Queen of Thailand Takes the Land of Hooh Yoh Akha

It has been quite some time since I posted on this blog.
Tons of writing for emails, for web code, for all that we HAVE to use computers for in our lives.
So a lot of the "fun" that I used to like to write for gets used up.

I have gotten much of the www.akha.org website rebuilt, increasingly the way I want it. Still so much to do in so many categories.

For one, I have added www.akhaphotos.org to the site, (not completed with the construction yet) and this is where the new coppermine photo gallery will be.

The case of the ACF and NCA in Laos continues on. The general attitude of the ngo staff in Laos is that they did nothing wrong.

We note in this backlight that the left hand of the UN gave the right hand of the UN (UNESCO) a tourism award. Puke. For what they are doing to the Akha in north Laos.

The Akha people as a carnival destination.

Work on the 3rd Akha Journal progresses. Going to be a rather big journal if I can ever get it done. Pretty soon I will begin scanning in all the pics, etc.

Investigations still going at Paul and Loris mission, and CGT which is a mission like so many others that takes Akha children away from their homes. CGT is sponsored by Rotary, and so we keep pressuring Rotary about that.

They are a little bit thick, a little bit racist, as good white people they see no problem with ripping off indigenous children.

We got some pages building on the site about CGT too if you want to go and look in the missions section.

Main problem with this website any more is that I can't load data fast as I get it.

We have a new section Akah Daily Videos and Akha TV.
www.youtube.com also.

And we have a new page www.firstgiving.com where people can set up their own page and raise money for the project.

The latter I am working with some good people on developing further. Getting a little more energy into it, no more late night recording sessions.

Oh yeah, and that reminds me, we have been fighting the Queen of Thailand about the seizure of Akha lands at Hooh Yoh. Well, we have seen it go up a few levels to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Meanwhile reports are that the Queen's tea projects are taking more and more land above and around the villages, just keep the Akha for good loyal "slaves" goes the idea maybe.

I am working to raise funds for mosquito nets in Laos, improving the Akha Human Rights Network, and other medical and literacy projects.

UNESCO has totally thrown in with the missions, no matter what Feingold wants to claim otherwise.

There is the case of Ms. Wongsa, an Akha in the Singapore Prison.

A couple Thai NGO's have been bickering and falling all over themselves to somehow prove she is not really a citizen from Thailand, etc, etc. Trafficking NGO's. Course to go and arrest a Thai for trafficking in women would be real obvious now, no point in doing that.

Just a bit of what is going on.

Does anyone know who the Akha are or that the US Govt. is killing them?



Been working with the Akha for 15 years. What makes the job so hard is that few people in the US know who the Akha are, where they live or what is being done to them.

And this is strange, as they are in the heart of the CIA golden heroin triangle of air america, there are scores of spies and DEA and missionaries who know who they are and have been abusing them for years, but one would think a little of the story would leak out somehow.
But it doesn't.

Few people know that the US govt has had a hand in eradicating the Akha for years, from the drug war in Thailand to the drug war in Laos, the US DEA and other agencies have made decisions that have brought about the death of hundreds if not thousands of Akha along with the incarceration of hundreds more for incredibly long sentences based on questionable evidence, all related to drugs.

In Thailand it is the well funded drug war and in Laos it is the opium eradication, can't have a little ole mountain lady tooting on some opium up on a hill in a bamboo hut near the China border now can we?

The rapid process brought about articles like "Vicious Triangle" and "Akha Dying Like Flies in Laos". And there are many other reports.

Being in Laos now and having just come back from the north area of Luang Namtha and Maung Sing I have not seen such poor Akha villages EVER! Some villages lost 20% of their population in one year after the eradication progrom, and I was in villages which lost 10 children and two adults last year as just a sample. Fever is rife, mosquito nets are as scarce as food.

But still few people know that the US has a hand in killing a lot of these people either through gunfire, prison, disease or starvation.

Isn't it time that the US, that Americans, learned the names of the people they kill?

60,000 Akha live in Laos, 70,000 live in Thailand, 200,000 live in Myanmar and 230,000 live in China. Half a million people and most Americans don't even know they exist let alone that their government is busy killing them in a secret little dirty war.

