A year after the summer 2005 worldwide mobilization for the survival of the Lao-Hmong populations of Xaysomboun, the international media and information received by the Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) report that the violent repression campaign led against the Lao-Hmong populations has intensified these last few months in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR).

Indeed, a series of serious and alarming facts were reported during the past year : arrests, abuse, even “summary executions” of the 173 civilians who surrendered themselves to the authorities in June 2005 near Xiengkhouang, and of the 242 Lao-Hmong who came out of the Bolikamsay jungle in October 2005; disappearance of 26 Lao-Hmong teenagers (21 girls and 5 boys) expelled from Thailand and handed over to the Lao police in December 2005; continuation of the dry season bloody attacks launched by the LPDR troops; death of 26 Lao-Hmong civilians “killed by governmental soldiers” on April 2006; desperate call launched by 46 starving Lao-Hmong women and children upon their exit on July 6th, 2006, of the Phou Bia jungle …

The LMHR expresses its strongest indignation and its greatest concern to such acts of violence which, in spite of the repeated denials from the LPDR leaders, seem to deliberately and systematically target defenceless populations.

To the Lao Movement for Human Rights, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”. It is unacceptable that even after more than thirty years such acts can be committed with complete impunity by a dictatorship which represses the freedoms and basic rights of the Lao people, and which only survives thanks to the assistance provided by the international community.

The LMHR launches a pressing call to the new LPDR leaders – particularly to general Choummaly SAYGNASONE, “key person” of the regime, to Prime Minister Bouasone BOUPHAVANH, to Vice-President and Foreign Affairs Minister Thongloun SISOULITH – so that these exactions unworthy of mankind be brought to an immediate end, and so that an urgent humanitarian solution be found.

To the LMHR, this issue cannot be summarized as a simple matter of "insurgent groups made out of 1.000 to 3.000 people, essentially Hmongs, who continue to be opposed to the government”, as the Unique Party wishes us to believe. It is in fact a question of freedom and survival for thousands of men, women, and children, whose only mistake is to have parents or grandparents who served in the royal army during the Vietnam war, or not to recognize themselves in the current dictatorship.

The Lao Movement for Human Rights calls on, once again, to France, the European Union, the United States, the United Nations, and to the whole of the international community, to act firmly and without delay so as to save these thousands of Lao-Hmongs from agony and death, and so that freedom, democracy and human rights are fully respected in Laos.



Mouvement Lao pour les Droits de l'Homme (MLDH)
Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR)
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