About 8,000 Hmong refugees living in Thailand are to be repatriated within 12 months to Laos, the two countries announced Thursday, despite warnings from human rights groups that the refugees faced persecution back home.

The deal meant that the refugees from the ethnic group that battled communist forces in Laos during the Vietnam War would be returned home, by force if necessary, the government-run Thai News Agency said.

The return of the Hmong - who currently live in a camp in Petchabun province, 290 kilometres north of Bangkok - would be conducted on "humanitarian principles," Thai Lieutenant General Niphat Thonglek said.

His Lao counterpart, General Bunakleang Champapan, said communist-ruled Laos accepted that monitors should ensure the Hmong were fairly treated on their return.

It was not clear, however, whether third-party monitors would be permitted. The two countries have balked in the past at involving other parties to their talks on the refugees, calling it a bilateral issue.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights group, last month called it shocking that Thailand was even contemplating returning refugees "fleeing from political persecution, rights abuses and fighting."

It accused Thailand of showing "brazen contempt for the most basic principles of refugee law" and argued that the Hmong should be allowed to remain in Thailand until they are resettled in third countries.

The group said it has received reports of abuse and detention of repatriated individuals.

Thailand repatriated 31 Hmong to Laos in May and 163 more in June. Human rights organizations have complained that no outside monitors can find out what has happened to them since.

Bunakleang said he hoped the refugees at Petchabun would return voluntarily, but he added that if they would not, then "force may be necessary."

Officials from Thailand have argued that the Hmong refugees remain a source of bilateral friction and a burden on the host country while Lao authorities have long resisted taking in people they suspect are hostile to its rule.

Refugee experts said Thailand is concerned that the mere presence of the Hmong - even in a camp surrounded by barbed wire - is attracting an endless flow of people leaving Laos for the relative wealth of Thailand. Some of the refugees have been there for decades, but some are recent arrivals.

Thailand stopped the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from screening arrivals for political refugee status in May, allowing Thailand to tag all refugees as "illegal immigrants."

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said in August that without firm action, the refugees would become a "never-ending problem."

The Petchabun camp is guarded by armed soldiers and served by one relief agency, Doctors Without Borders.

Human Rights Watch complained that although many of the camp's inhabitants are children, the Thai authorities have provided no schooling for them. It was also denied access to the camp in July.

Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=121873