“Here in Laos,” she said, “the past is always with us.”

Clinton, in historic visit to Laos, touches on toll of Vietnam War

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Click on picture

By Stephanie McCrummen, Published: July 11

VIENTIANE, Laos — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday became the first high-ranking U.S. official to visit Laos since the Vietnam War era, when the United States dropped some 260 million cluster bombs across the countryside in a nine-year campaign to crush North Vietnamese supply lines and bases. Clinton met with Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and other officials for talks that centered mostly on addressing the lingering effects of that war — including a sense of mutual estrangement — and then toured a small museum devoted to its human toll.

In the sweltering afternoon, Clinton walked through an exhibit of dangling cluster bombs and crude wooden artificial legs made by villagers whose limbs had been blown off by unexploded ordnance, the legacy of a war that Clinton had protested as a college student in the 1960s.

Then she met Phongsavath Souliyalat, who had been blinded by and lost both hands to a cluster bomb. He told her he hoped governments would ban the weapon.

“We have to do more,” Clinton responded. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, so that we can tell more people about the work that we should be doing together.”

The stop in Vientiane, Laos’s capital, was a brief but symbolically significant part of a longer trip that has also taken Clinton to Mongolia, Vietnam and, later Wednesday, to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, where she was expected to attend Thursday’s regional meeting of the ASEAN group of 10 Southeast Asian nations.

The trip is intended to underline the Obama administration’s much-promoted strategic pivot toward Asia, and more particularly to convince ASEAN nations that U.S. interests in the region are not just security-based, but economic as well. Clinton is unveiling a range of economic initiatives and private-sector business deals during the trip.

At the same time, the United States is trying to encourage ASEAN nations to assert themselves in a simmering territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea, which analysts view as a test case for how a rising China will deal with the world — through threats and coercion or according to international legal norms.

China claims most of the South China Sea, including portions also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, and the resolution of those disputes will determine not only fishing rights but the rights to potentially large reserves of oil and natural gas.

The United States has been pushing the ASEAN nations to unify around a legally binding code of conduct based on international maritime law as a means of managing the disputes and as a way of cultivating ASEAN as a partner in the larger mission of engaging China.

China essentially wants the United States to stay out of it, and it is unclear which way ASEAN nations will bend.Even if they do come up with a tough code of conduct, analysts say the Chinese are unlikely to sign on to it.

Finessing such complexities of the so-called Asia pivot has been Clinton’s job, and she has carried it out partly by showing up: She has attended every ASEAN regional conference, and with her trip to Laos on Wednesday, she has visited all of the 10 ASEAN nations except Brunei, many of them multiple times.

As her term as secretary of state winds down, analysts say, many Asian leaders wonder whether U.S. engagement will last.

“She’s carrying a lot of the water herself,” said Ernest Z. Bower, a senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But when Asia looks at the U.S., they wonder if she has the support of the White House, of the political system, and that is a big question mark.”

After Clinton met here with Thongsing, her motorcade sped along bumpy, palm-tree lined roads, past people on sidewalks who stopped to stare. Later, she addressed U.S. and Laotian employees of the U.S. Embassy.

“Here in Laos,” she said, “the past is always with us.”

Hillary Clinton pays historic visit to communist Laos

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_21051906

By Bradley Klapper

Associated Press

Posted:   07/11/2012 09:22:36 AM PDT

Updated:   07/11/2012 09:22:37 AM PDT

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton watches a map which displays locations of bombing sites during Vietnam War, on her tour at the Cooperative Orthotic Prosthetic Enterprise Center (COPE), in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, July 11, 2012. COPE provides free prosthetics to those who need them including the victims of blasts of unexploded Vietnam War era ordnance, (AP Photo/Brendon Smialowski, Pool) ( Brendan Smialowski )

VIENTIANE, Laos — Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos in more than five decades, gauging whether a place the United States pummeled with bombs during the Vietnam War could evolve into a new foothold of American influence in Asia.

Clinton met with the communist government’s prime minister and foreign minister in the capital of Vientiane on Wednesday, part of a weeklong diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia. The goal is to bolster America’s standing in some of the fastest growing markets of the world, and counter China’s expanding economic, diplomatic and military dominance of the region.

Thirty-seven years since the end of America’s long war in Indochina, Laos is the latest test case of the Obama administration’s efforts to “pivot” U.S. foreign policy away from the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It follows a long period of estrangement between Washington and a once hostile Cold War-era foe, and comes as U.S. relations warm with countries such as Myanmar and Vietnam.

