Two British journalists who risked their lives to report on the Hmong rebels in Laos visited the Fox Valley area Thursday to offer the Hmong community a viewing of the video they made from their experience.
The Hmong rebels, remnants of the CIA’s secret army formed during the Vietnam War to fight its secret war in Laos, a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, have been on the run from the government and continue to fight a war that ended for the rest of the world nearly three decades ago.
But while the rest of the world has moved on, the Hmong rebels continue to push deeper into the jungles of Laos, trekking through tough terrain and whipping branches, vines and thorn in their attempt to flee a government that’s still ardent about punishing the people for their decision to side with the United States during the Vietnam War.
Wednesday and Thursday, Ruhi Hamid and Misha Maltsev of the British Broadcasting Corporation, stopped in the Appleton as part of their U.S. tour visiting Hmong communities interested in seeing their video called “Day of War: Frontlines.” The pair recently returned from Laos in March.
The video depicts the struggles of the Hmong rebels. It was the result of their efforts for a BBC project called “One Day of War,” which looked at 16 different war zones around the world.
Although the BBC video hasn’t been publicly shown in the United States yet, the British people have seen it.
Of the 16 war zone conflicts the BBC reported on, Hamid said the Hmong situation has received some of the most intense of responses from the British people because its situation is “different” and “unusual.”
While other conflicts resulted because of ideological or religious differences, the Hmong simply are in the situation they’re in because they don’t want to fight and are fleeing for their lives, Hamid said.
“All of their fighting now is to be left alone. Their demands are so few,” Hamid said. “They’re a group of people who are being persecuted for a decision their grandparents made to take the side of Americans.”
Those on the run today from the Lao government are the children and grandchildren of veterans. They’re into the second generation burdened with a decision their grandparents made, Hamid said.
There are about 20 Hmong rebel groups scattered throughout Laos. Each group can have anywhere between 1,500 people to around 200. Hamid and Maltsev followed one of the smaller groups.
Most are women and children, with many of the men killed in fighting. The men who’ve survived nearly all have some kind of bullet wound or deformity from run-ins with enemy fire.
The people have survived by living off roots and leaves. The have no access to medicine and rely only on herbal medicine.
The journalists said while the Hmong community has known about the rebels’ situation, the video and photographs they obtained play an important role in showing the world what the community hasn’t been able to prove because the Lao government repeatedly deny the situation exists while it continues to refuse journalists access into the country. Those who’ve attempted in the past were captured and jailed.
Hamid and Maltsev were able to enter the country as tourists before they were escorted to the Hmong rebels by an underground network of people.
“The Lao government denies there are rebel activities in the country but have said that it would be advantageous if the mountain people return to civilization,” said Hamid.
The government has also accused the Hmong rebels of growing opium to get arms.
“It’s ridiculous,” Hamid said. “There’s no time to grow anything.”
The people are constantly on the run from the government, never staying at a place for more than two or three weeks.
For that reason, she calls the Hmong rebels’ situation a “humanitarian crisis.”
They’re running out of food because they can’t replenish what they’ve used. They can’t grow anything to eat for fear their fields will get poisoned or that it’ll leave tracks for those hunting them, Hamid said.
“It’s imperative that the international community respond to their plight. They will die if not from starvation then they’ll get shot,” she said.
In the video, the people unashamedly cried into the camera and begged to be saved from their situation.
A Hmong man said that his people either had to be saved or a bomb should drop on them.
“We would rather not be left to starve to death,” he said.
Hlee Vang: (920) 426-6656 or hvang@thenorthwestern.com.
