Msf Protest Places Hmong Refugees In Thailand At Risk Of Humanitarian Crisis

[george]

The protest by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - Doctors without Borders, could create a humanitarian crisis

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors without Borders as they are otherwise known, runs the risk of increasing suffering amongst Laotian Hmong refugees rather than easing it, when it withdraws from a camp it has been servicing to protest the Thailand governments treatment of Hmong, a human rights leader says.

MSF has announced it is withdrawing from the Huay Nam Khao camp in Petchabun province, Northern Thailand, to protest what it describes as “coercive tactics” and action by the Thai military against the Hmong.

MSF claims to have had continual problems with Thai military officials and the Thai Army’s psychological operations unit in Phitsanulok.

However Yap Swee Seng, director of Forum-Asia, a regional human rights organisation with 42 member-organisations across Asia said protesting in this manner will hurt the very people MSF are supposed to be helping.

Mr Yap said he had, “personally never heard of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) protesting working conditions imposed by a host country by withdrawing its services before. Usually it is a government telling an NGO they are no longer welcome.

“It’s a matter of grave concern… it will be very unfortunate if the assistance supplied to this camp is cut off. The community will suffer and with the wet season now underway they [Hmong refugees] will be more in need of medical care than in the dry season. Their protest action could result in a humanitarian crisis,” he said.

A similar view was expressed by Steve Gumaer, head of Partners World, an NGO that runs programs for orphaned and displaced children, provides emergency relief, development, and capacity building with other minority groups under the name of Partners Relief & Development in Thailand’s northern and northwestern provinces.

Mr Gumaer said he had “never heard of an NGO protesting in a manner like this before. “It’s just going to make it worse for the Hmong. It’s not going to shake the Thais. It sounds like the wrong way of going about making their point”.

MSF claims, “The Thai military’s scare tactics to pressure ethnic Laos Hmong refugees to accept a forced return to Laos and its intensifying restrictions on MSF’s activities, such as trying to force MSF to temporarily cutting (sic) food distributions to the refugee population and forcing patients to pass through military control to obtain medical care, have compelled MSF to terminate its medical relief program.”

The international humanitarian aid organisation, established by a group of French doctors and journalists in 1971 in the wake of the famine in Biafra, Nigeria, scheduled a media conference for Wednesday (May 20, 2009) to explain its actions.

The NGO said it will withdraw from the camp and issued, “a final appeal to the Thai and Laotian governments to immediately stop deporting the Hmong refugees in Huay Nam Khao and to allow an independent third party to review the refugees’ claims for protection and to monitor any repatriations.”

Laos and Thailand claim all 5,000 Hmong in the camp are economic migrants, and that the 2,000 or so ethnic Hmong already returned to Laos have gone back voluntarily.

MSF though say the Laos government’s human rights record is poor and there is minimal transparency, because the UN or third parties are forbidden from properly monitoring the returnees.

Last year MSF called for international monitors to screen the Hmong for those with genuine refugee claims, saying dozens of people in the camp had bullet wounds and there was the potential for riots and suicides if the Hmong were not properly screened before being returned to Laos.

MSF is believed to have been providing food, shelter and medical care worth more than €1 million (about $US1.365 million) a year to the Huay Nam Khao camp and it is the size of the contribution and the hole that will be left when they withdraw that has people worried.

Other NGOs contacted refused to make on-the-record comments for fear of generating a rift in the close knit NGO community, but all claimed to be “shocked” and “surprised” by the decision of an NGO to protest by taking away the very services they were established to provide, from the people they are supposed to be providing it to.

Mr Yap said it will be very difficult to find another NGO to step in and fill the gap left by MSF. “MSF have the expertise and it will take time for other NGOs to mobilise the resources, the funds and the people.”

If MSF suddenly abandons the Huay Nam Khao camp, Mr Yap said he would expect it to take at least a month or more before other NGOs were ready to mobilise, and for the necessary approvals to be granted by the Thai government for any replacement program to be introduced.

“Refugees are the most vulnerable group in society and I hope the Thai government takes note of what is happening and the reasons for it. The government has a responsibility to protect those who are vulnerable,” Mr Yap said.

The Hmong have long been a bone of contention in relationships between Thailand and Laos.

