VZCZCXRO4048
PP RUEHCHI
DE RUEHBK #5061 2300827
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 180827Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY BANGKOK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1035
INFO RUEHVN/AMEMBASSY VIENTIANE PRIORITY 2537
RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI PRIORITY 2317
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 1709

UNCLAS BANGKOK 005061 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
GENEVA PASS RMA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PREL PHUM TH LA
SUBJECT: REPORTS OF THAI DEPORTATION OF HMONG GROUP 
 
¶1. (SBU) Embassy received reports August 16 from an NGO 
worker and a Hmong-American contact that some of the 
approximately 270 Hmong detained at seven police stations in 
Petchaboon Province for illegal entry into Thailand had been 
moved to the Lao border. 
 
¶2. (SBU) A Thai Immigration official in Chiang Rai Province 
and a Petchaboon police official told Embassy on August 16 
that five families/31 persons were taken on August 16 from 
the Lom Kao police station in Petchaboon Province to a remote 
mountain village called Mu Baan Pitakthai, which is close to 
the Lao border about 90 kilometers from Chiang Kong City in 
Chiang Rai Province and about 60 kilometers from Chiang Kham 
City in Phayao Province.  The village is apparently populated 
mostly by Thai Hmong.  The group was given about a week's 
worth of dried food and walked from Mu Baan Pitakthai to the 
Thai-Lao border.  According to the Petchaboon police 
official, the group was left at the border and there were no 
Lao officials on the other side.  There are apparently some 
Lao-Hmong villages across the border on the Lao side and some 
movement of Hmong in the area back and forth across the 
border. 
¶3. (SBU) On August 18, Embassy received conflicting 
second-hand reports on the location of this group.  The Thai 
Chiang Kong official said he had heard from the Thai Border 
Patrol Police that the group had crossed into Laos. 
(Comment.  If the group crossed into Laos it is unclear 
whether they did so voluntarily or involuntarily.  No reports 
have said that Lao officials were present on the other side 
of the border.  End comment.)  A U.S.-based Hmong NGO 
activist said that witnesses were reporting the group had 
returned to Thailand after being sent across the border into 
Laos.  Embassy is seeking further information from the Mu 
Baan Pitakthai village head. 
 
¶4. (SBU) A Petchaboon police official reported on August 18 
that none of the other Hmong currently being detained at 
other police stations in Petchaboon Province had been moved. 
Separate telephone calls to some of those police stations 
confirmed this information. 
BOYCE