Thousands of Hmong, including women and children, are still being hunted by the communist government of Laos 30 years after the CIA employed a "secret" Hmong army to fight the communist Pathet Lao, a London-based human rights group said.

"The Lao army continues to mount violent attacks on them, even though the jungle-dwellers' military capacity is all but depleted decades after some of them fought [against the Pathet Lao] in the CIA-funded 'secret army' in Laos during the Vietnam War," Amnesty International said in its statement.

The Hmong frequently move camp to evade the Lao military, who have attacked them with AK-47s and grenades both inside their camps and outside when they search for food. Large numbers of Hmong, including children, have scars and wounds from bullets and shrapnel, the statement said.

"The Hmong groups living in the jungle are destitute and the Lao authorities have a responsibility to protect them, not least because of the children involved. Instead, their regular attacks mean the groups live in perpetual danger," said Natalie Hill, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific deputy director.

Amnesty urged the government in Vientiane to end all pressure on the Hmong groups and allow international organisations access to provide humanitarian assistance.

The Lao government consistently denies the allegations, saying Vientiane has no anti-Hmong policy and no reason to crack down on its own citizens.

Amnesty said the Lao authorities rarely investigate reports of killings and attacks on the Hmong made by the armed forces. Two cases were under recent investigation but the government concluded that the reports were fabricated and issued blanket denials.

In one of the incidents, in April 2006, 17 children were among 26 people who were killed while foraging for food north of the tourist town of Vang Vieng, Amnesty said. Survivors reported that 15-20 soldiers from the Lao People's Army ambushed them with rocket-propelled grenades.

One young woman named Pakou described how her family was captured in the jungle when she was 18. She was taken alone to a police post where she was locked in a room for a year with two other Hmong women.

They were repeatedly gang-raped by the police and made to do housework. Pakou was traumatised but she managed to escape across the border to Thailand.

Thailand currently shelters some 7,000 Hmong in Phetchabun province's Ban Huay Nam Khao village. Many in the Hmong population there claim they were closely associated with, or members of, the CIA's secret Hmong army before the fall of Vientiane in 1975.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation