Hundreds of Hmong refugees at Wat Tham Krabok will not be allowed to come to the United States because they did not register for the resettlement program.
Some of the Hmong say that’s because the Thai government led them to believe they would be sent back to Laos, not to the United States.
The Thai government is allowing only refugees whose names and pictures were taken at the camp from April to August 2003 to make the move. About 15,000 are on the list and some already have made it to the United States.
Nearly 1,000 Hmong not on the list have been denied resettlement, according to a letter from Wat Tham Krabok refugees to the Lao Human Rights Council Inc.
Wa Leng Xiong said he and hundreds of others at the camp fled when the registration was announced, out of fear that they would be returned to their homeland and its ruthless communist rulers.
Xiong, in his early 50s, is a former freedom fighter who led Hmong men and boys to fight in the CIA’s secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War. He fears that going back to Laos, where the Pathet Lao government continues to hunt for those like him, would mean death.
Repatriation is still fresh in the minds of Xiong and others.
Yang Thao said he witnessed such events in 1993 as the United Nations-sponsored refugee camps in Thailand were being closed.
“I was called to (a) scene by Thai officials because the Hmong refugees were so upset about being sent back to Laos that hundreds of the people just began praying, yelling and crying to the sky for help,” Thao recalled. “The Thai U.N. representative was scared by the scene and called me in to handle the situation.
“I asked if there was any way to keep the people in Thailand, and the U.N. representative said that arrangements were made and the people had to go. So I sat down with the people and we cried together.”
In the end, those who refused to get into the trucks headed for Laos were tied up and thrown into the vehicles, Thao said.
Va Chang, 27, who has lived at Wat Tham Krabok for 12 years, is one of the refugees who registered for resettlement in 2003.
He said he and others did so only because they couldn’t afford to flee and find housing or land elsewhere, or because they lived with elderly or young family members.
“Those who had the money left,” said Chang, who expects to move with his family to Appleton.
He said the refugees initially were told registration was for Napho, a former refugee camp known for being the last stop before repatriation to Laos. Not until two months after the registration period did the government announce the destination was the United States.
The homes of registered refugees were stamped with ID numbers while the homes of those who fled were destroyed.
The military moved onto the Wat Tham Krabok grounds, put up razor wire around the perimeter and controlled access through a gate.
Hue Lor, who had moved his family out of the camp a year earlier to find work, said he was told the Hmong who tried sneaking back into the camp in hope of getting registered were either arrested or beaten.
“That scared us from even heading back to Wat Tham Krabok to try and register,” he said.