In the early 1960s the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began recruiting and training Laos Hmong for fighting in the Vietnam War. Some estimates put the number of Hmong men in Laos who joined the fighting at 60 percent of the population.

Under the identity of the Special Guerrilla Unit, the CIA used Hmong fighters to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the main military supply route from Vietnam’s north to the south, and to rescue downed American pilots.

From 1967 to 1971, 3,772 Hmong soldiers were killed in combat, with another 5,426 injured or disabled. Between 1962 and 1975 about 12,000 Hmong died fighting the communist-nationalist Pathet Lao in Laos, in what became known as the Secret War.

When the Pathet Lao took over the government in 1975 the Hmong were singled out for retribution, and tens of thousands fled to Thailand seeking political asylum.

The Thai Army claims only about 100 Hmong in the camp have proven links to those who fought for the CIA in the Secret War against the communists, however, MSF and major human rights groups and Hmong advocates in the US believe the number of legitimate refugees could be many times higher.

MSF said its decision to withdraw from the Huay Nam Khao camp would not affect a project run by MSF France in Mae Sot treating migrants for tuberculosis, or another project operated by MSF Belgium in Sangkhla Buri treating ethnic Mon from Burma for malaria.

-- John Le Fevre

[norwayeagle]

Thank you for this reminder and news.

[Krungthepian]

Excuse me, but I get the feeling both the NGO fellow quoted and the journalist don't know what they're talking about.

MSF said today they were planning to hand the project over. They are not rushing out. Unicef has been enlisted to help find another NGO take over this project. There is no talk of MSF leaving and dumping these people.

Anyone who has followed this entire fiasco would know that they have had huge problems all along with the Thai military - problems that are getting worse and need to be properly revealed to the world.

Hmong advocates in the US who have been following this situation closely aren't jumping up and down screaming at MSF - which is one of the world's most highly regarded NGOs (one Nobel peace prize vs 4 for the International Red Cross, I think).

And as for no precedent for this type of behaviour.. it's happened several occasions in Burma and elsewhere. Arrangements were made in similar cases, such as when the Global Fund pulled out of Burma (not exactly the same situation but similar).

One can have sympathy for the notion raised the human rights leader is making. But I don't think he knows much about the situation (this bloke is HK or Singapore based - Chinese name?).

Most observers of the Hmong refugee crisis agree that the "real villains" are 1) Laos, 2) Thailand and 3) the US.

Laos is the country pushing the compulsory return of these people. And what has to be recognised is most are - as both Thailand and Laos say - economic migrants. Not real refugees. The proportion of true refugees is perhaps less than a third; perhaps just 1000 out of the 4,700 people remaining. Maybe just 500 people. That is the sort of figure suggested by Joe Davy, the top advocate based in Chicago (who should be hired to do the screening). MSF said at the press conference today that 180 people in the camp have bullet wounds, but some of those scars date back to the war (35 years old).

The others are poor Hmong who were duped by human traffickers. They paid to be trafficked to Thailand as a way to get out of poverty - they want a ride to the US by pretending to be "jungle Hmong" - like those who hid in the jungle for years and years after the VN war. Their situation is bad, but not even as appalling as the Rohingya, whose predicament at home and abroad has been even worse (something that top Thai law professor Vitit Muntabhorn conceded, I think, at an FCCT panel on the Rohingya last month).

Thailand is the "second" villain in this drama because they have refused to allow UNHCR access to the camp despite numerous requests. Thailand - or rather the Thai military - did that cos they have been paranoid for years about being overrun by refugees on most sides if they signed the UN convention on refugees or take a softer stance. There are strong arguments against this conservative mindset, but that is the prevailing view (born perhaps in the late 70s and 80s after the Khmer Rouge flooded across near Aranyaprathet, before the Karen were pushed across near Mae Sot in 1984).

Thing is, the Abhisit government has ridden to power with support of the military and they are probably afraid to challenge them too much. There is not a lot of sympathy for the Hmong among Thais; many are sick of these people crossing their borders, especially if they are freeloaders, as the bulk of the Phetchabun Hmong are seen to be. So there's not a lot of pressure for Abhisit to be more caring. In fact, the exact opposite.

MSF's head of mission Gilles Isard was asked today at the press conference if the crisis at Huay Nam Khao revealed that power clash between the Cabinet and the Army, but he deflected the question. It was quite obvious from his comments that the "educated elite" in the Democrats are embarrassed by these developments.

