Conflict	Laotian Civil War
Partof	Vietnam War (also known as the Second Indochina War)
Date	1953–75
Place	Kingdom of Laos
Result	Communist victory and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
Combatant1	Kingdom of Laos United States Republic of Vietnam Thailand
Combatant2	Pathet Lao Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Casualties2	}}

The Laotian Civil War (1953–75) was a fight between the Communist Pathet Lao, often North Vietnamese of Lao ancestry, and the Royal Lao Government in which both the political rightists and leftists received heavy external support for a proxy war from the global Cold War superpowers. Among US veterans of the conflict, it is known as the Secret War.

The Kingdom of Laos was a covert theatre for battle for the other belligerents during the Vietnam War. The Franco-Lao Treaty of 1953 gave Laos full independence but the following years were marked by a rivalry between the neutralists under Prince Souvanna Phouma, the right wing under Prince Boun Oum of Champassak, and the left-wing Lao Patriotic Front under Prince Souphanouvong and future Prime Minister Kaysone Phomvihane. A number of attempts were made to establish coalition governments, and a "tri-coalition" government was finally seated in Vientiane.

The fighting in Laos involved the North Vietnamese Army, American, Thai, and South Vietnamese forces directly and through irregular proxies in a battle for control over the Laotian Panhandle. The North Vietnamese Army occupied the area for use as the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply corridor and staging area for offensives into South Vietnam. There was a second major theatre of action on and near the northern Plaine des Jarres.

The North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao emerged victorious in 1975, as part of the general communist victory in Indochina that year.

Overview

The Geneva Conference established Laotian neutrality. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), however, continued to operate in both northern and southeastern Laos. There were repeated attempts from 1954 onward to force the North Vietnamese out of Laos but, regardless of any agreements or concessions, Hanoi had no intention of abandoning the country or its Laotian communist allies.

The North Vietnamese established the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the southeast of Laos and paralleling the Vietnamese border. The Trail was designed for North Vietnamese troops and supplies to infiltrate the Republic of Vietnam and to aid the National Liberation Front.

The North Vietnamese had a sizable military effort in northern Laos, while sponsoring and maintaining an indigenous communist rebellion, the Pathet Lao, to put pressure on the Royal Lao Government.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to disrupt these operations in northern Laos without direct military involvement, responded by training a guerrilla force of some thirty thousand Laotian hill tribesmen, mostly local Hmong tribesmen along with the Mien and Khmu, led by Royal Lao Army General Vang Pao, a Hmong military leader. This army, supported by the CIA proprietary airline Air America, Thailand, the Royal Lao Air Force, and a covert air operation directed by the United States ambassador to Laos, fought the People's Army of Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (NLF), and their Pathet Lao allies to a seesaw stalemate, greatly aiding U.S. interests in the war in Vietnam.

The status of the war in the north throughout the year generally depended on the weather. As the dry season started, in November or December, so did North Vietnamese military operations, as fresh troops and supplies flowed down out of North Vietnam on newly passable routes, either down from Dien Bien Phu, across Phong Saly Province on all weather highways, or on Route 7 through Ban Ban, Laos on the northeast corner of the Plaine des Jarres (commonly called "the PDJ"). The CIA's Clandestine Army would give way, harrying the PAVN and Pathet Lao as they retreated; Raven FACs would direct massive air strikes against the communists by USAF jets and RLAF T-28s to prevent the capture of the Laotian capitals of Vientiane and Luang Prabang. When the rainy season six months later rendered North Vietnamese supply lines inoperable, the Vietnamese communists would recede toward Vietnam.

The war in the southeastern panhandle against the Ho Chi Minh Trail was primarily a massive air interdiction program by the USAF and United States Navy because political constraints kept the trail safe from ground assault from South Vietnam. Raven FACs also directed air strikes here in the southeast; other Forward Air Controllers from South Vietnam, such as Covey FACs from the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron and Nail FACs from the 23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron, also directed strikes. Other air strikes were planned ahead. Overall coordination of the air campaign was directed by an Airborne Command and Control Center.

The existence of the conflict in Laos was sometimes reported in the U.S., and described in press reports as the CIA's "Secret War in Laos" because details were largely unavailable due to official government denials that the war existed. The denials were seen as necessary considering that the North Vietnamese government and the U.S. had both signed agreements specifying the neutrality of Laos. U.S. involvement was considered necessary because the DRV had effectively conquered a large part of the country and was equally obfuscating its role in Laos. Despite these denials, however, the Civil War was actually the largest U.S. covert operation prior to the Afghan-Soviet War, with areas of Laos controlled by North Vietnam subjected to years of intense US aerial bombardment, representing the heaviest bombing campaign in history. Overshadowing it all was the struggle of the Cold War, with the United States policy of containment of socialism, and the policy of the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of spreading communism via subversion and insurgency.

Chronology of the Laotian Civil War

1945: Prelude to war

The end of World War II left Laos in political chaos. The French, who had been displaced from their protectorate by the Japanese, wanted to resume control of Laos, and sponsored guerrilla forces to regain control. The Japanese had proclaimed Laos independent even as they lost the war. Though King Sisavang Vong thought Laos was too small for independence he had proclaimed the end of the French protectorate status though he favored the French return. He let it be known he would accept independence if it should occur. Thus there was a nascent movement for independence amid the turmoil.

Underlying all this was a strong undercurrent of Vietnamese involvement. Sixty percent of the population of Laos's six urban areas were Vietnamese, with the Vietnamese holding key positions in the civil bureaucracies and the police. Since the 1930s the Indochinese Communist Party had established wholly Vietnamese cells in Laos.

Prince Phetsarath, as Viceroy and Prime Minister, established the Lao royal treasury account with the Indochinese treasury in Hanoi in an attempt to establish a functional economy.

French commandos parachuted into Laos beginning in 1945 to organize guerrilla forces. By November, they had formed the guerrillas into four light infantry battalions of the newly founded French Union Army. The officers and sergeants of the new Lao battalions were French.

In October, 1945, a Lao nationalist movement called Lao Issara (Free Laos) was founded as a new government for Laos. Among Lao Issara's prominent members were three European-educated princes; brothers Phetsarath Rattanavongsa and Souvanna Phouma, and their half brother, Souphanouvong. The former became the titular founder of Lao Issara. Souphanouvong became commander in chief, as well as minister of foreign affairs. Souvanna Phouma became minister of public works.

Independence began with an uprising of the Vietnamese residents in Savannakhet. Prince Souphanouvong took command of a band of partisans armed with weapons looted from the local militia. The band moved northward to the administrative capitol of Vientiane with its provisional revolutionary government. Souphanouvong then urged the signing of a military cooperation treaty with the newly established North Vietnamese communist government, which was done. The French military mission was escorted out of Laos into Thailand by a contingent of Chinese troops.

However, the Lao Issara never gained more than a tenuous hold on the entirety of Laos. Roving Viet Minh detachments ruled the northeast, but the Viet Minh declined to aid the new government. Chinese troops, including the Chinese Nationalist 93rd Division, occupied cities as far south as Luang Prabang. The French-sponsored guerrillas controlled the southern provinces of Savannakhet and Khammouan. Prince Boun Oum, who sympathized with the French, occupied the rest of the southern panhandle.

For these, and other reasons, Lao Issara could not hold the country against the returning French colonial government and its troops. The French negotiated a Chinese withdrawal from Laos prior to their own return, removing them from the field.

1946: The French return; the Vietnamese arrive

In January 1946, the French began the reconquest of Laos by sweeping the Bolovens Plateau. They had organized six battalions of light infantry, to which they added a minor force of French troops.

On March 21, 1946, Souphanouvong and his largely Vietnamese force fought the French Union troops at Savannakhet, to no avail; the attackers mustered paratroopers, artillery, armored cars, and Spitfire fighter-bombers. The Lao Issara troops suffered 700 killed. They fled, leaving behind 250 bodies and 150 prisoners.

On 24 April, the French dropped a paratroop battalion on the outskirts of Vientiane, and took the city without resistance. On 9 May, they repeated their airborne tactics with a drop outside Luang Prabang. This was coupled with a thrust to the north by the French forces, from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, that chased Phetsarath and the Lao Issara ministers out of Laos. The king reinstated the French rule by repudiating his actions that had been pressured from him by the Japanese, Chinese, and Lao Issara.

By September, 1946, the Lao Issara had been defeated and had fled to exile in Bangkok. One of its splinter groups, led by Thao O Anourack fled to Hanoi. There he allied himself with two men trusted by Ho Chi Minh; Nouhak Phoumsavan was Vietnamese, and Kaysone Phomvihan was Vietnamese-Lao. These three men founded the military movement that would become the Pathet Lao (Land of Laos).

Thao O Anourack established the initial Pathet Lao base at Con Cuong, Vietnam. Kaysone Phomvihan organized the first detachment of the new force. By the end of 1946, at least 500 Viet Minh agents had crossed into Laos.

1947–52: Build-up of forces

On May 11, 1947, King Sisavang Vong granted a constitution declaring Laos an independent nation within the French Union. This began the building of a new government over the next few years, including the establishment of a national army, the Armée Nationale Laotienne, which was the first iteration of the Royal Lao Army.

The nascent army was plagued by lack of Lao leadership, and its weaponry was a hodgepodge. Thus the new Armée Nationale Laotienne consisted of light infantry battalions officered by the French. There was one paratroop battalion included. The French began training Lao officers and non-commissioned officers even as they continued to lead and train the new army.

In opposition, the Viet Minh raised a subsidiary revolutionary movement, the Pathet Lao, starting with an initial guerrilla band of 25 in January, 1949.

In October, 1949, the exiled Lao Issara dissolved and the three royal brothers each chose a separate destiny.

Phetsarath Rattanavongsa chose to remain in Bangkok. His stay was temporary. He would once again become the viceroy of Laos.

Souvanna Phouma chose to return to Laos via an amnesty, believing that the Lao would soon free themselves. In 1951 he became Prime Minister for the first time and held that office until 1954.

Souphanouvong, who had spent seven years in Nha Trang during his sixteen years in Vietnam, met Ho Chi Minh, and acquired a Vietnamese wife while in Vietnam, solicited Viet Minh aid in founding a guerrilla force.

In August, 1950, Souphanouvong had joined the Viet Minh in their headquarters north of Hanoi, Vietnam, and become the head of the Pathet Lao, along with its political arm dubbed Neo Lao Hak Sat (Lao Patriotic Front). This was an attempt to give a false front of authority to the Lao communist movement by claiming to represent a united non-partisan effort. Two of its most important founders were members of the Indochinese Communist Party, which advocated overthrow of the monarchy as well as expulsion of the French.

