Japan urged to push for halt to 'attacks' on Hmong

LONDON, March 23 Kyodo

Japan should press Laos to end its alleged attacks on an ethnic minority group, Amnesty International said Friday.

The comments came as the rights group released a report claiming the Lao army mounts attacks on people from the Hmong ethnic grouping which lives in the country's mountainous jungle area.

These claims have been repeatedly denied by the Lao government.

Brittis Edman, Southeast Asia researcher at Amnesty, said, ''We urge Japan to use its influence as Laos' single biggest donor to ensure that the Lao authorities end all attacks against the Hmong, and that they allow access to international organizations who can provide humanitarian aid and monitor human rights abuses.''

Amnesty claims ''thousands'' of Hmong are living on the run from the Lao army which has allegedly 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.

Fighting starvation, the groups spend 12-18 hours a day foraging for roots and husks. Children display the distended bellies and bleached hair of malnutrition. They have no access to healthcare, leaving the people open to diseases and infection from untreated wounds, Amnesty claims.

Natalie Hill, deputy Asia Pacific Director at Amnesty, said, ''The Hmong groups living in the jungle are destitute. 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 of their lives.''

Despite reports of killings and attacks by Lao security forces, Amnesty International is aware of only two cases that have been investigated by the authorities.

In both instances, the authorities concluded the information about the attacks was fabricated and issued denials.

In one of the incidents in April 2006, 17 children were among the 26 people who had been killed while foraging for food. Survivors said around 15-20 soldiers from the Lao People's Army had ambushed them with rocket-propelled guards.

According to Amnesty, many of the Hmong who flee to Thailand face unlawful deportation by the Thai authorities before they have been assessed by the U.N. refugee agency.

The human rights group claims the Lao authorities refuse to allow human rights organizations unfettered access to areas of concern and only limited information is available about the fate of those Hmong who are deported back to Thailand or who choose to come down from the jungles to try to integrate into Lao society.

A spokesman at the Lao Embassy in Paris told Kyodo News that the allegations against the army were frequently made and ''not true.'' And the Lao Foreign Ministry said in a statement at the time of the incident in April 2006 that the government and army had no policy to kill its own citizens.

Last year, Yong Chanthalangsy, a Lao foreign ministery spokesman, denied any attacks took place in Laos.

He is reported to have said, ''They (Hmong) always claim they are repressed by the Lao authorities but in reality there is not a single attack against anybody in our country. There is no more conflict in our country. When they claim they have been attacked it is all justification in order to be able to get a plane ticket to go to the United States.''

The Hmong groups in the Lao jungles are the remnants and descendents of the ''Secret Army,'' a CIA-funded faction who fought the Communist Lao forces alongside the United States in the early 1960s when the Vietnam War spilled across the border.

When the Communist forces won in 1975, a small number of soldiers from the losing side launched armed resistance against the government, based in the jungle.

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