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Laos: Crimes on the Rise in Vientiane Capital

Lao authorities admit crimes have been on the rise in the capital city of Vientiane and increasingly violent in nature.

Security officials reveal that, in the past three months alone, they arrested more than 320 members of various organized crime groups, adding that since then they have been able to make more and more arrests as a result of their extensive interrogations of suspected criminals who incriminate fellow gang members. Officials say during a recent 20-day period, they were able to arrest 192 people involved in more than 160 crimes.

However, the head of the Vientiane Public Security Department, Col. Bounthieng Chanthamounkhoune, acknowledges that it is impossible for his men to make quick arrests of the majority of gang members because the criminals are heavily armed and confront them with assault weapons, as in the case of a recent raid in the That Luang area which resulted in the loss of one of his men and three serious injuries caused by shrapnels from a bomb thrown at them by the criminals.

Beside robberies, burglaries and thefts, drug smuggling and trafficking are also on the rise. In the most recent case, Vientiane's Wattay Airport authorities seized four kilograms of opium hidden in a package of soaps and facial creams destined for the United States.

In a related development, the Lao People's High Court reports that, in the past year, it has received more than 6,690 indictments against people suspected in various crime cases, of which 43% are drug-related.

Public security officials blame the increase in the number of criminals and the rise in crimes on the current economic situation, unemployment, and lack of educational opportunity for the majority of Lao youth, making them vulnerable and easily lured into organized crimes.

Songrit Pongern reported in Lao. Dara Baccam summarized in English.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2009-08-25-voa4.cfm

Laos to Welcome Overseas Laotians Back

Lao officials reaffirm their government’s policy to welcome and solicit overseas Laotians to go back and help develop the country, adding that they are also ready to grant Lao citizenship to those who renounce their current nationality.

During an interview with VOA Bangkok stringer, Laos’ Ambassador to Thailand Ouane Phommachack confirmed that his government has had a policy to welcome Laotians from overseas to help develop the country for over 30 years, but it had not been publicly acknowledged until now.

Neverthless, the pursuance of this policy continually has resulted in the flow of overseas Laotians returning to Laos for different purposes, including going back to visit relatives, to invest, and to help the Lao government in various capacities as well as to live there permanently. However, those who wish to regain their Lao nationality, they must renounce their current citizenship, because Lao laws stipulate that all Lao nationals cannot hold dual nationality.

According to Ambassador Phommachack, regardless of his/her nationality and objectives, every overseas Laotian who wishes to return to Laos will receive support from his government as long as his/her activities in Laos conform with Laos’ laws and regulations.

At the seventh session of the Lao National Assembly's Sixth Legislature last month, a new draft law proposed by the Lao Front for National Construction was adopted to encourage overseas Laotians who want to return home to take part in the national development.

The enactment of this legislation, aimed at galvanizing unity and reconciliation among Lao people from all walks of life, both in and out of the country, and in particular to mobilize contributions of overseas Laotians to the national building and development, is necessary to respond to the rapidly-changing global environment.

Upon officially taking effect, the new law would authorize the Lao Front for National Construction to take a key role in considering granting nationality to overseas Laotians who want to return home permanently.

Vientiane's latest attempt to woo overseas Laotians back home follows a successful model employed by its Vietnamese ally in encouraging overseas Vietnamese or Vietnamese diasporas to go back and help contribute to the national development.

Songrit Pongern reported in Lao from Bangkok on August 26, 2009. (English translation by Buasawan Simmala.)

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2009-08-29-voa3.cfm

Lao Deputy PM: Lao Mass Media Needs to Improve

Lao leaders say Lao mass media needs to improve their quality in both substances and human resources, while firmly adhering to the Party’s political lines.

Presiding over a recent ceremony marking the 59th Lao National Mass Media Day in Vientiane, Deputy Prime Minister Boungnang Vorachit stressed that with 8 press agencies, 35 radio stations and 32 television stations across the country, Lao media has developed and grown in every aspects, playing a vital role in disseminating information to the public and promoting the country’s socio-economic development.

However, in the current borderless era of information technology, Lao people are able to enjoy broader access to up-to-date information from abroad, and that inevitably affects their political ideas. Therefore, Lao media needs to address its weaknesses and limitations in all aspects in order to meet the challenges.

In response to the expanding demand for media service in the country, Laos has set a goal in its 2009-10 socio-economic plan, which will be implemented beginning this coming October until next September, to expand its radio signals to cover 90% of the country’s land areas, and increase the areas covered by Lao national television signals up to 70% .

