Ban Vinai Refugee Camp

Last updated

Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, officially the Ban Vinai Holding Center, was a refugee camp in Thailand from 1975 until 1992. Ban Vinai primarily housed highland people, especially Hmong, who fled communist rule in Laos. Ban Vinai had a maximum population of about 45,000 Hmong and other highland people. Many of the highland Lao were resettled in the United States and other countries. Many others lived in the camp for years which came to resemble a crowded and large Hmong village. The Royal Thai Government closed the camp in 1992, forced some of the inhabitants to return to Laos and removed the rest of them to other refugee camps. 17°55′50″N101°54′51″E / 17.93056°N 101.91417°E / 17.93056; 101.91417

Contents

Origins

In May 1975, soldiers of the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army captured Long Tieng, the headquarters of Hmong General Vang Pao and his 30,000 man CIA-supported army which had fought against the communists for nearly 15 years. Vang Pao and other Hmong leaders were evacuated to Thailand by the CIA's Jerry Daniels, and American civilian pilots. They took refuge in Nam Phong Military Camp. Vang Pao and a few others were soon permitted to come to the United States. In the wake of the evacuation, tens of thousands of Hmong, mostly former soldiers and their families, fled Laos by foot during the next few years, crossing the Mekong River into Thailand. While the fate of the Hmong remained uncertain, on August 8, 1975 Colonel Xay Dang Xiong (died 3-15-18) and his 80 volunteers were commissioned by the Interior Ministry of Thailand to clear a small forest in Pak Chom district to build the temporary refuge for asylum seekers. The team named the area Vinai to depict their loyalty and orderly manner. By late October, about 4,000 occupants mostly families of the initial were transferred from Nam Phong Military Camp to Ban Vinai. An official record stated that Ban Vinai was created in December 1975 to house the influx, hosting an initial population of 12,000 refugees. The CIA reportedly contributed several million dollars to build and run the camp. [1]

Description

The site of Ban Vinai is located in northeastern Thailand in Pak Chom District of Loei province, about 10 miles (16 km) south of the Mekong River and the border with Laos. The camp covered about 400 acres (160 ha) and was crowded with makeshift shacks built by the refugees themselves, plus administration buildings, dormitories, warehouses, health care centers, and other facilities. Ban Vinai had the appearance of an overgrown Hmong village, albeit seriously overcrowded. [2]

The population of Ban Vinai remained around 12,000 until 1979 when it climbed rapidly as a result of an increased flow of Hmong from Laos. By 1985, the population reached a peak of about 45, 000 people. Ninety-five percent were Hmong, but other ethnic groups represented included the Htin (Phai people), Yao (Mien), Lu, Khmu, Lao Theung, Tai Dam, Musor (Lahu), Haw (Hani), and lowland Lao. [3]

The camp commander was a Thai, chosen by the provincial government and the Thai Ministry of Interior which oversaw the camp. Originally, (between 1976 and 1979) the camp was divided into five sectors, each with a refugee leader who together formed the Refugee Committee. In 1979, when the refugee camp at Nong Khai was closed by the Thai government, sectors 6th, 7th, and 8th were added to create more space for those refugees coming from Nong Khai camp. Sector 9th was known to the refugee camps in the Ban Vinai as the eternal sectors for those who died in the camp. Later in the mid 1980s when the refugee camp at Nom Yau was closed, sector 9th was created by building on top of the dead. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with donations from the United States and other countries, funded most assistance to the refugees, including food, housing, education, and health. More than a dozen international charitable non-governmental organizations worked in the camp implementing programs and running facilities on behalf of UNHCR, other donors, and the refugees. [3]

