Disgruntled medics to quit Hmong refugee camp

Bangkok Post ^ | 12/28.2009 | ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT

[LeoWindhorse]

The Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) yesterday announced its withdrawal from the Hmong camp in Huay Nam Khao, Phetchabun province, after operating there for nearly four years.

The reason, they say, is the Thai military's restrictions and coercive tactics.

The withdrawal is a further embarrassment for the Abhisit adminstration, which recently suffered a bruised image due to the Navy's inhumane push-back of the Rohingya boat people.

Gilles Isard, MSF's head of mission in Thailand, said the Thai military's scare tactics to pressure ethnic Lao Hmong to accept a forced return to Laos and its intensifying restrictions on MSF's activities, such as trying to force the organisation to temporarily cut food distribution to the refugee population and forcing patients to pass through military control to obtain medical care, have compelled his organisation to terminate its medical relief programme in the Huay Nam Khao camp.

[LeoWindhorse]

this ain't right people....

[Bringbackthedraft]

They are the “right” people, we keep letting in the “wrong” ones.

[ASA Vet]

Thai Ping

[Traveler59]

Here's my take. My wife is Thai, and we've got Thai TV programming coming off of a Co-op satellite so I get live Thai news every several hours. The in-laws give me a more 'in depth' background to this story and I'd say this article from the Bangkok Post should be given the same credibility as an article the New York Post. The Thai government has been telling the Laos people the gravy train is over, you need to go back home.

Think of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, when do you stop giving them fish and tell them to go fish?

- Traveler

[CholeraJoe]

Anything that inconveniences MSF (a.k.a. F*(#heads without borders) is fine by me.

[Bringbackthedraft]

Think of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, when do you stop giving them fish and tell them to go fish? ........................... Granted, My opinion is based on activities that occurred 30+ years ago, by now almost 2 generations later, we already picked up the good guys.

[USMCPOP]

I lived with them for a time in the refugee camps. Did my best. I have seen hundreds coming out wet from crossing the Mekong river in the morning, a big pile of old M-1’s where they were disarmed. Heard about another incident circa 1979 where some were repatriated from Chieng Kan in Loei, with disastrous results.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2416122/posts

[killjoy]

Which Thai News program are you watching? All current network Thai television news is government controlled and follows the Democrat party line 100%.

[Traveler59]

IPTV off of the Galaxy 19 satellite. This is subscription, but there is also Free To Air (FTA) that I can pick up Laos TV. Yes it is obvious there is government control, but with in-laws living in Pattaya, Bangkok, Kohn Kaen, and Chang Mai I can usually get the 'background filler' information that isn't broadcast.

- Traveler

[killjoy]

Don’t forget the Thai (Democrat) Government still denies that the Rohingya were towed out to sea and abandoned without food and water even though the RTA has admitted to doing it.