Activist Fights for Human Rights in Laos

When Tou Yer Moua, 29, made an emotional return to his native Laos recently, his fears were confirmed.

Moua, a political activist who lives in Santa Ana, went on behalf of the Hmong-Lao Human Rights Council, which helps refugees fight for human rights back home.

“I had some duty to go back for human rights research,” he said. “I wanted to see how the Laotian government treats the Hmong and Laos refugees.”

For two weeks, he said, “I talked to people and it was very bad. There are no jobs. Even for those who go to another country to get a Ph.D. and return to Laos, and there is no job.

“The countryside looks very bad as well. There are no road repairs and the grass is very high. Everything is so bad and the communist system still controls everything.”

Moua, who is Hmong, said his people are treated worst because they were pro-American during the Vietnam War. “In the past, there were many high-ranking Hmong officials. Now it is no longer that way.”

Moua said a major concern are the Laotians who fled to Thailand after the Communist takeover, only to be forced back.

“We want to see to it that they are treated better in the country or that they are able to leave,” he said. “We want to guarantee their human rights, make sure that education is available, see that they have the right to vote, the right to assemble, to be elected to office.”

The trip brought back clear memories of a life that Moua, his parents, and his eight siblings left 17 years ago.

“I have a lot of good memories from when I was very small, but there was a lot of fear. Everywhere you go, you see dead people, dead soldiers. Even now I have those bad dreams. It was always war.”

The family arrived in Orange County in 1978, and Moua began attending high school, where he “had to learn English starting with my ABCs.” Moua received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Cal State Long Beach.

“In Laos, when you are low- or middle-class, you don’t have the opportunity to go to college even if you are a good student,” he said. “When we came to this country, we saw that education was very important for those who like to learn.”

To support his wife and four children, Moua works part-time jobs as an academic counselor at Rancho Santiago College and as an adviser at Cambodian Family Inc., a nonprofit organization in Santa Ana which serves Asian refugees.

He also founded the Hmong American Republican Assn. and the Hmong-Lao Human Rights Council, both Orange County-based.

Moua said he hopes to run for political office some day, but that it’s “difficult when you are in a minority position. What I have to do is create a positive image to the general public by helping communities to work together as a group and understand each other’s cultures.”

Still, even the possibility of political involvement, like his education, makes Moua thankful.

“When I returned to Laos last year, I compared my life now to what it would have been there. I realized that if I had stayed in Laos, I probably would just be somebody working on a farm.”