Resettlement, repatriation, and closure of the camp

Initially, all the refugees in Ban Vinai were granted temporary asylum in Thailand with the expectation that they would either soon return to Laos or be resettled in a third country. Thailand refused to grant Hmong the right to remain in Thailand permanently. However, in the 1980s, many refugees refused to return to Laos and did not seek resettlement to the United States or other countries. They demanded instead that the Lao government guarantee their safe return to Laos and autonomy. [3] Some of the reluctance of the Hmong to resettle was fear of the challenges of moving to an industrial society. In Ban Vinai, the Hmong were able to maintain a semblance of their traditional culture and society. Reluctance was also based on the reported influence of Vang Pao and other leaders urging them to remain in Thailand as a prelude for a return to Laos and the overthrow of the communist government. Some of the Hmong used Ban Vinai as a base for resistance to the government of Laos. The reluctance to resettle began to change in 1985. A younger generation of Hmong was willing to adopt new customs and lifestyles and the Thai government was pressuring refugees to accept resettlement or to be forcibly repatriated to Laos. By 1986, the average length of time residents had lived in the camp was nearly seven years. [2]

The government of Thailand initiated a program called "humane deterrence" to make life more difficult for refugees and to discourage additional refugees from coming to Thailand. In 1983, Thailand closed Ban Vinai to new arrivals, although several thousand Hmong were able to slip into the camp during the next several years. In 1985, the Thai began to "push back" Hmong and other Lao attempting to cross the border into Thailand and began forcible repatriation of Hmong from Ban Vinai to Laos. [4] Human rights organizations opposed the forced repatriation and cited evidence in 1987 that returnees were arrested upon their return to Laos. [5] To placate the Thai government and reduce the forced repatriations and "push backs" of Hmong refugees, the U.S. government doubled its quota for resettlement of Lao, including Hmong, from 4,000 to 8,000 annually in early 1988. [6]

After several years of increased resettlement of Hmong abroad, declining numbers of new refugees, and repatriations to Laos. Thailand closed Ban Vinai Refugee Camp at the end of 1992. The remaining Hmong and Lao refugees in Thailand were distributed to other camps and refugee centers, notably Wat Tham Krabok. [7]

Notable people

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laos</span> Country in Southeast Asia

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Vientiane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hmong people</span> Ethnic group in Southwest China and Southeast Asia

The Hmong people are an indigenous group in East and Southeast Asia. In China, the Hmong people are classified as a sub-group of the Miao people. The modern Hmong reside mainly in Southwest China and countries in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. There is also a large diasporic community in the United States of more than 300,000. The Hmong diaspora has smaller communities in Australia and South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vang Pao</span> Laotian-American soldier

Vang Pao was a major general in the Royal Lao Army. He was a leader of the Hmong American community in the United States. He was also known as General Vang Pao to the people in the Hmong community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laotian Civil War</span> Civil War in Laos from 1959 to 1975

The Laotian Civil War (1959–1975) was a civil war in Laos waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. It is associated with the Cambodian Civil War and the Vietnam War, with both sides receiving heavy external support in a proxy war between the global Cold War superpowers. It is called the Secret War among the American CIA Special Activities Center, and Hmong and Mien veterans of the conflict.

Wat Tham Krabok is a Buddhist temple (wat) in the Phra Phutthabat District of Saraburi Province, Thailand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hmong Americans</span> Americans of Hmong birth or descent

Hmong Americans are Americans of Hmong ancestry. Many Hmong Americans immigrated to the United States as refugees in the late 1970s. Over half of the Hmong population from Laos left the country, or attempted to leave, in 1975, at the culmination of the Laotian Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights in Laos</span>

The situation of human rights in Laos has often been, and remains, a recognized cause for serious concern. Laos is one of a handful of Marxist-Leninist governments and is ruled by a one-party communist government backed by the Lao People's Army in alliance with the Vietnam People's Army and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi.

