
"The Lao side informed Thailand that we are willing to consider the list of names if they provide us with all the details -- the names, their address, date and place of birth -- so we can prove they are Lao citizens."
Laos has long maintained the Hmong refugees are a Thai domestic issue and said many Hmong could have come from Thailand, Myanmar, China and Vietnam.
Thousands of Hmong have lived in Thailand's Ban Huay Nam Khao and other camps, many hoping to join Hmong who have been repatriated to the United States and other countries.
Lao exile groups and human rights activists say unknown numbers of Hmong remain in remote and mountainous jungle areas of Laos, hiding from attacks by the Lao military, a claim the Vientiane regime denies.
Yong said Laos would only consider taking back Lao Hmong who crossed the border before 2004.
Asked about the possible dates and numbers for repatriations, he said: "All depends on how fast the Thais give us the information."
Amnesty International and other human rights groups have urged Bangkok not to forcibly repatriate refugees, warning they would face persecution in Laos.
Yong said: "The Hmong people are our people
Defectors to settle in North Korea
-
Defectors to settle in South Korea
BANGKOK: The 59 North Korean defectors found hiding in a house in Bangkok's suburbs will be sent for resettlement in South Korea, immigration police and the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.
"The North Koreans have been transferred to the immigration detention centre to be processed to go to South Korea if it is their wish," said UNHCR spokeswomen Kitty McKinsey.
The defectors, mostly women and children, were discovered on Tuesday after they made the long trek across China and through Laos to enter Thailand.
"They will be deported to a third country because normally North Korean defectors don't want to go back to their home country," said Suwat Thamrongsrisukul, Bangkok's immigration police chief.
He did not give a date for the deportation of the 59 North Koreans.
Police Major General Praphan Panikom said on Wednesday that the migrants had been charged with illegal entry and sentenced to six months in prison, but said the court had ordered them to be handed over to immigration police instead.
Previous groups of North Korean defectors have received similar sentences, but they usually end up being accepted by South Korea rather than being sent home.
Chronic food and energy shortages have driven a growing number of North Koreans from their impoverished homeland.
Thailand has become an increasingly popular transit country for North Korean defectors who cross China and then Myanmar or Laos before they set out for their final destination, usually South Korea.
In August, a group of 175 North Koreans was detained - the largest single group of defectors from the communist state ever arrested in Thailand. Another group of 91 defectors was arrested in October.
06 Nov 06
Migrant workers 'should have better access to medical care'
In addition, 66% of the surveyed migrant housemaids were subject to abuse at the hands of their employers, both physical and mental, and given no access to healthcare information. The language barrier made it even more difficult for them to receive the ne
-
HEALTH / FOREIGN LABOURERS
Migrant workers 'should have better access to medical care'
PENCHAN CHAROENSUTHIPAN
Labour advocates have called on the government to improve alien labourers' access to medical treatment following a recent report on rising health problems and infection rates among migrant workers.
Surapong Kongchantuek, member of the Lawyers Council of Thailand sub-panel, said the government should review its healthcare policy for alien workers as they too pay 1,300 baht each in health insurance fees upon registration.
However, these workers receive poor healthcare services from concerned agencies, which spend only a total of 300 million baht annually for their medical care.
His comment was consistent with a recent report showing that health problems were on the rise among alien workers as they had limited access to medical care. The report was drawn up by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW).
The study was based on interviews with 956 female migrant labourers working as housemaids, sex and factory workers in Samut Prakan, Tak, Rayong, Sa Kaeo, and Ubon Ratchathani provinces.
Chiraporn sae Tang, a GAATW representative, said these workers were encountering many kinds of illnesses including ulcers, asthma and sexually-transmitted infections.
They are also suffering from chronic stress problems caused by various forms of pressure from their employers. Seven of the 10 surveyed Cambodian maids had attempted suicide, said Ms Chiraporn.
Top illnesses among the female workers included abnormal menstrual periods due to improper use of birth control medication, ulcers and cystitis, as labourers are forced to work long hours without breaks.
In addition, 66% of the surveyed migrant housemaids were subject to abuse at the hands of their employers, both physical and mental, and given no access to healthcare information. The language barrier made it even more difficult for them to receive the necessar
27 Oct 06
FOCUS / THAI-LAO RELATIONS
Doesn't sound good. Nothing here on the group that is really in danger.
