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US President Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign promised Americans and indeed the world that he would transparently "play ball" where human rights issues are concerned.
However, it appears that Obama has ripped a page out of former President George Bush's playbook and human rights issues will take a backseat to good old American greed and consumerism with his decision to boost trade ties with Laos last week.
While the outrageous U.S. government charges leveled at Vang Pao, the Hmong guerrilla army leader and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confidant who fought at America's side against Lao and Vietnamese communists from 1961 to 1975 was predictable, US President Barack Obama's removal of Laos from a foreign trade blacklist was a surprise.
Obama Removes Laos From Foreign Trade Blacklist
Obama's decision to de-list Laos comes at a time when Lao Hmong civilian and dissident groups in hiding in the Phou Bia mountain area of Laos are under attack by ground forces and artillery units of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) resulting in hundreds of dead and wounded civilians.
The Hmong, as most American's later learned, were totally abandoned by the US after they fought on America's side in the “secret war” during the Vietnam War.
Hmong Ethnic Cleansing
Said Philip Smith, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis, which promotes Hmong rights, "Obama's declaration is completely shocking and outrageous," According to a press release issued on Media-Newswire.com by the Center for Public Policy Analysis in Washington, DC USA on May 27, 2009, "There have been already been 12 children slaughtered and 31 additional Hmong civilians, including women, who have been captured and, or, killed,"
Smith explained, “The special LPA ethnic cleansing Task Force, is a hunter-killer unit, reportedly led by Colonel Boun Soun of battalion number 827, has been tasked with the mission to attack and eliminate Lao Hmong in-hiding by the end of this year, 2009, in an effort to wipe out all Laotian and Hmong civilian and political and religious dissident groups seeking to live independent of LPDR authoritarian control.”
"This is a one-party regime which is closely allied with Burma (Myanmar) and North Korea," he said. "This will embolden the Laos government to continue to slaughter and massacre civilians." Many Hmong are still in hiding in Laos. Another 250,000 Hmong have resettled in the United States.
Thailand Forces Hmong To Go Back To Laos
Last month, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) (Doctors Without Borders) pulled out of the sole Hmong refugee camp in Thailand, complaining that The Kingdom was forcing some 4,700 people in the camp back to Laos where they fear persecution. The organization had been the nearly 5000 Hmong's sole source of food and healthcare but more than 1,500 have already been forced back over the border.
Further, many Hmong refugees from Laos, including children, are being held in jail or cramped detention centers in the Lao / Thai border town of Nong Khai and after repatriation, the fate the Hmong is unknown since the Pathet Lao Communist government refuses to allow international agencies to monitor them.
According to Amnesty International, 20 women and girls sent back to Laos in December 2005 were detained for 18 months, and some were tortured while other returnees have vanished.
Will Hillary Clinton Pressure Thailand?
US lawmakers plan to send a letter next week to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to press Thailand to halt the repatriation of the Hmong to Laos.
"The US has been a champion of the Hmong since the Vietnam War," said the letter, so far signed by 17 members of Congress. "We continue to have a vital national security interest in and moral obligation to assist our former allies, especially those with bona fide persecution claims," it said.
Obama Favors American Business
Obama said Laos had "ceased to be a Marxist-Leninist country," a designation that prevented financial support by the US Export-Import Bank for businesses operating in the two nations. Maybe Stalinist nation is a more apt description when Pathet Lao's treatment of Hmong is considered.
The move means that US businesses would be eligible for US government-backed loans and credit guarantees as they can receive when operating in most countries. "Given the commitment of Cambodia and Laos to open markets, the president has determined that this designation is no longer applicable," an Obama administration official said.
If the Obama administration seeks to join China as a major economic influence in Laos, it's going about it the wrong way. While it's clear to anyone who has visited Laos that the country needs all the help it can get, its citizenry includes thousands of Hmong who have been fighting Communism, Marxism, Leninism or whatever label one wants to use for several decades.
Obama Ignores Human Rights of Hmong
When Barack Obama chooses to sleep with the enemy in order to compete with China and stir a dozing US economy that is fine, but there should be a string attached to Obama's latest move and that is; Demand that the Lao Pathet government stop the rape and disembowelment of Lao Hmong women and children.
Barack Obama grasps that 3 1/2 years from now he will be judged by his performance regarding the American economy, not his human rights record. Obama knows who's going to butter his bread and clearly recognizes that big American business is holding the butter knife to his throat.
Back in Laos, the child killing gang-raping hunter-killer Task Force is laughing at the knife American business is using on Obama but apparently they know that the Obama administration is saying to itself, "So what if 10,000 to 15,000 Hmong get dusted by an ethnic cleansing operation in Laos? US Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon said this was all supposed to be kept secret anyway."
READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE
IMPORTANT LINKS TO THE PLIGHT OF AMERICA'S HMONG FRIENDS HERE
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/aidoc/ai.nsf/Index/ENGASA260042004
US President Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign promised Americans and indeed the world that he would transparently "play ball" where human rights issues are concerned.
