October 20, 2003

Photographs Tell Tragic Story Around the World

St. Paul (FFC) Saturday, internationally renowned photographer, Philip Blenkinsop presented his award winning photographs depicting the plight of a small band of veterans of the U.S. Secret War and their families who are still hiding in the mountains and jungles of Laos, to a standing room only audience.  Over a thousand people, mostly Laotian-Americans packed the Central Senior High School auditorium to hear him tell about the conditions of these people.   In attendance at the public forum were leaders of the CIA supported Secret War in Laos, General Vang Pao and General Tonglith Chokbengboun.   

In January of this year, Blenkinsop, accompanied Time Magazine correspondent, Andrew Perrin, into the forbidden Xaysomboune Special (military) zone in the jungles of northern Laos to document the plight of the remnants of the veterans of the U.S. Secret War and their families who have been the subject of communist persecution since the end of the Vietnam conflict.
   
Blenkinsop says, "Our time in the mountains with them was like living with ghosts. They are a people who live with the constant fear of death.  They are void of any hope whatsoever."

Blenkinsop stressed that he is a journalist not an advocate for the Hmong, nor is he political or religious.  He stated, however as a human being he needed to bring his photographs to the United States to bring the persecution and starvation of these people to the attention of the rest of the world.  He believes that if there is not immediate intervention the group he visited may have only about eight months before they are all dead.   

Blenkinsop's photos have drawn world attention having been published by Time Magazine Asia/Australia, Le Monde 2 magazine in Paris, Agora Gazetta in Poland, the Sunday Times Magazine in London, El Mundo Newspaper in Spain, l'Express International Magazine and L'Espresso magazine in Italy. 

An exhibition of his images on the plight of the U.S. Secret War veterans was considered by many to have been the highlight of the 2003 Visa Pour l'Image Festival of Photojournalism in the French city of Perpignan where the work was awarded the prestigious Golden Visa Prize, judged by an international jury of magazine editors to have been the most powerful magazine story of the year.

As a result the plight of these people has come to the attention of other governments and world organizations such as Amnesty International.  Blenkinsop hopes major publications in the America will soon print the photographs and bring this tragedy to the attention of the people and move the United States government to intervene for these beleaguered people.