Kuv tus laus no tsis to taub meej tiam sis raws li kuv tau muab nyeem
mus nyeem los ntau zau thiab hov kom lawv tus pauv pab pes me me mas
kuv xav yawg hlob sab tsaus ntuj kuj los yog zoo kawg thiab yom. Li
kuv hais ne, zaum no ces yuav paim quav tiag tiag lauv, li no xwb twb
tsis luaj twg yog muaj hnub luag tseem ntsiab tau ntawm npab txog txoj
kev liam sim niaj hnub practice kev ua terrorist no thiab mas haj yuav
cuag li raug ib lub plas mas nus. Kuv tus laus no xav mas txog ntawm
qhov yawg hlob muaj txhab heroin mas yuav tsis muaj tiam sis ntawm
qhov luag tuaj quab yuam cov me nyuam yaus thiab tua neeg yam tsis
muab cai rau nws los hais nws lub txim mas qias kawg kiag rau tiam
neeg ntawd los txog rau tiam niam no. Tej pab vav no mas zoo coj los
qhia xeeb luj xeeb lam kawg.

GENERAL VANG PAO: A Review of Sources
[20 April 2007]
by Alfred W. McCoy, Professor of Southeast Asian History, UW Madison
In assessing the merits of the Madison School Board's decision to name
a school General
Vang Pao, there are three factors that might give one pause--
allegations that Vang Pao ordered
summary executions, press reports that his army conscripted boy
soldiers as young as 10 years old
for combat, and press reports of financial fraud in Hmong-American
welfare associations affiliated
with him.
In aftermath of the Vietnam War, books by authors ranging from the
staunchly pro-Vang Pao
Jane Hamilton-Merritt to Christian missionary William Smalley and
commercial author Christopher
Robbins have been unanimous in reporting that Vang Pao ordered extra-
judicial executions of
enemy prisoners, his own Hmong soldiers, and Hmong political
opponents. All base these
allegations on interviews with eye-witnesses which include CIA
operatives, American pilots for the
CIA-owned Air America, and Hmong whose communities supported the CIA's
Secret Army.
In the latter stages of the Vietnam War, 1971-73, General Vang Pao's
CIA army reportedly
recruited children from ages 10 to 14 years-old to serve as boy
soldiers in brutal combat with
extraordinarily high casualties.
Over the past 20 years, moreover, General Vang Pao has served as head
of several Hmong
organizations reportedly involved in questionable fund raising for a
variety of Hmong community
causes-an anti-communist resistance group, the United Lao National
Liberation Front, whose
leader Kao Thao was convicted of embezzlement in California in 1990; a
welfare assistance group,
the Lao Family Community; and a citizenship advocacy group, the Lao
Veterans of America.
I. VANG PAO & EXTRA-JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS:
Over the past twenty-five years, four books, reflecting a wide range
of political perspectives, have
been published with statements that General Vang Pao, while an officer
in the Royal Lao Army and
head of the CIA's Secret Army from 1962-1975, was responsible for the
extra-judicial execution of
his own soldiers, enemy suspects, and political opponents within the
Hmong community. Here are
extracts from those sources:
1.) Christopher Robbins, Air America (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons,
1979):
"A Meo [Hmong] soldier on the ridge watched the plane crawl slowly
toward him and in a
moment of boredom fired off a shot. The bullet went straight through
the pilot's heart and
killed him instantly while the plane crashed into the mountain and
burned, killing everybody
on board. The solider was executed on the spot by Vang Pao." (page
122).
The book quotes Air America pilot Wayne Lennin saying about Vang Pao:
"VP was exceptional. He did a lot of things people didn't like-he'd
summarily
execute somebody who didn't do their job. But he kept the whole thing
together, and if they
hadn't had him it would have fallen apart long before it ever
did." (page 139)
2.) Christopher Robbins, The Ravens: The Men Who Flew in America's
Secret War in Laos
(New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1987):
2
"In a later run-in with Long Tieng base chief Tom Clines, Vang Pao
ruthlessly demonstrated
who was in charge. Six prisoners had been brought in by the Meo
[Hmong], and Clines
demanded that his men interrogate them. Vang Pao nodded to an aide,
who immediately had
the men taken outside and shot. The CIA man took the point. "What I
meant to say, general,
is that I would appreciate it if you would allow us to interrogate
prisoners, please.'" (pg.
