NightBlogger

Rebecca Sommer

This is a clip of my awareness-raising documentary “Hunted Like Animals” © 2007. Hunted Like Animals is an eye-opening documentary about an ongoing, but unknown, genocide — against the Hmong people in the jungles of Laos.

Coerced into joining the CIA’s anti-communist efforts during the Vietnam war, the Hmong people became a Secret Army. When the U.S. pulled out of Southeast Asia in 1975 and the Lao kingdom was overthrown by the communists, the Hmong became targets of retaliation and persecution.

Hundreds of thousands fled the country; others ran to remote mountainous regions of Laos. Over 30 years and two generations later, the Hmong in hiding are still mercilessly hunted, attacked, raped, tortured and killed by the military.

Since 2004, the crackdown has intensified and those who can escape seek refuge in Thailand. The traumatized refugees have not been promised protection or help. Instead, they are threatened with deportation back to Laos, the very place from which they barely escaped.

In this documentary, the refugees speak for thousands of voiceless people still trapped in the jungle, surrounded by Lao and Vietnamese soldiers — and hunted like animals. See Clip

Using the 1992 presidential election as his springboard, documentary filmmaker Brian Springer captures the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of politicians and newscasters in the early 1990s. Pat Robertson banters about “homos,” Al Gore learns how to avoid abortion questions, George Bush talks to Larry King about halcyon — all presuming they’re off camera. Composed of 100% unauthorized satellite footage, Spin is a surreal expose of media-constructed reality.