Hmong people who are rural slash and burn subsistence farmers pause on the porch of their home in northern Laos. Since citizens must give one third of their rice harvest to the Lao government in this communist country, many people in rural areas begin to suffer from the effects of malnourishment as the end of the dry season arrives each April when food supplies run short.
Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved
While Americans and their government lead international outcries over the recent imprisonment of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma (Myanmar), their comparative ignorance regarding the current persecution and ethnic cleansing of Hmong citizens in Laos is hardly surprising. Further, outrageous U.S. government charges leveled at Vang Pao, the guerrilla army leader and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confidant who fought at America's side against Lao and Vietnamese communists from 1961 to 1975 was equally predictable.
BACKGROUNDHmong people living in Laos and the U.S. trace their origin from southwestern China. In the early nineteenth century, political discrimination led some Hmong to migrate to mainland Southeast Asia and many took up residence in the mountainous areas of Laos.
Historically the Hmong have been an important part of the political landscape in Laos as they inhabit the strategic border region between North Vietnam and Laos. This area contains part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, a vital supply route during the wars in Indochina. Known to be extremely brave and successful soldiers, they proved to be invaluable to the American government during the second Indochina war.
SECRETSIn 1954, in Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam Viet Minh and Pathet Lao utilized Hmong troops to send the French packing after eighty years of colonialism. In the early 1960's, when the CIA began recruiting Hmong into a guerilla force, Hmong leader Vang Pao was asked by a CIA agent known as "Colonel Billy," if the Hmong would be willing to help stop the Communist advance into Laos. According to reports, Vang Pao replied, "For me, I can't live with communism. I must either leave or fight. I prefer to fight."
Americans didn't know what was happening in Laos during this timeframe of course because the U.S. government lied to its citizens by denying they were operating in Laos. Today the era's U.S. involvement in Laos is known as the "secret war", and we've since learned that brave Hmong guerrillas fought against Pathet Lao forces in northeastern Laos under the leadership of our good friend General Vang Pao.
DESTRUCTION AND MISERYDespite operating on the ground in northern Laos under cover provided by American B-52 bombers, it's estimated that seventeen thousand Hmong troops and fifty thousand Hmong civilians died during this unreported war. Since entire villages were completely destroyed, Hmong survivors were forced to go "on the run", feeding themselves from a menu comprised of leaves, wild fruit, tree bark, and whatever else they could forage in the dense jungle.
While the U.S. government was secreting these facts about the war from the American people and their elected Congressional leaders, journalists were forbidden to interview pilots conducting bombing missions over Laos launched from American military bases located in northeastern Thailand. By the early 1970's, Americans were fed-up with the war they knew about, (Vietnam) prompting U.S. President Richard Nixon to deny Vang Pao's request for additional air support when he needed it most.
ABANDONMENTAfter Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam all fell into communist hands by 1975, in May 1975 Vang Pao asked that several C-130 cargo aircraft be sent to evacuate the Hmong. Although he was told that indeed a few were tied down on the apron in Udon Thani, northern Thailand, they were earmarked for flights to an American air base in the Philippines and only one pilot was available.
More than ten thousand Hmong swarmed into Long Cheng, hoping to be evacuated, but only one planeload of people was taken out by the C-130, and it didn't return to pick up more passengers. Although Hmong and Lao pilots commandeered two WW II era C-47 cargo planes and evacuated several hundred people over the next three days, the scene was absolute bedlam. The skyward ascent of a C-123 proved to be the final evacuation flight out of Long Cheng but it was so overloaded that roughly twenty people were pushed out of the plane before it took off.
THE HMONG PLIGHT TODAYIn July 1981, former generals Vang Pao and Phoumi Nosavan formed the United Lao National Liberation Front from abroad. The front has agitated the present Pathet Lao communist government and the number of insurgent guerrillas in northern Laos began to increase in December 1989. Ironically, these Hmong resistance fighters were inspired to intensify their activities by uprisings in Burma in 1988, led by none other than Aung San Suu Kyi!
The Hmong have endured years of forced labor (a convention first adopted by French colonial rulers), and shortages of such necessities as salt and cloth. More recently, Pathet Lao communists have seemingly put into practice a page similar to the Sri Lankan operations manual pertaining to the Tamils by trying to eliminate all perceived anti-communist Hmong resistors inside the country.
A recent article that appeared on media-newswire.com, stated:
"Lao Hmong civilian and dissident groups in hiding in the Phou Bia mountain area of Laos are under attack by ground forces and artillery units of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ( SRV ) and Lao Peoples Democratic Republic ( LPDR ) resulting in hundreds of dead and wounded civilians.
Over 6,500 Lao Hmong civilians may die in the coming weeks and months as a result of this joint military offensive by Laos and Vietnam that parallels recent high-level LPDR-SRV military and communist party meetings and the announcement of strengthened military cooperation between the two Communist nations.Lao Peoples Army forces ( LPA ) and Vietnam Peoples Army ( VPA; also sometimes known as the PAVN ) ground forces, with significant artillery, mechanized infantry and special forces “hunter-killer” teams., are being deployed to Xieng Khouang Province, Saysambone Closed Military Zone ( also known as Xiasambone Military Zone ), Luang Prabang Province, Vientiane Province and Khammoune Province in the latest joint SRV-LPDR
military offensive in March-April, 2009.
