South China Morning Post Internet Edition
Wednesday December 10 1997

Mekong Region
Nation prepares for poll as assembly grows in power

LAOS by Donald Morris
     Laotians go to the polls later this month to elect a 
new National Assembly.
     The election for the Government's legislative body, to 
be held on December 21, will be the fourth since the 
declaration of the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975. 
Polls for the National Assembly take place every five years.
     The National Assembly has grown in importance in recent 
years as legislation gradually replaces rule by decree.
     Nevertheless, the election results are not expected to 
bring about any great change in the political complexion of 
the country. Some 159 candidates are contesting 99 seats.
     All but four of the candidates are members of the 
ruling Lao People's Revolutionary Party, including three 
Politburo members and 10 who are on the party's Central 
Committee.
     The four outsiders are independents, all of them 
businessmen. Six other independents were excluded from the 
contest by the National Election Committee, which screens 
poll applicants.
     The bulk of the contestants, whose biographies have 
been appearing in the press and on television in the past 
few weeks, have strong revolutionary credentials dating back 
to the 1960s and 1970s.
     Several are officers in the military, echoing a trend 
which surfaced at the Sixth Party Congress in March last 
year, during which a number of conservatives and generals 
were appointed to leading positions.
     National Election Committee member Chaleun Yiapaoheu 
said: "Nowhere in the constitution or the election law is it 
specified that candidates must be members of the party. It 
is, however, recommended that the leading role of the party 
should be ensured."
     Forty-six of the candidates are from ethnic minority 
backgrounds, while 27 are women. Anyone over 18 is entitled 
to vote, with an electorate of about 2.5 million.

      

The Nation / 11 December 1997
Politics
Lao refugees case to be closed by January

By Kulachada Chaipipat / The Nation
     A final review of the status of the last batch of 
Laotian refugees at Ban Napho camp will be completed by 
January of next year, after which they will either be 
allowed to settle in a third country or sent back home, the 
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Amelia 
Bonifacio said.
     About 400 families, comprising 1,344 lowland Lao and 
hilltribe people, are the largest remaining group of 
Indochinese refugees in Thailand. There are also a few 
hundred Cambodian and a few dozen Vietnamese nationals in 
Thailand whose situation is also under review.
     The decision to undertake a final review of the status 
of the Napho camp refugees was reached among government 
officials of Thailand, Laos and the UNHCR at a meeting in 
March with the aim to expedite the UNHCR-sponsored 
repatriation of Laotian refugees in Thailand, which has been 
rescheduled numerous times since the original deadline in 
1995 due to a variety of problems.
     The refugees remaining in the camp, located in Nakhon 
Phanom province, are those who either refused to return to 
Laos or go to the US and those who were screened from the 
last interview conducted last year by the US to determine 
whether any who might be eligible were left out.
     Bonifacio said they have to be interviewed because the 
situation in Laos and in some third countries has changed. 
"This is to determine whether they still have credible 
claims to be refugees,"she said.
     Thailand, with the assistance of the UNHCR, has 
repatriated 20,000 refugees since 1994. According to 
Bonifacio, 99.9 per cent of the returnees have been safely 
integrated into society.
     "The end of the [problem concerning] Indochinese 
refugees is there," she said, adding that she hoped the 
final repatriation would occur this year.
     Bonifacio said that those who pass the interview will 
be allowed to go to a third country, while those who fail 
the interview will have a chance to make a final appeal. 
Among the refugees at Napho are 964 Hmong, who have mostly 
resisted being sent back home for fear of persecution by the 
government.
     There are several thousand Hmong outside the camp who 
either reside along the Thai-Lao border or work in the 
Thamkrabok monastery in Saraburi. Some are believed to be 
remnants of a Lao right-wing movement led by Gen Wang Pao, 
who is in exile in the US.
     Thai authorities had planned to move the Hmong to the 
Sikiu camp in Nakhon Ratchasima province to better monitor 
their movement but have taken no action so far because of 
budget constraints.