The Akha need your help to bring accountability to the US Govt. for what they are doing, basically ethnic cleansing in South East Asia.

http://www.akha.org/

The Akha situation in Thailand is intense. But to give you a more clear understanding of our long term work and committment to the Akha you can check at the archives of akhaweeklyjournal at yahoogroups.com


Also, in the future I will try and post the journal posts here as well.

Akha Work Goes On!

With encouragement from friends, associates and volunteers we continue our work for the Akha people in South East Asia. Recent visits to Laos, Vietnam and the Akha in China were most beneficial and helped us to understand more of the Akha who inhabit these regions and what their needs are.

We still have Akha Journal Number 2 for sale and are working on Journal number 3.

We have a backlog of pics and video to put on the site as a result of limited computer resources but should have this up with time.

We continue to research and place new information about the Akha situation on the web site. Also we got a small item there on donations since it is an open website but so few people donate to support the work they benefit from.

We don't want to forget all the Akha prisoners in Thailand. Recently posted articles about the way the Thai government has treated the hilltribe will give, we hope, some idea about how skewed the Akha situation is with regards to prisoners and human rights.

Basically, Thailand is without accountability, either to the hill peoples, the muslims or anyone else in the country. As compared to other countries where the Akha are full citizens, Thailand discriminates as a matter of course, against the Akha.

Have an article to submit, photos, time, energy, then send us an Email.

The work with the Akha goes on.
Now we work to set up a new project in SE Asia. More aid to the Akha of course.
In the countries of China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand there is much to research and do to assist the Akha people.
We will soon be posting more and more photos of our recent work.

Your donation on the website http://www.akha.org is welcome and helps move this work forward.

Matthew McDaniel

Just Back From the UN New York

Just back from the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues at New York, where we gave the Thai government a run for its money.

After one year the Thai Mission to the UN had offered us nothing but when we put the heat on again they were all apologetic, but offering us nothing again, saying they could only begin to work after the forum was over so that they could get some slippery agreement and then do nothing once our opportunity was gone.

But we kept on the heat and got literature out, made presentations and got our material into the Global Forestry Forum as well where it was handed to the Thai Delegation and to governments such as Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Australia, and other countries.

We finally got the Thai Delegation to defend itself and stand up and speak, they were under orders to denounce us as the fax came from Bangkok, as what they should say.

This was great progress in itself that they should have to muster a campaign against us, we shamed them.

That is what they need, to have their true identity revealed.

And shame on all the foreigners with their beer and whores who keep silent about what is happening to all the poor in Thailand, hilltribe and Thai alike, while they have their "experience" in Thailand.

Our next stop is Geneva, where we will continue to work to publicize the Akha situation.

Akha in Sacramento

And other Updates:

Child slave trade trafficking is bigger business than drugs.

And look at our experience.

Despite proof that there are Akha in Sacramento, the state and county refugee related agencies continue to provide language services to these people and supervisory agencies continue to cover up the situation.

So Akha can be brought in to this country as Hmong and no one notices? Cares?

And what was the arrangement? Who paid who? Who looked the other way? What must the Akha do in return?

Who knew it was going on and said nothing?

The end result is that the Akha can not identify themselves as Akha in Sacramento. And we must wonder who is expoiting them, or extorting from them.

Law. The rule of law. This means nothing to the government of California or the government of Sacramento County.

Homeland Security didn't seem interested. The State Department Refugee administrator stuttered a lot. But then wasn't interested either.

US Department of Health and Human Services took the case then keeps putting us off like we can't see through it. Excuses excuses. That is all we hear, a big cover up.

So what is going on? A lot it would seem. Possibly hundreds of Akha have been trafficked into the Sacramento area illegally and are in situations that do not allow them to have much more human rights here than in Laos or Thailand. We are not surprised of course. America is a place big on talk, but falling way short on actual human rights.

We find increased evidence that US missions in Thailand are involved in sex abuse and human trafficking. Some missions in Thailand receive direct US Gov. funding and others are all part of the US mission network in that region that goes back to CIA drug days.

Of concern is that missions do not show who supports them, where they get their money, what they do or how they are monitored, yet they have no problem taking the Akha children away. Power and money goes a long way.

There is little to no knowledge of these events in the US.