MUNCIE, Ind. -- A Ball State University graduate, former combat photographer and university professor, and tireless advocate for a persecuted and abandoned tribe of Laotian hill people, has been nominated for the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize.

Jane Hamilton-Merritt has labored on behalf of the obscure Hmong people of Laos since she first came across the mountain tribe as a photojournalist covering the Vietnam War. Crucial allies of the U.S. in the secret Lao theater of the war, the Hmong were persecuted and savaged by their Vietnamese and Laotian adversaries after the American withdrawal in 1975.

After their abandonment by the Americans, the Hmong were "reeducated" by the communists, imprisoned, murdered, starved and used as guinea pigs in biological warfare experiments. To escape the atrocities in Laos, several hundred thousand people fled to neighboring Thailand.

"For almost 25 years Jane Hamilton-Merritt nearly singlehandedly kept the Hmong plight in the forefront of world consciousness through her books, articles, lectures, testimony before government bodies, and photo and tribal textile art exhibits," said Ball State University Provost C. Warren Vander Hill in his letter of nomination to the Nobel committee.

Her book, "Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992," now in its fifth printing, is a first-hand account of their story and has been called compelling and heartbreaking. Among other awards, "Tragic Mountains" was a 1993 finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History.

Hamilton-Merritt lived in Hmong refugee camps in Thailand and worked tirelessly to stop their involuntary forced repatriation back to Laos where they faced persecution or worse, said Vander Hill.

Not only has she toiled to rescue thousands of Hmong refugees, but she has pushed for legislation to improve human and civil rights for ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia who suffer persecution and ethnic cleansing.

Last year "Dr. Jane," as she is known to the Hmong, resigned as a history professor at a Connecticut university to labor on behalf of 20,000 Hmong men, women and children given refuge in a Buddhist compound north of Bangkok.

More than 100 individuals and organizations from several countries have written in support of her nomination for the peace prize, including 10 members of Congress, three former U.S. ambassadors, dozens of authors, academics, foreign service officers, editors, journalists and publishers, and a score of Hmong tribespeople and Laotians.

Sen. Richard Lugar wrote of, "Jane Hamilton-Merritt's inspired personal commitment to a noble cause and as someone whose actions and life exemplify the purposes and values of the Nobel Peace Prize."

Several members of a Hmong veterans group described an incident in 1987 when a Thai soldier put a gun to her head to chase her out of the Vinai refugee camp. "A refugee confronted the soldier and asked him not to threaten such a good friend of the Hmong. The soldier backed down and Dr. Jane remained in the camp to help us," wrote the witnesses.

"The nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize is, of course, a tremendous honor," said Hamilton-Merritt. "It is, however, not really for me but for the tens of thousands of Hmong and other ethnic groups in Asia who, because they are voiceless, suffer silently egregious efforts to extinguish their cultures and their lives.

"This nomination, hopefully, will remind the world and its leaders that the plight of the Hmong and other vulnerable ethnic groups in Southeast Asia needs bold and serious attention."

Hamilton-Merritt was raised on farms in Ohio and Indiana. She earned a bachelor's degree from Ball State in 1958 and a master's degree in 1962. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Vietnam War and was winner of the Inland Daily Press Association's Grand Prize in 1969 for her frontline combat photography.

She is the author of six books, dozens of articles, conference papers, lectures and exhibits on the plight and culture of the Hmong people.