California (FFC)  In March of this year BBC Director/Producer Ruhi Hamid and her husband Misha Maltzev spent eleven days in the jungles of Bolikhamxay Province in Northern Laos.  There they visited one of the twenty groups of  the U.S. Secret War veterans and their families that have been hiding in the remote areas of Laos since 1975.  The group they documented now only number about 200 people, mostly women and children.  The people are starving.  They have no medication.  Every few days they move to another area to avoid the communist's troops that have been hunting them for nearly three decades.  The journalist found malnourished children who had been shot from behind suggesting they had been running away from the communists' soldiers when they were wounded.  They found a people who are pleading for international intervention and whom will all soon die if humanitarian aid does not come.
Their story has been shown in two documentaries on BBC.  The first One Day at War compares 16 conflicts around the world.  The Hmong of Laos stand out because they are not angry insurgents, but simply a hunted people that want to survive.  The second documentary, Frontline Stories, devotes a half-hour to Ruhi and Misha's sojourn deep into the jungles to explore Laos' best-kept secret, the genocide of those whose only crime is their loyalty to the United States during a war the world would like to forget.

Only days after Ruhi and Misha left Laos international journalist Nelson Rand began his three-week trek into the remote jungles of the Xaysomboune Special Zone.  There he met with a group of about 2000 Hmong and Khmu living under similar circumstances as found by Ruhi and Misha some several hundred miles away.  Nelson lived as they lived, ate as they ate, slept as they slept, and moved as they moved to avoid communist Lao military assaults.  He too found them ill equipped to be a threat to the internal security of Laos.  The majority of their time is spent searching for food and keeping a vigilant eye out for land mines and the LPDR troupes that hunt them daily.  Nelson found this group also just wanted the opportunity to live in peace and raise their families without the constant threat of starvation and military assaults.

On June 14th Nelson's story was featured on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Other media has shown interest in his video and photographic expose of the Lao governments determination to wipe out this group of people.

All the journalists agreed that while the United States has an obligation to help these people the problem is a humanitarian crisis that needs to be addressed by all the nations of the free world.

In June the three foreign journalists came together in the United States bringing the plight of the Secret War Veterans and their families to America.   Ruhi Hamid and Nelson Rand first met with a team of United Nations staff members in New York.  The pair reported that the staff members, who represent several areas of responsibility within the organization, showed great interest in the problems faced by the Hmong in the mountains of Laos. 
A few days later, the pair met with several staff members at the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C.   After being de-briefed by the journalists the staff members asked several questions about the alleged rebel groups and their situation.  State Department staff members were not committal and asked that any of their comments be off the record.   

Afterwards they were interviewed by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America.  These broadcasts are heard by those living in the jungles of Laos.  Through these the journalists were able to convey to the people in the jungle that they had kept their promise to bring the plight of the people in the jungle to the American people. 

Congressional staff members in Washington D.C. also met with the journalists.  While not all agreed on how to resolve the problem all the staff members did agree that something needed to be done for these people and be done soon. 

     
Joined by Misha, Ruhi and Nelson then brought their reports to the Hmong and Lao communities here in the United States.   Nearly three thousand people came to community forums in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  In each area their stories were broadcast over Hmong Radio.  On June 15^th the journalists spoke at a rally in St. Paul expressing their support for the Long Walk for Freedom which began on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol.  They then walked with Zong Khang Yang as he began his 1150 mile walk to Washington D.C. to bring the killing to the U.S. Secret War veterans and their families to the attention of grass roots America.