-
FOCUS / THAI-LAO RELATIONS
Bringing Vientiane to the table to discuss the Hmong issue
By SARITDET MARUKATAT
Despite the short period of its mandate, the new government cannot leave the Hmong refugee issue untouched, and must bring Laos to the negotiating table to solve the problem. The interim administration under Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont will stay in power for less than two years. Yet the deadlock over the fate of 6,000 Hmong refugees in Khao Khor district of Phetchabun province, needs to be quickly tackled before the detention camp in the northeastern province becomes another Wat Tham Krabok _ the temple in Saraburi's Phra Phutthabat district, which was a haven for the ethnic group before its closure last year.
Vientiane should be happy with Gen Surayud, after he gave Laos' Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh and President Choummaly Sayasone his assurance, during his Oct 14 visit to Laos, that the abrupt departure of his predecessor, Thaksin Shinawatra, would not affect Thai-Lao projects that had been agreed on, including continued efforts for infrastructure development, investment in hydropower plants and the border demarcation issue. The military-picked premier also made clear to the Laotian leaders his preference for settling all problems through negotiation.
While Laos is keen to ensure the bilateral momentum with Thailand stays undisrupted by the new government in Bangkok, one of Thailand's most pressing issues involving Laos remains the matter of the Hmong refugees.
Gen Surayud's approach towards settling everything at the negotiating table could be tested by his handling of the issue with Vientiane _ whose firm stance is that the issue is an internal problem of Thailand because it considers no Laotian Hmong refugees are living in the kingdom now.
But Thai authorities believe otherwise. They say many of the Hmong living in Phetchabun entered Thailand from Laos. What Thailand has to do is show evidence to back its claim
04 Jul 06
Concern over Hmong refugees
-
Concern over Hmong refugees
Amnesty International has expressed concern about the health of 231 Hmong Laotian refugees being held in police detention facilities in Phetchabun and other provinces.
It said Khao Kho district jail is overcrowded and the refugees, who include women and children, had fallen ill because of lack of food.
"Non-governmental organisations [NGOs] and health authorities have been allowed to provide medical assistance to some of the refugees, but there appears to be no systematic and reliable provisions of food to all of them," Amnesty said in a statement on Friday.
"The refugees are still at risk of forcible return to Laos where they would be in danger of serious human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment.
"Approximately two weeks ago, the provincial governor of Phetchabun, Torphong Ampan reportedly said that the refugees would be sent back to Laos via the Loei province border checkpoint.
"His deputy reiterated this statement, citing a National Security Council policy to deport illegal immigrants."
At least 6,000 ethnic Hmong Laotians live in the makeshift refugee camp in Huay Nam Khao. They started arriving there in large numbers in 2004, seeking refugee status. Some shifted there following the closure of the Hmong settlement at Wat Tham Krabok, near Saraburi - after the US took about 15,000 refugees.
Hundreds more arrived this year - many of them with alleged links to rebel groups still in conflict with Lao and Vietnamese troops in isolated parts of Laos. The majority of the new arrivals said they had been persecuted by the Lao military.
Local authorities have been threatening to return these people, but the Lao government has expressed doubt that they are Lao nationals.
Amnesty said: "The situation at the camp is gradually worsening and an increasing number of refugees are falling ill due to a lack of food.
"Warnings about the health of the camp population have b
08 Feb 06
Laos demands Thailand explain fate of expelled Hmong children
-
February 3, 2006
HANOI (AFP) - Laos has demanded an explanation from Thailand on 26 Hmong children expelled by Thai authorities from a refugee camp across the border two months ago, the Laotian foreign ministry spokesman said Friday.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Somsavat Lengsavad called in Thai Ambassador Rathakit Manathat in Vientiane on Thursday, spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy said by telephone.
"We asked the Thai ambassador for any information on this issue," Yong said, referring to the 26 children and an adult expelled from a refugee camp for Hmong people in northeastern Thailand's Phetchabun province in early December.
"We do not have any responsibility for what has happened," he said, accusing Thailand of failing to inform Laos of the expulsions.
