NONG KHAI

Deportation move spurs mass suicide threat

Sudden bid to return 153 Hmong to Laos sparks wild scenes at detention centre

Thailand and Laos were forced to delay the deportation of 153 Hmong to Laos after wild scenes at Nong Khai immigration detention centre yesterday when dozens of refugees barricaded themselves in their cells and threatened to commit mass suicide, officials from both sides said.

Thailand and Laos' joint committee on border security had already signed a document of repatriation in preparation to send the group, including a new-born infant, back across the Mekong River to Laos.

Women and children were seen being dragged into buses and trucks at the Nong Khai IDC - while men tied themselves up in the cells.

Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalansy said in a phone interview: "Some of them were willing to go, but many others were not ready, so officials on both sides agreed to delay the plan and work on the matter later."

Yong, together with a senior Laos delegation led by Colonel Siphanh Boudthavong, head of the Laos Defence Ministry's Boundary Department, crossed the Mekong River from Vientiane to oversee the deportation.

However, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) opposed the move, as it would contravene the international convention to not return people to countries where they face a possible threat of persecution, UNHCR officials said yesterday.

Most of the 153 are registered with the UNHCR as "people of concern" and deemed to be at "serious risk of persecution or death". Officials from Western nations had already interviewed many of the 153 with a view to resettling them in third nations, such as Australia or countries in Europe, they said.

The drama began at about 8am when Thai authorities in Nong Khai informed the Hmong they were going to be sent back. About 20-30 Thai police were present on the street at the time. The number of police later increased to 50, who surrounded the detention centre.

Trucks were parked outside to transport the Hmong back.

However, they refused to comply and Thai authorities started forcing their way into the cells to remove the women and children.

By about 10am, officials had dragged the women and children out and loaded them onto the trucks. Two Hmong women, who refused to get on the trucks, were severely beaten by Thai authorities, according to Yong Lee, a Hmong detainee who spoke on a phone from his cell.

"Unless Thai people help us, it's better to die here rather than go back to cruel punishment in Laos," he said.

There were several reports the Hmong men were tear-gassed in the cells yesterday, but this was unable to be confirmed.

Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman Yong said Vientiane would take the Hmong back to their place of origin without punishment for illegally leaving the communist-ruled state.

The group is a part of some 7,000 Hmong who are being sheltered in Phetchabun's Ban Huay Nam Khao. They slipped out of Laos to seek asylum in Thailand. They claim they were associates of the US Central Intelligence Agency force that fought the "secret war" against the communists during the 1960s-'70s - but fled recently from suppression at home.

Thai and Lao authorities consider the group victims of human trafficking syndicates who have been lured to seek a better life in Thailand or perhaps resettlement abroad.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation
Thu, February 1, 2007