Here are just a few more pictures of the Akha in Laos that are now added to the website http://www.akha.org
http://www.akha.org/coppermine-thumb-37.html
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Tragic and fascinating. Went Googling and found this blog, where I learned Laos contains the smallest number of Akha who live in the Golden Triangle region. Did a quick read and am unclear why the Akha are dying most rapidly in Laos. Do you have any ideas? Disease, government persecution?
Also, am curious — is Akha your ethnicity and are you from Laos? I ask, in part, because my d-in-l is Laotian.
Thanks for posting.
.
Please be specific about “missionaries” ≈
Missionaries steal and abuse Akha children, raise huge sums of money to “care for the orphans”, and then adopt them off to Europe and the United States. At the same time the US government is supporting a disastrous, inhumane “War on Drugs”.
The Akha Heritage Foundation
The US Drug War is the only governmental policy of ANY country that directly results in the death of Akha people. Up to 20% of some villages died as a direct result of the US drug war.
The US Drug War has a violent effect on Akha communities that goes beyond just police prosecution of would be offenders. Military and police violence against the Akha has been a standard event in Thailand. Extra-judicial killings and killings for no reason are what the Akha expect.
The US Drug War has served the Thais well as a convenient cover for these acts that go back thirty years. A clean line between hill tribe drug running and police-army drug running has never been made.
Info Petition Online – July 2001
● Akha Hill Tribe Thailand
● Statement by Mr. Matthew MacDaniel
The representative of Land is Life said the Akha people of northern Thailand suffered from nearly 85 per cent illiteracy and urged UNESCO to support and fund community-based education in the Akha language. The Forum should also urge UNICEF to investigate the removal of Akha children, particularly young girls, from their villages by American-based missionary groups and the claims of sexual abuse in missionary schools.
UN Report – LAOS Akha People — According to the 1995 census, 23 per cent of ethnic Lao, 34 per cent of the Phu Thay, 56 per cent of the Khmu, 67 per cent of the Hmong, and 94 and 96 per cent respectively of the Akha and the Lattu had never attended school. According to the delegation’s official figures, only 50 per cent of the total population spoke Lao as a first language; that indicated that the other half had never read the documents published in Lao which dealt with the interests of minorities. The difficulty of determining access to development and equity on the basis of ethnicity must be addressed.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
American missionaries, I see. But this pertains to Thailand, correct? Under Laos’ repressive gov’t. I wonder what is the extent of missionary abuse there?
While I suspect police persecution by Laotian gov’t. may be at work, I wonder about deaths due to loss of income from opium production in the absence of other revenue generating occupations. Concommitant with that is disease — esp. those associated with malnutrition and those that are mosquito borne.
I notice the phrase “directly results in the death of the Akha people,” which I assume to be a euphemism for “killings by gov’t. agents.”
Corollary tragedy is this is an oral people. So, odds seem insurmountable that their version of what’s happening to them will ever be widely known.
I should like to know which American religious organizations are conducting missions against the Akha, wouldn’t you?
.
I commented in the first diary that was published by American Zapatista with as topic the Akha people, I received no response.
Simply Thai
A new member registered as Akha and added another three diaries. Doesn’t seem to communicate with the community, just for publication.
Nickname: akhaUser ID #: 2788
Country: United States of America
Homepage: http://www.akha.org
Email: akhalife et gmail.com
Bio: 15 years working for human rights for the Akha people of SE Asia
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
Well, its a matter of keyboard time.
There are 60,000 Akha in Laos, about 70,000 in Thailand.
In Thailand there is a MUCH greater problem with US missionaries. There is also the US funded drug war, heavy involvement of the DEA, profiling of Akha and other hill tribe peoples.
The govt. pushed the Akhas and others deeper into drug running by taking their rice lands. Then the US hammered down the drug war, no rice, nor income, increased prostitution. US missionaries getting fabulously wealthy taking the children away, compound after compound after compound.
(history of the American and Canadian Indians)
In Laos, while not very many overt missions, the drug war was done in a very short time, mostly the last three years, and much of it was accomplished with forced relocations.
The forced relocations pushed the Akha off the mountains and down into malaria infested areas with a shortage of land, unsanitary water, and other diseases. Death IS rampant.
Maria Costa of the UNODC and the US govt claim the drug war is a success. For who?
There are numerous reports on the details of this drug war and who has the data on the death rates. Action Contre La Faim is a French aid agency which has done extensive documentation of the mortality rates in these relocated villages.
The death rate in Laos is much higher from the drug war because there is less infrastructure to start with. So if the govt. stops shifting cultivation, stops opium, moves the village, tells the people they can’t bring their animals with them, and puts them on a road that never did have much traffic or commerce, you can guess the results.
The UNODC says crop substitution is possible, that will fix things, but it was not implemented. They told people to stop their economy, doesn’t matter what it was, with few to no alternatives, certainly not ones that could happen quickly. Ad to that they moved the villages.
On top of this, there is very little press in Laos to start with, so the UNODC and US could do this without anyone much even noticing.
I am from the US. In one of the threads below about our posts, I posted a lot of information about the Akha background situation.
We live in Laos, right now in Vientiane, my wife is Akha, we have four children.
I am from the US.
The US Drug War forced the Laos Govt. to eliminate the opium production Laos had, against the best wishes of the govt.
The rapid eradication of a crop which people depended on, and the further destructive forced relocations in order to achieve this, forced the Akha into lowland malaria areas where malaria is really bad, and this has brought about a lot of death, cause the Akha don’t have the money for the hospital.
Anyone could have known this was going to happen, but the Americans at the Embassy in Vientiane are a little out of touch, or a little mean.
The US Embassy in Thailand is no better. And should we say the one in Bagdad.
The US and UNODC call the war a success, but doesn’t count the people who die.
When you force a people to move, like Cherokees, disregarding the conditions and wether they live or die, what do you call it?