In her meetings, Clinton discussed environmental concerns over a proposed dam on the Mekong River, investment opportunities and joint efforts to clean up the tens of millions of unexploded bombs the U.S. dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War. Greater American support programs in these fields will be included in a multimillion-dollar initiative for Southeast Asia to be announced later this week.

After the meetings, she said they “traced the arc of our relationship from addressing the tragic legacies of the past to finding a way to being partners of the future.”

Clinton also visited a Buddhist temple and a U.S.-funded prosthetic center for victims of American munitions.

At the prosthetic center, she met a man named Phongsavath Souliyalat, who told her how he had lost both his hands and his eyesight from a cluster bomb on his 16th birthday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton place flowers at a statue after during a tour of the Ho Phra Keo Temple, in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, July 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Brendon Smialowski, Pool) ( Brendan Smialowski )

“We have to do more,” Clinton told him. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, so that we can tell more people about the work that we should be doing together.”

The last U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos was John Foster Dulles in 1955. His plane landed after being forced to circle overhead while a water buffalo was cleared from the tarmac.

At that time, the mountainous, sparsely populated nation was at the center of U.S. foreign policy. On leaving office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his successor, John F. Kennedy, that if Laos fell to the communists, all Southeast Asia could be lost as well.

While Vietnam ended up the focal point of America’s “domino theory” foreign policy, Laos was drawn deeply into the conflict as the U.S. funded its anti-communist forces and bombed North Vietnamese supply lines and bases.

The U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on the impoverished country during its “secret war” between 1964 and 1973 — about a ton of ordnance for each Laotian man, woman and child. That exceeded the amount dropped on Germany and Japan together in World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed nation per person in history.

Four decades later, American weapons are still claiming lives. When the war ended, about a third of some 270 million cluster bombs dropped on Laos had failed to detonate, leaving the country awash in unexploded munitions. More than 20,000 people have been killed by ordnance in postwar Laos, according to its government, and contamination throughout the country is a major barrier to agricultural development.

Cleanup has been excruciatingly slow. The Washington-based Legacies of War says only 1 percent of contaminated lands have been cleared and has called on Washington to provide far greater assistance. The State Department has provided $47 million since 1997, though a larger effort could make Laos “bomb-free in our lifetimes,” California Rep. Mike Honda argued.

“Let us mend the wounds of the past together so that Laos can begin a new legacy of peace,” said Honda, who is Japanese-American.

The U.S. is spending $9 million this year on cleanup operations for unexploded ordnance in Laos, but is likely to offer more in the coming days.

It is part of a larger Obama administration effort to reorient the direction of U.S. diplomacy and commercial policy as the world’s most populous continent becomes the center of the global economy over the next century. It is also a reaction to China’s expanding influence.

Despite America’s difficult history in the region, nations in Beijing’s backyard are welcoming the greater engagement — and the promise of billions of dollars more in American investment. The change has been sudden, with some longtime U.S. foes now seeking a relationship that could serve at least as a counterweight to China’s regional hegemony.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has made significant strides toward reform and democracy after decades as an international pariah, when it was universally scorned for its atrocious labor rights record and its long repression of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy movement. The Obama administration is expected to ease investment restrictions in the country this week.

Vietnam, threatened by Beijing’s claims to the resource-rich South China Sea, has dramatically deepened diplomatic and commercial ties with the United States, with their two-country trade now exceeding $22 billion a year — from nothing two decades ago. Clinton on Tuesday made her third trip to the fast-growing country, meeting with senior communist officials to prod them into greater respect for free expression and labor rights.

Landlocked and impoverished Laos offers fewer resources than its far larger neighbors and has lagged in Asia’s economic boom. It remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, even as it hopes to kick-start its development with accession soon to the World Trade Organization.

In recent years, China has stepped up as Laos’ principal source of assistance, with loans and grants of up to $350 million over the last two decades. But like many others in its region, Laos’ government is wary of Beijing’s intentions. And it has kept an envious eye on neighboring Vietnam’s 40 percent surge in commercial trade with the United States over the last two years, as well as the sudden rapprochement between the U.S. and nearby Myanmar.

Persistent human rights issues stand in the way of closer relations with Washington. The U.S. remains concerned about the plight of the ethnic Hmong minority, most of whom fled the country after fighting for a U.S.-backed guerilla army during the Vietnam War. Nearly 250,000 resettled in the United States. The U.S. has pressed Laos to respect the rights of returnees from neighboring countries.