The insurgency in Laos was a low-intensity conflict between the Laotian government on one side and former members of the "Secret Army", Laotian royalists, and rebels from the Hmong and lowland Lao ethnic minorities on the other. These groups have faced reprisals from the Lao People's Army and Vietnam People's Army for their support of the United States-led, anti-communist military campaigns in Laos during the Laotian Civil War, which the insurgency is an extension of itself. The North Vietnamese invaded Laos in 1958 and supported the communist Pathet Lao. The Vietnamese communists continued to support the Pathet Lao after the end of the Laotian Civil War and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laos Memorial</span> War memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

The Hmong and Lao Memorial, or Lao Veterans of America Monument, is a granite monument, bronze plaque and living memorial in Arlington National Cemetery in the US. Dedicated in May 1997, it is located in Section 2 on Grant Avenue between the path to the JFK memorial and the Tomb of the Unknowns, in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, in the United States. The Laos–Hmong memorial commemorates the veterans of the "Secret War" in Laos who fought against invading Soviet Union-backed North Vietnam Army forces of the People's Army of Vietnam and communist Pathet Lao guerrillas. Approved by the U.S. Department of Defense, Arlington National Cemetery, and the U.S. Department of the Army, but designed and paid for privately by the Lao Veterans of America, Inc., the Lao Veterans of America Institute, and The Centre for Public Policy Analysis, the memorial stands as a tribute to the Hmong, Lao, other ethnic groups, and American clandestine and military advisers who made up the Secret War effort during the Vietnam War. The Lao Veterans of America, Inc. is the nation's largest ethnic Laotian- and Hmong-American veterans organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laos–United States relations</span> Bilateral relations

Relations between Laos and the United States officially began when the United States opened a legation in Laos in 1950, when Laos was a semi-autonomous state within French Indochina. These relations were maintained after Laos' independence in October 1953.

Vang Pobzeb was a Hmong American dedicated to Lao and Hmong human rights. For over 25 years, he was an outspoken critic of the Marxist governments of the Pathet Lao in Laos and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and their human rights violations, religious freedom violations, and persecution of the Lao and Hmong people.

The Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA), or Centre for Public Policy Analysis, was established in Washington, D.C., in 1988 and describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan, think tank and research organization. The CPPA is a non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on foreign policy, national security, human rights, refugee and international humanitarian issues. Its current executive director is Philip Smith.

Jerrold B. Daniels or Jerry Daniels was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer (PMOO) in their Special Activities Center who worked in Laos and Thailand from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. He was known by his self-chosen CIA call-sign of "Hog." In the early 1960s, he was recruited by the CIA as a liaison officer between Hmong General Vang Pao and the CIA. He worked with the Hmong people for the CIA's operation in Laos commonly called the "Secret War" as it was little known at the time. In 1975, as the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army advanced on the Hmong base at Long Tieng, Daniels organized the air evacuation of Vang Pao and more than two thousand of his officers, soldiers, and their families to Thailand. Immediately after the departure of Daniels and Vang Pao, thousands more Hmong fled across the Mekong river to Thailand, where they lived in refugee camps. From 1975 to 1982 Daniels worked among Hmong refugees in Thailand facilitating the resettlement of more than 50,000 of them in the United States and other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indochina refugee crisis</span> Outflow of 3 million refugees from communism in the late 20th century

The Indochina refugee crisis was the large outflow of people from the former French colonies of Indochina, comprising the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, after communist governments were established in 1975. Over the next 25 years and out of a total Indochinese population in 1975 of 56 million, more than 3 million people would undertake the dangerous journey to become refugees in other countries of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, or China. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 250,000 Vietnamese refugees had perished at sea by July 1986. More than 2.5 million Indochinese were resettled, mostly in North America, Australia, and Europe. More than 525,000 were repatriated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, mainly from Cambodia.

The Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. (LHRC) is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental (NGO) refugee and human rights organization. It is based nationally, and internationally, with chapters in Colorado, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. researches, and provides information and education regarding the plight of Laotian and Hmong people, and refugees persecuted in Laos, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Thailand. It was founded by Dr. Pozbeb Vang, Vang Pobzeb of Greenbay Wisconsin. The Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. is currently headed by Vaughn Vang, an educator, and former political refugee from the Royal Kingdom of Laos, who is a Hmong-American—and who was born, and grew up, in Laos prior to the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos and Marxist takeover in 1975.