On December 1950, the Pentalateral Mutual Defense Assistance Pact was signed by the United States, France, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; it was a tool to transfer American military aid to the French war effort in Indochina. This year also marked the infiltration of at least 5,000 more Viet Minh into Laos.

In February, 1951, the Indochinese Communist Party decided to split in three to sponsor war against the French in Cambodia and Laos, along with the war in Vietnam. The new Laotian branch consisted of 2,091 members, but included only 31 Lao.

Also, by 1951, the Pathet Lao had mustered sufficient trained troops to join the Viet Minh in military operations.

By October, 1951, the Armée Nationale Laotienne had raised two more battalions of infantry and begun training a battalion of paratroops. The ANL ended the year with a strength of 5,091.

By the end of 1952, the Royal Lao Army had grown to include a battalion of troops commanded by Laotian officers, as well as 17 other companies.

1953-54: First North Vietnamese invasion & French defeat

By April, 1953, the Viet Minh's People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) invaded northeastern Laos with 40,000 troops commanded by General Vo Nguyen Giap; included was a token force of 2,000 Pathet Lao led by Souphanouvong. The objective of the two-pronged invasion was the capture of the royal capital of Luang Prabang and of the Plaine des Jarres.

They were opposed by 10,000 Lao troops stiffened by 3,000 French regulars.

The North Vietnamese invaders succeeded in conquering the border provinces of Phong Saly and Sam Neua, which were adjacent to northern Vietnam and on the northeastern verge of the Plaine des Jarres. They then moved aside to allow the ragtag Pathet Lao force with its mismatched scrounged equipment to occupy the captured ground, and Souphanouvong moved the Pathet Lao headquarters into Sam Neua City on April 19.

The other strike, moving from Dien Bien Phu and aimed downriver at Luang Prabang, was thwarted by oncoming monsoons and dogged resistance by the French.

The Vietnamese invasion was stalled, but only because the French had airlifted in battalions of Foreign Legionnaires and Moroccan Tirailleurs.

In December, the French Union Army, as part of its attempt to protect Laos from the PAVN, recaptured the Dien Bien Phu valley.

In January, the PAVN launched two assaults on Laos. One thrust crossed the top of the panhandle to the Mekong River town of Thakhek. The other was again aimed at Luang Prabang. Both were thwarted in a month.

These were diversions to the famous Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which took place from March through May within ten kilometers of the Lao border, on the lines of communication into the Plaine des Jarres. The ruggedness of the karst mountains of northern Laos channels movement into a few canyons; small watercraft could move from Dien Bien Phu down to the Nam Ou, and thence directly downriver to Luang Prabang, or they cross into the PDJ via Ban Ban.

A notable event was the use of Civil Air Transport, which later morphed into Air America, in a covert operation to fly supplies to the embattled French in Dien Bien Phu. The PAVN also launched a diversionary thrust at Seno, Laos, aimed at cutting away the panhandle from the main body of Laos. This thrust was foiled by paratroopers from the French Union's Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

When the relief troops didn't lift the siege in time, the bastion of Dien Bien Phu fell. One of the troopers in the relief column marching from Luang Prabang was a young Hmong named Vang Pao.

The French loss at Dien Bien Phu marked the end of the First Indochina War; the French were driven to negotiate for peace. On July 20, the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Laos was signed, ending French rule. Two months later, the North Vietnamese established a support group for Pathet Lao forces at Ban Nameo, well within northeastern Laos.

The Agreement radically changed the geography of Indochina. As part of the change the North Vietnamese now succeeded to rule of the northern half of their own country. Laos became totally independent of France. The French turned over its Lao French Union troops to the new nation; as a residual effort, it kept two bases in Laos and supplied advisors to the new Lao military.

The Royal Lao government military also received its first aircraft from the French in 1954; nine Morane-Saulnier MS-500 Criquets were supplied for support and medevac.

Because the Pathet Lao had shown no willingness to fight, and the 25,000 man Royal Lao Army was incapable of resisting the PAVN, an attempt was made to coax the Pathet Lao into a coalition with the Royal Lao Government.

1955–58: The lull

In January, 1955, French advisors began training the first Lao aviation force. Later that year, Thailand would supply Sikorsky H-19 helicopters and volunteer pilots to the Lao military. The Thais also trained thirty Lao officers in weapons use at Hua Hin, Thailand.

In early 1955, a United States Operation Mission was set up in Laos. Its primary purpose was supply of military defense materials to the Royal Lao Government; 80% of its budget was dedicated to this purpose. The United States paid 100% of the Lao military budget. However, the embassy staff was not up to monitoring this program. There was an obvious need for a Military Assistance Advisory Group; however, the United States had signed a treaty that expressly forbade such.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's solution was to establish the Program Evaluations Office (PEO) in December, 1955, staffed by American civilians with prior military experience and headed up by retired Brigadier General Rothwell Brown. These civilians were given U. S. State Department status. However, they did not work strictly for the State Department. On military matters, they reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific Command, with information supplied to the American ambassador; on non-military matters, they reported directly to the ambassador.

1955 was also notable for the despatch of Royal Lao Government troops to Sam Neua and Phong Saly, which was much resented by the Pathet Lao. As a result of this resentment, and disputes about electoral procedures, the Laotian communists boycotted that year's national elections.

On March 21, 1956, Souvanna Phouma began his second term as prime minister. He opened a dialogue with his brother, Souphanouvong. In August, they announced the intention of declaring a ceasefire and reintegrating the Pathet Lao and their occupied territory into the government. However, the Pathet Lao claimed the right to administer the provinces they occupied.

At the same time, they and their North Vietnamese backers ran a massive recruitment campaign, with the aim of forming nine battalions of troops. Many of the new recruits were sent into North Vietnam for schooling and training. This led to United States concern that the Royal Lao Army would be inadequately equipped and trained because there was only one small French military mission working with the RLA.

In February, 1957, the Program Evaluations Office personnel began supplying training materials to the French Military Mission that was charged with training the Royal Lao Army. The rationale was that improved training would better fit the army with defending its country. As part of this process, the United States even took over paying the Royal Lao Army's salaries.

Beginning in March, 1957, the Royal Lao Army began shuttling arms to Hmong guerrillas, to enable them to fight on the side of the RLA.

In November, 1957, a coalition government incorporating the Pathet Lao was finally established. Using the slogan, "one vote to the right, one vote to the left to prevent civil war," pro-communist parties received one-third of the popular vote and won 13 of 21 contested seats in the elections of May 4, 1958. With these additional seats, the left controlled a total of 16 seats in the 59 member National Assembly. Combined with independents, this was enough to deny Souvanna's center right, neutralist coalition the two-thirds majority it needed to form a government. With parliament deadlocked, the U.S. suspended aid in June to force a devaluation of the overpriced currency, which was leading to the abuse of U.S. aid. The National Assembly responded by confirming a right-wing government led by Phuy Xananikôn in August. This government included four members of the U.S.-backed Committee for the Defence of the National Interest (none of them National Assembly members). Three more unelected CDNI members were added in December, when Phuy received emergency powers to govern without the National Assembly.

In November, 1958, Brigadier General John A. Heintges reviewed the PEO. He promptly replaced General Brown, and forged a new agreement with the Lao and the French. Integral to the new agreement was the displacement of the French military trainers by Americans. As a result, PEO expanded over twentyfold. Included in the expansion were 149 Special Forces on temporary duty, and 103 Filipino military veterans working for a newly formed front company named Eastern Construction Company in Laos.

1959: Second North Vietnamese invasion

On May 15, 1959, the People's Army of Vietnam established Group 559; this unit was charged with the logistics of moving the necessities of war from North Vietnam to the South. Its foremost feat was building and maintaining the Ho Chi Minh trail down the eastern spine of Laos. Eventually, this transportation network would power the Vietnamese communists to victory. It would have to survive a relentless air campaign comparable to any interdiction bombing in World War II.

Also in May, the long awaited integration of 1,500 Pathet Lao troops into the national army was scheduled. The U. S. embassy told the Lao government that it would be difficult to gain congressional approval of aid to Laos with communists serving in the army. The Pathet Lao stalled.

Under orders from Souphanouvong, the Pathet Lao battalions refused to be integrated into the Royal Lao Army. Souphanouvong was then arrested and imprisoned, along with his aides. The two Pathet Lao battalions, one after the other, escaped during the night with no shots fired, taking their equipment, families, and domestic animals with them. On May 23, Souphanouvong and his companions also escaped unscathed.

In July, U.S. Special Forces Mobile Training Teams from the 77th Special Forces Group, working under the code name Hotfoot, began training the Royal Laotian army. The Green Berets were attached to the Programs Evaluation Office, and like other PEO employees, were nominal civilians. However, even in civilian dress, having traded their green berets for sun helmets, they still had a military appearance.

The RLA was being formed into Groupement Mobiles—regimental-sized units of three battalions. The training teams were assigned one per GM, with some battalions also meriting a team.

On July 28, PAVN units attacked all along the North Vietnamese-Lao border. As they took ground from the Royal Lao Army, they moved in Pathet Lao as occupation troops. Poor battle performance by the RLA seemed to verify the need for further training; the RLA outnumbered the attackers, but still gave ground.

Also in July, the American embassy began to contract for aerial resupply for RLA troops, hiring Robert Brongersma and his Beech 18.

In September, Group 100 was succeeded by Group 959; the North Vietnamese were upgrading their military mission to the Pathet Lao, just as the Americans had expanded PEO. Both sides were raising larger client armies, in hopes the Lao would fight.

1960: The neutralist coup

On August 9, 1960, Captain Kong Le and his Special Forces-trained Neutralist paratroop battalion were able to seize control of the administrative capital of Vientiane in a virtually bloodless coup, while Prime Minister Tiao Samsanith, government officials, and military leaders met in the royal capital, Luang Prabang. His stated aim for the coup was an end to fighting in Laos, the end of foreign interference in his country, an end to the consequent corruption caused by foreign aid, and better treatment for his soldiers. However, Kong Le's coup did not end opposition to him, and there was a scramble among unit commanders to choose up sides. If one was not pro-coup, then he had the further decision to make as to whom he would back to counter the coup. The front runner was General Phoumi Nosavan, first cousins with the prime minister/dictator of Thailand, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat. With the Central Intelligence Agency's connivance, Sarit set up a covert Thai military advisory group called Kaw Taw. Kaw Taw would be complicit in the counter-coup that was mounted; it supplied artillery, artillerymen, and advisors to Phoumi's forces. It also committed the CIA-sponsored Thai Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit to operations within Laos.

Immediately after Kong Le's coup, Thailand clamped down with an embargo via land blockade, cutting off the main source of imported goods for Vientiane. The United States Secretary of State, Christian Herter, made it clear that the United States supported the “legitimate government under the King's direction.” The United States supported the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Tiao Samsanith, even though it was elected illegally.

