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 Laos |  United States |
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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.
The Second Indochina War (1955–1975) between the United States and communist forces in Indochina took place partially on Lao territory. The US became heavily involved, in a secret covert war, during the Laotian Civil War of 1953–1975, backing the Royal Lao government and the Kingdom of Laos, and Hmong people against the Pathet Lao and the supporting Vietnam People's Army forces.[ citation needed ]
Although the U.S. and Laos never severed diplomatic relations following the end of the war in 1975 and the communist Pathet Lao takeover of Laos with the support of North Vietnam and the Vietnam People's Army, U.S.-Lao relations deteriorated due to ideological differences. The relationship remained cool until 1982, when efforts at improvement began. The two countries restored full diplomatic relations in 1992 with a return to ambassadorial-level representation.[ citation needed ]
In 1997 the Laos Memorial was established and dedicated in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to officially recognize the U.S. clandestine and secret war in Laos and to honor Laotian and Hmong veterans, and their advisers, who served in Laos during the Vietnam War. [1]
The government of Laos has been accused by the U.S., United Nations and human rights organizations of committing genocide against that country's Hmong ethnic minority. [2]
Some Hmong groups fought as CIA-backed units on the Royalist side in the Laos civil war. After the Pathet Lao took over the country in 1975, the conflict continued in isolated pockets. In 1977 a communist newspaper promised the party would hunt down the "American collaborators" and their families "to the last root". [3]
Amnesty International, The Centre for Public Policy Analysis, Human Rights Watch, the Lao Human Rights Council, Lao Veterans of America, and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and advocates, including Vang Pobzeb, Kerry and Kay Danes, and others, have provided research and information about the Marxist, Pathet Lao government of Laos' serious human rights violations against Laotian political and religious dissidents and opposition groups, including many of the Hmong people. Amnesty International and The Centre for Public Policy Analysis and other NGOs have researched and provided significant reports about ongoing human rights violations in Laos by the Lao People's Army and Vietnam People's Army including: the arrest and imprisonment of civic and opposition leaders including Sombath Somphone, military attacks, rape, abduction, torture, extrajudicial killing, religious persecution, and starvation of Laotian and Hmong civilians seeking to flee persecution by Pathet Lao military and security forces. [4] [5] [6]
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has previously designated the communist government of Laos a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious freedom violations and has on numerous occasions placed the government of Laos on a special watch list for its serious persecution of minority Laotian and Hmong Christians as well as independent Animist and Buddhist believers. The Lao People's Army and its police and security forces have been involved in human rights violations and religious persecution in Laos.[ citation needed ]
As many as 200,000 Hmong went into exile in Thailand, with many ending up in the USA. A number of Hmong fighters hid out in mountains in Xiangkhouang Province for many years, with a remnant emerging from the jungle in 2003. [3]
In 1989, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with the support of the United States government, instituted the Comprehensive Plan of Action, a program to stem the tide of Indochinese refugees from Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Under the plan, the status of the refugees was to be evaluated through a screening process. Recognized asylum seekers were to be given resettlement opportunities, while the remaining refugees were to be repatriated under guarantee of safety.
After talks with the UNHCR and the Thai government, Laos agreed to repatriate the 60,000 Lao refugees living in Thailand, including several thousand Hmong people. Very few of the Lao refugees, however, were willing to return voluntarily. [7] Pressure to resettle the refugees grew as the Thai government worked to close its remaining refugee camps. While some Hmong people returned to Laos voluntarily, with development assistance from UNHCR, allegations of forced repatriation surfaced. [8] Of those Hmong who did return to Laos, some quickly escaped back to Thailand, describing discrimination and brutal treatment at the hands of Lao authorities. [9] In 1993, Vue Mai, a former Hmong soldier who had been recruited by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to return to Laos as proof of the repatriation program's success, disappeared in Vientiane. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, he was arrested by Lao security forces and was never seen again.
Following the Vue Mai incident, debate over the Hmong's planned repatriation to Laos intensified greatly, especially in the U.S., where it drew strong opposition from many Democratic and moderate and American conservatives Republicans as well as some human rights advocates, including Philip Smith of The Centre for Public Policy Analysis and the Lao Veterans of America. In an October 23, 1995 National Review article, Michael Johns, the former Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert and Republican White House aide, labeled the Hmong's repatriation a Clinton administration "betrayal," describing the Hmong as a people "who have spilled their blood in defense of American geopolitical interests." [10] Debate on the issue escalated quickly. In an effort to halt the planned repatriation, the Republican-led U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives both appropriated funds for the remaining Thailand-based Hmong to be immediately resettled in the U.S.; Clinton, however, responded by promising a veto of the legislation.