125).
3.) Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans,
and the Secret Wars
for Laos, 1942-1992 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993):
The book quotes Air America pilot Fred Walker's eye-witness
description of Vang Pao's
execution of a prisoner in January 1962:
"Colonel Vang Pao comes in and eats lunch. While he's eating, one of
his aides
comes over and says something and points to the young guy squatting in
the corner.
Suddenly, Vang Pao spits out the sound 'Ba!' A couple of soldiers
stood up and took the
prisoner outside. Vang Pao continued eating. A few minutes later, I
heard four shots." (page
98)
4.) Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe, "The Covert Wars of Vang Pao," Star
Tribune (Minneapolis,
MN), 2 July 2005.
This investigative report quotes CIA operative Bill Lair, who worked
closely with General
Vang Pao during the war in Laos:
"When I first got up there, when they captured prisoners--both sides
did it--they
automatically killed all the prisoners," he said....
"I talked to him [Vang Pao] about. I said, 'Look when you capture
these guys, we
ought not to shoot 'em 'cause they know a lot of stuff; we can get
information out of 'em
which would be very useful to us,'" Lair said. "He wasn't shooting
them because he was a
barbarian. He didn't know what else to do with them."
5.) William A. Smalley, Chia Khoua Vang, and Gnia Yee Yang, Mother of
Writing: The Origin
and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1990).
The book describes the murder of Shong Lue Yang, a messianic leader
and inventor of a
Hmong writing system as follows:
"It was mid-February 1971 that Shong Lue Yang, Mother of Writing,
Savior of the
People, was assassinated at the age of forty-one....About nine o'clock
in the morning, two of
the party of assassins came toward Shong Lue's house, while the others
stayed on
guard....Then they went on and shot Shong Lue and Bau [his wife] inside
their home. Shong
Lue's and Bau's three-year-old son, Ba..., darted to the jungle. The
assassins shot at him,
wounding him in the leg, but he managed to get away....All of the
suspected assassins are
known now, their identities learned in various ways. They were all
soldiers in General Vang
Pao's army..."
"After Shong Lue was assassinated, a student named Yong Lee Yang..., who
had
been one of the twelve clan representatives at Kiaw Bouia or Fi Ka,
and so had been trained
by Shong Lue as a leader, built a round house for worship and
continued teaching the
Pahawh Hmong [writing system] in his own village of Houi Kinin...in the
Long Cheng area.
3
Once more the Hmong people in the surrounding area gathered to study
in increasing
numbers, until there were five hundred of them....
"The process of spreading the Pahawh Hmong [writing] continued until
November
1971, when Yong Lee Yang was also killed in his Houi Kinin home. The
assassins were
dressed in the uniforms of government soldiers. They came early in the
morning, armed with
bazookas of the type supplied by the American CIA, weapons powerful
enough to piece
tanks and blow up bunkers. With these weapons, they killed not only
Yong Lee, but also five
other people, wounding sixteen as well. Then the next evening, at 4
p.m., two T-28 bombers,
also of the type provided to General Vang Pao's army by the CIA, flew
twice over the village
and destroyed the round worship house.
"That disaster ended the spread of the Pahwah Hmong until the Royal
Lao
Government collapsed and the Hmong people began to leave Laos,
beginning May 14,
1975." (pages 37-39)
II. CONSCRIPTION OF CHILDREN BY VANG PAO'S CIA ARMY:
During the latter years of the US war in Laos, there were frequent
press reports that General
Vang Pao's army was conscripting children as young as ten years old
for service in the his CIAfunded
as "boy soldiers" because of extraordinarily high casualties.
1.) "From Laos to America: Changing World, Changing Lives" (D.C.