The Neutralist forces in Vientiane organized the Executive Committee of the High Command of the Revolution as the interim government in Laos the following day. General Phoumi Nosavan, stated on August 10 that he planned to retake Vientiane by force. The United States Ambassador to Laos, Winthrop G. Brown, responded to General Phoumi by stating that the United States supported a restoration of peace “through quick and decisive action.”

PEO had turned its support to General Phoumi. With the help of Air America and covert aid from Thailand, the general and his troops moved north toward Vientiane from Savannakhet in southern Laos, in November.

The Soviet Union began a military air bridge into Vientiane in early December; it was characterized as the largest Soviet airlift since World War II. This air bridge flew in PAVN artillery and gunners to reinforce the Neutralist/Pathet Lao coalition.

On their side, the United States flew four B-26 Invader bombers from Taiwan into Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base, poised to strike into Laos. They were later joined by an additional eight B26s. With a dozen guns, half a dozen rockets, and a napalm canister apiece, they were a potent threat, but were never used.

On December 13, Phoumi's army began a three day bombardment of Vientiane. Five hundred civilians and seventeen of Kong Le's paratroopers were killed by the shellfire. On the 14th, a U. S. carrier task force went on alert, and the Second Airborne Brigade stood by to seize selected Laotian airfields. The U. S. was poised to rescue its paramilitary and diplomatic advisors in Laos.

Kong Le and his Neutralists finally withdrew northward to the Plaine des Jarres. Their withdrawal was covered by artillery fire from the PAVN 105 mm howitzers rushed in from Hanoi, and supported by Soviet airdrops of crucial supplies of rations, munitions, and radios. In the retreat, Kong Le picked up 400 recruits, swelling his force to 1,200 men.

Phoumi's coup was thus successful, but the end result was the alliance of the Neutralists with the Pathet Lao on December 23. As 1960 ended, the obscure little nation of Laos had become an arena of confrontation for the world's superpowers.

1961: Superpowers' involvement deepens

Beginning on January 1, a new coalition of Kong Le's Neutralists, Pathet Lao, and PAVN drove 9,000 Royal Lao Army troops from the Plaine des Jarres.

On 3 January, the Royal Laotian Air Force received its first counter-insurgency aircraft, American-built T-6 Texans, via the Royal Thai Air Force. These four reconfigured trainers were armed with two .30 caliber machine guns and five inch rockets, and could carry 100 pound bombs. Four previously trained Lao pilots undertook transition training in Thailand; on 9 January, the pilots flew the new RLAF fighter-bombers to Vientiane. Two days later, they flew their first combat sorties, against PAVN and Pathet Lao covering Kong Le's retreat into the Plaine des Jarres.

Russian Soviet air supply continued, bringing in heavy weapons to supplement the light arms previously delivered. On January 7, the North Vietnamese presence was escalated by an additional four battalions; two of the battalions immediately moved to the point of conflict, on Route 7, which connected to Vientiane. A third PAVN battalion moved into action at Tha Thom, south of the PDJ. On 15 January, the entire 925th Independent Brigade of the PAVN had crossed into Laos to reinforce the Pathet Lao/Neutralist coalition.

This led to counter-escalation, as the United States began airdropping arms to a force of 7,000 Hmong guerrillas later in the month. Air America was also bequeathed four H-34 helicopters from the U. S. Navy.

By the beginning of February, the first four volunteer pilots from the Royal Thai Air Force arrived to fly four more T-6s supplied to the Royal Laotian Air Force. The Thai mercenaries had been officially discharged from the RTAF, and held no official position in the RLAF. The growth of the RLAF would be nullified by its casualties, as five of the T-6s had been lost in action by the end of March.

The incoming Kennedy administration found itself pitched immediately into the Laotian crisis. An interagency task force founded in early February began a two month study of possible American responses to the Laotian war. The most drastic alternative they envisioned was a 60,000 man commitment of American ground troops in southern Laos, with a possible use of nuclear weapons.

Less drastic options were elected. Even as the French ended their training mission, the American training efforts ramped up. Sixteen H-34 helicopters were transferred from the U. S. Marine Corps to Air America; maintenance facilities were established in Udorn in far northern Thailand, a few miles south of Vientiane.

On 9 March, the communists captured the only road junction between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. When RLA troops were ordered to counterattack and retake the junction, they dropped their weapons and ran. Special Forces Team Moon was assigned as advisors to the RLA unit.

On 22 April 1961, Team Moon was overrun. Two sergeants were killed, and team leader Captain Walter H. Moon was captured; he was later executed while trying to escape captivity. Another sergeant was released sixteen months later.

The B26s had been scheduled to strike at Kong Le, but the strike was stayed by an event on the far side of the world. The Bay of Pigs Invasion failed, and that failure gave pause to U. S. actions in Laos. A ceasefire was sought. Simultaneously, the Programs Evaluation Office shed its civilian guise and went above ground to become a Military Advisory Assistance Group. Emblematic of the change, the Hotfoot teams donned their U. S. uniforms and became White Star Mobile Training Teams.

The truce supposedly went into effect the first week of May, but was repeatedly breached by the communists. With the Royal Lao Army ineffective, the Hmong guerrillas were left as the only opposition to the communists. In early June, they were forced from their beleaguered position at Ban Padong by an artillery barrage followed by a ground assault. Under command of General Vang Pao, they fell back to Long Tieng.

The U. S. Central Intelligence Agency had begun secretly recruiting Lao montagnards into 100 man militia companies. Riflemen trained for these militias would receive eight weeks basic training, then serve several months in their militia. Once they had that experience, which often included their first combat, they were further recruited into battalions of irregular troops called Special Guerrilla Units. The battalions were filled out along ethnic lines, most being Hmong, but some being Yao (Iu-Mien) or Lao Theung (Lao Saetern). SGUs, once formed up, underwent three further months training by Thai officers and sergeants in Phitsanloke, Thailand.

By summer, the CIA had mustered 9,000 hill tribesmen into the ranks of the Armée Clandestine. It was aided by 9 CIA agents, 9 Special Forces augmentees, and 99 Thai Special Forces troopers from the Police Aerial Resupply Unit.

By autumn, the future course of American involvement was set. Paramilitary trainers would train guerrilla units, with resupply coming via airdrops, and specialized short takeoff and landing aircraft using makeshift dirt airstrips. Other trainers would try to mold the Royalist regulars into a fighting force. Fighter-bombers would serve as flying artillery to blast the communist forces into retreat or submission.

In December, the Royalists decided to assert control over the provincial capitol of Nam Tha, which was on the northwestern border, almost in southern China. GMs 11 and 18 were stationed there, and soon came under pressure from the communists.

1962: Disaster and a new government

By February, the Royal Lao Government's hold on Nam Tha seemed tenuous enough that it was reinforced by the paratroopers of GM 15. That gave a numerical edge to the defenders and should have guaranteed Nam Tha's retention. The presence of armed American Special Forces advisors should have stiffened them with military expertise.

In May, a PAVN assault broke the RLG forces and routed them. The Royalist soldiers fled southward across the entirety of northwestern Laos into Thailand, a retreat of over a hundred miles.

Faced with this fiasco, the U. S. forced the RLG into a coalition with the Pathet Lao and Kong Le's Forces Armee Neutrale. This technically fulfilled the Geneva Agreements on Laos and triggered the treaty requirement that foreign military technicians be withdrawn from Laos by October. The United States disbanded its Military Assistance Advisory Group and withdrew its military mission. The Vietnamese communists did not; they repatriated only a token 40 technicians out of an estimated 2,000.

July 1962 saw the field tests of Pilatus Porter Short Takeoff and Landing aircraft by Bird and Sons. The original two Porters' performance was degraded by heat and height robbing power from engine performance. One of the Porters crashed in December, killing all on board.

Several companies of hill tribes irregulars were sent to Hua Hin, Thailand for training.

1963: Stasis

In January, the second Pilatus Porter crashed; its pilot escaped with serious burns.

Vang Pao gathered three SGU battalions into Groupement Mobile 21 and spearheaded a drive into Sam Neua. His offensive was resupplied by supplies airdropped by the civilian aircraft of Air America and Bird and Sons.

By the middle of the year, the Pathet Lao and Neutralists had begun to squabble with one another.

In the meantime, the United States re-established a Military Assistance Advisory Group to support its efforts in Laos, basing it in Bangkok. The Requirements Office of the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane was manned by civilians and monitored the need for U.S. military aid to Laos.

In August, the Royal Laotian Air Force received its first four T-28 Trojans that had been adapted for counter-insurgency warfare.

The irregular companies trained the previous year in Thailand were now formed into a battalion called SGU 1. Irregular forces proliferated throughout the country. In Military Regions 3 and 4, action, intelligence, and road watch teams infiltrated the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In December, Vang Pao was promoted to Brigadier General by King Sisavong.

1964-65: Escalation and US Air Force involvement

On 1 April, the USAF set up Waterpump, which was a pilot training program in Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base to supply Lao pilots for the Royal Laotian Air Force. The RLAF also began augmenting its ranks with Thai volunteer pilots in 1964.

Run by a 41 man team from Detachment 6 of the 1st Air Commando Wing, this facility was an end run around the treaty obligation that forbade training in Laos. Besides training pilots, Waterpump encouraged cooperation between the RLAF and the Royal Thai Air Force. It was also tasked, as a last resort, to augment the RLAF to counter a renewed Communist offensive in Laos.

In Laos itself, there was an effort to train Laotians as forward air guides. Meantime, the Butterfly forward air control program began.

Even as the air commandos established themselves in Udorn and Laos, several Lao generals attempted a coup in Vientiane. With the capital in turmoil, the Communists on the Plaine des Jarres attacked and overran the Royalist and Neutralist positions. The United States then released the necessary ordnance for the RLAF to bomb Communist encampments, beginning on May 18.

On May 19, the United States Air Force began flying mid and low-level missions over the renewed fighting, under the code name Yankee Team. They also began reconnaissance missions over the Laotian panhandle to obtain target information on men and material being moved into South Vietnam over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. By this time, the footpaths on the trail had been enlarged to truck roads, with smaller paths for bicycles and walking. The Trail had become the major artery for use by North Vietnam to infiltrate South Vietnam.

On 9 June, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an F-100 strike against the enemy in retaliation for the shoot down of another U.S. aircraft.

The summer of 1964 was marked by a successful attack by the Forces Armee Royale. Operation Triangle cleared one of the few roads in Laos; Route 13 connected the administrative capitol of Vientiane with the royal capitol of Luang Prabang.

