temple to avoid repatriation to Laos. The population at the temple quickly grew to about 35,000, although it later declined significantly. Starting in 1993, the Washington, D.C.-based The Centre for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA), and its Executive Director, Philip Smith, made over seven research missions to Wat Tham Krabok and Laotian and Hmong refugee camps in Thailand. Philip Smith, the CPPA, and the Lao Veterans of America, repeatedly conducted US congressional-backed research missions on the plight of Laotian and Hmong refugees fleeing forced repatriation and human rights violations in communist Laos and Thailand. These joint US congressional and CPPA research missions sought to review policy developments in Thailand and Laos, and to convey humanitarian offers of support and assistance to the abbot, temple monks, and Hmong and Laotian refugee leaders, from members of congress and international human rights organizations. For over a decade, prominent members of congress, in bipartisan fashion, also supported US-backed research missions by Philip Smith and the CPPA to Wat Tham Krabok, and the Laotian and Hmong refugee camps along the Mekong River and Thai-Lao border. Support for these missions came from a bipartisan coalition in the US Congress, including Congressman Steve Gunderson (Republican-Wisconsin), Congressman Bruce Vento (D-Minnesota), Senator Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota) and others. The findings of these missions were frequently discussed in news stories, and at sessions of the US Congressional Forum on Laos held in the US Congress and Library of Congress. Wat Tham Krabok and its Hmong refugees drew global attention in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, as they became the subject of a major global political debate over their future, and the future of Lao and Hmong refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand. The government of Thailand, with support from the United Nations and the Clinton administration, sought to repatriate the Lao-Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok back to the communist regime in Laos that the Lao-Hmong refugees fled. This effort drew opposition from several human rights groups, and some key Hmong organizations. Lao and Hmong human scholar and advocate, Vang Pobzeb, of the Wisconsin and Minnesota-based Lao Human Rights Council, participated in a number of research missions with Philip Smith and The Centre for Public Policy Analysis, as well as Congressmen Bruce Vento and Steve Gunderson, to the Lao and Hmong refugee camps in Thailand and to Wat Tham Krabok during the 1980s and 1990s. US Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and others