Ben Doherty; 13/1/10
The 4500 ethnic Hmong asylum seekers – including more than 40 probably bound for Australia – who were forcibly deported from Thailand in late December are being held in squalid secret camps in remote parts of Laos, guarded by soldiers. The Herald reached the main entrance of a camp at Paksan, on the Mekong River, where hundreds of Hmong hillt-ribes people stood barefoot in the dirt behind three metres of razor wire as loudspeakers ordered them to move away from the gate. The Hmong have historically suffered persecution, including arbitrary arrest and internment in re-education camps, at the hands of the communist Lao Government, because many of their ethnic minority were secretly recruited by the CIA to fight for the US during the Vietnam War and in the ”secret war” in Laos.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/world/deported-hmong-held-by-lao-army-in-squalid-camp-20100112-m4uj.html