Washington also has been seeking greater cooperation from Laos on the search for U.S. soldiers missing in action since the Vietnam War. More than 300 Americans remain unaccounted for in Laos.

And it is pressing the government to hold off on a proposed $3.5 billion dam project across the Mekong River. The dam would be the first across the river’s mainstream and has sparked a barrage of opposition from neighboring countries and environmental groups, which warn that tens of millions of livelihoods could be at stake.

The project is currently on hold and Washington hopes to stall it further with the promise of funds for new environmental studies.

U.S. Air Force officials publicly thanked Hmong fighter pilots: With a belated salute, Hmong pilots reunite

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.startribune.com/local/east/159321185.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

• Article by: ALLIE SHAH , Star Tribune
• Updated: June 16, 2012 – 10:29 PM

In a rare ceremony, U.S. Air Force officials publicly thanked Hmong fighter pilots for helping American forces during the “Secret War” in Laos.

Members of the U.S. Air Force and the T-28 also called the “Chao Pha Khao” Hmong pilots take a commemorative photo after receiving their service awards at their first reunion in Maplewood, Minn. on Saturday, June 16, 2012

For the first time since their fighter pilot days in Laos, the surviving members of the “Secret War’s” best-kept secret gathered Saturday in one spot — in Maplewood, of all places — to receive a public and official thank-you from the U.S. military.

In a rare ceremony, 38 elite Hmong fighter pilots, who flew alongside Americans during the Vietnam War, were awarded personal letters of appreciation signed by the U.S. Air Force’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz. Of those awards, 21 were posthumous.

“All Hmong aviators represented something greater. They became a symbol of the Hmong people, people’s resolve to live free. And they were a source of inspiration for both the Hmong people and the American servicemen,” Lt. Gen. Eric Fiel, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, told the packed hotel banquet room. “Today we recognize the Hmong aviators who weathered many storms, braved walls of artillery, kept a steady hand on the stick, surfing the skies. … On behalf of General Schwartz, I thank you very much.”

As honored and moved as the Hmong pilots were by the special recognition, their biggest thrill may have come from seeing one another after nearly four decades. Thirteen pilots made it to the reunion. Like the Air Force tribute, they said, the reunion was long overdue.

“I’m happy with that. It’s just a bit too late, in my opinion,” Ya Lee, 59, a pilot from Vadnais Heights, said earlier this week about the recognition. “Many of my friends sure did a lot more than me. They’re not here to see it.”

The last time flier Yia Kha saw his old friend Lee was in an overcrowded refugee camp in Thailand. It was 1975, and they had fled to Thailand after U.S. forces left Laos. Those who had fought with the Americans against the pro-Communists were in danger in Laos.

Like most of the surviving pilots, they eventually resettled in the United States — Kha in Pennsylvania and Lee in Mississippi. Lee, 59, recently moved to Minnesota.

Last Wednesday, the day Kha arrived from Pennsylvania, the two friends stood inches apart at the Hmong Village shopping mall in St. Paul.

“Aw, what’s up, man? Long time coming to see,” Lee said, greeting his pal with a handshake and a pat on the back. Kha grinned, then stepped back to size up his friend. “He’s changed a little bit,” he said, playfully pointing to Lee’s biceps. “He’s a muscle man.”

They were joined by pilot Phong Yang of Maplewood, who helped organize the reunion. The trio’s mini-reunion at the Hmong Village kicked off a weekend of reminiscing for the pilot crew, once known by their code name — “Chao Pha Khao” or Lords of the White Mountains.

‘Fly until you die’

From 1967 to 1975, five waves of Hmong men completed a U.S. training program in Southeast Asia, where they learned to fly T-28 propeller planes and helicopters. In all, 38 men swore to “fly until you die” and became part of the Hmong fighter pilot squadron.

Under the leadership of legendary Gen. Vang Pao of the Royal Army of Laos, the Hmong pilots flew many times a day in Laos during the U.S.-led covert war against pro-Communist forces. They bombarded the Ho Chi Minh Trail — the Viet Cong supply route — and provided cover for ground troops. They also helped rescue downed pilots and assisted U.S. forces in communicating with Hmong allies.

More than half of them were killed in action.

“If you look at what they did, they’re really, really brave guys, said Mike Martin, public affairs specialist for the Air Force Special Operations Command. “Their operations tempo — how many missions they were doing — it’s amazing. They were really fighting hard.”

