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Watchdog accuses Bangkok of ignoring rights of refugees

The Thai government must stop sending ethnic Hmong people seeking refuge in Thailand back to Laos without first assessing whether they face abuse and persecution back home, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

Eleven migrants last week left an informal refugee camp that is home to about 8,000 Hmong in northern Thailand and returned to Laos ahead of an official visit to Vientiane by Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

FORCED TO LEAVE

Officials from Thailand and Laos said the 11 had volunteered to return home, but some monitoring groups reported that the Thai military used dogs to force the families onto trucks.

"The Thai government's claim that these were `volunteers' who wanted to return to Laos is highly dubious," said Bill Frelick, the refugee policy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"Volunteers don't need police dogs to coax them onto trucks," he said.

GO HOME

Thailand has said it plans to repatriate all the Hmong in the Phetchabun camp, which rights groups say violates international law as the UN refugee agency has been denied access to the camp.

"Without a fair and transparent procedure to screen refugees, Human Rights Watch considers Thailand's forcible return of these 11 Hmong to Laos as refoulement, a violation of its international law obligations," Frelick said.

The Hmong fought alongside US forces in the 1960s and 1970s when the Vietnam War spilled into Laos.

After the war ended in 1975, many fled to the jungles fearing the communist authorities would hunt them down for working with the Americans.

Amnesty International said last year that Lao forces were still hunting and committing abuses against scattered groups of former Hmong fighters hiding in the jungles -- a claim denied by Laos.
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