More than 400 members of the Hmong hill tribe minority who have been on the run for decades from the communist government of Laos surrendered to the authorities there yesterday, supporters of the group said.
The group, which came out of the jungle to Ban Ha village in the central province of Xieng Khouang at about 5am, are one of several ragtag bands of Hmong who constitute a tragic legacy of the Vietnam War, during which they served a pro-US government that fell to the communists in 1975.
Details of their surrender were provided by the US-based Fact Finding Commission, which lobbies on their behalf and is in touch with the Hmong through satellite telephones. Though it could not be independently verified, information provided in the past by the commission has proven to be accurate.
Fearing persecution, many Hmong fled Laos after the 1975 takeover. Some accommodated themselves to the new regime, but others fled to the jungles where they faced intermittent attacks from Laotian government forces.
In recent years, facing more isolation and starvation as well as continued military pressure, several bands of Hmong have turned themselves in.
The surrendering group's chieftain, Moua Tua Ter, accompanied the 405 people -- mostly children -- to Ban Ha before withdrawing back to the jungle with a few of his guerrillas, said a dispatch from the commission, based on information received by satellite phone.
The group appeared to be "very hungry and tired," the commission said.
Fifty Lao government soldiers showed up a couple of hours after the group arrived and began interviewing and registering those who surrendered, in preparation for resettling them, the commission said. At the same time, the village chief served them a meal of rice and pig.
The mood turned cooler as soldiers separated the Hmong from the villagers and refused to say to where they would be moved, according to the latest information received.
The two founders of the Fact Finding Commission, Ed and Georgie Szendrey of Oroville, California, witnessed a similar surrender in June last year of about 170 people, also from Moua Tua Ter's group.
That surrender had been expected to be closely followed by thousands of others, winding up the Hmongs' decades in the wilderness.
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