Back in Laos, the pilots were like a family. Here in America, they keep in touch by phone and exchange pictures, but they hadn’t all been together since leaving Laos in 1975. “Many of us still have to work for a living and we live far apart,” Lee said.

‘It’s long overdue’

The idea for Saturday’s reunion was born when one pilot, Kha, was honored in 2010 at the Pentagon. He received a certificate of appreciation and congratulatory words from Gen. Schwartz himself.

“We’re here to remedy something that wasn’t done right, to acknowledge the service of our partners many years ago,” Schwartz told Kha at the ceremony. “Certainly I would call them battle buddies. It’s long overdue.”

Kha, the general noted, distinguished himself as a particularly courageous flier who many times ignored his own personal safety. One mission in particular stands out. An American pilot was suddenly in need of a Hmong “backseater” to fly with him and help in a dangerous rescue mission of a downed U.S. pilot.

Kha, then known as Robin ’09, volunteered to fly with American pilot Craig Duehring into a heavily contested zone. Duehring went on to serve as assistant secretary of the Air Force and was key to finally getting all the pilotsrecognized.

Eve Vang, whose father, Maj. Lee Lue, was a legendary pilot who flew thousands of missions before being shot down in 1969, was moved to tears while watching a video. It showed old photos of the Hmong pilots with cocky smiles standing proudly next to their planes. She said she was struck by how much her father and the other young Hmong men had to overcome to learn how to fly so quickly.

“These pilots were teachers. They were farmers. They didn’t know anything about guns or flying,” she said. “It shows they had potential.”

The sound of champagne corks popping echoed across the room as the pilots toasted their fallen buddies.

At the close of the ceremony, they already were talking of more reunions — only this time, they vowed, they would not wait so long.

Allie Shah •  612-673-4488

Thank You For Your Service: DEDICATED TO THE U.S. SECRET ARMY IN THE KINGDOM OF LAOS 1961 – 1973

(Danny Johnston/ Associated Press ) – Madeline Grace Wallace, 4, carries flags at the National Cemetery in Little Rock, Ark., Friday, May 25, 2012.

The girl and her mother visited the cemetery to place flags on graves for Memorial Day.

May 21, 2012

This time of the year, thousands of visitors come from around the world to Arlington National Cemetery to honor and remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Zackary Leetham, pictured, visited Arlington with his family. The Leethams didn’t have a friend or loved one buried at Arlington, but came to honor all others. Photo by 2LT James Wirthlin, USAF.

The story of this Memorial is a story of sacrifice and patriotic valor by American Advisers, Lao and Hmong combat soldiers in the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

In Memory of Legions Lost and the
Soldiers of the Secret War in Laos.
_______________________________________________________

We stand in tribute of forgotten men…for their sacrifice, courage
valor and honor. We honor them by this living memorial…starkly
beautiful in its simplicity, for it stands defiantly alone, as did those
soldiers in their seasons of death. It will serve as a poignant reminder
of our battlefield allies, and is a tribute long overdue to proud Human
endeavor…courage and valor in a long war lost in the unfulfilled hopes
for Southeast Asia.

As the fallen leaves of Autumn
in unregimented ranks,
Countless unrembered soldiers
rest…eternally.
Let us now praise forgotten men…
and some there be,
Which have no memorial;

Who have perished, as though
They had never been.
But they served, they died;
for cause and by happenstance…
Expended in the hopes for Southeast Asia,
and will forever be remembered,
Mourned for their sacrifice.

If by weeping I could change
the course of events,
My tears would pour down ceaselessly
for a thousand Autumns.

Thursday, May 15, 1997
Salute to Lao/Hmong Patriots
& their American Advisers
Arlington National Cemetery

—

Press Release

U.S. – LAOS, HMONG MEMORIAL DAY EVENTS:  DEDICATED TO THE U.S. SECRET ARMY IN THE KINGDOM OF LAOS

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2012 — National ceremonies and public policy events are being held in Washington, D.C., regarding Laos and Vietnam.

The U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos and Vietnam continues on Capitol Hill following earlier veterans’ memorial services.

Topics of discussion in the U.S. Congress include: economics; trade; hydroelectric dam projects, human rights; religious persecution; refugees; and, veterans’ issues.

“Our people, who were left behind in the jungles of Laos, are still suffering from the causes of the Vietnam War,” said Colonel Wangyee Vang, President of the Lao Veterans of America Institute.

“We have come from across the United States to pay tribute and remember our fallen soldiers who have died to secure the freedom that we all enjoy today,” Vang stated.

