Wat Tham Krabok, Thailand

 

National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee

Members of the North Carolina Chapter of the NHGDC is hosting the 2nd National Conference in Hickory, N.C., March 21 and 22, 2008.

Members represent 19 states. The meeting is to advance the mission and goals to bring a peaceful resolution to the Hmong graves desecrated in Thailand.

Another purpose is to adopt proper proceedings to best achieve the mission.

"We have to seek the viewpoints and work with the community," Vice-chairmen Vang Xiong says, "because our mission is reflected on the majority of the voices."

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News from Minnesota Public Radio 

Group gathers testimony on Hmong grave desecration

St. Paul, Minn. — A Hmong organization collected testimony in St. Paul Sunday on the desecration of Hmong grave sites in Thailand. The Minnesota chapter of the National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee is gathering the testimony in preparation for a national conference in North Carolina later this month. Read more.

Next Meeting

Dear friends and community members:
 
I hope this email find you and your family doing well. However, the purpose this email is to invite you to the National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee's 2^nd national meeting that will be held in Hickory North Carolina on March 21-22, 2008. The purpose of this meeting is to focus on two major categories.
 
1. Approve and endorse the Policy and Procedure of NHGDC, and
 
2. To approve and endorse the master plan for NHGDC strategy.
 
Therefore, I would like to invite you personally to be part of this conversation to further our action. Your leadership is more important to help resolve such issue and the Hmong community in your area is looking toward your leadership to bring solution to them.
 
I understand that life obligation is fully committed to everyone of us. But as a member of the Hmong community, it is time for you and I take our responsibility to help settle the issue for our beloved Hmong. I want to call you and also let God call you to be one of the server in this generation.
 
I am looking forward to see you here in NC.
 
Thank you.
 
SaiKhue Khang, Treasurer of the
National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee
Phone: (828) 228-3848
Email: xaikhue@yahoo.com

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Current events

 

Hmong Community Angry About Grave Desecration Overseas

 

By: Charlene Lee

 

Members of the Valley's Hmong community are outraged over the ongoing grave desecration overseas.

 

Since 2005, it has been reported that certain Chinese organizations have exhumed and desecrated thousands of Hmong graves in Thailand.

 

The Thai government reported that the bodies need to be removed because they are affecting the area's water quality.

 

But those here in the Valley say, Thai officials are not going about it the right way.

 

"Hmong culture again is very, very sacred. What has happened has really impacted some of the living, spiritually, according to what we have been told by some of the families who have loved ones that were affected by this issue," said Vang Xiong from the National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee.

 

The National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee, who stopped in Fresno on Saturday, will continue their tour across the country to inform Hmong communities about the situation overseas.

 

Source: KMPH: FOX 26

 
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According to the National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee, the Phothi Phaowana Songkhroa Foundation and the Buddha Dhamma 31 Nakhon Ratchasima Foundation have submitted their proposals to the Committee.

 

“We got words from the two organizations,” stated MN Chapter member Zong Khang Yang, “about the cost for reburying the 480 cremated and 211 remained corpses.”

 

Although Yang did not mention specific details, but the Committee will not accept any reburial plans from the foundations until further dialogue is made with Sontaya, the legal aide to the Abbot at the Wat Tham Krabok monastery.

   

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News from MN Chapter

 

St. Paul, MN (11-12-2007)--Sen. Norm Coleman attended a briefing of the report from the 13-member delegation who went to Thailand.

Coleman spoke in support of the National Hmong Grave Desecration Committee to bringing an end to this grave desecrated issue.

Coleman stated he will do "everything in my power to" bring closure.

Five people gave testimonials of how the desecration affected their families religiously and emotionally.

"Ever since they started digging the graves," a victim's family member said, "we have been very bothered by it."

According to the chairman of the NHGDC, Ser Lee, he said that the abbot at the Wat Tham Krabok authorized the digging of the some 900 Hmong graves at the site.

Upon a recent meeting with the senator, Coleman had wrote a letter to extend the deadline for a reburial process of the 480 cremated bodies and the 211 corpses remained.

"I have a letter here to ask for more times," the senator said, "in which I will be sending it out to the" parties involved in Thailand. The extension date he is asking is until Dec. 2008

During the briefing, more than 20 Hmong veterans were also there to stand for the issue, including former Lt. Col. Ly Teng and Maj. Va Kai Yang.

* Hear more at Minnesota Public Radio on Coleman Presses Thai Ambassador on Hmong Graves.

 

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Short History Background

Wat Tham Krabok Monastery was home to some 15,000 Hmong before it was officially announced by the Thai Government to force repatriation against them. In December 2003, the State Department agreed to accept this wave of Hmong as refugees to the United States.

By October of 2005 the WTK was closed, and the Thai Government and property owners begun exhuming many Hmong graves from the area. Approximately 2,000 Hmong refugees were buried at the monastery and as many as half of the graves were exhumed: the corpses were dismembered and the bones carried away to unknown locations for unknown purposes. According to reliable sources, the organization the Thai commissioned to clear the graves is a Chinese foundation called Bhoti Pavana.

Luckily, we have families who saw this treacherous and graphic digging of Hmong graves, who witnessed the removal of bodies and recorded this heart-wrenching event on videotapes. These inhumane actions carried out after the close of the WTK, by and allowed by the Thai Government, went unjust without the notice and involvement of the relatives of the deceased.

According to eyewitnesses and creditable reports, the Chinese graves were untouched. Many remaining Hmong who live in the periphery of the camp fear the worst to come that all the Hmong graves will be identified and destroyed. The Thai’s actions at WTK are clear violations of its obligations as a

• State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

• The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the

• International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

 

Thailand’s failure to protect these rights also violates customary law as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

See History Timeline

 

 

For more information about this project, send your request or comment to HmongJustice@gmail.com.