| Archives - October 19, 2005 |  |
| Hmong - Apocalypse Now |
| The effects of war can last for decades after the last shot's been fired. This is certainly the case in Laos, to our north, where the Hmong tribespeople, who fought on the American side during the Vietnam conflict, are still being pursued 30 years later by their old enemies, the Patet Lao communists, who now run Laos. Up to 20,000 Hmong have been hiding in remote jungle but, earlier this year, driven largely by starvation, they decided to risk a long trek out of their isolation. Here's Nick Lazaredes, aided by footage shot by the Hmong themselves.
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If you would like more information about Ed and Georgie Szendrey's work with the Hmong, please click on the following link: Factfinding REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes TRIBESMAN (Translation): Today the Lao government is trying to use starvation as a weapon to kill us. They are also using chemicals to kill us. This extraordinary video testimony was shot by Hmong tribespeople in the remote mountains of northern Laos. Smuggled out at great risk, it is the first time it's been seen on television anywhere. It reveals the desperate plight of the Hmong who are hiding in jungle sanctuaries, totally cut off from the outside world. For over 30 years they have been trying to survive as hunter gatherers while the Lao Government hunt them like wild game. TRIBESMAN (Translation): They have been hunting us and killing us for 30 years, today there are 20,000 of us in the jungle. The Hmong had fought on the American side in their war against the communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. When the Americans withdrew in 1973 they left their allies, the Hmong, behind. But the people they were fighting against, the communist Pathet Lao, became the Government in Laos and have relentlessly pursued the Hmong ever since. Driven by starvation and constant attacks from the Lao military, tribal leaders have now taken a momentous decision. They are sending out an advance party of women and children to surrender and try to save their lives. TRIBESMAN (Translation): I'm not sending these people to the Lao Government, but to the UN and US officials, so you will protect them and find them a safe haven and food to eat. The elderly they can't come out, they're too frail. This desperate trek for survival and its outcome has its origins on the other side of the world. It was co-ordinated by an unlikely American couple, Georgie and Ed Szendrey, who have worked for years with the Hmong exile community in northern California. In the United States, those Hmong people who've managed to escape are eking out a much better existence than in Laos. But Georgie and Ed are hardly your normal political activists. Georgie Szendrey runs a second-hand shop with her husband Ed, a retired investigator with the local district attorney's office. As a Vietnam veteran, Ed feels America has a duty to protect and rescue their former allies. ED SZENDREY: Here are American veterans, veterans of an American fighting force, still caught behind enemy lines and chemical weapons are being used against them and their families and their children, and the reason that they are being used against them is their loyalty to the United States, and our participation in that secret war. And so I became...I think from a veteran's standpoint, or just that you don't leave your own behind. You need to go back, you need to find a way to go back and rescue them. It may not be a constant presence on news reports, but this war has been long and vicious. Within the past few years, the Hmong have smuggled out video evidence of what they claim are chemical weapons attacks. Bombs designed for a sickening end. ED SZENDREY: Many became extremely ill, there was extreme vomiting, extreme diarrhoea, bloody diarrhoea and vomiting, and they would die within 24 hours. Other evidence indicates that no-one, not even children are immune from the Laotian military campaign against the Hmong. It was this incident - the reported brutal murder of five unarmed teenagers in 2004 - which pushed the Hmong over the edge. Georgie and Ed had sent over satellite telephones to communicate with the Hmong leaders in Laos. After the murders, Georgie received a phone call with a plea for urgent help. GEORGIE SZENDREY: He asked if we'd create a safe zone for him to send the women and children out because they were too afraid to go search for food and they were afraid that they would have the same things happening to them that had happened to those five teenagers. And he said if we would create a safe zone, he would send the women out to surrender and the children, and the sick and the old, and he asked us to go to the UN and to the State Department to create this. Armed with video evidence and witness testimony, Georgie and Ed flew to Washington to meet with the State Department but they didn't get the response they were expecting. GEORGIE SZENDREY: Here we had overwhelming evidence of not only of their existence but the genocide that they were going through, so we talk all these pictures, videotapes, and all these things to the State Department, and they just had the worst attitude you've ever seen. "This doesn't exist," this was number one. Number two, "They deserve this," - that's the feeling we got from them - "because they're insurgents or, they're bandits to the Lao Government, and the Lao Government is the legal government in place inside of Laos, and they just need to go down and they need to submit to the Lao authorities down there." That was the attitude we got and we had some pretty cross words. ED SZENDREY: Sia tells me that you've had some recent attacks, can you describe those? With the US State Department dismissing the Hmong as insurgents, Ed and Georgie turned to the UN and the Lao Government to arrange the surrender. Eventually they were told that a deal had been struck - the Lao Government had agreed that the UN could take custody of an advance party of Hmong refugees. Within days, Georgie and Ed had flown to Laos. But when they arrived in the capital, Vientiane, the deal for the UN to receive the refugees was far from certain. At the last moment the Lao Government was now refusing to give permission. TRIBESMAN (Translation): Today we are coming out to look for