The Plain of Jars activities expanded by December 1964, were named Operation Barrel Roll, and were under the control of the U.S. ambassador to Laos, who approved all targets before they were attacked.

This year began with an event that showed how the commanding generals of the five military regions of Laos were essentially warlords of their own domains.

In February, Commanding General of Military Region 5 Kouprasith Abhay mounted a coup against the group of generals whom had attempted a coup the previous year. Among the losers fleeing into exile were General Phoumi Nosavan.

On April 3, the U.S. began Operation Steel Tiger over the Laotian panhandle and the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to locate and destroy enemy forces and materiel being moved southward at night on the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. However, since circumstances made it a highly complex matter in regard to the neutrality of Laos, target approval had to come from the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. Additionally, the U.S. ambassadors in South Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand were involved in controlling these U.S. air operations.

Late in 1965, the communists greatly increased their infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The United States decided to concentrate airpower upon a small segment of the Trail closest to South Vietnam and used most extensively by the enemy. As a result, Operation Tiger Hound was initiated in December 1965, utilizing aircraft from the Air Force, the United States Navy, and U.S. Marines, the Vietnamese Air Force, and the Royal Laotian Air Force. On 11 December, B-52 heavy bombers were called in to this tactical operation, in their first use over Laos.

1966-67

In the far northwest, Team Fox, an intelligence team of Mien hill tribesmen began long range reconnaissance of southern China.

In July, Royal Lao Government (RLG) forces seized Nam Bac. Three Infantry Regiments, one independent infantry battalion, and one artillery battalion took Nam Bac and established a defensive line north of Luang Prabang.

On the Plain of Jars, the Pathet Lao advance gradually slowed due to the destruction of its supplies by airpower, and Laotian troops then counter-attacked. By August 1966, they had advanced to within 45 miles of the DRV border. North Vietnam then sent thousands of its regular troops into the battle and once again the Laotians were forced to retreat.

''Steel Tiger'' operations continued down the length of the panhandle in 1966, with special emphasis upon the ''Tiger Hound'' area. Since most of the communist truck traffic was at night, the Air Force developed and began using special equipment to detect the nighttime traffic.

In eastern Laos, U.S., Royal Laotian, and VNAF aircraft continued their attacks on traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. During 1967, B-52s flew 1,718 sorties in this area, almost triple their 1966 record. The major targets were trucks which had to be hunted down and destroyed one-by-one. This seemed to be irrational thinking to many Americans flying these combat missions for these trucks could have been destroyed en masse before, during, or after their unloading from the freighters that had hauled them to North Vietnam if bombing of Haiphong had been permitted.

In northern Laos, the Communists continued their slow advance across the Plain of Jars in 1967. Laotian victories were few and far between, and by the end of the year, the situation had become critical even with the air support which had been provided by the Royal Lao Air Force.

Laotian tribal irregulars were operating out of Nam Bac, under CIA direction from Luang Prabang, some 60 miles south of the guerrilla base. In midyear, over the objections of Lao colonels, American advisors pressured Royal Lao troops into forming their smaller units into combat battalions. Despite the poor training of the Lao soldiers, some of whom had never fired a weapon, these raw new units were moved northward out of Luang Prabang over a several month period to garrison Nam Bac. By mid-October, some 4,500 government troops held the valley to secure the air strip for their resupply, a la Dien Bien Phu. The American intent was the establishment of Nam Bac as the keystone of an "iron arc" of defensive positions across northern Laos.

In response, the PAVN 316th Infantry Division was dispatched to Laos to assault Nam Bac. The Royalist garrison was soon surrounded. They had American-supplied 105mm howitzers for artillery support. They could also call on Royal Lao Air Force T-28s for close air support. U. S. Air Force fighter-bombers struck the Communist supply lines. Communist gunfire closed the Nam Bac airstrip to fixed wing resupply. Air America copters flew in supplies and evacuated the wounded; American C-123s parachuted supplies ferried from Udorn RTAFB to the beleaguered government troops. The Royalist troops would not launch a clearing attack to regain use of the runway for resupply. On 25 December, a Vietnamese artillery barrage kicked off their offensive.

1968: Royal Lao Army neutralized

On 13 January the North Vietnamese launched a multi-division attack on the Royal Lao Army at Nam Bac, Laos. Some of the government troops began withdrawing from the valley. After about a third of the defenders had retreated, the final assault on the Royalist garrison came out of a heavy mist and hit the Royalist command post. Its communications with the defenders was cut; the rout was on. The heavy weapons and scale of the PAVN attack could not be matched by the national army and it was effectively sidelined for several years. Most of the government soldiers scattered into the surrounding hills; about 200 of the defenders were killed in action. Of the 3,278 Royalist soldiers, only about a third returned to government service. The Royalists had suffered such a staggering defeat that their army never recovered; the government was left with only tribal irregulars using guerrilla tactics fighting on its side.

Throughout 1968, the communists slowly advanced across the northern part of Laos, defeating Laotian forces time and time again, and eventually the U.S base Lima Site 85 was overrun. This success was achieved despite U.S. military advice and assistance. In November, the U.S. launched an air campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail because North Vietnam was sending more troops and supplies than ever along this route to South Vietnam. This new operation, named Operation Commando Hunt, continued until 1972, with little success.

1969-72

On 23 March 1969, the Royal Lao Army launched a large attack (Cu Kiet Campaign) against the communists in the Plain of Jars/Xieng Khoang areas, supported by its own air units and the U.S. Air Force. In June, the enemy launched an attack of its own and gained ground, but by August, Laotian forces attacked again and regained what had been lost. In all these operations, the U.S. Air Force flew hundreds of ''Barrel Roll'' missions; however, many were canceled because of poor weather.

Pathet Lao forces were supported by PAVN's 174th Vietnamese Volunteer Regiment. By September, the 174th had to fall back to regroup. In mid-September, they launched a counterattack and recovered the Plain of Jars. Forces participating in the campaign included the 316th and 312th Infantry Divisions, the 866th Infantry Regiment, the 16th Artillery Regiment, one tank company, six sapper and engineer battalions, one Nghe An Province local force battalion, and ten PL battalions.

On 11 February, the offensive (Campaign 139) opened. By the 20th, control of the Plain of Jars was secure. RLG forces withdrew to Muong Xui. On 25 February, the RLG abandoned Xieng Khoang city. Xam Thong fell on 18 March and Long Thieng was threatened. On 25 April, the campaign ended. After the end of the campaign, the "316th Division, the 866th Regiment, and a number of specialty branch units were ordered to stay behind to work with our Lao friends."

At the beginning of 1970, fresh troops from North Vietnam advanced through northern Laos. The Air Force called in B-52s and, on 17 February, they were used to bomb targets in northern Laos. The enemy advance was halted by Laotian reinforcements, and for the remainder of the year it was a "seesaw" military campaign.

1 May – elements of SVN PAVN units (28th and 24A regiments) join with North Vietnamese Army and Pathet Lao to seize Attopeu.

Although communist movements down the Ho Chi Minh Trail grew during the year, the U.S. war effort was reduced because authorities in Washington, believing the U.S. objectives in Southeast Asia were being achieved, imposed budget limits. This reduced the number of combat missions the USAF could fly.

Because of significant logistical stockpiling by PAVN in the Laotian Panhandle, South Vietnam launched Operation Lam Son 719, a military thrust on 8 February 1971. Its goals were to cross into Laos toward the city of Tchepone and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, hopefully thwarting a planned North Vietnamese offensive. Aerial support by the U.S., was massive since no American ground units could participate in the operation. On 25 February, PAVN launched a counterattack, and in the face of heavy opposition, the South Vietnamese force withdrew from Laos after losing approximately half of its men.

Combined offensive to take Plain of Jars. On 18 December, PAVN and Pathet Lao forces launched counteroffensive (Campaign Z) to recover the Plain. Volunteer forces included the 312th and 316th Divisions, the 335th and 866th Infantry Regiments, and six artillery and tank battalions. Xam Thong fell and the push continued toward Long Thieng.

Lower Laos – the 968th Infantry Regiment and Pathet Lao forces reclaimed the Tha Teng and Lao Nam areas, and liberated the Bolovens Plateau.

When PAVN launched the ''Nguyen Hue Offensive'' (known in the West as the Easter Offensive) into South Vietnam on 30 March, Massive U.S. air support was required inside South Vietnam and its air strikes in Laos dropped to their lowest point since 1965.

In northern Laos, the communists made additional gains during the year but failed to overwhelm government forces. In November, the Pathet Lao agreed to meet with Laotian Government representatives to discuss a cease-fire.

1973–74

The US pulled out of Laos in 1973, as stipulated by the Paris Peace Accord. North Vietnam was not required to remove its forces under the terms of the treaty.

The national government was forced to accept the Pathet Lao into the government. During 1974 and 1975 the balance of power in Laos shifted steadily in favour of the Pathēt Lao as the U.S. disengaged itself from Indochina. Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma was tired and demoralised, and following a heart attack in mid 1974 he spent some months recuperating in France, after which he announced that he would retire from politics following the elections scheduled for early 1976. The anti-communist forces were thus leaderless, and also divided and deeply mired in corruption. Souphanouvong, by contrast, was confident and a master political tactician, and had behind him the disciplined cadres of the communist party and the Pathēt Lao forces and the North Vietnamese army. The end of American aid also meant the mass demobilization of most of the non-Pathēt Lao military forces in the country. The Pathēt Lao on the other hand continued to be both funded and equipped by North Vietnam.

In May 1974 Souphanouvong put forward an 18-point plan for "National Reconstruction," which was unanimously adopted – a sign of his increasing dominance. The plan was mostly uncontroversial, with renewed promises of free elections, democratic rights and respect for religion, as well as constructive economic policies. But press censorship was introduced in the name of "national unity," making it more difficult for non-communist forces to organise politically in response to the creeping Pathēt Lao takeover. In January 1975 all public meetings and demonstrations were banned. Recognising the trend of events, influential business and political figures began to move their assets, and in some cases themselves, to Thailand, France or the U.S.

1975

In March 1975, confident that the U.S. no longer had the stomach to intervene militarily in Indochina, the North Vietnamese began their final military offensive in South Vietnam, which by the end of April carried them to victory with the fall of Saigon. A few days earlier the Khmer Rouge army had entered Phnom Penh. The Pathēt Lao now knew that victory was within reach, and with the Vietnam war over the North Vietnamese authorised the seizure of power in Laos. Pathēt Lao forces on the Plain of Jars supported by North Vietnamese heavy artillery and other units began advancing westward.

