Hmong 'would rather die' than be sent back to Laos

BANGKOK, June 12 (Reuters) Leaders of 8,000 ethnic Hmong in a makeshift camp in Thailand vowed to fight deportation to ommunist-run Laos, where they say they will be tortured because their relatives backed the United States in the Vietnam War.

''We would rather die in Thailand than be sent back to die in Laos,'' Ly Seu, one of the leaders of the Huay Nam Khao camp in northern Thailand's Petchabun province, told Reuters by telephone yesterday.

Bangkok deported 160 Hmong from Petchabun on Saturday, a week after US agents in California arrested former Hmong chief Vang Pao for plotting to overthrow the Vientiane government.

The 77-year-old self-styled general ran a CIA-trained, anti-communist guerrilla army in Laos during the war.

His arrest prompted concerns -- fanned by this weekend's deportations -- that US and Thai patience had finally run out for ''America's Forgotten Allies,'' who say they are still having to pay for their people's Cold War allegiances.

''We had to leave Laos because we are the children of the CIA allies who have been suppressed since 1975,'' Ly Seu said.

''All the Hmong leaders in Huay Nam Khao have agreed that we will resist all kinds of deportation. The Lao government has lied to the world that it would look after the Hmong.'' However, the US State Department urged Thailand to screen people being returned so that those who might be persecuted would not be sent back.

''Unfortunately, continued allegations of human rights violations in Laos, combined with the Lao government's refusal so far to permit monitoring of returnees, cause concern about the well-being of those who were deported,'' US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

A spokesman for Thailand's army-appointed government, which recently struck a deal with Laos to return Hmong ''no matter how many bullet wounds they have,'' according to the Nation newspaper, refused to comment on the future of the Petchabun camp.

However, Lao foreign ministry spokesman Yong Chanhthalansy said under the terms of the agreement every Hmong who was confirmed as coming from Laos would be sent back.

''We will continue with this program with the Thais in batches of 100-200 per group until the last Hmong from Laos are repatriated,'' he said by telephone from Vientiane.

He denied any trouble or the use of force by either Thai or Lao authorities at this weekend's ''handing over ceremony'' of what he described as ''illegal migrants.'' The group were being debriefed and would either be returned to their native districts or be resettled on new land, Yong said, adding that foreign media and diplomats would be invited to visit to verify they were being well treated.

Nevertheless, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expressed ''deep concern'' at the deportations.

UNHCR officials in Bangkok said they did not know whether any political fugitives were among the deportees as they had been denied access to conduct screening interviews.

''It is highly regrettable that such screening did not take place before the deportation,'' spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey said.

Human rights and exile groups accuse Vientiane of waging a campaign of vengeance against the Hmong, including sending in helicopter gunships against a ragtag band of rebels holding out in the landlocked southeast Asian nation's dense jungle.

The Lao government denies the allegations.

REUTERS SG RK0850