In their opposition of the repatriation plans, key Democrats as well as Republicans also challenged the Clinton administration's position that the Laotian government was not systematically violating Hmong human rights. U.S. Representative Steve Gunderson (R-WI), for instance, told a Hmong gathering: "I do not enjoy standing up and saying to my government that you are not telling the truth, but if that is necessary to defend truth and justice, I will do that." [10] Republicans also called several Congressional hearings on alleged persecution of the Hmong in Laos in an apparent attempt to generate further support for their opposition to the Hmong's repatriation to Laos.
Although some accusations of forced repatriation were denied, [11] thousands of Hmong people refused to return to Laos. In 1996, as the deadline for the closure of Thai refugee camps approached, and under mounting political pressure, the U.S. agreed to resettle Hmong refugees who passed a new screening process. [12] Around 5,000 Hmong people who were not resettled at the time of the camp closures sought asylum at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist monastery in central Thailand where more than 10,000 Hmong refugees were already living. The Thai government attempted to repatriate these refugees, but the Wat Tham Krabok Hmong refused to leave and the Lao government refused to accept them, claiming they were involved in the illegal drug trade and were of non-Lao origin. [13]
In 2003, following threats of forcible removal by the Thai government, the U.S., in a significant victory for the Hmong, agreed to accept 15,000 of the refugees. [14] Several thousand Hmong people, fearing forced repatriation to Laos if they were not accepted for resettlement in the U.S., fled the camp to live elsewhere within Thailand where a sizable Hmong population has been present since the 19th century. [15]
In 2004 and 2005, thousands of Hmong fled from the jungles of Laos to a temporary refugee camp in the Thai province of Phetchabun. [16] These Hmong refugees, many of whom are descendants of the former-CIA Secret Army and their relatives, claim that they have been attacked by both the Lao and Vietnamese military forces operating inside Laos as recently as June 2006. The refugees claim that attacks against them have continued almost unabated since the war officially ended in 1975, and have become more intense in recent years.
Lending further support to earlier claims that the government of Laos was persecuting the Hmong, filmmaker Rebecca Sommer documented first-hand accounts in her documentary, Hunted Like Animals, [17] and in a comprehensive report which includes summaries of claims made by the refugees and was submitted to the U.N. in May 2006. [18]
The European Union, [19] UNHCHR, and international groups have since spoken out about the forced repatriation. [19] [20] [21] [22] The Thai foreign ministry has said that it will halt deportation of Hmong refugees held in Detention Centers Nong Khai, while talks are underway to resettle them in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States. [23]
For the time being, countries willing to resettle the refugees are hindered to proceed with immigration and settlement procedures because the Thai administration does not grant them access to the refugees. Plans to resettle additional Hmong refugees in the U.S. have been complicated by provisions of President George W. Bush's Patriot Act and Real ID Act, under which Hmong veterans of the Secret War, who fought on the side of the United States, are classified as terrorists because of their historical involvement in armed conflict. [24]
On December 27, 2009, The New York Times reported that the Thai military was preparing to forcibly return 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers to Laos by the end of the year: [25] the BBC later reported that repatriations had started. [26] Both United States and United Nations officials have protested this action. Outside government representatives have not been allowed to interview this group over the last three years. Médecins Sans Frontières has refused to assist the Hmong refugees because of what they have called "increasingly restrictive measures" taken by the Thai military. [27] The Thai military jammed all cellular phone reception and disallowed any foreign journalists from the Hmong camps. [26]
Accounting for Americans missing in Laos from the Vietnam War has been a special focus of the bilateral relationship. Since the late 1980s, joint U.S. and Lao teams have conducted a series of excavations and investigations of sites related to cases of Americans missing in Laos.
Narcotics interdiction activities are also an important part of the bilateral relationship. The United States and Laos cooperate closely on opium crop control projects that have helped to bring about a 96% decline in opium poppy cultivation, from 42,000 hectares in 1989 to 1700 hectares in 2006. Laos, however, remains on the U.S. list of major opium producers. U.S.-sponsored demand reduction programs have increased Laos' capacity to treat both narcotic and amphetamine addiction. The U.S. also provides law enforcement assistance to help contend with the rapid growth in methamphetamine abuse and crime that has occurred in Laos since 2003.
The U.S. government provided more than $13.4 million in foreign assistance to Laos in FY 2006, in areas including unexploded ordnance clearance and removal, health and avian influenza, education, economic development, and governance.