In late April, the Pathēt Lao took the government outpost at Sala Phou Khoum crossroads which opened up Route 13 to a Pathēt Lao advance toward Muang Kassy. For the non-Pathēt Lao elements in the government, compromise seemed better than allowing what had happened in Cambodia and South Vietnam to happen in Laos. A surrender was thought to be better than a change of power by force.

Demonstrations broke out in Vientiane, denouncing the rightists and demanding political change. Rightist ministers resigned from the government and fled the country, followed by senior Royal Lao Army commanders. A Pathēt Lao minister took over the defence portfolio, removing any chance of the Army resisting the Pathēt Lao takeover. Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma, dreading further conflict and apparently trusting Souphanouvong's promises of a moderate policy, gave instructions that the Pathēt Lao were not to be resisted, and the U.S. began to withdraw its diplomatic personnel. The Pathēt Lao army entered the major towns of southern Laos during May, and in early June occupied Luang Phrabāng. Panic broke out in Vientiane as most of the business class and many officials, officers and others who had collaborated with the U.S. scrambled to get their families and property across the Mekong to Thailand. Recognising that the cause was lost, Vang Pao led thousands of his Hmong fighters and their families into exile – eventually about a third of all the Lao Hmong left the country. Pathēt Lao forces entered an almost deserted Vientiane in August.

For a few months the Pathēt Lao appeared to honour their promises of moderation. The shell of the coalition government was preserved, there were no arrests or show-trials, and private property was respected. Diplomatic relations with the U.S. were maintained, despite an immediate cut-off of all U.S. aid. (Other western countries continued to offer aid, and Soviet and eastern European technicians began to arrive to replace the departed Americans.) But in December there was a sharp change in policy. A joint meeting of the government and the Consultative Council was held, at which Souphanouvong demanded immediate change. There was no resistance.

On 2 December King Savang Vatthana agreed to abdicate, and Souvanna Phouma resigned. The Lao People's Democratic Republic was proclaimed, with Souphanouvong as President. Kaisôn Phomvihān emerged from the shadows to become Prime Minister and the real ruler of the country. No more was heard of elections or political freedoms: non-communist newspapers were closed, and a large-scale purge of the civil service, army and police was launched. Thousands were dispatched for "re-education" in remote parts of the country, where many died and many more were kept for up to ten years. This prompted a renewed flight from the country. Many of the professional and intellectual class, who had initially been willing to work for the new regime, changed their minds and left – a much easier thing to do from Laos than from either Vietnam or Cambodia. By 1977 ten percent of the population had left the country, including most of the business and educated classes.

Once in power, the Pathet Lao economically cut its ties to all its neighbors (including China) with the exception of the DRV and signed a treaty of friendship with Hanoi. The treaty allowed the Vietnamese to station soldiers within Laos and to place advisers throughout the government and economy.

Evacuation of the Hmong

A dramatic event during the takeover of Laos by the communists was the evacuation of Vang Pao and other Hmong leaders by air from Long Tieng. The end came for Vang Pao on May 5, 1975 when he was called before Souvanna Phouma, the Prime Minister of Laos, and ordered to cooperate with the communist Pathet Lao. Vang Pao took the general’s stars off his collar, threw them on the desk of Souvanna Phouma, and stalked out of the room. Four days later the official Pathet Lao newspaper warned that the Hmong would be exterminated “to the last root.”

Jerry Daniels, Vang Pao’s CIA case officer, was the only American remaining in Long Tieng and he began to plan an evacuation of the Hmong. However, he had only one airplane to evacuate the 3,500 Hmong leaders and families he judged to be at risk of execution by the Pathet Lao then advancing on Long Tieng. Brigadier General Heinie Aderholt in Bangkok helped to find additional planes and sent three pilots flying two C-46 and one C-130 transport aircraft to Long Tieng. The planes were “sheep-dipped” to remove any U.S. markings as the operation was carried out in secret. The pilots were American civilians: Les Strouse, Matt Hoff, and Al Rich.

With the three American planes, the evacuation began in earnest on May 13 with each transport aircraft making four flights each that day from Long Tieng to Udorn, Thailand and transporting more than 65 people per airplane on each trip – far more than the 35 maximum passengers dictated by safety conditions at mountain-ringed Long Tieng. Thousands of Hmong clustered around the airstrip at Long Tieng awaiting evacuation and the situation became increasingly ugly. On May 14, Vang Pao and Jerry Daniels were evacuated secretly by helicopter to Thailand and the air evacuation came to an end. The next day the Pathet Lao marched into Long Tieng unopposed. Daniels accompanied Vang Pao to exile in Montana and then returned to Thailand to help the Hmong refugees there.

What nobody had anticipated was the tens of thousands of Hmong left behind in Long Tieng and Laos would follow Vang Pao and other Hmong leaders to Thailand. By the end of 1975 about 40,000 Hmong had succeeded to reaching Thailand, traveling on foot through the mountains and floating across the Mekong River. How many died or were killed in the attempt to escape Laos will never be known, but the flight of Hmong and other Laotian highland peoples into Thailand would continue for many more years. They faced repression at home from the communist government as the price of their collaboration with the Americans. Most of the Hmong in Thailand would eventually be resettled in the United States and other countries. Between 1975 and 1982, 53,700 Hmong and other highland Laotian refugees were resettled in the United States and thousands more in other countries.

Aftermath

Twenty two years following the end of the Laotian War, on May 15, 1997, the U.S. officially acknowledged its role in the Secret War, erecting a memorial in honour of American and Hmong contributions to U.S. air and ground combat efforts during the conflict. The Laos Memorial is located on the grounds of the Arlington National Cemetery between the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

In 2004, following several years of pressure from a coalition of U.S. conservatives and liberal human rights activists, the U.S. government reversed a policy of denying immigration to Hmong who had fled Laos for refugee camps in Thailand in the 1990s. In a major victory for the Hmong, fifteen thousand Hmong were later recognised as refugees and afforded expedited U.S. immigration rights by the U.S. government.

A legacy of the civil war is continuing casualties from unexploded ordnance (UXO) dropped by the U.S. and Laotian Air Forces from 1964-1973. More than 2 million tons of bombs were dropped on Laos, 30 percent of which failed to explode immediately. However, UXO remains dangerous to persons coming in contact, purposefully or accidentally, with bombs. Casualties in Laos from UXO are estimated at 12,000 since 1973. In 2006, 33 years after the last bomb was dropped and after decades of UXO clearance programs, 59 people were known to have been killed or injured by UXO. So abundant are the remnants of bombs on the Plain of Jars that the collection and sale of scrap metal from bombs has been a major industry since the Civil War.

See also

Battle of Lima Site 85

CIA activities in Laos

Conflict in Laos involving the Hmong

French Indochina

Hmong

Bomb Harvest

Lee Lue

Vang Pao

Vang Sue

Notes

;Notes }} ;References

References

Government documents

Military History Institute of Vietnam, ''Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975''. Trans. by Merle Pribbenow. Lawrence KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002.

Nalty, Bernard C. ''War Against Trucks: Aerial Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1968–1973''. Washington DC: Air Force Museums and History Program, 2005.

Van Staaveren, Jacob, ''Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1960–1968''. Washington DC: Center of Air Force History, 1993.

Vongsavanh, Brig. Gen. Soutchay, ''RLG Military Operations and Activities in the Laotian Panhandle''. Washington DC: United States Army Center of Military History, 1980.

Histories

''War in Laos, 1954–1975''. Kenneth J. Conboy. Squadron/Signal Publications, 1994. ISBN 978-0-89747-315-6, 9780897473156.

''At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: United States Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955–1975''. Timothy Castle. Columbia University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-231-07977-8, 9780231079778.

Memoirs

Kissinger, Henry A. ''White House Years''.

Nixon, Richard M. ''RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon''.

Yang, Kao Kalia ''The Latehomecomer''

Secondary sources

Adams, Nina S. and Alfred W. McCoy, eds. ''Laos: War and Revolution''. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Breaux, Jarred James, ''The Laotian Civil War: The Intransigence of General Phoumi Nosavan and American Intervention in the Fall of 1960''. Morrisville, N.C.:Lulu, 2008.

Blaufarb, Douglas, ''The Counterinsurgency Era''.

Champassak, Sisouk Na, ''Storm Over Laos''. New York: Praeger, 1961.

Conboy, Kenneth with James Morrison, ''Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos''. Boulder CO: Paladin Press, 1995.

Corn, David, ''Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades''. Simon & Schuster, 1994. ISBN 978-0-671-69525-5, 9780671695255

Duiker, William J., ''The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam'' 2nd ed. Westview Press, 1996.

Issacs, Arnold, Gordon Hardy, MacAlister Brown, et al., ''Pawns of War: Cambodia and Laos.'' Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1987.

Karnow, Stanley, ''Vietnam: A History''. New York: Viking, 1983.

McGehee, Ralph W. ''Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA''. New York: Sheridan Square, 1983.

Morrison, Gayle L. ''Sky is Falling: an Oral History of the CIA evacuation of the Hmong from Laos'', Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999

Robbins, Christopher, ''Air America''. New York: Avon, 1985.

Robbins, Christopher, ''The Ravens: Pilots of the Secret War in Laos''. Bangkok: Asia Books, 2000.

Thompson, Larry Clinton, ''Refugee Workers in the Indochina Exodus, 1975–1982''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.

Warner, Roger, ''Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos''. South Royalton VE: Steerforth Press, 1996.

External links

Supporting the "Secret War": CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955–1974, from Central Intelligence Agency web site.

"'Secret War' Still Killing Thousands," Andre Vltchek, Worldpress.org correspondent, November 14, 2006.

The Secret War in Laos, from the plainofjars.net Web Site.

"Acts of Betrayal," by Michael Johns, ''National Review'', October 23, 1995.

Air America Association web site

Online Archive Materials about Air America in the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech

Air America – Roll of honour and images.

Air America by Christopher Robbins

The Ravens, Pilots of the Secret War in Laos by Christopher Robbins

Hmong In Transition by Sheila Pinkel

Bibliography: Laos (bibliography mainly devoted to the portions of the Second Indochina War that occurred in Laos)

Category:20th century in Laos Category:Anti-communism Category:Central Intelligence Agency operations Category:CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific Category:Cold War conflicts Category:Foreign relations of Laos Category:History of Laos Category:Hmong American culture and history Category:Politics of Laos Category:Vietnam War Category:Wars involving Laos Category:Wars involving Thailand Category:Wars involving the United States Category:Wars involving Vietnam Category:Laos – United States relations *

be:Баявыя дзеянні ў Лаосе 1960-1970 es:Guerra Civil de Laos eo:Laosa Enlanda Milito fr:Guerre civile laotienne ko:라오스 내전 id:Perang Saudara Laos it:Guerra civile laotiana ms:Perang Saudara Laos nl:Laotiaanse Burgeroorlog ja:ラオス内戦 no:Borgerkrigen i Laos pt:Guerra Civil do Laos ru:Гражданская война в Лаосе vi:Chiến tranh Việt Nam tại Lào zh-yue:老撾內戰

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin ''bellum civile'' which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.

