The Hmong: Part 2 Hmong in Laos - Bloody Trails to Uncertain Freedom

Why have more than 350,000 Hmong people emigrated from Laos in the last 30 years?

The history of the Hmong people is a long tale of persecution, migration and survival. Over the last several millenniums the agrarian Hmong people, displaced by expanding Han Chinese power, migrated from North-central China southward, eventually making their way into what is now known as northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma.

There is no absolute knowledge of where they originated, but there is evidence – legendary and genetic - that the Hmong are descended from people who, before written history, migrated from the west into Eurasia and sometime later to Siberia and Mongolia.  This would help explain the unusual Hmong genetic trait of sometimes having blond hair while all other features are Asian. In some villages, entire families occasionally have blond hair.

The Hmong are a Highland Farming and Foraging People

The history of the Hmong in Laos began in the 1800's. T he Manchu dynasty began yet another campaign of systematic slaughter in 1856 against the mountain-dwelling Hmong in Southern China, repopulating their lands with ethnic Chinese – just as they are doing in Tibet today. Most of the retreating Hmong entered northern Vietnam's Tonkin Delta but were driven back into the mountains without much difficulty as the refugees were weakened by the humid lowland climate and terrified by the Vietnamese elephant battalions.

Three clan leaders however avoided the Tonkin delta and led their people westward past Dien Bien Phu into northeastern Laos to the Plain of Jars area. When the terrible Chinese massacres began, the leader of the Lo clan - who had led the Hmong resistance in Szechwan - sent his four sons south with the survivors while he maintained a rearguard action against the Chinese.

After a yearlong march they stopped in Nong Het District of Xieng Kouang Province, Laos, near the Viet Nam border. The rich soil in the hills surrounding Nong Het was uninhabited and ideal for agriculture. As word spread back to China and Vietnam that the area was fertile and unoccupied, thousands of Hmong began to migrate southward.

Plain of Jars, Xieng Khouang Province

Nong Het became the most important Hmong political center in Laos . Soon after, Chinese opium merchants persuaded the Hmong to grow opium as a cash crop to counter the British Opium Monopoly in China. The King of Xieng Khouang, upon hearing of the newcomers told worried district officials: “These forest people are none other than my own subjects. If they prefer living in the highlands, let them be. We will visit them when the time is appropriate". He sent an emissary who required of the Hmong they pay a moderate tax in ivory, rhinoceros horn or opium in return for permission to live in the northern state.

The system of Hmong paying tax to lowland Lao was well established when the French arrived in 1893 and the Colonial government had only to maintain this tax system. Soon after, Colonial officials began purchasing opium for the Laotian Opium Monopoly, and ordered the Hmong to increase production; these measures were applied to Hmong districts all across northern Laos, changing the hill tribe economy from subsistence agriculture, to cash crop farming.

The Opium Poppy, the Secret War and the Hmong Were Inextricably Interconnected

Enraged that the French had failed to consult him before making the demand, the leader of the Lo clan ordered an attack on the provincial headquarters at Xieng Khouang. The uprising was soon put down but the French decided thereafter to deal with the Hmong through their own leaders, cutting out the Lao officials.

But disgruntled local Lao mandarins, deprived of their source of income from the highlanders, levied a further tax on the Hmong, which led to an attack on Lao tax collectors. The French interceded and gave some factions of the Hmong a certain degree of autonomy: the right to collect taxes in the name of the provincial government, and protection against the local mandarins.

Other Hmong clans were less generously treated. It solidified an already festering political division amongst themselves. Thus a dangerous precedent was set for some clans to ally themselves with westerners. This was to lead them to a disastrous situation in the 20th century.

Upon the outbreak of World War II, the French initiated a massive effort to increase tribal opium production. After abolition of the French Indochina Opium Monopoly in 1950, the government of the Fourth Republic created the External Documentation and Counterespionage Service (SDECE), which effectively imposed covert centralized control over the clandestine drug traffic. Hmong poppy fields and opium dens in Saigon and Hanoi were linked by French military air transports. From Viet Nam much of it was transported to Marseilles, where it was processed into heroin.

The profits funded French covert operations in their Vietnam War. With it, F rench commandos built up a force of six thousand Hmong guerrillas on the Plain of Jars (PDJ) under the command of Touby Lyfoung. They further reinforced Touby's authority by making him their exclusive opium broker for Laos.