Laos has been trying to deflect criticism after the US government chastised Vientiane's handling of the matter.
"We find this obstruction by the Lao government troubling and disappointing," the US State Department said earlier this week.
Laos has maintained it is still looking for the missing Hmong in provinces bordering Thailand. But several foreign sources have told AFP that they believe Laotian officials have located the children.
On Friday, the France-based Lao Movement for Human Rights said in a statement that Laos is "a monitored country where nothing ever occurs without the consent of the authorities of the State-Party".
UN agencies also have voiced concern over the issue and offered help in locating and caring for the children.
Washington has also accused the Lao government of failing to grant UN agencies access to the Hmong.
Yong said Laos was in a "process of dialogue" with the United States on the issue.
Foreign sources also say the Hmong were arrested by Thai authorities on the pretext that
28 Jan 06
Concerns mount for missing hmong
kids from Petchabun forced back to Laos. Pretty typical lousy reporting--your figure that the Hmong were abandoned by the US for 30 years. I'll faint if a so-called news story ever mentions Thai policy.
-
Concerns mount for missing Hmong
The children disappeared from a camp in Phetchabun, Thailand
Concerns are mounting for a group of at least 26 Hmong children who have been separated from their families in Thailand and are now in Laos.
According to the UN's refugee agency, the children are believed to be in the town of Paksan, east of Vientiane, but it is unclear how they got there.
The children had been living in a camp for refugees in north-eastern Thailand.
Their families arrived in Thailand last summer, claiming they were being persecuted by the Lao government.
HMONG IN LAOS
Ethnic group that often complains of marginalisation in Lao society
Took the side of the US in the Vietnam War - and say they are persecuted because of it
Many still live in jungles
Small numbers say they are fighting rebel insurgency
Thousands have fled to Thailand in recent years
US took in 14,000 Hmong recently, but has no plans for taking more
Laos' forgotten Hmong
Concern had already been voiced for these families, who said they undertook the arduous journey across the border because they mistakenly believed the US was still taking in Hmong from Thai refugee camps.
They have yet to be given legal permission to stay in Thailand, and are currently living in a temporary camp in Phetchabun province, where they are being helped by aid agencies.
Since discovering the children - many of whom are teenagers - have disappeared, international organisations have been trying to facilitate their return.
"There are now discussions going on between the Thai and the Lao governments to try to reunite them with their parents," said UNHCR spokesman Bhairaja Panday.
"It's an issue that everyone is concerned with," he added.
Deportation reports
It is still not clear how the children ended up in Laos, although there is speculation that Thai officials secretly deported them back over the border when they wandered outside the temporary area desig
14 Sep 05
Bangkok Post Thursday 08 September 2005 - Pulo gets the rap for 'refugees'
The govt blames PULO. Mahathir says Malaysia should shelter them pending UN interviews.
-
Previous storyNext story
Pulo gets the rap for 'refugees'
Mahathir urges KL to shelter 131 Thais
ANUCHA CHAROENPO and DPA
The Foreign Ministry yesterday accused the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) of being behind the flight of 131 Thai Muslims from Narathiwat into Kelantan state in northern Malaysia.
It was the first time that a government agency has named an organisation as being behind the problem.
Previously, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and armed forces commanders said they believed militant leaders were the source of the problem and were trying to turn the southern violence into an irnational issue.
Yesterday's accusation was made as former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad spoke out, calling for his country to shelter the Thais being irviewed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow cited illigence reports as saying 10 leading Pulo members had travelled to Kelantan early last month and more followed on Aug 25, less than a week before the villagers' flight began.
Mr Sihasak said they had spread rumours in Malaysia about possible major violence in southern Thailand in the hope the Malaysians would tell their Thai relatives to cross the border to take shelter in Kelantan.
Pulo had set up the Pattani Human Rights Organisation and an irnet website, www.pmhro.org, as a front to contact the Geneva-based UNHCR, asking the agency to probe the matter, he said.
Pulo claimed the Thai Muslims had fled into Malaysia because they feared for their safety and worried about the use of violence by authorities after the government implemed the Executive Decree on Public Administrations in Emergency Situations in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, he said.