food and be rescued by the UN and US officials. But the Hmong in the jungle were unaware of this breakdown in the UN agreement. Now so desperate from starvation, they started their long trek out. TRIBESMAN (Translation): If this doesn't work, this time we will all die. Leaving behind family and friends was a painful process, especially as no-one knew what would happen when they emerged from the jungle. TRIBESMAN (Translation): Don’t cry, don’t worry, be careful where you venture, only go where it is safe. These are my last words, goodbye. WOMAN (Translation): Don’t cry I think we might come back in a few months. The party of 173 had to bush bash for two days through some of the most rugged terrain in the world. Wading through the rivers was the most dangerous part. MAN (Translation): This river we are crossing is called the Nmteng and it is 6pm on 3rd of June. In my family 12 people have died. This is the last chance for the Hmong people to come together and be prosperous as a people. On June 3, when Georgie and Ed heard that the group had already left their sanctuary and were on their way to the surrender point, they were horrified. With no agreement for the UN to receive the refugees and the women and children already on the move, they had no choice but to get to the surrender point as fast as they could. GEORGIE SZENDREY: And then about midnight we got up and drove up Highway 13, and then turned off on Highway 7 till 4:00 in the morning - 4:10, around there. Arriving at the meeting point, they were immediately taken to meet the refugees. ED SZENDREY: We were the first Americans they had seen in person in 30 years and that was one major significance of that meeting there. At this point, the young Hmong men who had been guarding the trek and filming it had to return to the jungle before it became light. The video shot after this was later confiscated by the Lao Government so we must rely on the testimony of Ed and Georgie for the events of that fateful day. ED SZENDREY: These men were turning their families over to us. It was a very heavy moment. They were trusting us with the women and children as they gave them to us. REPORTER: For these people, you represented the entire outside world? And they were trusting you with their families' lives? GEORGIE SZENDREY: Yes, and they were crying, the women were crying, the children were crying, and the men especially were crying, they were so sad. One old man was carrying a white flag behind him. And the women and children were going up the hill and they were going, "We surrender unto the UN. Please help us, please feed us." And as they just kind of went by us, 173 of them - little children, "We surrender," until the very last one went up the hill. The meeting point was a small village called Chong Thuang on Highway 7. The local police chief arrived and confirmed to Ed and Georgie that the military were standing off, as agreed. But UN officials were also standing off, still waiting for permission to enter the village. The situation soon turned sour when the Lao military broke their promise to stay away. ED SZENDREY: And then, about 7:45 in the morning, the military showed up. After about an hour, they announced that they were taking over, and that they were going to take charge of the people and they were going to be moving the people to an area near Phonsavan, which is about three hours away, and that there were trucks coming to get them. Well, the only mechanical device they'd ever seen before was helicopters and when helicopters fly over, they shoot at you, so it was very, very frightening so they became very concerned about these truck rides that they were going to be having to take. Although no video footage survives from this time, Ed tried to capture a few shots off his mobile telephone but he couldn't call out for help. The intervention of the military was unexpected. GEORGIE SZENDREY: I know that we didn't expect that and I know that the chief of police didn't expect that. And the results on the people, that there was like several young men who had carried their family members out, and they were very scared and they were wanting to run, and we had to tell them through our interpreter that they were not to run, that they could have been shot down if they were to do that. We knew the best thing for them was for us to get out of there, to get our videotapes out of there, to get to a place where we could phone call, phone into the embassy and to get a report out to the Associated Press. We felt that was the insurance policy for the people. On their way back to the capital, Vientiane, Ed and Georgie were dragged off the bus that they were travelling in and placed in detention for two days of interrogation. On June 6 they were deported, along with their Hmong interpreter, to the United States. Since their arrival back home, Ed and Georgie have been desperate to find out the fate of the 173 refugees. The Lao Government say they have been transferred to the village of Baan Pua and are being well cared for but no international agency or NGO has had access to them or been able to verify this account. Ed and Georgie certainly don't trust the Lao Government. GEORGIE SZENDREY: You can't trust them, you can't trust their word - they're not real forthright. They're liars, basically. I really felt when we got out that they weren't very honest people. They're very prejudiced against...towards the Hmong people. They don't look at them as people - they look at them more as subservient, and I think if they could, they would get rid of every single Hmong out of Laos. ED SZENDREY: And when was this? And how many mortars were fired into them? For up to 20,000 Hmong left in the jungle, their only lifeline to the outside world is with Ed's satellite phone. MAN: Why don't the United Nations and US Government and international community come and bring us out of Laos? They call every few days and their situation is now perilous. ED SZENDREY: Again, I don't understand the international politics. At this point, they say they're not able to, they can't force the Lao Government. The failure of the first surrender means that they are unlikely to come out of the jungle voluntarily. With the Lao military closing in and the international community seemingly impotent, it's increasingly likely that the Lao Hmong will perish in their jungle hide-out |