BANGKOK — Thailand deported a former ethnic Hmong resistance leader whose group fought for the United States in Laos in the 1960s, Thai officials and rights groups said Wednesday, raising concerns that he will face persecution in his homeland.
Moua Toua Ter and fellow Hmong led a desperate existence on the run in the jungles of Laos for more than two decades. He had been sheltering in Thailand for eight years while seeking resettlement in a third country.
Officials from Thailand’s Immigration Police said that Moua Toua Ter was deported on June 13, after being held in Bangkok since March of last year. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information. Senior Immigration Police officers could not be reached for comment.
Moua Toua Ter was part of a Hmong guerrilla army that fought a CIA-backed ‘‘secret war’’ against communists in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. After the communist takeover in 1975, he led a ragtag band of Hmong resisters hiding in the jungles who feared persecution from the government for supporting the pro-American side during the war.
He fled to Thailand in 2006 after brokering the surrender of 173 women, children, and elderly people in his group after repeated attacks from Laotian military forces.
Although Laos has moved away from a communist system in the past two decades, it retains a one-party political system and its government is intolerant of dissent. There is still uncertainty about how it treats members of its Hmong minority.