Fear of being killed remains the prime reason groups of Hmong hilltribe people are still stuck in isolated pockets in Laos unwilling, and in some cases, virtually unable to surrender - 33 years after the Indochina war ended, advocates say.

The leader of one group of Hmong who have refused or been too scared to integrate into Lao society has made repeated appeals to supporters in the US in recent weeks that his people are so pinned down by government and Vietnamese troops, they cannot surrender without taking casualties.

Most "jungle Hmong" groups - thought to total perhaps 2,000 or 3,000 people - now have a mobile phone, so their plight is becoming better known in the outside world.

Independent Hmong advocate Joe Davy said Yang Lue, the leader of a group of Hmong near Phu Bia in northern Laos, rang him in Chicago several times over the past two months to complain about the dire predicament his group faced. The last time a large group of Hmong attempted to surrender, three people were killed, Yang Lue told Davy.

"He claims that an incident in late November in which three people were killed near Pha Jaow [Stone Mountain] was during an attempt to surrender. He said something like 60 or 100 people tried to surrender but when the soldiers opened fire, the others fled back into the jungle," Davy said in an e-mail to journalists and consular officials in Thailand.

"Killed in the attack was the wife of Va Cher Her, who is the elder brother of the famous jungle leader Zong Zoua Her, along with Va Cher Her's daughter and 8-year-old grandson."

Davy said as many as 900 Hmong, split up into groups of about 20 people, were believed to be living around Phu Bia, the highest peak in Laos.

Yang Lue and other leaders of jungle Hmong groups seemed to genuinely want to surrender, he said, but feared more people would be killed in the process and that Lao troops and officials would treat them harshly once taken into custody.

Others have said Hmong Americans were also phoning the groups and advising them not to surrender "for political reasons" - to hinder international cooperation with the communist regime; to help to prevent "refugees" at Huay Nam Khao being sent back to Laos; or because it might stifle bids (legitimate or otherwise) to raise funds from Hmong now living abroad.

US protests and subsequent publicity about a massacre on April 6, 2006 when some 26 people - mainly women and children - were reportedly slain about 5km north of Vang Vieng may have also spurred Lao leaders to change military tactics.

Roger Arnold, an American photographer taken to the site of the April 2006 massacre, showed photos of that atrocity at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Bangkok recently. He has posted a report about the incident on YouTube. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mi68GYu64k).

Arnold said the whereabouts of about 2,200 Hmong who surrendered from the jungle or were returned to Laos by Thai authorities since 2005 was unknown.

"One big reason the Hmong are afraid to surrender is, once they do, they usually go missing indefinitely and sometimes permanently. And sometimes they are raped or tortured before being released," he said.

"When there are no international monitors, there is no evidence of who surrendered. How can they trust Lao leaders who make public statements that there is no fighting in Laos when Hmong continue to flee to Thailand full of bullet wounds? And some Hmong Americans exploit their fears by telling them to stay in the jungle and that help is on the way. They get screwed by both sides and don't know who to trust."

Laura Xiong, a Hmong advocate in Nebraska in the US, said: "Based on the information I received, the Lao PDR troops no longer open fire at a larger group, but are quietly shooting at them one at a time. This is the new strategy of the Lao military toward the Hmong in the jungle. This may be due to the decrease in the number of people remaining in the jungle."

Davy said: "Yang Lue seems to be very sincere in his desperate pleas for help in monitoring their surrender attempts. He told me just days ago, during our last conversation, that his group has no other choice but to surrender now whether they get killed or not. He asks that the foreign diplomatic community, the United Nations and international human rights monitors intervene to secure their safety.

"Jungle leaders in that area cannot surrender themselves, as they fear they will be killed because they are well-known figures. But they wish for their groups to surrender if they can do so with some obvious safety measures. It is very sad that the international community has not been able to do anything to help these groups after some 32 years in the jungles."

Lao government officials have claimed in recent media interviews there is no fighting in isolated parts of the country. However, reports by Davy and others suggest Laos' total denial of any clashes is just a strategy aimed at minimising disruption to tourism and business - including billions to be spent building dozens of dams for hydropower over the coming years.

Small ambush-style attacks by the Lao military on Hmong groups generally foraging for food have been occurring regularly at a whole range of sites, Davy said.

"From September 22 to 25, 2007 I received calls from jungle leader [name withheld], who lives in the Phu De Phao jungles or Nam Seng Pha Sai area. He claimed that his group of 300-600 Hmong living in the Phu De Phao jungles were under periodic military attack and afraid to surrender."

About a week after the fatal attack in Phu Bia on November 26, two Hmong were killed and eight severely wounded by gunfire during a Lao military attack that took place in the jungles of Nam Tau Sam Seng, Davy said. "The Lao soldiers involved in that attack were reportedly ethnic Hmong communist soldiers."

Davy said the last remaining band of five to six people in Borikhamsai province were captured in January 2007, and included a lowland Lao defector by the name of Senoon.

"He [Senoon] was a soldier in the Lao military who defected to the Hmong jungle group in the mid-1980s after he witnessed repeated broken promises of amnesty for the Hmong. He was a company commander who had regularly participated in these government programmes. After witnessing jungle leaders who surrendered in these amnesties being executed or imprisoned he decided to quit the military and join the jungle groups."

(Quelle: The Nation, 23. Jänner 2008)