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pretty interesting article, worth reading. about these Hmong guerillas who were forgotten following the conclusion of the Vietnam War. However, cuz they were fighting what became the current Laotian government, they've never been able to leave the jungle. Pretty wild.
Re: Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
12-18-2007, 12:48 AM
Quote:
Mr. Pao’s indictment in California, after a federal sting operation in which a government agent posing as an arms dealer offered him weapons, is bewildering to the veterans here. Attacking Communists was the very job Mr. Pao was paid to do by the C.I.A.
It makes me sick that the CIA, among others, are able to get away with such bullshit.
Re: Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
12-18-2007, 03:28 AM
^ i agree, they should've brought all the hmong to the us and given them refugee status at least. however, ithink mr pao was trying to buy guns recently, 30 years after cia stopped supporting them.
Re: Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
12-18-2007, 07:07 AM
If the US relocated all Hmong forces at the end of the war, their families would have been completely vulnerable. We didnt have the resources to evacuate a few hundred thousand people in a short amount of time. And the Hmong who have fought the pathet lao or the nva during the war, are given automatic US citizenship.
Re: Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
12-18-2007, 06:40 PM
stereotype i wasn't referring to evacuating all the hmong. the article was about a group of 5 mercenaries and their resulting children and grandchildren and wives, numbering about 50 in total. the fact that the govt. regards them as 'bandits' puts them in danger. i would give those fifty asylum, not the whole hmong. now, i dont know how many of these bands are in the jungle, but i believe that they're a small minority of the hmong. my knowledge on the topic is limited i was just going off this article.
no resources huh?
You don't think the good ole US of A could've scraped up a few dollars to relocate them somewhere in between now and 1975?
Just to be clear Im not supporting leaving them, I think we should have had a berlin air lift type situation to evacuate the hmong. That would have been a huge effort though and at the end of the war congress cut funding, so the money wasn’t there for it, we were barely able to evacuate the Saigon embassy. There have been some efforts to relocate the hmong to the US and are pretty large communities here, but on the other hand there are episodes like Clinton backing forced repatriation into laos from thai refugee camps.
stereotype i wasn't referring to evacuating all the hmong. the article was about a group of 5 mercenaries and their resulting children and grandchildren and wives, numbering about 50 in total. the fact that the govt. regards them as 'bandits' puts them in danger. i would give those fifty asylum, not the whole hmong. now, i dont know how many of these bands are in the jungle, but i believe that they're a small minority of the hmong. my knowledge on the topic is limited i was just going off this article.
I don’t know the exact numbers, but there is a large amount of the Hmong in the same position as the people in the article and not a small minority. Small communities of former fighters and their families in the jungle, with the vietnamese military and the pathet lao gov (basically vietnamese proxies) trying to exterminate them for the past 30 years and still going after them today, they will call them bandits etc but that’s all bullshit. The vietnamese and the pathet lao think the hmong, "montagnards", and various other ethnic minorities are some lesser race of savages, the name they use to refer to them literally means savages, that they can fuck over or get rid of.... their situation is just as shitty today as it has been for decades. Whats really fucked up is after the various new laws came into effect after 9/11 the hmong who used to work for the cia/dod are considered terrorists (although I don’t think this really affected their ability to get us citizenship or live openly in the US)
Re: Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
07-30-2009, 06:09 PM
After the 1954 French defeat in Indochina, the United States gradually took over the intelligence and military fight against Communism in both Laos and Vietnam.
It also took over the drug trafficking business developed by the French by buying the opium produced by the Hmong and Yao hill tribes to enlist them in counterinsurgency operations against the Viet Minh.
The CIA ran its secret army in Laos, composed largely of Hmong tribesmen led by General Vang Pao. Air America would fly arms to the Hmong and take back their opium to the CIA base at Long Tieng, where Vang Pao had set up a huge heroin laboratory. Some of the heroin was then flown to South Vietnam, where part of it was sold to U.S. troops, many of whom became addicts.
It was after the Americans pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, that Laos became the world's third opium producer.
Just another chapter in the long history of CIA drug related activites.
Re: Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
11-03-2009, 12:38 AM
“I guess you will leave here and try to help us,” Mr. Xiong told his visitor. “But if you can’t, don’t be sad.”
I don't know what to think about this. I mean the story is fucked. It's just man what the fuck do you say to that?
I think examples like this show why it is just so hard to convince people in Afghanistan to work with US/NATO troops. The US cannot guarantee protection.
Mostly this reminds me though of the Filipino men that fought with the US in WWII through the "Death March". I believe to this day we have not provided them with their veterans benefits or citizenship.
Former CIA Mercenaries Still in Laos. -
12-17-2007, 05:39 PM