A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, that is sustained, organized and large-scale. Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources.

Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted on average just over four years, a dramatic rise from the one-and-a-half year average of the 1900-1944 period. While the rate of emergence of new civil wars has been relatively steady since the mid-19th century, the increasing length of those wars resulted in increasing numbers of wars ongoing at any one time. For example, there were no more than five civil wars underway simultaneously in the first half of the 20th century, while over 20 concurrent civil wars were occurring at the end of the Cold War, before a significant decrease as conflicts strongly associated with the superpower rivalry came to an end. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, as well as the forced displacement of millions more. Civil wars have further resulted in economic collapse; Burma (Myanmar), Uganda and Angola are examples of nations that were considered to have promising futures before being engulfed in civil wars.

Definition

James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies". Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, while others further specify that at least 100 must come from each side. The Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. This rate is a small fraction of the millions killed in the Second Sudanese Civil War and Cambodian Civil War, for example, but excludes several highly publicized conflicts, such as The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the struggle of the African National Congress in Apartheid-era South Africa.

Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997, 104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007.

Further definitions

The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term "civil war". They do, however, describe the criteria for acts qualifying as "armed conflict not of an international character", which includes civil wars. Among the conditions listed are four requirements:

The party in revolt must be in possession of a part of the national territory.

The insurgent civil authority must exercise ''de facto'' authority over the population within the determinate portion of the national territory.

The insurgents must have some amount of recognition as a belligerent.

The legal Government is "obliged to have recourse to the regular military forces against insurgents organized as military."

Causes of civil war in the Collier-Hoeffler Model

Scholars investigating the cause of civil war are attracted by two opposing theories, greed versus grievance. Roughly stated: are conflicts caused by who people are, whether that be defined in terms of ethnicity, religion or other social affiliation, or do conflicts begin because it is in the economic best interests of individuals and groups to start them? Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war.

A comprehensive studies of civil war was carried out by a team from the World Bank in the early 21st century. The study framework, which came to be called the Collier-Hoeffler Model, examined 78 five-year increments when civil war occurred from 1960 to 1999, as well as 1,167 five-year increments of "no civil war" for comparison, and subjected the data set to regression analysis to see the effect of various factors. The factors that were shown to have a statistically-significant effect on the chance that a civil war would occur in any given five-year period were:

;Availability of finance A high proportion of primary commodities in national exports significantly increases the risk of a conflict. A country at "peak danger", with commodities comprising 32% of gross domestic product, has a 22% risk of falling into civil war in a given five-year period, while a country with no primary commodity exports has a 1% risk. When disaggregated, only petroleum and non-petroleum groupings showed different results: a country with relatively low levels of dependence on petroleum exports is at slightly less risk, while a high-level of dependence on oil as an export results in slightly more risk of a civil war than national dependence on another primary commodity. The authors of the study interpreted this as being the result of the ease by which primary commodities may be extorted or captured compared to other forms of wealth, for example, it is easy to capture and control the output of a gold mine or oil field compared to a sector of garment manufacturing or hospitality services.

A second source of finance is national diasporas, which can fund rebellions and insurgencies from abroad. The study found that statistically switching the size of a country's diaspora from the smallest found in the study to the largest resulted in a sixfold increase in the chance of a civil war.

;Opportunity cost of rebellion Higher male secondary school enrollment, per capita income and economic growth rate all had significant effects on reducing the chance of civil war. Specifically, a male secondary school enrollment 10% above the average reduced the chance of a conflict by about 3%, while a growth rate 1% higher than the study average resulted in a decline in the chance of a civil war of about 1%. The study interpreted these three factors as proxies for earnings foregone by rebellion, and therefore that lower foregone earnings encourages rebellion. Phrased another way: young males (who make up the vast majority of combatants in civil wars) are less likely to join a rebellion if they are getting an education and/or have a comfortable salary, and can reasonably assume that they will prosper in the future.

Low per capita income has been proposed as a cause for grievance, prompting armed rebellion. However, for this to be true, one would expect economic inequality to also be a significant factor in rebellions, which it is not. The study therefore concluded that the economic model of opportunity cost better explained the findings.

;Military advantage High levels of population dispersion and, to a lesser extent, the presence of mountainous terrain increased the chance of conflict. Both of these factors favor rebels, as a population dispersed outward toward the borders is harder to control than one concentrated in a central region, while mountains offer terrain where rebels can seek sanctuary.

;Grievance Most proxies for "grievance" - the theory that civil wars begin because of issues of identity, rather than economics - were statistically insignificant, including economic equality, political rights, ethnic polarization and religious fractionalization. Only ethnic dominance, the case where the largest ethnic group comprises a majority of the population, increased the risk of civil war. A country characterized by ethnic dominance has nearly twice the chance of a civil war. However, the combined effects of ethnic and religious fractionalization, i.e. the more chance that any two randomly chosen people will be from separate ethnic or religious groups the less chance of a civil war, were also significant and positive, as long as the country avoided ethnic dominance. The study interpreted this as stating that minority groups are more likely to rebel if they feel that they are being dominated, but that rebellions are more likely to occur the more homogeneous the population and thus more cohesive the rebels. These two factors may thus be seen as mitigating each other in many cases.

;Population size The various factors contributing to the risk of civil war rise increase with population size. The risk of a civil war rises approximately proportionately with the size of a country's population.

;Time The more time that has elapsed since the last civil war, the less likely it is that a conflict will recur. The study had two possible explanations for this: one opportunity-based and the other grievance-based. The elapsed time may represent the depreciation of whatever capital the rebellion was fought over and thus increase the opportunity cost of restarting the conflict. Alternatively, elapsed time may represent the gradual process of healing of old hatreds. The study found that the presence of diaspora substantially reduced the positive effect of time, as the funding from diasporas offsets the depreciation of rebellion-specific capital.

Duration of civil wars

Ann Hironaka, author of ''Neverending Wars'', divides the modern history of civil wars into the pre-19th century, 19th century to early 20th century, and late 20th century. In 19th century Europe, the length of civil wars fell significantly, largely due to the nature of the conflicts as battles for the power center of the state, the strength of centralized governments, and the normally quick and decisive intervention by other states to support the government. Following World War II the duration of civil wars grew past the norm of the pre-19th century, largely due to weakness of the many postcolonial states and the intervention by major powers on both sides of conflict. The most obvious commonality to civil wars are that they occur in fragile states.

Civil wars in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Civil wars through the 19th century to early 20th century tended to be short; the average length of a civil war between 1900 and 1944 was one and half years. The state itself was the obvious center of authority in the majority of cases, and the civil wars were thus fought for control of the state. This meant that whoever had control of the capital and the military could normally crush resistance. If a rebellion failed to quickly seize the capital and control of the military for itself, it was normally doomed to a quick destruction. For example, the fighting associated with the 1871 Paris Commune occurred almost entirely in Paris, and ended quickly once the military sided with the government.

The power of non-state actors resulted in a lower value placed on sovereignty in the 18th and 19th centuries, which further reduced the number of civil wars. For example, the pirates of the Barbary Coast were recognized as ''de facto'' states because of their military power. The Barbary pirates thus had no need to rebel against the Ottoman Empire, who were their nominal state government, to gain recognition for their sovereignty. Conversely, states such as Virginia and Massachusetts in the United States of America did not have sovereign status, but had significant political and economic independence coupled with weak federal control, reducing the incentive to secede.

The two major global ideologies, monarchism and democracy, led to several civil wars. However, a bi-polar world, divided between the two ideologies, did not develop, largely due the dominance of monarchists through most of the period. The monarchists would thus normally intervene in other countries to stop democratic movements taking control and forming democratic governments, which were seen by monarchists as being both dangerous and unpredictable. The Great Powers, defined in the 1815 Congress of Vienna as the United Kingdom, Habsburg Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, would frequently coordinate interventions in other nations' civil wars, nearly always on the side of the incumbent government. Given the military strength of the Great Powers, these interventions were nearly always decisive and quickly ended the civil wars.

There were several exceptions from the general rule of quick civil wars during this period. The American Civil War (1861–1865) was unusual for at least two reasons: it was fought around regional identities, rather than political ideologies, and it was ended through a war of attrition, rather than over a decisive battle over control of the capital, as was the norm. The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was exceptional because ''both'' sides of the war received support from intervening great powers: Germany, Italy, and Portugal supported opposition leader Francisco Franco, while France and Russia supported the government (see proxy war).

Civil wars since 1945

In the 1990s, about twenty civil wars were occurring concurrently during an average year, a rate about ten times the historical average since the 19th century. However, the rate of new civil wars had not increased appreciably; the drastic rise in the number of ongoing wars after World War II was a result of the tripling of the average duration of civil wars to over four years. This increase was a result of the increased number of states, the fragility of states formed after 1945, the decline in interstate war, and the Cold War rivalry.

Following World War II, the major European powers divested themselves of their colonies at an increasing rate: the number of ex-colonial states jumped from about 30 to almost 120 after the war. The rate of state formation leveled off in the 1980s, at which point few colonies remained. More states also meant more states in which to have long civil wars. Hironaka statistically measures the impact of the increased number of ex-colonial states as increasing the post-WWII incidence of civil wars by +165% over the pre-1945 number.

While the new ex-colonial states appeared to follow the blueprint of the idealized state - centralized government, territory enclosed by defined borders, and citizenry with defined rights -, as well as accessories such as a national flag, an anthem, a seat at the United Nations and an official economic policy, they were in actuality far weaker than the Western states they were modeled after. In Western states, the structure of governments closely matched states' actual capabilities, which had been arduously developed over centuries. The development of strong administrative structures, in particular those related to extraction of taxes, is closely associated with the intense warfare between predatory European states in the 17th and 18th centuries, or in Charles Tilly's famous formulation: "War made the state and the state made war". For example, the formation of the modern states of Germany and Italy in the 19th century is closely associated with the wars of expansion and consolidation led by Prussia and Sardinia, respectively. The Western process of forming effective and impersonal bureaucracies, developing efficient tax systems, and integrating national territory continued into the 20th century; as late as World War I, some French military conscripts from rural regions were unable to name the country they were fighting for. Nevertheless, Western states that survived into the latter half of the 20th century were considered "strong" by simple reason that they had managed to develop the institutional structures and military capability required to survive predation by their fellow states.

