Vang Pao Case Highlights Hmong Community’s Losses

When 10 Hmong men from California were arrested in an alleged plot to overthrow the Lao government, it sent shock waves through that state’s large Hmong community. Old wounds were re-opened and also new hope—that a long-buried history of genocide, exodus and ongoing oppression might finally come to light.

By Mai Der Vang, New America Media

Posted: Jun 08, 2007

 

FRESNO, Calif.--The news on June 4 came as a shock to hundreds of Hmong in California’s Central Valley. Ten Hmong men from California had been arrested for allegedly attempting to purchase arms to overthrow the Lao government. Among these men was Vang Pao--a former general in the Laotian army and a Hmong war hero during the “Secret War.”

While the Vietnam War raged through Southeast Asia in the 1960s, the CIA recruited thousands of men from the Hmong hill tribes to battle communist forces in a covert guerrilla action that came to be called the “Secret War.” They were trained to collect intelligence, rescue downed American pilots, and sever the delivery of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh trail. More than 30,000 Hmong casualties resulted, along with continued genocidal attacks, leading to a huge exodus of refugees into Thailand. Hundreds of thousands of those refugees were resettled in the United States.

No one knows the true intentions of Vang Pao and his men, but I believe it was a desperate attempt to reclaim a lost homeland. Vang Pao maintained a low profile for years, but these recent allegations make me wonder whether he held onto a belief that he could return stability to a people who have had no land since the 1970s.

As a revered Hmong general, this was a burden and responsibility he must have carried for decades, long after he and many other Hmong had settled into their new lives in the United States. I grew up with Vang Pao’s portrait on my wall. Each year, on the first day of the Hmong New Year, my grandmother would wake us up early and urge us to put on our traditional Hmong clothing to salute and receive him.

Many Hmong held onto the impossible dream of one day returning to live at peace in the mountains of Laos. My mother often reminisces about her happy childhood there. She farmed with my grandparents, and was proud to raise her own animals. My mother recalls how the morning sunrises shimmered like gold against the lush green mountains. She says she was proud to be Hmong.

Since relocating to the United States, she has been treated for depression. Today, in her forties, she often sits quietly by herself, hardly speaking a word. She barely speaks English and relies on her children to translate. She refers to herself as “dumb,” and is so fearful of being targeted because of her race that she never opens her car window when she drives, no matter how hot inside the car.

The United States may have lost the Vietnam War, but the Hmong people lost everything. The lands and homes of our parents were destroyed. Many of those left behind in Laos fell victim to genocidal attacks from communist forces.

Now we learn the revered general has been arrested for allegedly trying to overthrow the Lao government. I find it a paradox that decades ago, the CIA trained, supported and instructed Hmong men to fight against the very people whom Vang Pao and his men are now being accused of trying to oust from power.

Vang Pao and his men have failed in their alleged attempt to overthrow the Lao government, but perhaps they will succeed in getting the rest of the world to take a second look at the current situation in Laos, and the atrocities being committed against many of its people.

According to Amnesty International, the Lao military “regularly attacks [Hmong] temporary encampments, killing and injuring them, perpetuating their life on the run.” Video footage and photographs of these atrocities have been captured and distributed by undercover journalists and human rights advocates. Many Hmong, mostly women and children, have gone into hiding in the Laotian jungles; others have been raped and murdered. Packs of Hmong have come forth in desperation to surrender to the Lao government, because they have lost the will to keep running. No one knows what has happened to those who have surrendered. It pains me to know those suffering in Laos cling to the hope that Hmong in America will deliver them from persecution.

Here in Fresno, conversation among the Hmong community focuses on the recent arrests, and the history behind them. “It was our country, our land,” said one 46-year-old man who remained so fearful that he did not want to be identified by name. “And to think of all those in Laos today who are still dying because of that secret war that would have never started if the Americans didn’t come into our country…America is afraid to admit what is happening in Laos today because of that past.”

A 22-year-old Hmong woman, who also declined to share her name, acknowledges that while many young people do not identify with Vang Pao, “if he gets put behind bars, there is a part of us Hmong who will be behind bars too.”

Because I believe in the right of every person to live at peace, I condemn and am saddened by the methods allegedly employed by Vang Pao and his men. But there is more to the story than an effort to buy arms. If people better understood the history and circumstances leading up to this event, they also would understand for what cause it was attempted. The word “Hmong” means “free,” and what these men stand accused of doing was a feeble attempt to recover that legacy, and a land we lost decades ago.

 

Pha Lo also contributed to this article. Mai Der Vang works for New America Media as a youth media coordinator in Fresno.