“The plight of Lao, Hmong and Vietnamese political and religious dissidents remains of concern to policymakers,” said Philip Smith, Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA) in Washington, D.C. “This includes the status of allied veterans who served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and their refugee families still suffering in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.” http://www.centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org

“It is also important to note that an official wreath-laying and memorial service, was conducted at the Lao Veterans of America (LVA) monument in Arlington National Cemetery, on May 11, to honor the Lao and Hmong veterans, their families, as well as the American clandestine advisors, who served in defense of the Kingdom of Laos, and U.S. national security interests, during the Vietnam War,” Smith continued.

“A U.S. Department of Defense Joint Armed Forces Honor Guard, U.S. Army wreath-bearer, and bugler, helped lead the ceremony,” stated Smith.

“Following the wreath-laying ceremony at the LVA memorial in Arlington, the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) honor guard also posted colors, and a bugler played ‘Taps’, in memory of the Lao and Hmong veterans and their American military and clandestine advisors…,” Smith commented.

“I am very honored, and pleased, that we are once again gathered here…,” said historian Dr. Jane Hamilton-Merritt.

Flowers were laid at a memorial ceremony held at the Vietnam War Memorial on May 12.

Participants discussed H.R. 3192, legislation introduced by U.S. Congressmen Jim Costa (D-CA) and Frank Wolf (R-VA), to grant burial benefits to Lao and Hmong-American veterans at U.S. national cemeteries.

Arlington memorial service cosponsors include: LVAI; CPPA; LVA; the U.S. DOD; Army; Air Force; Arlington National Cemetery; Counterparts; Hmong Advance, Inc.; Hmong Advancement, Inc.; and, Members of the U.S. Congress.

Speakers, and those providing statements, at the Arlington ceremonies include: Wangyee Vang, LVAI; Philip Smith, CPPA; Mike Benge, former POW; Hugh Tovar, Former CIA Station Chief, Laos; Toua Kue, LVA; Jane Hamilton-Merritt; D. L. Hicks, U.S. Special Forces Association; Christy Lee, Hmong Advance, Inc.; U.S. Congressman Jim Costa; and, other Members of the U.S. Congress.

The events also commemorate National Lao and Hmong Recognition Day, and Vietnam Human Rights Day, marked annually in May.

SOURCE: Center for Public Policy Analysis

Center for Public Policy Analysis:

Maria Gomez

or

Philip Smith 202-543-1444

The amazing life of Vang Pao: As Chico prepares to memorialize him, we should understand why the Hmong people regard him as their greatest hero

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/amazing-life-of-vang/content?oid=5172960

By John Boyle

This article was published on 02.16.12.

Vang Pao is pictured here in his Clovis home in 2009.  ANDY ALFARO/SACRAMENTO BEE/ZUMAPRESS.COM

Related stories this week: Who are the Hmong? Forever marginalized, they’ve learned either to fight or move on.

A sculptured likeness of Vang Pao will come soon to an honored place in Chico, thanks to a decision by the City Council in November to permit a statue of him to be placed outside council chambers. His picture already hangs in honored places in thousands of homes in Hmong communities now scattered all over the United States. We should know something about him and the many reasons why we should be proud that he and the Hmong people will achieve a deserved recognition.

Vang Pao is not exactly the George Washington of the Hmong—there, after all, is no Hmong government anywhere in the world. And none is on the horizon. But if adulation by large numbers of ethnic kinsmen is any criterion, Vang Pao invites comparison to George Washington. Gen. Vang was on hand to unite and inspire and focus the Hmong people at a crucial juncture in their very long migratory history.

“He is like the earth and the sky,” a Hmong refugee told a Fresno Bee reporter in 2007.

“I trusted Gen. Vang Pao with my life,” said Chai Vang Thao, a spokesman for the Hmong community in Butte County.

The salutes from Americans who knew him are even more enthusiastic. William Colby, the director of the CIA in the 1970s, called Vang Pao “the biggest hero of the Vietnam War.”

Vint Lawrence, one of the earliest of the CIA agents to know Vang Pao, said the general seemed unconcerned about his safety in battle—perhaps he believed that divine spirits controlled his fate. In any case, “His reaction [to danger] was extraordinary. He assumed he was not going to get shot. He just exuded bravery.”

President Bill Clinton, belatedly, authorized a plaque at Arlington National Cemetery in 1997. The valor of Gen. Vang Pao’s troops would never be forgotten, it reads.

