Licensed to Kill

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We were almost home free when the shooting began. After nine days trekking through thick jungle in mountainous northern Laos, we had finally reached the river we needed to cross to safety. Then the sound of a bullet split the still air. The second and third shots were close enough to stop us in our tracks. Government troops had spotted our scout slashing a path through the foliage. Our guide, Hmong rebel commander and government enemy Moua Toua Ther, instructed us to sit tight rather than run. The thick foliage, he knew, afforded us some protection. Hours passed. Every rustle in the undergrowth was met with nervous intakes of breath. Not until 4 a.m. did we dare move again. We crossed the biting-cold river in our underwear with our packs humped on our shoulders and our clothes slung round our necks, then we marched 12 hours to a road where, to our profound relief, a car awaited us.

We were lucky. Photographer Philip Blenkinsop and I emerged from the jungle earlier this year scratched and shaken, but we carried with us a unique story about a little-known people, the Hmong, desperately fighting for survival.That story, which appeared in TIME last month, showed the devastating effect of the military campaign launched by the communist leaders of Laos to eradicate the Hmong. The tribe's inexcusable crime? Siding with the U.S. in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.

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Belgian Thierry Falise, 46, and Frenchman Vincent Reynaud, 38, weren't so fortunate. The two Bangkok-based journalists, along with their translator, Naw Karl Mua, 44, a Hmong-American pastor from St. Paul, Minnesota, had followed in our footsteps, looking to report the story for themselves before time runs out for the Hmong. On June 4 these three foreigners were walking out of the jungle near the northeastern Laotian province of Xieng Khouang when their party, which included heavily armed Hmong rebels acting as escorts, came under fire from government troops. During the firefight someone was killed—it's not clear who, or on which side—and shortly afterward the two journalists and their translator were captured, along with three Hmong.

If this were Indonesia or even Burma—two countries unlikely to win press-freedom or human-rights awards any time soon—the journalists would most likely have been questioned and, after pressure was applied by foreign embassies and rights groups, released—albeit relieved of their notebooks and film. This, however, is Laos—a country that seems on the surface to be laid-back and peaceful. On the popular tourist trail between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, charming guesthouses serve fresh baguettes and coffee and offer unrestricted Internet access. Some journalists and diplomats have in the past dubbed the country's doddering apparatchiks "merry Marxists." Yet in reality, Laos has a long history of abusing human rights and ranks among Asia's most repressive states.

In Burma, to the disgust of foreign observers, Aung San Suu Kyi is under detention—a victim of the junta's latest crackdown on her democracy movement. But she and her party have only been cowed, not crushed. In Laos, no political dissent has been allowed in 28 years, nor any right of assembly. Scores of political prisoners and youths have been detained for years in dark cells without trial; many have been tortured. Christians are persecuted, told to denounce their faith under threat of imprisonment. And there is nothing merry about the Hmong women and children trapped in the mountains, starving, shot at and dying in droves. Most of this brutality passes unnoticed or uncommented upon by Western governments, because Laos does not register on their radar. It is economically insignificant, and there is no charismatic opposition figure, like Suu Kyi, to galvanize outrage overseas. Foreign aid is doled out regularly to Vientiane with no strings attached. In any event, Laos seems immune to outside pressure, not least because its officials maintain a Hermetic existence. "The leaders rarely travel," says a senior Western diplomat in Vientiane, "and don't seem to understand the importance of world opinion."

The way Laotian authorities are handling the case of the detained journalists and their Hmong companions reflects the viciousness of the regime's hard-line, isolationist stance. Officials in Laos say Falise and Reynaud could face a charge of murder, which carries a maximum sentence of death and a minimum of 10 years in jail. (It's not known if U.S. citizen Mua will face the same charge.) So far, the response from the detained foreigners' governments has been muted. They may be banking on quiet diplomacy to free the trio. But in the long run, unless the international community is willing to speak out against and act on the atrocities committed by the Vientiane regime, these merry Marxists will continue to get away with murder.