Operation Momentum was a guerrilla training program during the Laotian Civil War. This Central Intelligence Agency operation raising a guerrilla force of Hmong hill-tribesmen in northeastern Laos was planned by James William Lair and carried out by the Thai Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit. Begun on 17 January 1961, the three-day Auto Defense Choc course graduated a clandestine guerrilla army of 5,000 warriors by 1 May, and of 9,000 by August. It scored its first success the day after the first ADC company graduated, on 21 January 1961, when 20 ADC troopers ambushed and killed 15 Pathet Lao.

Operation Pigfat was a crucial guerrilla offensive of the Laotian Civil War; it lasted from 26 November 1968 to 7 January 1969. Launched by Hmong tribal soldiers backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, it was based on the usage of overwhelming air power to clear the path for the guerrillas. The guerrillas were faced with the largest concentration of Vietnamese communist troops stationed outside Vietnam, and hoped to spoil that imminent attack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campaign 74B</span>

Campaign 74B was a major combined arms offensive by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during the Laotian Civil War. The Communist offensive, if successful, would knock the last remaining fighting troops of the Kingdom of Laos out of the war, ensuring the Vietnamese conquest of Laos. The PAVN 316th Division—reinforced by artillery, tanks, and sappers—attacked during a period of slackened tactical air support for General Vang Pao's guerrilla army; Operation Lam Son 719 was being waged at the same time. Having captured the highly strategic Plain of Jars during Operation 74B, the Communists attackers managed to penetrate deeply enough to fire upon the main guerrilla base at Long Tieng.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campaign Z</span>

Campaign Z was a military offensive by the People's Army of Vietnam; it was a combined arms thrust designed to defeat the last Royal Lao Army troops defending the Kingdom of Laos. The Communist assault took Skyline Ridge overlooking the vital Royalist base of Long Tieng and forced the restationing of Royalist aviation assets and civilian refugees. However, Communist forces eventually receded back onto their lines of communication without capturing the base.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Thong</span> Town in Xiangkhouang, Laos

Sam Thong is a town in Xiangkhouang province, Laos. During the Vietnam War, it was the site of a USAID refugee operation center and an administrative center for much of northern Laos.

References

  1. ↑ Thompson, Larry Clinton (2010). Refugee Workers in the Indochina Exodus, 1975-1982 . McFarland & Company (published April 28, 2010). pp.  47–61. ISBN   978-0786445295.
  2. 1 2 "Hmong Children: A Changing World in Ban Vinai", Cultural Survival, 10:4 (Winter 1986); "The Hmong: An Introduction to their History and Culture" (June 2004), Country Profile No. 18, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C.. pp. 20-21
  3. 1 2 3 ""Report From United Nations - Brief on Ban Vinai Refugee Camp"". Texas Tech University. 1 April 1985. Retrieved 2015-12-31. Folder 01, Box 13, Garnett Bell Collection, The Vietnam Center and Archive
  4. ↑ Robinson, Court (1998), Terms or Refuge: The Indochinese Exoduds and the International Response, London: Zed books, pp. 116-119
  5. ↑ ""White Paper on Action Plan on Lao and Hmong Refugee Crisis in Thailand and Laos"". Texas Tech University. 27 May 1995. Retrieved 2016-01-01. Folder 12, Box 09, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 11 - Monographs, The Vietnam Center and Archive
  6. ↑ Robinson, p. 120
  7. ↑ "The Hmong: An Introduction to their History and Culture" (June 2004), Country Profile No. 18, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C., p. 21
  8. ↑ "Chef Yia Vang announces new restaurant Vinai will open next spring in Minneapolis". MPR News . Minnesota Public Radio. 11 September 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.