Lionel Rosenblatt, a founder of Refugees International, put the matter quite bluntly when he said that Vang Pao’s Hmong were put “into this meat grinder, mostly to save U.S. soldiers from fighting and dying [in Vietnam].” Rosenblatt went on to become one of the main movers in the effort to relocate larger numbers of Hmong to the United States after the end of the Vietnam War—a matter by no means taken for granted at the time.

Many in Washington thought the problems attendant on resettlement of large numbers of Southeast Asian farmers would overwhelm U.S. resources. Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson stated publicly that Hmong families were incapable of integrating themselves into American culture.

After Vang Pao’s death in January 2011 efforts were made to bury him in Arlington. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-Calif., noted that he “saved the lives of thousands of Americans in the Vietnam War. … He deserves to be buried in Arlington.” Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., wanted to extend burial rights in U.S. national cemeteries to foreign-born Hmong veterans—estimated to number as many as 6,900. The Arlington burial efforts failed. Hmong in America, including many veterans of the war, were bitterly disappointed.

Vang Pao and Air America

The history of Vang Pao and the Hmong people and American involvement in the origins of the Vietnam War intersected for the first time in 1960. American presence in Vietnam, in the wake of the earlier (1954) French defeat, was limited at that time to a small number of “advisers” working to prop up an anti-communist regime in Saigon. The full-scale commitment of U.S. ground troops was two presidents in the future—Jack Kennedy and then Lyndon Johnson.

This photo was taken circa 1972, during the “secret war” in Laos. Gen. Vang Pao (arrow) is pictured holding hands with Thai Army Chief of Staff Surakij Mayalab at a site overlooking Hmong–CIA headquarters in Long Tien, Laos. To the left of Mayalab is CIA case officer Burr Smith (with shaved head). The rest of the men in the photo are Thai soldiers who served in Laos with Lao-Hmong forces.

Nonetheless, President Eisenhower, worried about a communist insurgency in Laos, declared in 1960 that that country must be kept out of communist hands. The “falling domino principle” was cited as reason. China was already communist; Vietnam was threatened; Laos would be next; Cambodia … Thailand … where would it end?

In 1960 Vang Pao was 31 years old and already an experienced soldier. As a teenager he had fought with the French against the Japanese who controlled most of Southeast Asia during the Pacific War. Later, in the 1960s, he was a major when Americans met him and soon became a major general in the Royal Lao Army—the highest rank achieved by a Hmong in that force. The Hmong, while they had grudges against the Lao royal government whose powerbase was in the lowland areas of Laos, felt they had a better chance for autonomy under it than under the communist insurgency known as Pathet Lao. The Pathet Lao leadership was trained by Hanoi.

Vang Pao first met American counterinsurgency agents in 1960. These CIA agents, often disguised as civilian operatives in the bogus corporation “Air America,” went to work to enlist Hmong villagers in the remote fog-shrouded highlands of central and north Laos. The Americans immediately recognized Vang Pao as their most valuable ally.

With Vang Pao’s help, Hmong allies were recruited and assigned to gather intelligence, protect American radar sites, operate advance radio and surveillance outposts, and rescue downed American airmen. Many Hmong soldiers lost their own lives in their effort to rescue Americans. The Hmong engaged in fierce combat on the contested border region between Laos and Vietnam. One expert estimates that for more than a decade the 40,000-strong Hmong forces prevented as many as 70,000 Vietnamese troops from overrunning Laos.

Vang Pao was compared by one expert as a Hmong version of Gen. George Patton: He could think like his enemy. But instead of great powerful armies, Vang Pao, at least in the early days, commanded men wearing homespun clothes who often took wives and children into battle. They abandoned their traditional homes, their fields, their livestock, and settled in encampments, many concentrated in mountaintop areas surrounding the Plaine des Jarres. (The French named it that after the thousands of stone jars that dotted the landscape and were thought to be prehistoric burial places.)

In the early 1960s, when Americans first met them, Hmong recruits carried hand-made flintlock rifles—Vang Pao presented one to President Johnson in 1968 on the occasion of a visit to the United States. Walt Rostow, national security adviser, sent a note to LBJ praising Vang Pao: “He is a real asset to us, a feisty little fighter ….”

The Secret War

By the mid-1960s, as full-scale war in Vietnam evolved, the Laos-Vietnam border area became ever more crucial. The famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, the supply route from communist North Vietnam to the South, weaved its way inside and out of the territory of Laos. Interruption of the flow of supplies from Ho Chi Minh’s regime in the north to their Viet Minh allies in the south became a principal strategic goal of the United States. And that in turn dictated a strong American presence in Laos. A clandestine presence. Thus the “secret war” in Laos (and also Cambodia).