Everest Area School
District, Weston, WI; <http://www.everestinfo.org/laos2/index.php?
page=Boy_Soldiers>) has a
photo of these "boy solders" with the following caption:
"Late in the war, when manpower was depleted and recruitment was more
difficult,
younger and younger boys were enlisted. It was not uncommon for boys
just entering their
teens to be recruited or drafted. Some boys as young as ten years of
age were given arms and
uniforms. Some of these young soldiers were referred to as "carbine
soldiers" because they
were shorter than the rifles they carried."
2.) "Laotian General Said to Ask for Reinforcements," The New York
Times (February 11, 1971),
pg. 19:
"General Vang Pao's tribal units are weary from years of fighting, and
casualties have
been replaced with recruits that knowledgeable sources say are 13 to
15 years of age."
3.) Henry Kamm, "War in Laos Imperils the Survival of Meo Tribes," The
New York Times
(March 16, 1971), pg. 1:
"General Vang Pao's army, after a stepped up recruiting effort,
numbers more than
10,000...The number of 12-year-old and 13 year-old fighting men in the
general's forces
appear even higher than among regular Laotian units. Although there is
no draft, youngsters
are impressed under clan and family pressure."
III. FUND-RAISING & CORRUPTION BY LEADERS ASSOCIATED WITH VANG PAO:
4
Since the late 1980s, there have been reports in the national and
regional press that organizations
associated with General Vang Pao have engaged in fund-raising
activities, some questionable,
among Hmong refugees in the United States.
1.) Ruth E. Hammond, "The Great Refugee Shakedown: The Hmong Are
Paying to Free Laos-But
What's Happening to the Money?" The Washington Post (April 16, 1989),
page B-1.
"Since 1981, when the United Lao National Liberation Front, or Neo
Hom, was
founded in the United States by exiled Laotian military leaders, a
substantial number of
Hmong families here say they have paid $100 down plus $10 a month into
that
organization's coffers. The funds, they've been told, sustain
resistance against the communist
Lao People's Democratic Republic. The president of the Neo Hom in the
United States,
Hmong Maj. Gen. Vang Pao, travels periodically to Hmong resettlement
communities here
and abroad to promise imminent victory and to appeal for funds....
"A member of one of the smaller Hmong clans, who requested anonymity,
said that in
the mid-1980s, 20 families of his clan in Minnesota donated $20,000 in
cash to support the
Hmong resistance. He says that in 1986, his brother, who had
personally donated nearly
$10,000, accepted Vang Pao's offer of a resistance job in Thailand. He
found no evidence
that the promised supplies had been purchased, and Neo Hom leaders
told him that 'almost
none' of the money collected in the United States had ever reached the
resistance."
2.) Seth Mydans, "California Says Laos Refugee Group Has Been Extorted
by Its Leadership," The
New York Times (November 2, 1990).
"For years, some members of the most primitive refugee group in
America, the
Hmong, have complained, mostly in whispers, that the anti-Communist
leader who fled here
with them from the remote mountains of Laos has been extorting money
from them.
"Now the California Department of Social Services has given substance
to those
grievances, charging that Gen. Vang Pao's resistance organization has
demanded
contributions from Hmong refugees in return for welfare assistance
through a state-financed
social service group he controls.
"The department, completing an 18-month investigation, recommended
last month
that country welfare offices cancel their contracts with the social
services organization, the
Lao Family Community.
"Kao Thao, a leader of the resistance group, the United Lao National
Liberation
Front, has been arrested and has pleaded guilty to two counts of
embezzlement and
misappropriation of funds....
"'It's sad to see Hmong ripping off Hmong,' said one refugee who spoke
on the
condition that his name not be used. 'I'm concerned about corruption
with the Lao Family
Community. It's not run by the people who are appointed to run it.
It's run by corrupt
political officers.'"
3.) Sean Madigan, Tom Hamburger, and Rob Hotakainen, "Deal on Hmong
vets bill reached," Star
Tribune (Minneapolis, MN: May 19, 2000), page A-1.
"Washington, DC-Congress moved closer Thursday to approving a bill
that would
make it easier for Hmong veterans to become citizens after
negotiations dropped a
controversial veterans organization from the legislation.
