Hmong tribespeople surrender in Laos
BANGKOK - After decades on the run, 170 women, children and old men of the Hmong ethnic minority — once part of a U.S.-backed secret army fighting communists in Laos — emerged from their jungle hideouts on Saturday to surrender to the government. Thousands of their fellow hilltribe people are expected to follow their move, the first step in closing the book on one of the most tragic episodes of the Vietnam War.
U.S. sympathizers who rendezvoused with the tribespeople said the first batch turning themselves in to the communist government were received warmly when they arrived shortly after first light at a Hmong village in central Laos.
The group, after several days' hard travel, began trekking at about 5 a.m. from a mountainside spot where they had encamped overnight to emerge at Chong Thuang village on Highway 7, a major road in Xieng Khouang province, said Ed Szendrey, a pro-Hmong activist from the United States who met up with them to help ensure their safety.
The Hmong were recruited by the
CIA to fight on behalf of a pro-American government during the Vietnam War, only to find themselves all but abandoned after their communist enemies, the Pathet Lao, won a long civil war in 1975. Fearing for their lives, many fled to Thailand, later resettling in the United States and elsewhere. But thousands stayed behind, some adjusting to the new hardline regime and others staying in the jungle, where they faced continuing attacks.
But those animosities seemed to be forgotten on Saturday, as the local police chief greeted them and villagers, also Hmong, prepared rice and other food for the tribespeople, Szendrey told The Associated Press in Bangkok.
If all goes peacefully, they will be followed by several thousand others from various Hmong bands hiding throughout Laos, Szendrey said in earlier interviews in Bangkok. The U.S.-based organization he helped found, the Fact-Finding Commission, has stayed in touch with the far-flung remnants of the Hmong — 20 or so groups scattered around the mountainous country — through satellite telephones.
Little reliable information about their fate was available until late 2002, when two journalists working for Time magazine made contact with one of the Hmong groups, and came out with startling photographs and stories of their desperate existence. Their reports helped highlight the plight of the Hmong, and were followed by more publicity, including several highly critical reports by Amnesty International, which accused the Lao government of gross human rights violations in persecuting the Hmong.
The 170 who surrendered Saturday were apparently part of the group visited by the Time magazine journalists.
Szendrey, of Oroville, Calif., said that although the plan to surrender was voluntary, it was made in desperation as several pockets of the Hmong, pursued by government troops, believed they would starve if they didn't turn themselves in.
He said no soldiers or armed militia were present when they were received on Saturday.
The local police chief, Wa Neng Lor — himself a Hmong — said he had been told to expect the surrender and that the military had been ordered to stand down. Some villagers, however, expressed concern about what might happen if Lao soldiers showed up, Szendrey said.
The surrender had been planned for weeks and was debated by many in the Hmong community in the United States, some segments of which opposed any reconciliation with the communists. Vang Pao, the group's wartime commander and the de facto leader of the Hmong community in the U.S., supported the decision to surrender.
"It looks like the government is prepared to handle it on the local level and not get the military involved," said Szendrey speaking to AP via satellite phone.
About 20 Hmong communities around Laos are believed to have been involved in low-level fighting against the government, which has been reluctant to acknowledge any insurgency, instead usually labeling the armed Hmong groups as "bandits."
U.N agencies had been contacted about the surrender plans, and Szendrey said the U.N. World Food Program had expressed a willingness to aid those who surrendered.
Szendrey and his associates, who planned to leave the group later Saturday when U.N. officials and foreign diplomats were expected to turn up, described a happy scene in sharp contrast to the daily lives of brutal desperation the Hmong had been leading for years in the jungle.
The Hmong had been in such remote areas that most of the children had never seen a motor vehicle, he said. When a big truck pulled up to the village, they were astonished at the sight.
By Grant Peck - The Associated Press - June 04, 2005.
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