“Laos was officially neutral; that didn’t stop the North Vietnamese communists nor the Americans nor Mr. Vang,” commented the Economist.

By the mid-1960s Vang Pao and the Hmong were often in the air. “He loved aviation,” writes Jane Hamilton-Merritt, author of Tragic Mountains, a gripping story of the secret war and the heroic role thousands of Hmong played in it. At first he “rode shotgun” on missions, but before long Gen. Vang was flying a Cessna 185 or H-34 helicopter.

He persuaded the Americans that Hmong could be trained as pilots, and scores of them were. Vang Pao regarded Hmong pilots as braver and more skilled than the Lao, or Thai, or even American flyers. The Hmong were flying to protect their people. For them every mission was a life-and-death mission.

“American pilots typically flew 100 combat missions, celebrated with a champagne party and went home with medals for bravery,” writes Hamilton-Merritt. “Hmong pilots had no 100-mission parties with champagne, no R&R in faraway cities, and no end of tour. Instead they flew until they were blown out of the skies.”

The Controversial Vang Pao

This rendering shows how the memorial to Gen. Vang Pao, which the City Council approved in November 2011, will look.  THE CITY OF CHICO

Vang Pao had his enemies and critics. Not surprising for a general fighting guerrilla warfare, he could be ruthless. It is said that his recruitment policies included drafting very young boys; those who resisted were not treated well. He could and did order summary executions.

And it is widely acknowledged now that he financed much of his patriotic activity by being an opium warlord. This was especially true in the early 1970s, as the United States began its strategic retreat from Vietnam.

Financial assistance to Vang Pao began to dry up. He still had to pay his ever-more-besieged troops—and their families. The narcotics trade was a way to solvency.

Critics of American policies in Southeast Asia point to the Secret War as a moral low point in the Cold War. U.S. bombers flying from distant Guam or bases in nearby Thailand dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laotian territory—more than the total dropped on all of Germany during World War II. By another calculation, the 580,000 bombing missions over Laos between 1964 and 1973 constituted the heaviest aerial bombing in history.

Historian Sucheng Chan, though not Hmong, writes with great sympathy for the plight of the Hmong in her 1994 book Hmong Means Free. The North Vietnamese and Americans fought the “Second Vietnam War” partly in Hmong homelands, she says, but neither side cared much about the needs of Laos or the Hmong. They made use of Laos for their own ends.

By the early 1970s, “the United States was determined to end its involvement in Southeast Asia and was looking for a way to extricate itself ‘with honor’ from a conflict that had cost more than a million lives (all participants combined) and left a legacy of ecological destruction that still boggles the mind,” Chan writes.

After 1975

With the American retreat from Southeast Asia in 1975, a decision had to be made who among our Hmong friends could be saved. In the last days, amid great turmoil at remote airstrips, the CIA managed to evacuate Vang Pao and a few thousand officers and their families to safety in America and elsewhere around the globe.

Recall the pictures of the panic scenes as people scrambled to board the last helicopters out of Saigon in 1975? The same scenario played out mostly beyond camera range in Hmong villages at about the same time.

The rank-and-file Hmong left behind were subjected to brutal attacks by the communist victors, who used vastly superior firepower and chemical and biological warfare in an attempt to exterminate the Hmong. The Hmong in general were treated badly; those suspected of ties with the CIA were worked to death by day and put into holes in the ground by night. As many as 100,000 perished; another 100,000 fled Laos.

Of those Hmong people who remained in Laos, tens of thousands were sent to re-education camps as political prisoners, where they served indeterminate, sometimes life sentences. Many of these people are unaccounted for; it is easily assumed that most perished.

For the vast majority of Hmong survivors, the American pullout meant that their only hope was fleeing to refugee camps in Thailand. Can we possibly understand the terror and panic of a people constantly in flight and pursued by troops of the post-1975 government of Laos, which had promised to “wipe out” Hmong who had allied themselves with the United States?

The early stages of escape took them through the Lao jungle, relocating every few months as the communists discovered their locations. They were unable to farm or grow anything in the jungle. “They depended on whatever edible roots they could find,” writes former Marysville resident Her Vang in his recently completed Ph.D. dissertation, “Dreaming of Home, Dreaming of Land: Displacements and Hmong Transnational Politics, 1975-2010,” at the University of Minnesota.