Hmong Girl, Northern Laos

After the French granted Laos independence in 1954, the opium business was taken over by Corsicans. Previously, mule caravans transported the raw opium from the highlands to French airstrips from where it went Vientiane. When Air America began clearing airstrips all through the highlands in 1960 to supply arms and food to Hmong counter insurgent forces and their families, Corsicans in Cessna and Beechcraft planes immediately began using the strips to more efficiently move the opium. This continued until 1965 when Ouane Rattikone, greedy and corrupt-to-the-bone Commander in Chief of the Lao Army, forced the Corsicans out of business.

Thirty years after the French accelerated Hmong opium production, nearly thirty thousand of Touby's followers were fighting as mercenaries for the CIA. On the other side of the battle line, thousands of rival Hmong guerrillas joined the Pathet Lao revolutionary movement. A simple clan conflict, pushed to the breaking point by the French opium imperative, became a permanent rupture and helped to fuel twenty-five years of civil war in Laos.

In 1960, the CIA began organizing its own Hmong army, only six years after the French disbanded theirs. Touby had gotten the best of his bargain with the French and never committed his troops to a head-on fight. As one Hmong veteran remembers, "Touby always told us to fire a few shots and run." The CIA found Touby unsuitable for command – they wanted a hard-charger, unafraid to take casualties. They found their man in Vang Pao, then a major in the Royal Lao Army.

Vang Pao – or VP as he came to be known by the Americans – came from Nong Het. He saw battle in 1945 for the first time at age thirteen while working as an interpreter for French commandos who had parachuted onto the Plain of Jars to organize anti-Japanese resistance. In April 1954 he led 850 Hmong commandos through the rugged terrain of Sam Neua Province in a doomed attempt to relieve the besieged French garrison at Dien Bien Phu.

Vang Pao and Fred Sass, CIA Advisor, in 1960

When the First Indochina War ended in 1954, Vang Pao returned to regular duty in the Lao army. He advanced quickly to the rank of major and was appointed commander of the Tenth Infantry Battalion, assigned to the mountainous Lao-Viet Nam border.

In April 1959, the blatantly rigged National Assembly elections aroused enormous rancor among politically aware elements of the population. American involvement in election fixing was obvious and there were reports that the CIA had financed the vote buying. The winner was Phoumi Nosavan, a right wing and pro-US general, of course.

Unanticipated by the Americans, a coup in August 1960 put former Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma in power. He wanted to form a neutralist government including representatives from left, right, and center. On the verge of success, Laos was suddenly plunged into a three-way civil war when General Phoumi broke off negotiations and returned to his home in Savannakhet, where he announced the formation of The Revolutionary Committee. Not surprisingly, unmarked Air America transports loaded with arms, soldiers, and American advisers immediately began landing at Savannakhet.

Vang Pao had already came to the attention of the Americans, who in April 1957 selected him to attend counterinsurgency training in the Philippines. In December of 1959, CIA "Colonel Billy" Lair, met with Vang Pao and asked him to create a secret army of Hmong soldiers. The Secret Army had three main objectives: 1. Fight against North Vietnamese forces in Laos; 2. Interdict movement of the enemy and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail; and 3. Rescue US flyers shot down over Laos.

If the United States would supply weapons and support, Vang Pao agreed he would assemble an army of 10,000 and fight. If the Communists occupied the Plain of Jars, he would relocate the Hmong to strategic mountaintops surrounding the PDJ and carry on the fight. The Plain of Jars, near the Viet Nam border, was the gateway to Vientiane, the capital, and therefore of the greatest strategic importance.

Colonel Billy promised Vang Pao that the Americans would never run out on their allies as had the French, leaving the Hmong to be murdered or rot in North Vietnamese prisons. The Hmong would be taken care of in any eventuality. Lair and other officials assured Vang Pao that upon victory, the Hmong would be granted their own autonomous area in Laos – the long-dreamed Hmong Homeland. Vang Pao at first never considered that the powerful Americans – defenders of Freedom and Democracy – would not prevail…or that they would break their promises.

