Christians deprived of food, water in Laos at ‘critical stage’
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Pastor Dale Morgan
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Mar 3, 2011, 6:44:04 AM3/3/11
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Faith Under
Fire....
Christians deprived of food, water in Laos at �critical
stage�
Local officials try to force expelled Katin village farmers to
give up their faith.
By: Sarah Page
Compass Direct News
Saturday, 03 March 2011, 19:45 (EST)
DUBLIN � A total of 62 Christians forced from their village to
crude shelters at the edge of the jungle in Saravan Province,
Laos, are at a �critical stage� from lack of food and water, an
advocacy group warned.
�The wells are drying up as they are going into the dry season,
and their food supplies are exhausted� after villagers thwarted
their attempts to plant new crops, a source from Human Rights
Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF) told Compass. �The
authorities have successfully gotten them into a situation where
they feel defeated.�
Officials marched 11 Christian families, totaling 48 people, out
of Katin village in Ta-Oih Province at gunpoint in January 2010
after they repeatedly refused to give up their faith. The
officials left them to find shelter about six kilometers (nearly
four miles) outside the village and confiscated the Christians�
homes, livestock, and essential registration documents.
Late last year, the 11 families planted rice out of season on
commonly-owned village land to sustain themselves and avoid losing
hereditary rights to their plots. On Dec. 26, however, village
officials and former neighbors drained water from the plots,
stamped on the rice seedlings and burned fences, leaving any
remaining plants vulnerable to wandering bulls. (See
www.compassdirect.org, �Lao Officials Destroy Rice Paddies, Expel
More Christians,� Dec. 29, 2010.)
The Christians then cleared an area near their camp for
subsistence farming, but unknown persons burned their seed and
farming equipment, HRWLRF reported.
�Villagers overheard authorities saying that the hardships caused
by lack of food will eventually force the Christians to abandon
their faith,� the HRWLRF source said. �At this point they�re going
to stay where they are. But since they�re primarily farmers with
no other skills, we�re certain that they cannot survive without
outside assistance.�
Village officials have refused to allow the Christians to return
to their former farmland.
At least two of the expelled villagers were hospitalized last
April after a prolonged lack of clean drinking water, adequate
food or housing, HRWLRF reported, and another man identified only
as Ampheng died suddenly while praying for them.
The Katin village chief and other local authorities armed with
guns forced a further seven Christian families, totaling 15
people, to leave the village on Dec. 23. The 11 families welcomed
them and built additional shelters for them, though that put
increased pressure on their limited food and water supplies.
The expulsions in January 2010 and December 2010 followed months
of threats and torment, beginning with the confiscation and
slaughter of livestock and the death by asphyxiation of a
Christian villager identified only as Pew in July 2008. The
villagers had converted to Christianity in May of that year.
Immediately after Pew�s death, authorities incarcerated 80 men,
women and children in a school compound without food until they
signed documents renouncing their faith.
In 2009, however, they began worshiping again in private homes,
raising the ire of authorities and leading to the first expulsion
in 2010.
�Breaking the Law�
By mid-February some of the Katin Christians had resorted to
begging for food, a common practice among the homeless and
destitute in Laos. But as one source told HRWLRF, authorities
warned the residents of Katin and neighboring villages in Ta-Oih
district not to assist the Christians as they were �breaking the
law� by following Christ, even though the Lao constitution
provides for freedom of worship.
Provincial officials in March 2010 assured the Christians that
they had every right to remain in Katin village; in July the
provincial authorities asked Katin officials to respect the
constitution and other regulations that provide for religious
freedom in Laos.
When village officials responded by threatening to shoot any
Christian who returned, district and provincial officials made no
further efforts to protect the families or relocate them.
In spite of these failed interventions, two additional families
professed faith in Christ after the January 2010 evictions,
another four families in July, and a further family in October
after Katin officials warned that the previous six families would
be evicted in January 2011 if they held to their beliefs. (See
www.compassdirect.org, �Officials to Expel More Christian Families
from Village,� Nov. 9, 2010.)
Officials eventually rounded up the seven families and expelled
them on Dec. 23, 2010. The incident was reported to the Ta-Oih
district religious affairs office, but staff members there failed
to respond.