Each day, Mos Moua struggles to stay ahead of those who took her husband’s life.
Moua, a Hmong refugee, lives in the jungles of Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand. She’s one of thousands of Hmong hiding there as illegal immigrants, fearful of returning to a brutal government in their homeland of Laos and on the outside looking in on the American resettlement program.
Moua, the wife of Pa Kao Her, a leader of the Hmong in Thailand who was assassinated in October 2002, claims her husband’s killers are after her.
“I know the people who shot my husband were Lao, and I know who around here helped them get to him,” Moua said last month. “But until I’m facing someone who can do something about it, I can’t tell anyone who these people are because right now I’m already being watched night and day. They know I know it’s them and they’re looking for any opportunity to take me down without trouble for them.”
Pa Kao Her led men to fight the Pathet Lao communist forces in a CIA-backed secret war in Laos during the Vietnam era. Afterward, the Pathet Lao executed a war of genocide against the Hmong for their decision to side with Americans.
During that period, Her joined a movement called Chao Fa (“freedom fighter”), recruiting former CIA soldiers and members of other ethnic groups in Laos to fight the Pathet Lao. His group eventually became the Ethnic Liberation Organization of Laos, its members became freedom fighters, and Her became their leader.
Moua said her husband led more than 100 groups to fight for freedom and democracy in Laos after the Vietnam War.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Her led the group, renamed Democratic Chao Fa Party of Laos, which entered an agreement with the Thai government to fight Lao military incursions. The men fought secret battles along the Thai border inside Laos.
When Thailand ended the agreement and began repairing relations with Laos, Her returned to Thailand to hide with his soldiers and their families. For several years, Chiang Rai provided cover for Her from the Pathet Lao loyalists hunting him.
Moua said her husband was killed as they walked out of their home. She later discovered that he had been tracked with information provided by people who lived around them.
With her husband gone, Moua is desperate to get word of her people’s plight out to the world.
“This is the first time I’ve been able to sneak out and speak to someone who can get my words out that my life is in danger,” Moua said. “I’m scared and I’m hoping that Americans will open a route for those of us outside of Tham Krabok to go to the United States.”
Hlee Vang writes for the Oshkosh Northwestern.
