Matthew McDaniel

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Matthew McDaniel (born in 1959; former carpenter in Oregon) is a human rights activist working to improve human rights for the Akha people of Thailand and Laos.^[1] He lived in Thailand for many years. On April 18, 2004, he was arrested at Thailand's border with Myanmar by Thai immigration authorities and later deported.^[2] He then lived in Laos for awhile, and now lives in the USA with his Thai Akha wife and their children.

McDaniel is opposed to what he claims are "mission efforts to rewrite their history and eradicate their culture which includes a language and oral history and makes up their unique identity". He opposes coercive missionary conversion tactics, or the removal of Akha children from their families and villages, in which he claims that charities such as Rotary International are involved. McDaniel also asserts that UNESCO is working with the US missionaries who are "destroying Akha culture". A January 2003 Village Voice article^[3] writes: "Yet de la Paz is not the evangelicals' fiercest critic in Chiang Rai. By almost all accounts that title goes to Matthew McDaniel, a 44-year-old former carpenter from Oregon."

The article also reports: "Since moving to Thailand 15 years ago, McDaniel has started a small nongovernmental organization called the Akha Heritage Foundation. With an annual budget of $6000, the group provides services that range from the establishing of fish farms and publishing books in the Akha language to documenting human rights violations."

He accuses the "US Drug War" and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime for helping cause the arrest, dislocation, prosecution, starvation, death and extra-judicial killings of Akha people.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]