In addition, the government has announced plans to develop an optic fiber cable system across the country, at an estimated cost of US$ 100 million, to enable media transmissions via Internet and allow public and private communication services across the country to link to each other and to the rest of the world by 2012 at the latest.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2009-08-31-voa5.cfm

LANA Takes a Lead in Getting Laotian-Americans Counted in the 2010 Census

The United States 2010 Census is an important head count of every resident of this country regardless of their race, gender and occupation. What makes the 2010 Census so significant is that the head count takes place only every 10 years. The last census, collected in 2000, counted less Laotian-Americans than the actual numbers at the time.

Mr. Sourichanh (Noi/Sirch) Chanthyasack, President/Chair of the Laotian American National Alliance (LANA) a national 501c3 advocacy organization founded in 1999 based in Washington, D.C., speaking by phone from his San Francisco residence, talked to VOA about the role of his organization in leading efforts to encourage members of the multi-ethnic Laotian American community across the nation to participate in the upcoming decennial US Census.

Issara visits rescued female Lao workers

By: LAMPHAI INTATHEP

Published: 23/05/2009 at 12:00 AM

Social Development and Human Security Minister Issara Somchai recently visited 20 young illegal Lao workers rescued from a sweatshop where they were forced to work 15 hours a day making garlands without pay or any days off.

The migrants, all females aged from 12-18, were sent to the Kredtrakarn Protection and Occupational Development Centre after police raided the sweatshop and rescued them on May 14.

The raid followed the police arrest on May 8 of a 15-year-old Lao girl who was selling flower garlands at Wat Rai Khing in Nakhon Pathom province.

The girl, an illegal migrant, told the police that 19 other Lao girls were being kept as slave workers at a house in Samut Sakhon's Krathum Baen district.

Police raided the house on May 14. The house owners, Kasem Pensuk, 48, and Thawanrat Sukprasertngam, 42, were arrested and charged with human trafficking, housing and employing illegal workers, and illegal use of child labour.

The girls said they were forced to make flower garlands from 5am to 8pm every day without pay or days off.

Nang, 14, whose fingers were severely blistered because of the hard work, said she came to work in Thailand to help ease the financial burden of her poor parents back in Laos.

Hmong caught in repatriation trap

BANGKOK - The pullout under protest of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) from the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in Petchabun in Thailand is a slap in the face to Thailand and Laos, both of which claim their repatriation of Hmong refugees is voluntary. To be sure, many of the refugees are actually economic migrants, but without a transparent screening process it is impossible to tell refugees with serious concerns for their safety from migrants.

MSF's departure is another human-rights embarrassment for Thailand's Abhisit Vejjajiva government which earlier this year came under intense international criticism over revelations its military had pushed Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar back out to sea. Thailand's military, however, appears undeterred and has announced a September 30 date for closing the camp. Critics allege the date was set to make sure all the Hmong were repatriated well before the start of the 2009 Southeast Asia Games in Vientiane, Laos, in December.

Huay Nam Khao camp was set up in 2005 after several thousand Hmong began arriving in Thailand in 2004 claiming persecution from the Lao government. MSF began working in the camp in 2005 providing food and medical relief. The original refugees were later joined by others and the camp population eventually reached a peak of 7,800 people. Thailand had believed the Lao refugee situation had ended with the closure of the last camps in the late 1990s and the agreement of the United States in 2003 to accept remaining Hmong refugees sheltering at Tham Krabok monastery in Saraburi province.

Laos Briton 'impregnated herself'

A British woman to be tried in Laos for heroin trafficking secretly impregnated herself with the sperm of another prisoner in an effort to escape the death penalty, according to a government newspaper.

Samantha Orobator's trial, originally scheduled for early May, had been delayed while authorities tried to determine how she could have become pregnant inside the prison.

The 20-year-old was arrested last August, but her case didn't draw international attention until news of her pregnancy became public and concerns initially grew that she could be executed by firing squad if found guilty.

Under criminal law in Laos, a pregnant woman cannot receive the death penalty.

According to Lao officials, Orobator initially told authorities she was pregnant by her boyfriend in Britain, but tests showed no signs of pregnancy.

It was not until March 2 that a hospital test showed she was pregnant, verified by a second test on April 4, police said. That meant she must have become pregnant while in prison.

Orobator's mother recently said her daughter had not been raped by prison officials or fellow prisoners, as some media had reported.