But any suggestion that this was a rushed or "sudden" move - as some Thai officials have tried to claim (and this question was put by the Bangkok Post reporter) - was rejected out of hand. In fact, I'm surprised the Post lady could even ask that as she was present at MSF's last press conference - 18 months earlier - when Gilles Isard appealed publicly for independent screening of the Hmong and said the way the Thai and Lao military were handling things was wrong.. that there appeared to be many hundreds of Hmong who were genuine refugees suffering great psychological stress because of the Thai-Lao agreement to ship them all home without independent screening.

There were several reasons for today's move by MSF. And one may have been recognition that the only way to change Thailand's ordinary stance on this is for the US to get involved. But Americans following this closely say the State Department made a high level decision a year or two ago that most of the Hmong at Phetchabun were not genuine refugees. So they are quietly backing the Thai policy and not really pushing for the Thais to be more fair. Not yet anyway. If there is a major riot or mass suicides, they may change their stance.

One of the reasons all these refugees took a punt in coming to Thailand was because previous resettlement programs by the US were done in such a sloppy manner and many people got a new life in the US (about 15,000) when they weren't genuine claimants. The same thing is happening in the Burma border camps; some 30,000 people have been resettled there, but there are lots of reports of wealthy Burmese buying their way into the camps, and of the Americans not really caring who they take (perhaps thinking that almost anyone from Burma has a right to be a refugee); that stance encourages corruption and more non-refugees to fill the positions in Mae La and other camps left by those who flew out.

Roger Warner, an American author who wrote a terrific book about the "secret war" in Laos (Shooting at the Moon), published an interesting piece in the Huffington Post website recently that "outed" the American ambassador in Bangkok (Eric Johns) as a key player who has let this situation deteriorate. Warner claims Johns is a snob who doesn't care about the refugees; he used the word "pompous". And there is some sympathy for that allegation.

The thing is, the US were the ones who got the Hmong into their fight with the commies, and many in the US - such as thousands of Vietnam war veterans and the quarter of a million Hmong resettled there - believe they OWE to the true jungle Hmong who were left behind and pummelled horribly after the US flew out of Long Cheng in the mid-70s. Christopher Robbins in his book "The Ravens" claims that 100,000 Hmong were killed after the US pulled out, although it's hard to know how fair that figure is.

Anyway, just some background.

You see, what has been happening in Phetchabun is the Thai military are ramping up the pressure - hassling MSF's staff (30 Lao Hmong and 30 Thai Hmong); closing the MSF clinic with no warning; forcing all camp residents to go through the military area to get their food or medical supplies.. etc etc.

This is all overseen by the Thai Army's psychological operations unit from Phitsanulok, which is working with Lao army officials in breaking the camp's most influential leaders - by jailing them and denying them food, plus other disgusting tactics.. and all the time trying to meet Laos' deadline for returning the Hmong to their homeland. That deadline is the SEA Games. The socialist regime decided it wanted this "problem" resolved by the end of the year prior to the big sporting event (so they wouldn't face any boycotts, and God knows what other silly reasons; the SEA Games appears to be a big deal for this tiny little state).

There is a timetable for "rushing" these people back to Laos, and the disappointing thing is it's going ahead regardless, because the Thai Army is able to do its dirty work largely because Huay Nam Khao is miles from anywhere. There ain't no media up there to report on what's going on. There's only MSF and they are thoroughly sick of what the Thai and Lao army people are doing. Sadly, the decent people in the Thai government haven't had the balls or confidence to stop this ugly business.

And the truth is, some of the most desperate Hmong who most deserve to get refugee status - who are truly terrified about being returned cos they are on a hitlist or face years in a squalid sh-thole of a jail, aren't even in Huay Nam Khao. They've already fled and are living in other parts of Thailand, even if it's only in the jungle. And there are allegedly hundreds who have fled to jungle from this camp.

Some 2,000 people have already been returned and thousands more are set to go. Laura Xiong, another Hmong advocate, based in Nebraska, claims the Thais have buses planned for returns on a regular basis until September. So this whole messy situation was building to a head.

I honestly reckon it's far better MSF exposed the scummy ways the Thai and Lao military have been behaving, cos they are really the only ones who can voice what is going on; they have the integrity and a record almost second to none. and you can see by the way Gilles (Frenchman) has handled this business that it has been a torment and not a decision he entered into lightly. He said that at the press conference.

