Another 400 Hmong give themselves up in Laos

BANGKOK, Dec 14 (Reuters) More than 400 Hmong, the ethnic minority who fought in Laos alongside the Americans during the Vietnam War, have given themselves up to the communist government, a US group which supports them said today.

The California-based Fact Finding Commission said the group, most them children, came out of the jungle yesterday and entered a village in the central province of Xieng Khouang.

They seemed ''very hungry and tired'', the commission said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters in Thailand. Around six hours after their arrival in the village, soldiers arrived to take them away in trucks, it added.

The Hmong, dubbed ''America's forgotten allies'' after the war, have had a difficult relationship with the Pathet Lao communists who have run the country since seizing power in 1975.

Human rights groups have accused the government of waging a 30-year campaign of vengeance against the remnants of Hmong guerrillas still hiding out in the forests.

Vientiane denies the accusations and says the groups of Hmong which have emerged in recent years have been part of government schemes to bring forest-dwellers nearer to roads to give them better access to power, health care and markets.

Government spokesman Yong Chanhthalansy did not confirm the arrival of the latest group.

''There are groups of hundreds of people who are all moving their villages closer to the roads, so it is more convenient for their livelihoods,'' he said.

The US embassy in Vientiane said it had received a number of reports about the latest surrender and urged the government and aid agencies to give whatever humanitarian assistance was necessary.

Since the war, the United States has granted asylum to thousands of Hmong, although it has indicated in the last few years it will accept no more.

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