5
"The change was made at the request of Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., who
said it would
have set a bad precedent to name an advocacy group such as the Lao
Veterans of America in
the legislation.
"That change was welcomed by many academicians and former military
leaders.
They worried that the Lao Veterans, based in Fresno, Calif., was an
inappropriate group to be
named in a citizenship bill.
"'I can't believe that anyone would have let them slide in this bill,'
said retired Air
Force Brig. Gen. Harry Aderholt, who directed U.S. forces in the
Secret War.
"In an interview, Aderholt said the Lao Veterans represented just one
faction of the
deeply split U.S. Hmong population and warned that it would be a
mistake to give them a
role in deciding who gets citizenship benefits....
" 'The Lao Veterans of America are quite prejudiced,' Aderholt said of
the group's
attitude toward other Hmong veterans who aren't affiliated with the
organization.
"In addition, Aderholt and others expressed concern that the Lao
Veterans' strong
association with Hmong Gen. Vang Pao would be a detriment. Vang Pao is
honorary cochairman
of the group and is widely recognized in the Hmong community as the
organization's unofficial leader...."
"The change came after Hmong scholar Yang Dao a former instructor at
the
University of Minnesota, wrote to members of the Judiciary Committee
on Wednesday,
urging the Senate not to name any one group.
"The letter warned that 'allowing only a single group of Laotian
veterans to certify
the citizenship status would jeopardize the process of naturalization
by promoting corruption,
fraud, distortion, and injustice.' It did not mention the Lao Veterans
by name...."
4.) Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe, "Reality gets in the way of loyalty
to general," Star Tribune
(Minneapolis, MN), 3 July 2005.
This investigative report describes allegations of financial fraud by
General Vang Pao's
Hmong welfare organization called Neo Hom:
"To help Hmong refugees navigate America's social service agencies,
Vang Pao
founded Lao Family and Community, Inc., a California nonprofit. It
eventually branched out
to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and elsewhere...
"In 1990, the California authorities began investigation charges that
refugees were
shaken down for contributions to Neo Hom as a condition of receiving
social services. Kao
Thao--Vang Pao's son-in-low and then-executive director of the
California Lao Family--was
charged with misappropriating public monies, embezzlement and grand
theft.
"Kao Thao eventually pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $70,000
from the
agency."
5.) Joshua Kurlantzick, "Hmong Friends: The warlord of St. Paul,
Minnesota," The New Republic
(Washington, DC), 5 February 2007, pg. 14.
"Going house to house in Hmong neighborhoods Vang Pao's men would ask
for
small contributions, always in cash. 'We'd even get money, five bucks,
ten bucks, from the
poorest old women on welfare,' says Tou Long Lo, Vang Pao's former son-
in-law. 'We'd
threaten them...People knew that, in Laos, Vang Pao had killed, so
threats worked.' In
6
exchange for the money, donors would receive certificates promising
them positions in a
future Lao government....
"Along with anger at Vang Pao's détente, leading members of the
community...began openly questioning his fund-raising operation. Vang
Pao's son, Cha
Vang, had been pushing out the general's old advisers while apparently
taking funds for
himself. (In 2005, the Minnesota attorney general sued a nonprofit run
by Cha Vang for
breaking operating laws, and taking donations for what may have been
personal use. Cha
Vang settled, but not before it emerged that he had spent some of the
money at a massive
jewelry store in Bangkok.)
"Several groups split from Vang Pao. These enemies remained in the
shadows, but
Hmong experts point to followers of another Hmong resistance leader
named Pa Kao Her,
who was mysteriously assassinated in Thailand in 2002. (His killer was
never caught.) After
Pao Ka Her's death, some of his followers claimed Vang Pao had
abandoned their cause, and
they lashed out at him....
"The next year, this stew of ancient animosity and modern grievances
exploded. At a
rally in early April 2004, in front of the St. Paul office of U.S.
Representative Betty
McCollum, pro- and anti-Vang Pao factions attacked one another. One
woman was beaten to
the ground with the sign she was holding."