Dozens of letters to the editors by Hmong advocates in the US have fallen on deaf ears. The battle has already been lost, despite continuing moves to rouse the fat Congressmen in Washington to do the right thing - push Hillary Clinton to do something.

Sorry for going on, but I reckon the article Mr LeFevre has written and the comments by the human rights are wide of the mark. They don't know the situation well enough. Those human rights experts have said nothing for the past few years and now they come out for a bleat. On the other hand, Human Rights Watch has monitored this business closely. I doubt very much if they will come out and make such remarks.

Anyway, let's see how it plays out.

I don't work for MSF but I've followed this situation closely. They don't deserve to be sh-tbagged for taking a gutsy step that was taken reluctantly but which, I believe, is much warranted.

[tforb]

Thank you very much for your views and insight on this long running issue.

[Krungthepian]

You could put other villains in this scenario - Hmong groups in the US, who have had a negative impact on their kin in Laos.. advising jungle Hmong to "keep fighting" for many years when they should perhaps have urged surrender and aim for a smarter, more peaceful, long-term solution. There have been some who profited from having Hmong in camps in Thailand; literally raised money on their behalf but kept all or part of it (Neo Hom was accused of this in late 90s and later I think; authorities in California pursued charges agst some of their people, who had links to Vang Pao). Some of these groups are seen to have encouraged many of Lao Hmong to come to Thailand and have at times exaggerated the scale of atrocities occurring in restricted areas such that reports aren't always reliable and easy to distinguish what is true or not.

They are also advising people in the camps to undertake destructive acts for publicity purposes - half the homes in the Phetchabun camp where burnt down at one point, and there was later a big protest march - mid-2008. The sad part is some of the Hmong groups in the US are regarded as quite toxic, and because they perhaps lacked a leader to unify them into one coherent group it has really split their cause and negated possibilities they might otherwise have achieved.

Anyway just another part for the puzzle.

[photojourn]

Thanks for the spirited defence of MSF, Krungthepian.

However, while MSF might have said yesterday, Wednesday, afternoon (which came after my story was published) that it was seeking to hand the project over, in it's previous public statements it made no mention of this, preferring instead to leak the news to The Nation and make statements aimed at embarrassing the Thai government, simply saying, "MSF withdraws from Hmong camp in Petchabun because of Thai Military's Restrictions and Coercive Tactics", with Gilles Isard, MSF head of mission in Thailand, quoted in it's press announcement saying MSF "refuses to work under military pressure".

The number of Nobel prizes an organization has won is irrelevant. The fact is, MSF are one of the few specialist medical NGOs in the world and whether it has won a Nobel prize or not has nothing to do with it abandoning a camp it has run since 2005.

Given the current global economic climate it will be difficult for another NGO with the financial, human and medical expertise necessary to be quickly found to replace the gap left by the MSF departure - as highlighted by Forum-Asia, who are based in Bangkok, have 42 member-organizations throughout Asia and quite familiar with Thailand issue.

To claim the US may get involved "if there is a major riot or mass suicides", is purely speculative and emotive and I suspect such an action would likely only prompt the Thai government to increase the speed of repatriation and see the Hmong subjected to more draconian conditions.

If, as you claim "perhaps just 1,000 out of the 4,700 people remaining... Maybe just 500 people", are true refugees, why doesn't Thailand have the right to return these people? Doesn't the US, Australia and other countries around the globe return non-genuine refugees to their country of origin?

To also claim, "I honestly reckon it's far better MSF exposed the scummy ways the Thai and Lao military have been behaving", totally misses the point of what an NGO is established to do - provide humanitarian assistance to those in need. I doubt the conditions MSF have to endure in Huay Nam Khao are as bad as NGOs in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Somalia, etc.

As your correctly point out, "there ain't no media up there to report on what's going on. There's only MSF." Soon there won't be MSF. Surely this will only allow the Thai military to increase the pressure on the Hmong and as stated by the people I interviewed, "run the risk of creating a humanitarian disaster?"

Do you really believe the Thai government will care that MSF is withdrawing from the camp? If anything, the opposite is probably the case. As you rightly point out, "there is not a lot of sympathy for the Hmong among Thais." In actual fact, there ism not a lot of sympathy, support or compassion by Thais for anyone who isn't Thai.