In sharp contrast, decolonization was an entirely different process of state formation. Most imperial powers had not foreseen a need to prepare their colonies for independence; for example, Britain had given limited self-rule to India and Sri Lanka, while treating British Somaliland as little more than a trading post, while all major decisions for French colonies were made in Paris and Belgium prohibited any self-government up until it suddenly granted independence to its colonies in 1960. Like Western states of previous centuries, the new ex-colonies lacked autonomous bureaucracies, which would make decisions based on the benefit to society as a whole, rather than respond to corruption and nepotism to favor a particular interest group. In such a situation, factions manipulate the state to benefit themselves or, alternatively, state leaders use the bureaucracy to further their own self-interest. The lack of credible governance was compounded by the fact that most colonies were economic loss-makers at independence, lacking both a productive economic base and a taxation system to effectively extract resources from economic activity. Among the rare states profitable at decolonization was India, to which scholars credibly argue that Uganda, Malaysia and Angola may be included. Neither did imperial powers make territorial integration a priority, and may have discouraged nascent nationalism as a danger to their rule. Many newly independent states thus found themselves impoverished, with minimal administrative capacity in a fragmented society, while faced with the expectation of immediately meeting the demands of a modern state. Such states are considered "weak" or "fragile". The "strong"-"weak" categorization is not the same as "Western"-"non-Western", as some Latin American states like Argentina and Brazil and Middle Eastern states like Egypt and Israel are considered to have "strong" administrative structures and economic infrastructure.

Historically, the international community would have targeted weak states for territorial absorption or colonial domination or, alternatively, such states would fragment into pieces small enough to be effectively administered and secured by a local power. However, international norms towards sovereignty changed in the wake of WWII in ways that support and maintain the existence of weak states. Weak states are given ''de jure'' sovereignty equal to that of other states, even when they do not have ''de facto'' sovereignty or control of their own territory, including the privileges of international diplomatic recognition and an equal vote in the United Nations. Further, the international community offers development aid to weak states, which helps maintain the facade of a functioning modern state by giving the appearance that the state is capable of fulfilling its implied responsibilities of control and order. The formation of a strong international law regime and norms against territorial aggression is strongly associated with the dramatic drop in the number of interstate wars, though it has also been attributed to the effect of the Cold War or to the changing nature of economic development. Consequently, military aggression that results in territorial annexation became increasingly likely to prompt international condemnation, diplomatic censure, a reduction in international aid or the introduction of economic sanction, or, as in the case of 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, international military intervention to reverse the territorial aggression. Similarly, the international community has largely refused to recognize secessionist regions, while keeping some states such as Cyprus and Taiwan in diplomatic recognition limbo. While there is not a large body of academic work examining the relationship, Hironaka's statistical study found a correlation that suggests that every major international anti-secessionist declaration increased the number of ongoing civil wars by +10%, or a total +114% from 1945-1997. The diplomatic and legal protection given by the international community, as well as economic support to weak governments and discouragement of secession, thus had the unintended effect of encouraging civil wars.

There has been an enormous amount of international intervention in civil wars since 1945 that served to extend wars. While intervention has been practiced since the international system has existed, its nature changed substantially. It became common for both the state and opposition group to receive foreign support, allowing wars to continue well past the point when domestic resources had been exhausted. Superpowers, such as the European great powers, had always felt no compunction in intervening in civil wars that affected their interests, while distant regional powers such as the United States could declare the interventionist Monroe Doctrine of 1821 for events in its Central American "backyard". However, the large population of weak states after 1945 allowed intervention by former colonial powers, regional powers and neighboring states who themselves often had scarce resources. On average, a civil war with interstate intervention was 300% longer than those without. When disaggregated, a civil war with intervention on only one side is 156% longer, while intervention on both sides lengthens the average civil war by an addition 92%. If one of the intervening states was a superpower, a civil war is extended a further 72%; a conflict such as the Angolan Civil War, in which there is two-sided foreign intervention, including by a superpower (actually, two superpowers in the case of Angola), would be 538% longer on average than a civil war without any international intervention.

Effect of the Cold War

The Cold War (1945–1989) provided a global network of material and ideological support that perpetuated civil wars, which were mainly fought in weak ex-colonial states, rather than the relatively strong states that were aligned with the Warsaw Pact and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In some cases, superpowers would superimpose Cold War ideology onto local conflicts, while in others local actors using Cold War ideology would attract the attention of a superpower to obtain support. Using a separate statistical evaluation than used above for interventions, civil wars that included pro- or anti-communist forces lasted 141% longer than the average non-Cold War conflict, while a Cold War civil war that attracted superpower intervention resulted in wars typically lasting over three times as long as other civil wars. Conversely, the end of the Cold War marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 resulted in a reduction in the duration of Cold War civil wars of 92% or, phrased another way, a roughly ten-fold increase in the rate of resolution of Cold War civil wars. Lengthy Cold War-associated civil conflicts that ground to a halt include the wars of Guatemala (1960–1996), El Salvador (1979–1991), Nicaragua (1970–1990) and Peru (1980–2000).

See also

The Logic of Violence in Civil War

War of Independence (disambiguation)

Wars of national liberation

References

Bibliography

Ali, Taisier Mohamed Ahmed and Robert O. Matthews, eds. ''Civil Wars in Africa: roots and resolution'' (1999), 322 pages

Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, ''Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars'' (Lynne Rienner, 2000).

Paul Collier, ''Breaking the Conflict Trap: civil war and development policy'' World Bank (2003) - 320 pages

Stathis Kalyvas, "'New' and 'Old' Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?" ''World Politics'' 54, no. 1 (2001): 99-118.

David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds. ''The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation'' (Princeton University Press, 1996).

Roy Licklider, "The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945--1993," ''American Political Science Review'' 89, no. 3 (summer 1995): pp 681–690.

Andrew Mack, "Civil War: Academic Research and the Policy Community," ''Journal of Peace Research'' 39, no. 5 (2002): pp. 515–525.

David T. Mason and Patrick 3. Fett, "How Civil Wars End: A Rational Choice Approach," ''Journal of Conflict Resolution'' 40, no. 4 (fall 1996): 546-568.

Patrick M. Regan. ''Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict'' (2000) 172 pages

Stephen John and others., eds. ''Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements'' (2002), 729 pages

Monica Duffy Toft, ''The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory'' (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). ISBN 0-691-12383-7.

Barbara F. Walter, ''Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars'' (Princeton University Press, 2002),

Elisabeth Jean Wood; "Civil Wars: What We Don't Know," ''Global Governance,'' Vol. 9, 2003 pp 247+ online version

External links

Royal Air Force Doctrine - The Nature of War and Armed Conflict

Royal Air Force Doctrine - The Nature of War and Armed Conflict

"What makes a civil war?", ''BBC News'', 20 April 2006

Category:Wars by type

als:Bürgerkrieg ar:حرب أهلية an:Guerra civil az:Vətəndaş müharibəsi be:Грамадзянская вайна be-x-old:Грамадзянская вайна bs:Građanski rat br:Brezel diabarzh bg:Гражданска война ca:Guerra civil cv:Граждан вăрçи cs:Občanská válka cy:Rhyfel cartref da:Borgerkrig de:Bürgerkrieg et:Kodusõda el:Εμφύλιος πόλεμος es:Guerra civil eo:Interna milito eu:Gerra zibil fa:جنگ داخلی hif:Civil war fo:Borgarakríggj fr:Guerre civile gd:Cogadh sìobhalta gl:Guerra Civil ko:내전 hr:Građanski rat id:Perang Saudara os:Мидхæст is:Borgarastríð it:Guerra civile he:מלחמת אזרחים kn:ಅಂತಃಕಲಹ krc:Граждан къазауат kk:Азамат соғысы sw:Vita ya wenyewe kwa wenyewe la:Bellum civile lv:Pilsoņu karš lb:Biergerkrich lt:Pilietinis karas li:Burgeroorlog hu:Polgárháború ml:ആഭ്യന്തരയുദ്ധം arz:حرب اهليه ms:Perang saudara mn:Иргэний дайн nl:Burgeroorlog ja:内戦 nap:Guèrr civile no:Borgerkrig nn:Borgarkrig oc:Guèrra civila pnb:کعر دی لڑائی nds:Börgerkrieg pl:Wojna domowa pt:Guerra civil ro:Război civil qu:Mamallaqtayuq maqanakuy rue:Громадяньска война ru:Гражданская война scn:Guerra civili simple:Civil war sk:Občianska vojna sl:Državljanska vojna so:Dagaal Sokeeye sr:Грађански рат sh:Građanski rat fi:Sisällissota sv:Inbördeskrig ta:உள்நாட்டுப் போர் th:สงครามกลางเมือง tg:Ҷанги шаҳрвандӣ tr:İç savaş uk:Громадянська війна ur:خانہ جنگی vec:Guera siviłe vi:Nội chiến fiu-vro:Kodosõda wa:Guere civile war:Gyera sibil yi:בירגער קריג bat-smg:Cėvėlėnė vaina zh:内战

Group	Hmong people
Population	4 to 5 million
Region1
Pop1	3 million
Region2
Pop2	787,604 (1999)
Region3
Pop3	460,000 (2005)
Region4
Pop4	221,948 (2008)
Region5
Pop5	151,080 (2002)
Region6
Pop6	15,000
Region7
Pop7	2,190
Region8
Pop8	1,500
Region9
Pop9	600
Region10
Pop10	500
Languages	Hmong and Mong
Religions	Shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity, others
Related	}}

The Hmong (RPA: ''Hmoob/Moob'', ), are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity (苗族) in southern China. Hmong groups began a gradual southward migration in the 18th century due to political unrest and to find more arable land.

A number of Hmong people fought against the communist Pathet Lao during the Laotian Civil War. Hmong people were singled out for retribution when the Pathet Lao took over the Laotian government in 1975, and tens of thousands fled to Thailand seeking political asylum. Thousands of these refugees have resettled in Western countries since the late 1970s, mostly the United States but also in Australia, France, French Guiana, Canada, and South America. Others have been returned to Laos under United Nations-sponsored repatriation programs. Around 8,000 Hmong refugees remain in Thailand.