Author John Boyle is a retired professor of Asian history at Chico State University. He has been a “reading pal” with about 30 Hmong second- and third-graders over the last 15 years. He is shown here recently with one of them, Pangsee Xiong, holding a photo of them taken in 1996. She recently graduated from East Carolina University, in Greenville, N.C., with a major in public health and a concentration in community health.  PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN BOYLE

The final stage of the escape involved crossing the Mekong—but many could not swim. There are no great, wide rivers in the Lao highlands. The desperate clung to makeshift bamboo rafts or inflated plastic bags. And they dodged bullets from pursuing troops—and sometimes from Thai soldiers chasing them back from the “safe” side. Many did not make it. How many infants really didn’t have a chance?

And when the lucky survivors waded onto Thai territory, to commence what for many would be permanent exile from their homeland, they ended up in squalid refugee camps, some for years, some for two decades. While there, they were always coping with the threat of repatriation to Laos, where they faced torture and death.

Many Hmong turned down offers of resettlement in America because it would mean that they would have to abandon their families in the refugee camps. One estimate holds that for every person in the camp at Ban Vinai who emigrated to the States, a child was born in the camp. It had a population of about 38,000 in 1987.

The forced resettlement of Hmong continues to be a source of terror for the relatively small numbers of Hmong remaining in Thai camps. In May 2009, Doctors Without Borders withdrew in protest from Ban Huay Nam Khao detention camp in Thailand because of the country’s forced-repatriation policy and abuse of the Lao Hmong refugees. The camp is the last remaining Lao Hmong refugee camp in Thailand.

Doctors Without Borders left behind a trove of accusatory evidence regarding Thailand and the plight of the Hmong. Jane Hamilton-Merritt pleaded to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Read the report about the fear of those who are about to be forcibly returned to their abusers in Laos. Know their stories. Hear their cries.”

Vang Pao’s Last Years

Gen. Vang Pao spent most of his time, as one commentator put it, leaning on “his network of former spooks, soldiers and diplomats to twist arms in Washington, D.C., and win help for his kinsmen.” Fortunately for the Hmong cause, Vang Pao had a wide range of connections.

But Vang Pao also never gave up the dream of returning and organizing the ragtag rebels holding out in isolated jungle camps and establishing a Hmong homeland in Laos. The jungles of Laos remained “unfinished business” in his mind.

Central to these dreams was the notion of Chao Fa, a mystical group of Hmong warriors who fought against French colonial rule nearly a century ago. The general dreamed of returning to Laos and reviving the Chao Fa goals.

Vang Pao and many Hmong of his generation were quite different from other refugees America has absorbed. They were not convinced that their final destiny was to be found in the United States. Almost all of them felt a deep connection to their Laos homeland and to their Hmong relatives stranded there. Their quandary was and is an ongoing tragedy.

Vang Pao’s last years produced an episode of great controversy. In 2007 U.S. federal courts ordered Vang Pao’s arrest for allegedly plotting to overthrow the communist government of Laos. Federal agents charged the general and several others with plotting to assemble an arsenal of weapons that they intended to ship to anti-Laotian resistance forces inside Laos.

Appeals came from many quarters to drop the charges. Not lost in the debate was the fact that decades earlier the U.S. had trained and supported Vang Pao to resist the (ostensibly) same regime.

Vang Pao and others were arrested and denied bail. Adding some confusion to this situation, Vang Pao at times insisted that he intended to broker a deal between the Lao authorities in Vientiane and the minorities. Vientiane responded by saying that they would kill him if he set foot in Laos. He was soon released from prison, and after two years of hearings, in 2009 all charges against Vang, by then 80 years old, were dropped. He died in January 2011 in Clovis. A six-day funeral brought thousands to the streets and public places of nearby Fresno—and to Hmong communities across the nation.

Author’s postscript

I’d like to make this suggestion to whoever is in charge of writing the inscription on the Vang Pao memorial sculpture: Please make it abundantly clear that the dedication is not just to Gen. Vang, but also to the heroic and long-suffering Hmong people who committed themselves to the American cause three and four decades ago in far-away Laos.

And to their children and grandchildren who now are increasingly less interested in a resurrection of the Chao Fa kingdom than they are in the daunting task of making their way in America.

The new generations of Hmong will not and should not forget the sacrifices of their parents and grandparents’ generations. If a sculpture of Vang Pao helps them (and the rest of us Americans) to honor those sacrifices, then it will be a worthy contribution to our city.

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/amazing-life-of-vang/content?oid=5172960