For MSF to highlight the problems they are facing in the camp is a legitimate action of an NGO. More news of the problems the Hmong face on a daily basis, along with the difficulties MSF face in caring for these people, needs to be made public. However, having a massive dummy sit and taking their bat and ball and going home because they don't like the game - which is the game they signed up for in taking over the camp, is not the solution.

MSF ARE abandoning the Hmong in Huay Nam Khao. They have come out and announced they are leaving, without any plans being in place to replace them, at a time when NGOs the world over are seeing reduced contributions from donors and unprecedented demands for their services.

The statement by MSF is political and sensationalist, and hurts the very people they profess to be established to support. If anything, the Thai government and the Thai military will be rubbing their hands with glee. The Thai Army's psychological operations unit from Phitsanulok, in forcing MSF to abandon the camp, would appear to have effectively carried out its mission.

To state, "those human rights experts have said nothing for the past few years and now they come out for a bleat", is totally ridiculous. The Huay Nam Khao camp is an MSF project and other NGOs have not been allowed in in the past, or invited to participate. Now MSF is pulling the pin - in a move that can only be interpreted as political, wanting other NGOs to come in and work where it refuses to.

[Krungthepian]

Photojourn,

interesting to read the reply, but I don't see anything in it other than the "spirited defence" of your own story and the fact it doesn't stack up with what MSF had to say at the press conference.

You claim to see a political or sensationalist act where virtually no-one else is saying that. Not one other report of the half dozen of more on this by the major wire agencies, the BBC, or two main English dailies here have taken the same angle. I say that is because Forum-Asia's remarks are wide of the mark. They aren't the main issue. Certainly not at this moment. You seem to have highlighted something that didn't fit the facts.

And you don't seem to recognise that circumstances change when NGOs take on projects in Asia in countries where there are human rights concerns. NGOs don't own projects, they go to areas to try to help alleviate problems and hope to make a difference.

I don't doubt that you raise an issue worthy of debate. But I get the feeling you haven't read the statement MSF put out, that you weren't at the press conference to hear what they had to say (or it didn't hit home for some reason), and you don't know the depth of this issue.

The sort of move MSF has made is something they are actually known for. They are prepared to take a stand where many other groups might not. There were probably a whole lot of other factors we are both not privy too in regard to the well-being of the Hmong at that camp. But when you get a situation such as the one described by Gilles yesterday - he talked about his local staff being bullied and increasingly intimidated by the Thai troops, how his group was asked various times to sack its Lao Hmong employees, how their clinic was shut down, camp residents forced to walk through the army's area, etc. His camp coordinator Angela (Malawian health worker for MSF) told of how a pregnant woman about to give birth had to be passed under barbed wire cos of restrictions enforced by the Thai military. There have been plenty of dramas at that camp and the circumstances have changed. MSF stuck there for several years but it looks like the Thai and Lao military are virtually taking the wheels off the car. With tacit support from the US, some say.

Cooperation by the Thai military appears to have been deliberately sabotaged. As I said earlier there appears to be a timetable to get these people to go back. It's being cranked up and has got to the point, where negotiations with the government to get a fairer system (independent screening of refugee claims, and transparency in regard to people being returned) were getting nowhere and MSF felt it had to raise the alarm.

You state emphatically that MSF is abandoning the Hmong when they say they will simply transfer the project to another group. We will have to wait to judge that. Their reputation is formidable and with good reason.

In the end it's perhaps a matter of trust as to how much you rate an NGO to do the right thing. But I get the feeling you don't know this group, or the Hmong issue. That's not meant to be personal, just gut feeling. I'm not sure you've thought it through carefully.

This move wasn't a dummy spit, as you suggested. It was debated for a long time - many many months - both here and with their bosses in Paris. Gilles has previously briefed key people in here and in Washington. He's a quietly spoken, thoughtful man who takes his job very seriously and would prefer, from what I've seen, not to make political acts.

But, when do you jump off a sinking ship? Do you let in hit ground, or do you raise the alarm in the hope that someone can help change its course?

I think they've tried to do the latter. And I rate them for it.

