By Stephen Magagnini

About 1,000 Northern California Hmong are expected to gather at the state Capitol today to protest the alleged deaths of 71 Hmong in Laos this year.

The deaths – 49 from starvation and 22 at the hands of Lao soldiers between Jan. 15 and Feb. 10 – were documented by the Oroville-based Fact Finding Commission, a nonprofit group in contact with Hmong in Laos, said organizer Vaming Xiong.

The Lao government has repeatedly denied that Hmong are being persecuted or killed.

U.S. State Department officials had no comment Friday on the deaths.

But Sacramento acupuncturist Charlie Chang said Friday that he and other relatives have been told by Hmong jungle leaders that their uncle and two aunts are among those killed.

Local Hmong activist Lee Pao Yang said his brother in the jungle called to report the deaths "but doesn't know exactly how they died."

Chang, 50, said his uncle, 70-year-old Tong Van Chang, was a captain in the CIA's secret guerilla army that fought the Lao and Vietnamese Communists from 1961 until the Communist victory in 1975.

Thousands of Hmong fled to Thai refugee camps. Thousands of others were killed, and several thousand more continued to fight in the jungles and mountains of northern Laos. There are an estimated 250,000 Hmong in the United States today, roughly 80,000 of them in California.

Chang said that in 1985, his uncle and his family laid down their guns and came out of the jungle. "They tried to be good Lao citizens," he said. "For years they lived in peace in a village in northwestern Laos until the Communists accused them of giving food to the people hiding in the jungle."

As a result, Chang said, Tong Van Chang and his family fled back into the jungles in 1990.

Chang and about a dozen other Hmong who say they've lost relatives gathered last week at the Sacramento home of Kou Vue.

They are among those expected to come from across Northern California today to protest, carrying 71 crosses to represent the dead. They are expected to process to the north steps of the state Capitol where they will rally at about 11 a.m.

Vue said he joined the CIA's secret army in 1971 at age 13. "I carried an M-16 rifle and was wounded twice. We fought very hard for 15 years and killed more communists than the U.S. did, and they want revenge against us for 100 years into the future."

Vue fled Laos in 1978.

Chang said the United States should stop all investments in Laos and prevent the country from joining the World Trade Organization until the killings stop.

At the very least, Vue said, "let the U.N. send food, medical supplies and teachers."

Hmong across the United States fear for the lives of 8,000 Hmong refugees in Thailand, who they say are slated to be sent back to Laos.

State Department officials said on Friday that they had not seen any recent reports of Hmong being sent against their will from Thai refugee camps into Laos.

In a statement released in June 2007, the State Department expressed "grave concern" over "continued allegations of human rights violations in Laos."

Nhia Shou Lee, 45, of Willows said his niece is among some 18 Hmong from Thailand who were returned to Laos in recent weeks. "They're in prison now, and we don't know why," he said.

In a statement that Thailand's embassy in Washington issued Friday, the Thai government said 11 Laotian Hmong were sent back "freely and without any form of coercion. ... This decision was made on humanitarian grounds, since the main reason given for wanting to return was to reunite with family members there."

The plight of the Hmong in Laos and Thailand drew international attention following the arrests last year of 10 California Hmong and a Vietnam War veteran from Woodland. The 11 – including Gen. Vang Pao, leader of the CIA's secret army – were charged with plotting the overthrow of Communist Laos to liberate those in the jungle.

All 40,000 pages of discovery have been turned over by prosecutors to defense lawyers who are busy sorting through it.

A trial date may be set at a status conference scheduled before U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. for April 23.