"Since I have seen and know what has happened, I have no choice but to give witness," said Jane Hamilton-Merritt, on becoming a human rights activist after reporting on the persecution of the Hmong in Laos during and after the Vietnam War. Hamilton-Merritt, journalist, author, photographer, and human rights activist, was the keynote speaker at the First Nations/New Nations conference at UW-Eau Claire on March 11th.

Hamilton-Merritt was referring to the deadly situation in Laos, which she saw while covering the secret war the Hmong fought for the US against North Vietnam. The Hmong are still being persecuted by the communists as a result of their allying with America. Because the Hmong were so successful, they were brutalized then and are still hunted down in the jungles and tortured today, Hamilton-Merritt said. This goes on because the world stays silent on this issue.

At the First Nations/New Nations conference, Hamilton-Merritt presented a slideshow of her wartime photographs, and read small excerpts from her book, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 (Indiana University Press, 1993).
Hamilton-Merritt read from her book, quoting a Hmong soldier, "When the Americans were in trouble, we Hmong made a path with our blood to save them." Much of what she talked about was exemplified when local Hmong veterans of the war spoke to the conference audience. Each of the six veterans present had stories related to helping the Americans defend positions, move supplies, or rescue Americans when they were in trouble.

President Johnson secretly called upon the Hmong to rescue any fallen American pilots. The US military publicly denied that Americans were in Laos, so it was imperative that the Vietnamese did not get them as POWs. A veteran Hmong soldier present at the conference told the story of one such mission, when he rescued the body of a downed American so it could be taken back to America. Two of his companions were killed, and he himself was shot. He showed the audience the bullet, which he still carries in his wallet.

Hamilton-Merritt explained having seen US H-34 unmarked marine helicopters flying covert operations, backing her story with photographs. "I saw massacres; I saw the survivors of new biological weapons on people," she said, describing the use of biological weapons by the communists against the Hmong.

The chaos of war and persecution separated many Hmong families. One veteran spoke of hiding out in the jungle with his son who had been wounded by a landmine, and how they eventually had to come out. He was then imprisoned for four years, before escaping to Thailand. His wife and children knew nothing of his whereabouts, and left for America without him. Today his wife is married to another man, and his children live elsewhere around the Midwest.

After the US pulled out of the war, Hmong had to maneuver through the jungle to the Macon River, where Thailand lies across the river. Thai soldiers did not want Hmong coming in because the Thai would have to handle them, and ultimately all they could do was put the Hmong into refugee camps. The conditions were bad as they awaited exodus to another country. Some had to work in quarries and do other manual labor, provided with little water and no medicine, before they could be sponsored for travel to another country.

The United States has taken in many Hmong people, mostly to California and to Midwestern states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The countries of Australia, Canada, and France have also taken in many Hmong. While thousands of Hmong come to the United States every year (2,000 to St. Paul this summer alone), some families remain in camps now after over ten years.

Many people in the United States do not understand why the Hmong are here, and fewer understand how much the Hmong people sacrificed during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, and still feel the effects today. One veteran said, "My heart is broken, my heart is so sad...because the Americans don't know what I have done."

Currently, the situation for the Hmong in Laos is of grave concern. For example, Hmong are being held in Laos, surrounded by Lao and Vietnamese military. Amnesty International is not allowed in to investigate the human rights situation, and they recently released statements detailing concern for the use of starvation as a weapon of war against Hmong civilians.

In House Resolution 402, presented on October 16, 2003, urgent need was expressed "for freedom, democratic reform, and international monitoring of elections, human rights, and religious liberty in the Lao People's Democratic Republic," (which is neither democratic nor a republic). The bill is currently in the House Committee for International Relations, and its sponsors are looking for more cosponsors.

Jane Hamilton-Merritt said that the main way the United States can put pressure on Laos is by not granting the country Normal Trade Relations status (formerly called Most Favored Trading status) with the United States. This would pressure the Lao government to clean up their human rights record. Otherwise, they will have no incentive to do so, and the situation will remain in the sad state it's in.