Page "Vang Pao" Paragraph 6

The government of Laos, along with the governments of Vietnam, the People's Republic of China, Cuba and North Korea are the world's few remaining bastions of communism.

In the mid-1990s, Vang Pao, aided by influential American diplomatic allies and vast numbers of Hmong-Americans, halted forced United Nations-sponsored repatriation back to Laos of thousands of Hmong refugees in Thailand.

It was a major human rights victory for the Hmong.

The Thailand-based refugees, many of whom had been living at the informal refugee camp at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist temple in Thailand, were afforded the right to avoid the forced return to Laos and instead over 15, 000 were offered relocation rights and assistance to the U. S. in 2004-2005.