On a final note, the interesting thing is it looks like the minister overseeing this (foreign minister Kasit) may be prepared to ride this little storm out. There were indications today that he is also taking Laos on blind faith - just assuming that his ambassador in Vientiane can monitor the Hmong. And, that he is not aware of the depth of atrocities which the Lao regime is accused of. It looks like he may have been the Thai ambassador to Germany when a series of incidents occurred here that cast the Lao regime in an ugly light - atrocities in Laos (some filmed and revealed at the FCCT here, including the showing of a doco by German Rebecca Sommer called 'Hunted Like Animals').. as well as the slaying of Lao dissidents in Isaan by a Thai cop allegedly hired by the Lao government. That fellow was found with a hitlist of close to 20 names on it, including a Lao-American couple shot in broad daylight at a monastery in Nong Khai (Jan 2006, I think). Other suspected Lao dissidents were gunned down in Ubon and Udon. He told Udon police he was paid 100,000 baht a hit by the government of a neighboring country. The next day police were saying they'd been strictly ordered not to talk about that man's arrest.

Thing is, there was some hints today that Kasit and his advisers are unaware of the extent of such ugly acts and why some members of the foreign and local press here is so concerned about genuine refugees (such as the 158 at Nong Khai Immigration Centre) being returned.

Anyway, let's see how it unfolds. Thailand could move to repair it's stained reputation in regard to the Hmong, but I doubt this mess will be, especially when the government has so many other crises to attend to.

[photojourn]

Actually I have read the press release and no where in it does it state that MSF will be handing the project over to someone else, or is seeking to hand it over to anyone else. Neither was that point made in the story MSF had placed in The Nation two days prior to the press conference.

The point made by Forum-Asia is a perfectly valid one as MSF has run that camp since 2005. No other NGO has been permitted in. NGOs, and I've worked around them for 25 years, rarely share a project with another NGO. All of that is beside the point though.

Surely it's better for MSF, with the experience they have with the Hmong in this camp, to continue their work and continue publicizing the problems the Hmong and they experience than to walk away?

You're totally correct, the Thai government will ride this out and couldn't give a tuppenny dam_n whether the Hmong receive food or medical assistance or not. If a few more Hmong die that a few more less problems the Thais and the Laotians have to worry about (That is from their viewpoint, not mine). As for the Thai government not being aware of the incidents you highlight, I would be very surprised if that was the case.

The big unanswered question still remains, which other NGO have the human and financial resources to step in and fill the gap? Sri Lanka and Pakistan are rapidly unfolding as two areas that will very soon need huge amounts of NGO support - placing further drains on NGOs and donors.

MSF would appear to have played into the hands of the Thai government on this issue and in a few days time no one will remember the press conference on Wednesday.

I'm sure the Hmong in the camp will feel abandoned when the only organization that has been helping them for four years, the people they have built a relationship with and have come to rely on and trust, leave. Who will speak out on behalf of the Hmong then?

With one roll of the dice MSF, as you correctly point out, a well respected humanitarian organization, has given away the advantage of being the only foreign eyes and ears in the camp. As you also point out, the sort of move MSF has made is something they are actually known for. It's a pity the Hmong will suffer due to MSF again seeking headlines in a do or die confrontation with the Thai government.

>You seem to have highlighted something that didn't fit the facts.< In fact the opposite is true. The risk of a humanitarian disaster occurring because a group as experienced and knowledgeable as MSF is pulling out of the camp due to the actions of the Thai government and Thai military is much more newsworthy and much more likely illicit reactions from people than simply stating MSF is pulling out of the camp for the stated reasons alone. For Joe average sitting at home in Europe, an NGO terminating a program is ho-hum.

I suggest you are a little too close to the situation. Take a step back and look at it from the perspective of someone sitting on the opposite side of the world. What will generate more interest? "MSF withdraws from camp" or "MSF's withdrawal from camp may spark a humanitarian crisis". If you were a 9 to 5 office worker, which story would you read? Which story would cause you the most concern?

There are better ways to publicize the real issues, the difficult working and living conditions of the organization and, more importantly, the abuse the Hmong (or any other group for that matter) are being subjected to than pulling up stumps and going home. By announcing their withdrawal from the camp, MSF now have nothing to fall back on in promoting the Hmong cause.

I think concentrating on the affect this will have on the Hmong, is much more important than worrying about what affect it will have on the reputation of MSF.

Edited May 21, 2009 by photojourn