The rape and disembowelment of Lao Hmong women and children, and other atrocities, are increasingly commonplace among rampaging Lao military and LPDR security forces.
READ MORE ABOUT IT HEREAdditionally, although thousands of Hmong spent years confined to squalid refugee camps in Thailand, today they are being repatriated. Last year over 800 Hmong were forcibly returned to Laos by the Thai government but little is known about how they are faring, and it's virtually impossible to find out.
In 2003, Bangkok based Belgian photojournalist Thierry Falise, a fellow
Gaia Photos member, was arrested with a French colleague on his way back from a forbidden trip in the Laos jungle to an abandoned Hmong community. Both men were sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but thanks to a vast international solidarity campaign, they were released after five weeks.
WHERE IS AMERICA? Where is American outcry concerning the current state of affairs of the Hmong in Laos? Denouncing human rights abuse and bringing it to the world's forefront, whether it's happening in Burma or Laos, should be at the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda should it not? Aren't these present day anti-communists in Laos whose ancestors spilled their blood for each and every one of us supposed to be our friends? Well no, not exactly.
First of all former U.S. President George W. Bush declared, "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" after the events of 911 unfolded. Since 2001, Laos has been viewed as an ally of the U.S. in its "War on Terror". A country's collaboration means the U.S. will look the other way regarding such political hot potatoes as corruption and human rights abuse.
In view of the fact that the American government lied to its citizens regarding the secret war in the first place, why should any U. S. government official be presumed to be telling the truth now? Offering up General Vang Pao to communist Laos via a U. S. federal court case based on fabricated evidence might cement Laos' relationship with America regarding the "War on Terror" but if that is indeed the case, it is a totally spineless action by the American government reminiscent of the clandestine Laotian war itself.
Two facts refuse to go away and when they are honestly taken into consideration, General Vang Pao wins the moral and intellectual arguments whatever direction the ball bounces.
Fact number one is that Pathet Lao is a communist government and the U. S. government entered Laos nearly sixty yeas ago to try to eliminate communism.
Fact number two is that to this day, ethnic Hmong resistors, our allies in the fight against communism, continue to altruistically support America's ingrained anti-communist philosophy.
During a hearing a few day ago in a Sacramento, California federal courtroom, Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Robert Tice-Raskin said the defendants "were the first to put the idea of a coup into play … were actively working to gather funds and ultimately led the undercover agent to believe they had enough money to acquire the first shipment of arms."
Let's assume for a moment that Tice-Raskin's statement is fact. Didn't America's CIA supply arms to Hmong fighters during the secret war in order to enlist their help in defeating the same Pathet Lao communist movement? If that's the case, General Vang Pao is guilty of nothing more than the American government was guilty of during their stay in French Indochina and that is; opposing communism.
Is Tice-Raskin's hindsight so blurred that he fails to value that when Vang Pao said "For me, I can't live with communism. I must either leave or fight. I prefer to fight." nearly fifty years ago he wasn't just testing the strength of the monsoon winds?
SHAMEWhen I visit Laos I'm embarrassed by questions ethnic Hmong amputees who fought the communists with my fellow Americans ask such as, "Why can't America buy me a new leg?" and rightly so. It's a source of personal shame for me and my native country.
These days though, Americans don't need to travel to Laos to share my dishonor and humiliation. In Sacramento, California a seventy-nine year old Laotian man who has supported America and its ideals for over 60 years faces prison because of his undying loyalty to all of us and what we believe in.
Eighteenth century Irish statesman Edmund Burke once said, "All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Well America, here's your chance to do something for someone who has sacrificed so much for you.
Either you are with us, or you are with the communists.
IMPORTANT LINKS TO THE PLIGHT OF AMERICA'S FRIENDS HERE
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/aidoc/ai.nsf/Index/ENGASA260042004http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA26/003/2007http://www.tragicmountains.org/Center for Public Policy AnalysisHmong, Laos, Vang Pao, Trial, Vietnam, Thailand, Death, Secret War, Genocide, War, News, Politics, Current Affairs, CIA, Human Rights, Aung San, Suu, Kyi, Government, Communism, Communist,
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERSMy Mondo Library PhotographyMy Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage
Child soldiers of the Mong Tai Army (MTA), former drug warlord Khun Sa.
Hmong people who are rural slash and burn subsistence farmers pause on the porch of their home in northern Laos. Since citizens must give one third of their rice harvest to the Lao government in this communist country, many people in rural areas begin to suffer from the effects of malnourishment as the end of the dry season arrives each April when food supplies run short.
The Mekong River serves as an attractive fishing spot for residents of Luang Prabang, Laos, The waterway is an important freshwater source for farm irrigation and agriculture throughout Southeast Asia. Further, many fishermen's livelihoods depend upon harvesting fish from the river to earn their livings and contribute to their community food supply. Although Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage City,several dam projects have been propsoed along the Mekong in Laos and Cambodia.