Hmong Soldiers and Air America Planes

Meanwhile, the opium business continued to thrive. Despite the loss of manpower to the Secret Army, opium production actually increased: Opium farming is women's work and opium growing requires less land and labor than rice or other food crops. The CIA's regular rice drops removed any incentive to grow rice, leaving the Hmong to devote their full energy to poppy cultivation. Vang Pao was on the way to becoming an opium warlord.

One of the most curious characters in the Secret War was Edgar "Pop" Buell. Originally a farmer from Indiana, Buell first came to Laos in 1960 as a volunteer for International Voluntary Services (IVS), a sort of Bible-Belt Peace Corps. Assigned to the Plain of Jars he became involved in CIA activities largely through circumstance. Sympathetic to the needs of the Hmong, Buell dispatched Air America planes to drop supplies to Hmong civilians and evacuate them when under imminent attack. Basically an innocent country boy, his operations became integral to the CIA program and lent them credibility on a humanitarian note.

Pop Buell and Vang Pao

While opposed to the drug trade, Buell used his farming experience to improve opium-cultivating techniques. "If you're gonna grow it, grow it good, but don't smoke the stuff” he told the Hmong. Thus, more opium than ever before became available for the international market. Air America and Vang Pao, despite continued emphatic denials, were the prime movers of it.

For the next 15 years, the Hmong were the key to opposition of North Vietnamese incursion into Laos. They were the only reliable ground troops that the US had. The Lowland Lao proved to be ineffectual. Their leadership was corrupt, their officers lazy and heartily disinclined to engage the enemy, and as a result their troops were useless at best in battle. They also felt ethnically superior to the Highlanders and would not have considered helping them. Thai mercenary pilots proved too cautious to close in on targets. They got paid whether they put their life on the line or not.

Vang Pao therefore wanted his Hmong trained as fighter pilots. This was considered with great scepticism, as the Hmong had no experience with technology at all; they still lived without the wheel. When the first planes landed in the highlands in the early 60s, curious Hmong studied the undersides to determine what sex the planes were. The plan was however approved and a group of hand picked recruits was sent to Udorn Airbase in Thailand for training in WW II vintage T-28s, short, squat, maneuverable, low-speed planes that carried an amazing bomb load for their size. They were perfect for the mountainous terrain of Laos.

Those who survived the first two weeks of combat became some of the best pilots in the world, proving themselves to be as fearless in the air as in the jungle. “Fly till you die” was their motto. The very first and best Hmong pilot was Ly Lu, a cousin of Vang Pao. He became a hero and a symbol of resistance to the disadvantaged Hmong.

Fellow Raven pilot John Mansur said of Ly Lu, “He was the best fighter pilot I ever encountered; that includes Americans or anybody.” Further accolades came from Lt. Colonel Howard Hartley of the Air commandoes: “He was a splendid pilot, excellent – so vastly exceptional to all the Lao pilots who came before him that there was no comparison. He was very bold, very reckless, and very courageous. He would go anywhere against all odds, and most of them would follow for fear of losing face.”

Ly Lu

The main strength of the Hmong was as a mobile guerrilla force; using skills they had finely honed throughout millenniums fighting the Chinese. The United States had however quite a different agenda. Erroneously believing the war could be fought and won with airpower, the powers that ran the war decided the Hmong should fight from defended positions. This was not their forte, and besides, that was a totally unrealistic approach.

Air power can create conditions favorable for taking ground, but it can't keep it; only ground troops can hold it. They require steady resupply of food, arms and ammunition, reinforcements and medical aid. A crucial flaw in Pentagon planning was that they did not take into account the obvious fact that helicopters and small planes, upon which US strategy depended, can not negotiate rugged terrain in blinding-bad weather, and the mountains of Laos are shrouded in heavy fog and cloud for more than half the year.

In 1967 U.S. air force bombing in northeastern Laos was already heavy. But by early 1968, Vang Pao began to lose control of Sam Neua, and Hmong inhabitants could no longer face the horror of daily life under the bombs: refugees starting pouring south. From 1964 to 1973, the Hmong territory became the most bombed area in the history of warfare and went virtually unreported. More than two million tons of bombs were dropped on Laos.

Vang Pao already had second thoughts about American commitment: “One of these days” he told John Mansur, an American Raven Pilot, “your people – the American people – will make the American military quit helping us. Mansur, shocked, replied with emotion, “General, we will never do that”. “You don't understand, John”, said Vang Pao.

