On Jun 6, 3:00 pm, All4One yahoo.com> wrote:

What it takes to end a war
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 06/05/2007 06:08:58 PM CDT

In February 2004, officials of the U.S. State Department called
together 50 leaders of the U.S. Hmong and Lao community in Washington.
Federal officials brought a clear message: anyone who was promoting or
assisting attacks against the communist regime in Laos was violating
U.S. law.

On Monday in California, a federal grand jury indicted Vang Pao, the
former Hmong general in Laos and dominant figure among the Hmong
people in the U.S., and eight others for doing just that. They were
accused of trying to buy millions of dollars worth of machine guns,
grenade launchers, mines, explosives and even anti-aircraft Stinger
missiles for use in an attack on Laos.

St. Paul is a national center of the Hmong, the Southeast Asian tribe
who spearheaded a secret, CIA-backed war against communist insurgents
in Laos while the public war involving U.S. troops was taking place
next door in Vietnam. Vang Pao was the unquestioned military leader
during the war in the 1960s through the mid-1970s and has retained the
aura of power since the Hmong came to the U.S. He is now 77 and lives
in California, but has relatives here and is a regular visitor to New
Year's celebrations, soccer tournaments and military reunions, often
accompanied by a small army of guards.

In spring 1975, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam all fell to communist
regimes. U.S. troops bugged out of Saigon and Vang Pao was ferried
from his secret CIA base in Long Cheng across the border into
Thailand. He eventually came to
Advertisement
Click Here!
the U.S. to start a new life. Tens of thousands of Hmong followed him
to the U.S. as refugees.

Vang Pao has long been associated with the movement to resist or
overthrow the Laotian regime. Some accused Vang Pao and his allies of
using this dream of counterrevolution as a fundraising scam. As
recently as 2005, members of the Hmong community complained that
military and political positions in "free'' Laos were being sold by a
group connected to Vang Pao.

In 2003, Vang Pao said he would support normalizing trade relations
with Laos if it improved its human rights record. Congress approved
the controversial trade change in late 2004. It is surprising that
now, three decades after he first came here, at age 77 and at a time
when the U.S. and Laos are improving relations, that Vang Pao would
join an effort to attack his homeland.

"General Vang Pao wants to walk into Vientiane before he dies,'' one
of the co-plotters told an undercover agent, according to the
indictment. Vientiane is the capital of Laos.

The Secret War was, as this newspaper once called it, "the war that
changed St. Paul.'' Minnesota generally, and St. Paul in particular,
had welcoming refugee resettlement groups, good schools and welfare
benefits and a strong economy. The city now runs neck-and-neck with
Fresno, Calif., as having the largest Hmong population of any single
city.

Two children who escaped with their families from Laos at the end of
the war were raised in the U.S. and now represent St. Paul in the
Legislature - state Rep. Cy Thao and state Sen. Mee Moua. Whatever
happens to Vang Pao will matter here, both to those who see him as a
patriotic savior and to those who see him as an irrelevant warlord-in-
exile.

The stakes are higher than Vang Pao's legacy. The U.S. and the rest of
the world have turned a page. The children of those Hmong warriors,
like Thao and Moua, are building their futures here. It is, as the
State Department informed Hmong-American leaders three years ago, a
crime to make war on a nation we are at peace with. If this week's
criminal indictments can begin to close the book on the Secret War,
they will be an important and lasting accomplishment.

Return to Top
Comments
The Pioneer Press is pleased to let readers post comments about an
article at the end of the article. Please increase the credibility of
your post by including your full name and city when commenting.

Please note: It may take several minutes before your comment appears.

Recent Comments

* oops... it's "don't"not "do."But seriously now, the article
above...
* Vang Pao is no diference than President George W. Bush who's
wish...
* I want to thank the US government for foiling Vang Pao's plot
to...
* I don't know the man, so I can't speak to whether he's really
as...
* From my opinion, Vang Pao deserves to go to jail. He is a
general...