''Pulo's move was aimed at tarnishing the country's image,'' he said.
The spokesman denied any link between the death of Muslim cleric Satopa Yuso on Aug 29 at Ban Lahan in Narathiwat's Sungai Padi district,
27 Jul 05
MEDIA: A bearer of bad news: A reporter is expelled from Thailand after a dispatch on a Vietnamese refugee camp - July 29, 1982
Barry Wain expelled for a report on conditions in refugee camps in Thailand. Shortly after The Refused published. Thanat Khoman already a nut.
-
Far Eastern Economic Review
Reference: Vol. 117, No. 30, 23/29 Jul 1982, 10
MEDIA: A bearer of bad news: A reporter is expelled from Thailand after a dispatch on a Vietnamese refugee camp
John McBeth
Bangkok: Asian Wall Street Journal correspondent Barry Wain this week became the first foreign newsman ordered out of Thailand since the REVIEW's Norman Peagam was expelled on three hours notice in February 1977. Wain, 37, the Journal's Bangkok-based diplomatic writer and author of a recently published book on Indochinese refugees. The Refused, was censured for an article in the newspaper's July 8 edition on living conditions for Vietnamese refugees at a camp known as NW82 on the Thai-Cambodian border.
The Australian journalist was called in by the Foreign Ministry on July 13 and during a brief meeting with Information Department Director-General Jetn Sucharitkul was told to leave the country within seven days. It was not immediately clear whether he had been declared persona non grata as was the case with Peagam. Officials later said instructions for his expulsion came from Deputy Prime Minister Thanat Khoman, who has often bitterly criticised foreign press reports that tended in his view to cast Thailand in a bad light.
Two years ago, Thanat wrote a strongly worded letter to the Journal over an article by Wain on commentaries in the Thai press dealing with what was then reported to be the prickly relationship between the deputy premier and Foreign Minister Sitthi Sawetsila.
Although Wain was told his NW82 article was biased and full of errors, it was only 11 days after publication that the Journal received an official government response through Thai Consul-General in Hongkong Kamtorn Chitkongthai -- a short letter which addressed itself to very few of the points made in the lengthy article. One such point, that journalists were permitted to visit NW82, puzzled Bangkok-based correspondents because few if any have been allowed in. When an American TV netw -
India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty
by Abraham George
Writers’ Collective, 368 pages, $26.95
Deepening Democracy: Challenges of Governance and Globalization in India
by Madhu Purnima Kishwar
Oxford University Press, 334 pages, $29.95
Reviewed by Melana Zyla Vickers
July/August 2005
When Indian-born high-tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Abraham George tried to deliver a container of U.S.-donated flour to a 300-pupil school he founded in Tamil Nadu, an Indian port official blocked it because it came from a foreign Christian group and because Mr. George refused to pay a hefty bribe. The 40-ton container sat on the docks for days incurring port charges while Mr. George tried to get it through customs. After several unsuccessful rounds with various bureaucrats, he gave up and burned the whole shipment.
It wasn’t the George Foundation founder’s first encounter with corruption and abuse in government. After completing construction of the school for “untouchable†children, Mr. George invited the Tamil Nadu state governor to the official opening. Unhappy to oblige, the governor showed up with 250 police and some 20 cars, and insisted that the little school feed her whole entourage. Meanwhile, a district tax subcollector demanded to be seated at the official podium, as did the deputy director general of police. Mr. George couldn’t accommodate them, as the subcollector’s boss and other officials were already seated there. Soon after the event, the subcollector “dispatched some officials to tear down our border fence. She also instructed her staff to break up the access road…that we had improved at considerable cost.†Other miffed officials ensured that the school got “little or no cooperation…in public services like electricity, telephone and road repair.â€
Other eye openers abound in India Untouched. The poverty from which
1 - 19 of 19
Showing 20▼ items per page
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Sponsored Links
Ads by Google
Top Contributors
Groups interested in refugees
Related Lists on Diigo
-
Refugees & Asylum Seekers
Items: 1 | Visits: 12
Created by: Nirvana Watkins
-
Immigration
Items: 44 | Visits: 11
Created by: Ted Perlmutter
-
LTEL08
Items: 3 | Visits: 12
Created by: miz minh
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo