Lao military launches offensive against unarmed Hmong civilians

The Lao military is currently engaged in a “massive military operation to isolate and destroy Hmong communities and villages in the mountains and jungles,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis in a press release on Monday.

The main ground force army units and special forces of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the People’s Army of Socialist Vietnam are “hunting and killing unarmed Laotian and Hmong political and religious dissident groups, including Christians, Buddhists and other religious believers, who are suspected of opposing the Lao regime,” he continued.

Meanwhile, Thailand continues to repatriate Lao-Hmong refugees and asylum seekers from Thailand to Laos, where they will almost certainly be at risk.

It is against this backdrop that Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has visited Laos, in a move condemned by a coalition of Lao and Hmong organizations in Washington, DC.

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