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| KC.Oritz -TIME magazine |
I just finished reading "Nightmare in Laos" by Kay Danes. This is the dramatic story of an Australian woman who was imprisoned in a detention camp in Laos. I was deeply saddened by her struggles, but the plight of the Hmong people in Laos is what struck me the most. I have worked along side people who had escaped Laos only to work on farms in Australia, despite being very well educated people, so this story really made me think about what it must be like to lose your homeland to an invading country who have completely different beliefs to you and who appear to want your culture completely erased.
Sadly, this has happened to so many people throughout the world and continues to happen even now. Too many of us lead comfortable lives, never giving a thought to the well being of our fellow Earthlings. The Hmong people live in regions of Southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. During the First and Second Indochina wars, France and the CIA in America recruited thousands of Hmong people, many of whom were young boys to fight against the invading Vietnamese and Pathet Lao insurgents. After the war many of the Hmong fled as refugees to Thailand seeking political asylum. Some have been lucky and resettled in Western countries, but many are still suffering in their own country while most of the world is unaware. So many tourists visit both Thailand and Laos with very little idea of the dangerous and brutal undercurrents in these countries. The Pathet Lao declared the Hmong people dead and continue to imprison, interrogate and kill these people whenever possible. The Hmong people continue to live in fear of the Laos people's army today as they are still perceived to be spies for the United States. Many are living in camps in the mountainous regions of Laos and Thailand.
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| www.rfa.org |
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| Internal displacement monitoring centre |
There appear to be very few organisations willing to help these people, but I did find RADION International are doing what they can to help. This is their website if you would like to have a look
http://www.radion-international.org/
I also highly recommend reading more about the Hmong people's culture and history.
