211 Hmong bodies may rest in peace

After two years of protests -- to the United Nations, the government of Thailand and the U.S. Congress -- a Hmong delegation says it has turned the corner in its fight to have a proper burial for their relatives whose bodies were exhumed in Thailand.

Michael Yang, a member of a national Hmong delegation that returned from Thailand this week, announced Wednesday that his group reached a verbal agreement with the Buddhist monastery where the bodies had originally been buried and with key Thai officials to allow the reburial of 211 Hmong bodies.

Yang's group is hastily organizing an all-clan national meeting in Wisconsin in two weeks to figure out ways to finance the burial and the proper location for it, he said.

Meanwhile, a delegation organized by St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, which also visited Thailand last month, held a community meeting Wednesday night to share the results of its discussions with Thai leaders and groups involved in the exhumation. About 80 people attended the meeting in St. Paul.

"We will hopefully bring closure on this issue in the very near future," Coleman told the group.

Among them were two dozen people whose relatives had been buried at the temple.

Sou Dao Thao, a 59-year-old refugee, was at the meeting with his brother. Thao said he had watched for eight hours as the body of his mother was dug up at the temple on Oct. 26, 2005.

"I was crying, very emotional, but powerless to stop it," Thao said through a translator. For him, there is no question that it was an affront not only to his faith but also to his cultural beliefs.

"This is a big deal, not only in Minnesota but across the country," said Yang, a St. Paul leader in the Hmong Grave Desecration National Delegation. "It's about who we are as people."

The issue became a priority for the Hmong community in 2005. That's when refugees began receiving reports that the graves of their dead relatives at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist monastery that had sheltered the refugees in Thailand, were being desecrated.

Video footage taken by Hmong still at the refugee camp showed bodies being removed from their graves and the flesh being removed. It created a public outcry.

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Program launched a "Grave Desecration Project." A formal communique was sent to the United Nations. The cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul adopted resolutions of support. And the Hmong community vowed to learn what had happened.

Sen. Mee Moua, DFL-St. Paul, who was a member of Coleman's delegation that returned in late September, said her group opened up communication with the foundations that had been asked to dig up the graves, as well as key Thai leaders.

Moua said the Hmong consider the disturbance of a grave taboo, and see a second violation in the desecrations, in which ceremonial shrouds are left in the dirt and flesh is stripped from the bones.

In the faith of her people, she said, disturbing the deceased can leave souls to wander and affect the health and livelihoods of those still alive.

Speaking in her native tongue, she discussed with those at the meeting their belief that about 900 bodies were buried at the temple, rather than the 691 burials temple officials reported to the United Nations.

Of those bodies, 480 have been exhumed and cremated. At issue, she said, is what will happen to the 211 bodies also exhumed but not yet cremated, and another 300 to 500 graves yet undisturbed.

The temple's abbot had said he wanted to build health and community centers, and also plant herbs at the former gravesites. Later, he cited water contamination concerns.

Moua said there has been no substantiation of water contamination. She said the mayor's delegation is trying to get test data, if it exists, before taking the next step, which could involve water tests.

Moua did not yet know the details of the other delegation's announcement Wednesday and declined to comment on it. The 211 bodies are only one issue among many that concern the refugee families, and any proposed solution should be acceptable to them, Moua said.

She encouraged the families whose relatives were buried in Saraburi to attend a public meeting set for tonight with Yang and the other delegation at Lao Family Services in St. Paul.

jpowell@startribune.com • 612-673-7750 hopfen@startribune.com • 612-673-4511