Washington says it has no plans to resettle more Hmong.
While many Hmong in Laos have reached an accommodation with the communist government, thousands remain on the run in the jungles, fighting a desperate rearguard battle against soldiers because they fear what might befall them if they surrender.
Others still stream into Thailand, lured by the notion they will get refugee status in a third country. Some are caught and sent back to Laos, but many others have managed to settle in Huay Nam Khao -- the only Hmong refugee camp in the country.
Life in the village for the mix of elderly soldiers and young families is a monotonous waiting game for word of their refugee status.
Barred from leaving the village and unable to work, they are forced to depend mostly on handouts from the humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres.
There are no schools. Homes have no electricity.
"The density of the population is very high, which has caused sanitation problems in the area," said Gilles Isard, chief of the group's Thai operation.
Authorities are planning to move the Hmong later this month to nearby locations where hundreds of new huts have been built in a compound surrounded by a barbed wire fence.
The move was planned several months ago over concerns that camp was becoming crowded.
Relations with Thai authorities are tense. Many Hmong fear they will be repatriated to Laos, where they could face persecution.
On June 9, about 160 were caught trying to sneak into Huay Nam Khao, and deported.
Thai authorities have insisted the Hmong in Huay Nam Khao are illegal immigrants, and have denied the UN refugee agency access to them.
Few Hmong in the village would talk about the alleged plot against Laos, and most said they never knew Vang Pao firsthand.
Former soldier Vang Yong Tong, 53, said he heard about the charges against Vang Pao -- whom he referred to as "father" -- on US-sponsored Radio Free Asia, which beams its broadcasts to authoritarian states like Laos.
But he too said it would be suicide to consider returning in a bid to overthrow the Laos regime.
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