Leading foreign NGO to withdraw from Hmong camp in Phetchabun

MSF (Doctors Without Borders), which won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago, runs a refugee camp for more than 5,000 Hmong in northern Phetchabun province, but it has been long been unhappy with Thailand's treatment of the hilltribe people from Laos.

The group will stage a press conference on Wednesday to announce they will stop working at the Phetchabun camp because it opposes Thailand's policy of forcibly returning all Hmong from Huay Nam Khao in Phetchabun.

Thailand and Laos claim all 5,000 Hmong in the camp are economic migrants, and that the 2,000 or so ethnic Hmong already returned to Laos have gone back voluntarily.

MSF has been providing food, shelter and medical care worth more than 1 million euros a year to the camp, but has had continual problems with Thai military officials and the Army's psychological operations unit from Phitsanulok.

There have been repeated complaints of Hmong camp leaders being jailed, harassed and denied food before being forced to "voluntarily return."

The latest victim of alleged mistreatment is Joua Va Yang, who helped a BBC crew led by Ruhi Hamid interview a group of "jungle Hmong" in 2004.

Joua, 40, has reportedly been jailed for several weeks and given minimal food despite lobbying behind-the-scenes in Bangkok and London to try to stop him being deported. Recent news that Joua was in the Army compound at Huay Nam Khao (outside the camp) after "agreeing" to return to Laos has shocked friends and supporters, who claim he faces years in jail if sent home.

MSF made a public appeal more than a year ago for international monitors to properly screen the Hmong for those with genuine refugee claims, saying dozens of people in the camp had bullet wounds and there was the potential for riots and suicides if the Hmong were not properly screened before returns undertaken.

The Thai Army later claimed only about 100 people have proven links to fighters who fought for the CIA in the "secret war" against the communists, but MSF - plus major human rights groups and Hmong advocates in the US - believe the number of people who are legitimate refugees could be many times higher.

They said the Lao government's human rights record is poor and there is minimal transparency, because the UN or third parties are forbidden from properly monitoring the returnees.

Vientiane has staged tours for diplomats and UN representatives to the returnee village of Ban Phalak but these have been condemned as "Potemkin-style" shows where returnees are not free to speak, and deliberately designed to mask ongoing suppression of Hmong, which has carried on since the end of the war.

Analysts monitoring Laos estimate that only about 1,000 Hmong remain in the jungle and refuse to integrate into mainstream society, but reports continue of ethnic Hmong being killed.

A lobby group in Washington and other sources in the US and Thailand said last week they received reports of up to nine children allegedly killed in clashes last month near Phou da Phou and Phu Bia in northern Laos.

Meanwhile, medical projects by MSF France in Mae Sot, treating migrants for tuberculosis, and MSF Belgium in Sangkhla Buri, treating ethnic Mon from Burma for malaria, will continue.