The Vientiane Times quoted police as saying Orobator told authorities she secretly obtained sperm from a fellow prisoner to impregnate herself to avoid the death penalty. The newspaper did not name the sources or give other details.

Orobator was in jail and so could not be reached to confirm or deny the newspaper account. Orobator's mother Jane has said her daughter told her that she had not been sexually assaulted while in prison and that the father of her unborn child was not a Lao prison official.

But Jane Orobator did not reveal the identity of the father.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iC0w7amObYPOtrK4MVj21-uv1t7Q

Pregnant Briton's drug trial to open in Laos

HANOI (AFP) — The trial of a pregnant British woman charged with drug trafficking was due to start Wednesday in Laos, a British embassy spokesman said, ending weeks of waiting and false starts.

The case of Samantha Orobator, 20, was expected to begin at 0630 GMT. A British legal charity brought her case to light early in May, saying at the time that her trial could be imminent and fearing she could be executed.

"The Lao authorities informed us yesterday that the trial will be going ahead," said the spokesman, who is in the Lao capital Vientiane with three other consular officials who flew there from Bangkok.

The Lao government spokesman, Khenthong Nuanthasing, could not be reached and his office said he was out of the country.

Orobator was detained in August after allegedly being caught with 680 grams (1.5 pounds) of heroin while trying to board a plane to Thailand. Normally, anyone found with more than 500 grams of heroin faces the death penalty.

Laos' HIV/AIDS Infection Continues to Rise

Laos' National Anti-HIV/AIDS Commission recently released a new report summarizing the HIV/AIDS situation in the country. The report says from 1990 to the end of 2008, authorities were able to perform a random voluntary screening of 175,000 people across the country, which is considered a relatively small number when compared to the total population of almost six million.

Screening results found 2,858 infected people, with 1,837 having full-blown AIDS, leading to 873 deaths so far. The screening also found a disproportionate increase in the number of female infections. Of the 900 patients currently receiving treatment and drugs from the National Anti-HIV/AIDS Center, 43% are women, many of whom became infected after having sex with husbands or boyfriends who return home from working illegally in Thailand. A large number of HIV/AIDS-infected Lao women comprises of those who, driven by poverty, went to work in the sex industry in neighboring countries, particularly Thailand.

Authorities say a major factor contributing to the increase in HIV/AIDS infections in Laos is its central location in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, which links it to all its GMS neighbors. That, combined with Laos pursuing the policy of opening its door to trade, foreign investment and tourism, makes it difficult for Lao authorities to effectively stifle or control the spread of the disease.

Acknowledging the predicament, Laos' Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Bounkouang Phichit, says to effectively address this problem requires not only preventive measures, but also treatment as well as seeking out high risk groups and providing them appropriate services. Education, advertisement and dissemination of information are also important to raise awareness, to make people in all walks of life and strata of the society understand the danger of the disease, and know how to prevent themselves from getting infection.

A doctor treating an AIDS patient LaosThe current HIV/AIDS situation in Laos led the country's National Anti-HIV/AIDS Center to estimate that, in reality, there are more than 10,000 infected people. And another important contributing factor, besides all those mentioned above, is the lack of government budget to fund the efforts to effectively address the problem.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2009-01-12-voa4.cfm

Thai Officials Insist Hmongs in Huay Namkao Return to Laos

Thai Foreign Minister, Mr. Kasith Piromya, insists that Lao Hmong taking refuge at the Huay Namkhao temporary camp, Phetchaboun Province, in northeastern Thailand, have rights to apply for petitions to resettle in a third country, especially in the United States. However, they can apply for petitions to do so only through the agencies in Laos because the Thai government does not give foreign agencies authority to become involved with the issue of Lao-Hmong refugees in Thailand. Since 2004, about 8,000 Hmong refugees from Laos entered Thailand and take a refuge at Ban Huay Nam Khao in Phetchabun province. Many hoped of becoming accepted for resettlement in third countries like the more than 15,000 Hmong refugees who used to be at Wat Tham Krabok in Sarabury and resettled in the United States, where they reunited with relatives. But, since Thai authorities consider the new coming group of Lao-Hmongs as illegal immigrants, they cannot apply for their petitions in Thailand. Hence, together with Lao authorities, Thai officials have repatriated over 2,000 Hmong refugees to Laos since 2007. According to Mr. Kasit Piromya, these two neighboring countries' governments will continue to do so until they completely repatriate all remaining Hmong who numbered over 5,000 people in Huay Namkhao, to Laos by June this year.