Center of Hmong/CIA Army Activity

The communist forces pressed on, retaking and consolidating lost ground, inexorably moving towards the capital, Vientiane. In July 1969 the town of Muong Soui fell. It was the gateway to Vientiane from the Plain of Jars. It also left Long Tieng, the major Secret War Airbase in Laos and home to about 40,000 Hmong, open to attack. Besieged in early July 1969, Long Tieng was evacuated for the first time. The attackers finally withdrew after 11 days of incessant bombing, but on July 12, Ly Lu who had been flying more than 10 low-altitude bombing missions a day met his inevitable fate. With his loss, morale plummeted – even at the Pentagon: They knew that without the Hmong, they had nothing in Laos. But Vang Pao's spirits recovered and again he went on the offensive at the end of August.

During the next three years repeated communist offensives drove Vang Pao's army further and further back. The Hmong fled south, and more than 100,000 were relocated in a crescent-shaped strip between Long Tieng and the Vientiane. By mid 1971 it was estimated that almost 150,000 hill tribe refugees had been resettled in the area.

Despite disrupted opium production, General Vang Pao stayed in the game by opening a heroin laboratory at Long Tieng. His laboratory began operations in 1970 with a Chinese master chemist to supervise production. It was so profitable that in mid 1971 Vang Pao's agents were buying opium in Vientiane and flying it to Long Tieng for processing.

After three years of constant retreat, the battered Hmong were at the end of the line. The resettlement area served as a buffer zone. If the enemy chose to move on Vientiane, they would have to fight their way through the Hmong villages. Hmong leaders, well aware of the fact, pleaded with USAID (United States Agency for Internal Development) to either begin resettling them on the Vientiane Plain or shift the resettlement area out of the line of an enemy advance.

USAID, knowing that Hmong fought better when their families were threatened, refused to accept either alternative and left them there for a hopeless, last bloody stand against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao, and since USAID controlled where the rice was dropped, the Hmong had no choice.

USAID Policy Dictated that Hmong Refugee Families be Relocated Directly Between the Capital and the Enemy Advance So Their Soldiers Would Fight to the Bitter End

The combined North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao (many of who were also Hmong) offensives continued as expected. The weakened, guerrilla-trained Hmong could not fight set-piece battles with better-armed, better-trained Viet forces. Promised support and evacuations failed to materialize. Despite massive US bombing – which killed untold numbers of ‘friendlies' – the inevitable outcome was obvious.

But they fought on as best they could, with child soldiers, confident that the United States would not forsake them and would finally prevail. “A short time ago we rounded up three hundred fresh recruits”, said Edgar Buell. “Thirty per cent were fourteen years old or less, and ten of them were only ten years old. Another 30 per cent were fifteen or sixteen. The remaining 40 per cent were forty-five or over. Where were the ones in between? I'll tell you – they're all dead."

By the End, the Hmong Army Could Only Replace its Dead with Children

The carnage continued until finally in May 1975, Long Tieng, again under siege, was evacuated for the last time. The Americans gave up and were gone overnight. Evacuations forced by enemy offensives far exceeded Air America's logistic capacity. Instead of being flown out, most of the Hmong had to endure long forced marches, producing 10 percent fatalities under the best of conditions and 30 percent or more if they become lost in the mountains. 60,000 of Vang Pao's people retreated to the Phu Bia massif where they carried on the fight until 1977. Constantly under attack, the rate of attrition was terrible.

Long Tieng - Waiting for Evacuation

Vang Pao left Laos – never to return – to Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand where he hoped to regroup and carry on the fight. By 1979, starving, exhausted Hmong refugees who had fought their way inch by bloody inch to the Thai border were pouring into the camps at a rate of about 3,000 a month. Ban Vinai in Chiang Rai Province became the largest Hmong city in the world.

Tens of thousands languished in these camps for years, subjected to abuse by Thai Army and camp officials. Some were there for more than 2 decades before finally being accepted by the US, Australia and several European countries for resettlement. In 1997 – 22 years after the war was over - 1,500 Hmong still were caged in Napho refugee camp in Nakorn Phanom, Thailand. They petitioned the US and the United Nations to be allowed to immigrate to the US as they were about to be forcefully repatriated to Laos. They were told it would be better to go back to Laos.