However, it appears that Obama has ripped a page out of former President George Bush's playbook and human rights issues will take a backseat to good old American greed and consumerism with his decision to boost trade ties with Laos last week.
While the outrageous U.S. government charges leveled at Vang Pao, the Hmong guerrilla army leader and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confidant who fought at America's side against Lao and Vietnamese communists from 1961 to 1975 was predictable, US President Barack Obama's removal of Laos from a foreign trade blacklist was a surprise.
Obama Removes Laos From Foreign Trade Blacklist
Obama's decision to de-list Laos comes at a time when Lao Hmong civilian and dissident groups in hiding in the Phou Bia mountain area of Laos are under attack by ground forces and artillery units of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) resulting in hundreds of dead and wounded civilians.
The Hmong, as most American's later learned, were totally abandoned by the US after they fought on America's side in the “secret war” during the Vietnam War.
Hmong Ethnic Cleansing
Said Philip Smith, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis, which promotes Hmong rights, "Obama's declaration is completely shocking and outrageous," According to a press release issued on Media-Newswire.com by the Center for Public Policy Analysis in Washington, DC USA on May 27, 2009, "There have been already been 12 children slaughtered and 31 additional Hmong civilians, including women, who have been captured and, or, killed,"
Smith explained, “The special LPA ethnic cleansing Task Force, is a hunter-killer unit, reportedly led by Colonel Boun Soun of battalion number 827, has been tasked with the mission to attack and eliminate Lao Hmong in-hiding by the end of this year, 2009, in an effort to wipe out all Laotian and Hmong civilian and political and religious dissident groups seeking to live independent of LPDR authoritarian control.”
"This is a one-party regime which is closely allied with Burma (Myanmar) and North Korea," he said. "This will embolden the Laos government to continue to slaughter and massacre civilians." Many Hmong are still in hiding in Laos. Another 250,000 Hmong have resettled in the United States.
Thailand Forces Hmong To Go Back To Laos
Last month, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) (Doctors Without Borders) pulled out of the sole Hmong refugee camp in Thailand, complaining that The Kingdom was forcing some 4,700 people in the camp back to Laos where they fear persecution. The organization had been the nearly 5000 Hmong's sole source of food and healthcare but more than 1,500 have already been forced back over the border.
Further, many Hmong refugees from Laos, including children, are being held in jail or cramped detention centers in the Lao / Thai border town of Nong Khai and after repatriation, the fate the Hmong is unknown since the Pathet Lao Communist government refuses to allow international agencies to monitor them.
According to Amnesty International, 20 women and girls sent back to Laos in December 2005 were detained for 18 months, and some were tortured while other returnees have vanished.
Will Hillary Clinton Pressure Thailand?
US lawmakers plan to send a letter next week to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to press Thailand to halt the repatriation of the Hmong to Laos.
"The US has been a champion of the Hmong since the Vietnam War," said the letter, so far signed by 17 members of Congress. "We continue to have a vital national security interest in and moral obligation to assist our former allies, especially those with bona fide persecution claims," it said.
Obama Favors American Business
Obama said Laos had "ceased to be a Marxist-Leninist country," a designation that prevented financial support by the US Export-Import Bank for businesses operating in the two nations. Maybe Stalinist nation is a more apt description when Pathet Lao's treatment of Hmong is considered.
The move means that US businesses would be eligible for US government-backed loans and credit guarantees as they can receive when operating in most countries. "Given the commitment of Cambodia and Laos to open markets, the president has determined that this designation is no longer applicable," an Obama administration official said.
If the Obama administration seeks to join China as a major economic influence in Laos, it's going about it the wrong way. While it's clear to anyone who has visited Laos that the country needs all the help it can get, its citizenry includes thousands of Hmong who have been fighting Communism, Marxism, Leninism or whatever label one wants to use for several decades.
Obama Ignores Human Rights of Hmong
When Barack Obama chooses to sleep with the enemy in order to compete with China and stir a dozing US economy that is fine, but there should be a string attached to Obama's latest move and that is; Demand that the Lao Pathet government stop the rape and disembowelment of Lao Hmong women and children.
Barack Obama grasps that 3 1/2 years from now he will be judged by his performance regarding the American economy, not his human rights record. Obama knows who's going to butter his bread and clearly recognizes that big American business is holding the butter knife to his throat.
Back in Laos, the child killing gang-raping hunter-killer Task Force is laughing at the knife American business is using on Obama but apparently they know that the Obama administration is saying to itself, "So what if 10,000 to 15,000 Hmong get dusted by an ethnic cleansing operation in Laos? US Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon said this was all supposed to be kept secret anyway."
READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE
IMPORTANT LINKS TO THE PLIGHT OF AMERICA'S HMONG FRIENDS HERE
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/aidoc/ai.nsf/Index/ENGASA260042004
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