Mldh : do you know where Thao Moua and  Pa Phue Khang are being detained? How old are they ? What is their profession ?
Rev. NK M : Thao Moua was 27 years old and a farmer, while Pa Fue Khang was 33 years old and a taxi driver. Because both of them were considered political prisoners, they are detained at Phonetong, Vientiane.

Mldh : Do you know where their families live ?
Rev. NK M : Thao Moua's family is at KM 52, Vientiane and Pa Fue Khang's family is in Phonesavanh.

Mldh : Do you know if their families have been able to visit them ?
Rev. NK M : Yes. When I was there,their families were able to visit them. I have no idea after I was released on July 9, 2003.

Mldh :  do you have   messaged or   cries from prisoners   to the outside world, mostly when they knew you would probably be freed ?
Rev. NK M : At Phoesavanh  jail in Xiengkhuang, 4 Hmong prisoners died between June 8 and June 30, 2003. These were the dates I was transferred to Vientiane and back to Xiengkhuang for the trial. They died simply because they were Hmong. And their deaths had never been notified to the families. The bodies were buried like animals.

At Phonetong  jail in Vientiane, where I was held for 30 days, five Hmong men went from Thailand to celebrate new year with their relatives in Muang Fuang in Laos and were arrested as political prisoners since 1999. Three of them were sentenced for 15 years and two for 20 years in prisons. Four of them barely are able to write their own names. In 2001, two Hmong boys came from the jungle to buy medicine for their families and were arrested by Lao authorities. The boys were 14 and 17 years old. The Lao government systematically increased their ages by 4 years to be 18 and 21 years old respectively so they could be sentenced as adults for 15 years in prison, suspecting them to be children of resistants. They were born in the jungle knowing nothing about politics. Why are they accused of being political?

Personally, I was arrested and chained both hands and legs for three days. My leg chains weighted three kilograms and continued on until the day I was allowed to see my Ambassador (6/16/2003). Two weeks later, my wife wrote me a letter. The U.S. Ambassador showed me the letter but Lao authority took it away in front of the Embassy personnels without having the chance to read it. Another week later, I was given some Lao kips by the embassy; but in the car on the way back to the jail, Lao officers demanded that I should give them the money, once again, I had no time to count it. Later on, I was told that it was 30,000 kips, but I have never seen it again.

Some prisoners have been detained there for as long as 21 years without a trial. Many of them are not trialed. Nobody knows how long they will be in prison, maybe a lifetime.

The love of God and His resources are abundantly rich and largely enough for everybody. The problem is that they are not evenly distributed to the people. There is nothing wrong for us to have different opinions on the issue of racial discriminations, human rights violations, and political oppressions in Laos.

I believe, however, it is wrong if we
1) cooperate with the oppressor against the oppressed,
2)  work parallel to causing more suffering to the victims, and/or
3) remain silent for such a time as this.

The experience of the journalists and myself was that we have learned from both sides of the problem: the miseries of the oppressed Hmong and the cruelties of the oppressor the LPDR  government.

I am calling upon the Amnesty International, Human Rights organizations, the International Committee of Red Cross, and other networks to go inside Laos to learn about its prison conditions, religious persecutions, and other human rights violations. Your calls to help improve these areas are desperately needed for such a time as this and had never been more urgent than now.