In December 2004, despite significant bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Congress and Lao- and Hmong-American community George W Bush signed into law a bill extending normal trade relations to Laos. Bush was criticized by many fellow Republicans in Congress, including Congressman Mark Andrew Green and Congressman George Radanovich for this move given accusations of serious human rights violations in Laos against the Hmong people. In February 2005, a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) between the two countries entered into force. There has been a consequent rise in Lao exports to the United States, although the volume of trade remains small in absolute terms. Bilateral trade reached $15.7 million in 2006, compared with $8.9 million in 2003. The Lao Government is working to implement the provisions of the BTA.
| Term started | Term ended | U.S. Ambassador |
| August 1950 | December 1950 | Paul L. Guest |
| 29 December 1950 | 1 November 1954 | Donald R. Heath |
| 1 November 1954 | 27 April 1956 | Charles W. Yost |
| 12 October 1956 | 8 February 1958 | J. Graham Parsons |
| 9 April 1958 | 21 June 1960 | Horace H. Smith |
| 25 July 1960 | 28 June 1962 | Winthrop G. Brown |
| 25 July 1962 | 1 December 1964 | Leonard S. Unger |
| 23 December 1964 | 18 March 1969 | William H. Sullivan |
| 24 July 1969 | 23 April 1973 | G. McMurtrie Godley |
| 20 September 1973 | 12 April 1975 | Charles S. Whitehouse |
| August 1975 | March 1978 | Thomas J. Corcoran |
| March 1978 | September 1979 | George B. Roberts, Jr. |
| September 1979 | October 1981 | Leo J. Moser |
| November 1981 | November 1983 | William W. Thomas, Jr. |
| November 1983 | August 1986 | Theresa A. Tull |
| August 1986 | August 1989 | Harriet W. Isom |
| August 1989 | 26 July 1993 | Charles B. Salmon, Jr. |
| 8 January 1994 | 20 August 1996 | Victor L. Tomseth |
| 5 September 1996 | 14 June 1999 | Wendy Chamberlin |
| 18 September 2001 | 21 April 2004 | Douglas A. Hartwick |
| September 4, 2004 | May 2007 | Patricia M. Haslach |
| June 22, 2007 | August 22, 2010 | Ravic R. Huso |
| November 15, 2010 | August 8, 2013 | Karen B. Stewart |
| September 16, 2013 | September 21, 2016 | Daniel A. Clune |
| November 2, 2016 | January 26, 2020 | Rena Bitter |
| February 7, 2020 | September 1, 2023 | Peter Haymond |
| September 1, 2023 | February 6, 2024 | Michelle Y. Outlaw (Chargé d'Affaires) |
| February 6, 2024 | Incumbent | Heather Variava |
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), 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.
The Hmong people are an indigenous group in East Asia 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.
Vang Pao was a major general in the Royal Lao Army and later a leader of the Hmong American community in the United States.
The Laotian Civil War was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. The Kingdom of Laos was a covert theater during the Vietnam War with both sides receiving heavy external support in a proxy war between the global Cold War superpowers. The fighting also involved the North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, American and Thai armies, both directly and through irregular proxies. The war is known as 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.
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.
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 Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The insurgency in Laos is 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. At least 100,000 Hmong civilians were killed as the result of Laotian governmental policies, in what has sometimes been referred to as the Hmong genocide.
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.
The alleged 2007 Laotian coup d'état plan was a conspiracy allegation by the United States Department of Justice that Lt. Col. Harrison Jack (Ret.) and former Royal Lao Army Major General Vang Pao, among others conspired in June 2007 to obtain large amounts of heavy weapons and ammunition to overthrow the Communist government of Laos in violation of the Neutrality Act. The charges were ultimately dropped and the case helped serve to further highlight, instead, major human rights violations by the Lao government against the Hmong ethnic minority, Laotian refugees, and political dissidents.
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.
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 Veterans of America, Inc., describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental, veterans organization that represents Lao- and Hmong-American veterans who served in the U.S. clandestine war in the Kingdom of Laos during the Vietnam War as well as their refugee families in the United States.
The United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc. (ULDL) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) based in the Washington, D.C.-area with chapters and members in the United States, Thailand, and Laos. The ULDL has worked to provide information about developments in Laos regarding civil society, human rights, pro-democracy, religious freedom, political prisoners, and environmental issues.
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.
The Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 2000 is legislation which granted Hmong and ethnic Laotian veterans, who were legal refugee aliens in the US from the communist Lao government, and who also served in U.S.-backed guerrilla, or US special forces-backed units in Laos, during the Vietnam War, "an exemption from the English language requirement and special consideration for civics testing for certain refugees from Laos applying for naturalization." The initial Act gave these alien veterans eighteen months since the day of the bill's passage by the U.S. Congress, and its signature by the President of the United States, to file a naturalization application for honorary U.S. citizenship. However, the Act was later amended by additional legislation passed by the United States Congress which extended the N-400 filing date by an additional 18 months.
The Lao Veterans of America Institute (LVAI) is a national non-profit organization based in Fresno, and the Central Valley, of California, with chapters throughout California. It is one of the largest ethnic Lao- and Hmong-American veterans organizations representing tens of thousands of Lao Hmong veterans who served in the Vietnam War in the Royal Kingdom of Laos as well as their refugee families who were resettled in the United States after the conflict.
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 the Hmong genocide 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.
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