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 named 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.