The promise made by the United States – that they would not pull out like the French and leave the Hmong to certain retribution from the victorious communists – was broken. It is thought about 100,000 Hmong – men, women and children – died during the war. Another 50,000 – there are no accurate figures – died in the aftermath.

Ban Vinai Refugee Camp Became the Largest Concentration of Hmong in the World. Thousands of Hmong Languished Here for More Than a Decade Before Being Accepted for Resettlement in the US and Other Countries.

Only the Americans who had personally known and fought with the Hmong gave a damn. The United States, having betrayed them, conveniently chose to forget about them – after all, they were simply a backwards Asian minority.

Well into the 1980s – the US encouraged, armed and supported refugee camp-based Hmong in Thailand to cross the Mekong and continue the fight. This was simply the policy of a bad loser; but when the governments of Laos and Viet Nam used chemical and biological warfare against Hmong villages in the 1980s, the US and United Nations turned a blind eye, dismissing the hundreds of documented deaths from ‘yellow rain' as ‘bee pollen' falling from the sky. In Laos today, some Hmong – in the touchingly naïve belief that the US would never break a promise and will eventually come to their aid – continue to fight Lao Government oppression.

Today there are more than 350,000 Hmong from Laos scattered across the globe. Most of them wish they could return to their Lao homeland, but tales of reprisals and retribution keep them from returning. Thousands of others have been forcibly repatriated to Laos, with the approval of the US and the United Nations. The Lao government is extremely sensitive and unforthcoming about their fate. Three western journalists were recently arrested on false charges of murder in Laos before being deported: They were investigating the fate of repatriated Hmong.

Despite a 10 to 30 percent dud rate of unexploded ordinance, the Hmong in Laos continue to farm their devastated land; there have been over 12,000 reported casualties since the end of the war. But they carry on their farming and traditions as best they can in their mountain villages. The Lao Government however continues to resettle them in lowland locations – as second-class citizens – where they can be more easily coerced to forsake their customs and cultural identity.

In their adopted ‘New World' cultures they are frequently misunderstood. When they first came to the US, there were frequent incidents of Hmong being arrested and imprisoned for illegal hunting in urban parks and for raising livestock in suburban environments. They had great difficulty in adapting, despite assistance from sponsors. It was difficult for them to find jobs or make a decent living. Subjected to ridicule, discrimination and invasive laws to which they could not relate, the ‘Land of the Free' (and the word Hmong translates as “Free People”) has been a traumatic experience for most Hmong. Racism remains alive and well, the world over.

Hmong Girls in California Today

Perhaps you can imagine yourself fleeing for your life, living in a squalid refugee camp for years and then being shipped to a jungle village in Asia where you spoke not a word of the language, knew nothing of the customs, had nothing but the clothes you wore and were expected to adapt to that culture. How would you fare?

But the Hmong are clever and industrious; they adapt and survive; they do well in business and excel in US schools, with generally higher grade-averages than their white American fellow students, often creating resentments. Many Americans complain that some Hmong are on welfare. Others complain about them becoming prosperous. Even so, most Hmong do not harbor resentment against the United States. They are a forward-looking people.

Their clan and family structure is very strong and they maintain their language and traditions in their adopted alien environments. In nearly every Hmong village in Laos today you will meet families who have relatives abroad sending money ‘home'.

Many Hmong Would Prefer to Return to Their Homes in the Misty Mountains of Laos

The Hmong have never been an aggressive or quarrelsome people, respecting the customs and traditions of others. Anyone having close contact with them is impressed by their politeness, honesty, family integrity and work ethic. From the time of the first Han Chinese expansion more than 3000 years ago to the present, they have fought a long and bloody road to freedom. Now as always, all they ask is that they are given the same respect they are willing to show others, or not achieving that, to simply be left alone. It doesn't seem like such a lot to ask.

Post Script: Vang Pao has lived in the US since 1982. Still the nominal leader of the Hmong in America, he works tirelessly petitioning government leaders and the United Nations to deal with the problems Hmong still have to suffer in the aftermath of the United States' defeat in the Secret War. Oddly enough, the US government is trying to bring him to court for his role in the opium trade during the Viet Nam War.

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