Hmong resettlement village finally sees the light
Residents in the Hmong resettlement village of Phonkham in Borikhamxay province’s Borikhan district now have access to electricity.
Villagers gained access to the power grid last weekend after officials held a ceremony to mark the occasion on Sunday.
The villagers have been granted use of free power for the next year, Borikhan district Governor, Mr Khene Lomany, told Vientiane Times last week.
The village, consisting of more than 610 houses, was built by the Lao government for over 3,500 homeless Hmong people, including Hmong returnees who had previously migrated to Thailand illegally. Many of them returned to Laos in December last year.
Mr Khene outlined some of the progress made by the government in helping the villagers to become self-sufficient.
More than 600 hectares of land has been cleared for upland rice cultivation, with each family allocated 1.2 to 1.5 hectares. Provincial and district authorities have worked with private companies to encourage the villagers to grow cash crops such as jobs’ tear, maize and sesame to earn extra money.
“We have received a sound response from the people. They are actively growing their crops,” Mr Khene said, adding that this will help the villagers to become self-sufficient and help the government to wean them off subsidies by next year.
Officials are currently in the preparation stage of building six primary schools to teach the 1,120 school-aged children in the village next academic year.
Land has been cleared to build a small scale five-bed medical dispensary to provide healthcare services.
A gravity-fed water system has already been installed in the village, along with toilets.
Construction of a 57km road connecting the village to the district centre was recently completed.
Local authorities plan to develop the village’s temporary market into a permanent one to boost community trade, as well as to build a passenger-vehicle station nearby.
Mr Khene said the Party and government places great importance on the well-being of the villagers, reflected through the realisation of 13 development programmes introduced to develop the village. This has given the returnees confidence in the policies aimed at assisting them and made them realise they are safe upon their return, after earlier worrying about being persecuted by the government as widely rumoured in Thai detention camps, Mr Khene said.
Source: Vientiane Times (June 03, 2010). Photos from the opening ceremony by DKJ.
Well it all looks quite picture perfect but anyone who has ever lived in Laos knows that they show one side to the money holders (World Bank, UN, USA) and another face to everyone else!
I hope for the sake of the people the Regime will finally treat them with humanity and dignity.
Many Lao people are still living in poor conditions, I express my full congratulation to Lao government to do for Hmong people and hope and believe that other many Lao people get the same thing.
When Laos do not do for Laos, no body will do that except their lip service,
Go Laos.
very happy to see.
lao love lao.
very happy to see, considering lao’s own conditions.
express my gratitude to lao gov.
Hmong are Laotians too, stop racist.. hmong this hmong that.
if Lao dont love lao then who will.
Dear Kay Danes,
Our government has tried the best to help this Hmong group. If you blaim our government for being two-faced or whatever adjectives you prefer our nation to be refered to, please blaim USA instead; they were the one who started this SHIT in the first place. Or you think country was the one who started the Indochina war?
I wonder if the USA ever did give a hand to help this group of Hmong people returning from Thailand. Mind you, each year, more than a thousand of innocent, young children have been killed by those unexploded bombies. It takes more than decades to clear all of those shits in my country; we live in a FEAR, DARKNESS, can’t go out to the farm. Whose fault is that? I have three choices for you, Lao Government, US Governtment, and Hmong group.
Dear Xieng Khuang Resident.
I hope the Lao Government does do it’s best to help this Hmong group. Yes no government is perfect but some are more transparent and in the past, there have been members of the Lao PDR government that say this but do that. Let us hope that this Lao government will work towards free elections so that the people truly do get a say in how they are governed.
Sok dee deur brother.