Nomenclature

Hmong people have their own terms for their subcultural divisions, "Hmong Der" (''aka White Hmong'') and "Mong Leng" (''aka Mong Njua'' or 'Green Mong') being the terms for two of the largest groups in Asia. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet, developed in the 1950s in Laos, these terms are written ''Hmoob Dawb/Moob Dlawb'' (White Hmong) and ''Moob Leeg/Hmoob Ntsuab'' (Mong Leng). The doubled vowels indicate nasalization, and the final consonants indicate with which of the eight lexical tones the word is pronounced. White Hmong and Mong Leng people speak mutually intelligible dialects of the Hmong language with some differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. One of the most obvious differences is the use of the aspirated /m/ in White Hmong by the sound of "H", which is used when its written in Romanized Popular Alphabet. In Mong Leng dialect the sound of "H" is not in used of their terms. Hmong groups are often named after the dominant colors, patterns of their traditional clothing, head-dress, and the provinces they came from. The Hmong groups in Laos, from the 18 century to the present day, are known as Black Hmong (Hmoog Dub/Moob Dlub), Striped Hmong (Hmoob Txaij/Moob Txaij), White Hmong (Hmoob Dawb/Moob Dlawb), and Green Hmong (Hmoob Ntsuab/Moob Leej). In other places in Asia groups are also known as Black Hmong (''Hmoob Dub/Moob Dlub'' or ''Hmong Den''), Striped Hmong (''Hmoob Txaij'' or ''Hmoob Quas Npab''), Hmong Shi, Hmong Pe, Hmong Pua, and Hmong Xau, Hmong Xanh (Green Hmong), Hmong Do (Red Hmong), Na Mieo and various other subgroups. These include the Flower Hmong or the Variegated Hmong (''Hmong Lenh'' or ''Hmong Hoa''), so named because of the bright colorful embroidery (called ''pa ndau'', literally "flower cloth"). Vietnamese Hmong women continuing to wear 'traditional' clothing tend to source much of their clothing as 'ready to wear' cotton (as against traditional hemp) from markets, though some add embroidery as a personal touch. In SaPa, now with a 'standardised' clothing look, Black Hmong sub-groups have differentiated themselves by adopting different headwear; those with a large comb embedded in their long hair (but without a hat) call themselves Tao, those with a pillbox hat name themselves Giay, and those with a checked headscarf are Yao. For many, such as Flower Hmong, the heavily beaded skirts and jackets are manufactured in China.

Since 1949, Miao has been an official term for one of the 55 official minority groups recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China. The Miao live mainly in southern China, in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hainan, Guangdong, Hubei, and elsewhere in China. According to the 2000 censuses, the number of 'Miao' in China was estimated to be about 9.6 million. The Miao nationality includes Hmong people as well as other culturally and linguistically related ethnic groups who do not call themselves Hmong. These include the Hmu, Kho (Qho) Xiong, and A Hmao. The White Miao (Bai Miao) and Green Miao (Qing Miao) are Hmong group.

Usage of the term "Miao" in Chinese documents dates back to the ''Shi Ji'' (1st century BC) and the ''Zhan Guo Ce'' (late Western Han Dynasty). During this time, it was generally applied to people of the southern regions thought to be descendants of the San Miao kingdom (dated to around the 3rd millennium BC.) The term does not appear again until the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), by which time it had taken on the connotation of "barbarian." Interchangeable with "man" and "yi," it was used to refer to the indigenous people of the south-western frontier who refused to submit to imperial rule. During this time, references to Raw (''Sheng'') and Cooked (''Shu'') Miao appear, referring to level of assimilation and political cooperation of the two groups. Not until the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) do more finely grained distinctions appear in writing. Even then, discerning which ethnic groups are included in various classifications can be problematic. This inconsistent usage of "Miao" makes it difficult to say for sure if Hmong and Mong people are always included in these historical writings. Linguistic evidence, however, places Hmong and Mong people in the same regions of southern China that they inhabit today for at least the past 2,000 years. By the mid-18th century, classifications become specific enough that it is easier to identify references to Hmong and Mong people.

In Southeast Asia, Hmong people are referred to by other names, including: ;Lao:ແມ້ວ (Maew) ມ້ວ (Mong); Thai: แม้ว (Maew) or ม้ง (Mong); (မံုလူမ်ိဳး)''. "Mèo", or variants thereof, is considered highly derogatory by many Hmong people and is infrequently used today outside of Southeast Asia.

Because the Hmong lived mainly in the highland areas of Southeast Asia and China, the French occupiers of Southeast Asia gave them the name ''Montagnards'' or "mountain people", but this should not be confused with the Degar people of Vietnam, who were also referred to as ''Montagnards.''

Controversy over nomenclature

Hmong and Mong

When Western authors came in contact with Hmong people, beginning in the 18th century, they referred to them in writing by ethnonyms assigned by the Chinese (i.e. Miao, or variants). This practice continued into the 20th century. Even ethnographers studying the Hmong people in Southeast Asia often referred to them as Meo, a corruption of Miao applied by Thai and Lao people to the Hmong. Although "Meo" was an official term, it was often used as an insult against Hmong people and it is considered to be highly derogatory. In the middle of the 20th century, a concerted effort was made to refer to Hmong by their own ethnonyms in scholarly literature. By the 1970s, it became standard to refer to the entire ethnic group as "Hmong." This was reinforced during the influx of Hmong immigrants to the United States after 1975. Research proliferated, much of it being directed toward the American Hmong Der community. Several states with Hmong populations issued official translations only in the Hmong Der dialect. At the same time, some Mong Leng people voiced concerns that the supposed inclusive term "Hmong" only served to exclude them from the national discourse.

The issue came to a head during the passage of California State Assembly Bill (AB) 78, in the 2003–2004 season. Introduced by Doua Vu and Assembly Member Sarah Reyes, District 31 (Fresno), the bill encouraged changes in secondary education curriculum to include information about the Secret War and the role of Hmong people in the war. Furthermore, the bill called for the use of oral histories and first hand accounts from Hmong people who had participated in the war and who were caught up in the aftermath. Originally, the language of the bill mentioned only "Hmong" people, intending to include the entire community. A number of Mong Leng activists, led by Dr. Paoze Thao (Professor of Linguistics and Education at California State University, Monterey Bay), drew attention to the problems associated with omitting "Mong" from the language of the bill. They noted that despite nearly equal numbers of Hmong Der and Mong Leng in the United States, resources are disproportionately directed toward the Hmong Der community. This includes not only scholarly research, but also the translation of materials, potentially including curriculum proposed by the bill. Despite these arguments, "Mong" was not added to the bill. In the version that passed the assembly, "Hmong" was replaced by "Southeast Asians", a more broadly inclusive term.

Dr. Paoze Thao and some others feel strongly that "Hmong" can refer only to Hmong Der people and does not include Mong Leng people. He feels that the usage of "Hmong" in reference to both groups perpetuates the marginalization of Mong Leng language and culture. Thus, he advocates the usage of both "Hmong" and "Mong" when referring to the entire ethnic group. Other scholars, including anthropologist Dr. Gary Yia Lee (a Hmong Der person), suggest that "Hmong" has been used for the past 30 years to refer to the entire community and that the inclusion of Mong Leng people is understood. Some argue that such distinctions create unnecessary divisions within the global community and will only confuse non-Hmong and Mong people trying to learn more about Hmong and Mong history and culture.

As a compromise alternative, the ethnologist Jacques Lemoine has begun to use the term (H)mong when referring to the entirety of the Hmong and Mong community.

Hmong, Mong, and Miao

Some non-Chinese Hmong advocate that the term Hmong be used not only for designating their dialect group, but also for the other Miao groups living in China. They generally claim that the word "Miao" or "Meo" is a derogatory term, with connotations of barbarism, that probably should not be used at all. The term was later adapted by Tai-speaking groups in Southeast Asia where it took on especially insulting associations for Hmong people despite its official status. In modern China, the term "Miao" does not carry these negative associations and people of the various sub-groups that constitute this officially recognized nationality freely identify themselves as Miao or Chinese, typically reserving more specific ethnonyms for intra-ethnic communication. During the struggle for political recognition after 1949, it was actually members of these ethnic minorities who campaigned for identification under the umbrella term "Miao"—taking advantage of its familiarity and associations of historical political oppression.

Contemporary transnational interactions between Hmong in the West and Miao groups in China, following the 1975 Hmong diaspora, have led to the development of a global Hmong identity that includes linguistically and culturally related minorities in China that previously had no ethnic affiliation. Scholarly and commercial exchanges, increasingly communicated via the Internet, have also resulted in an exchange of terminology, including Hmu and A Hmao people identifying as Hmong and, to a lesser extent, Hmong people accepting the designation "Miao," within the context of China. Such realignments of identity, while largely the concern of economically elite community leaders, reflect a trend towards the interchangeability of the terms "Hmong" and "Miao."

History

The early history of the Hmong has proven difficult to trace. According to Ratliff, there is linguistic evidence to suggest that they have occupied the same areas of southern China for at least the past 2,000 years. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA in Hmong–Mien / Miao–Yao–speaking populations supports the southern origins of maternal lineages even further back in time, although Hmong/Miao-speaking populations show more contact with northeast Asians (i.e. northern Han) than Mien/Yao populations. Historical Chinese documents describe that area being inhabited by 'Miao' people, a group with whom Hmong people are often identified.

Yet, the history of the 'Miao' cannot be equated with the history of the Hmong. Although the term 'Miao' is used today by the Chinese government to denote a group of linguistically and culturally related people (including the Hmong, Hmu, Kho Xiong, and A Hmao), it has been used inconsistently in the past. Throughout the written history of China, it was applied to a variety of peoples considered to be marginal to Han society, including many who are unrelated to contemporary Hmong and Mong people. Christian Culas and Jean Michaud note: "In all these early accounts, then, until roughly the middle of the 19th century, there is perpetual confusion about the exact identity of the population groups designated by the term Miao. We should therefore be cautious with respect to the historical value of any early associations."

Conflict between Miao groups and newly arrived settlers increased during the 18th century under repressive economic and cultural reforms imposed by the Qing Dynasty. This led to armed conflict and large-scale migrations continuing into the late 19th century, the period during which most Hmong people emigrated to Southeast Asia. The process began as early as the late-17th century, before the time of major social unrest, when small groups went in search of better agricultural opportunities.

From July 1919 to March 1921 the Hmong of French Indochina revolted against the colonial authorities in what the French called the War of the Insane ("''La Guerre du Fou''") and what the Hmongs call Rog Paj Cai (named after the leader Paj Cai, but literally means The War of the flowering of the Law).

Geography

Roughly 95% of the Hmong live in Asia. Linguistic data show that the Hmong of the Peninsula stem from the Miao of southern China as one among a set of ethnic groups belonging to the Miao–Yao (also called Hmong–Mien) linguage family. China does not recognise officially the ethnonym Hmong and instead, clusters that group with an official and wider group: the Miao (8,940,116 in 2000). This explains why there is no precise census data on the Hmong in China. Linguistically and culturally speaking, the Hmong and the other sub-groups of the Miao have little in common.

A few centuries ago the lowland Chinese started moving into the mountain ranges of China's southwest. This migration combined with major social unrest in southern China in the 18th and 19th century to cause some minorities of Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan, where the majority of the Hmong in China (estimated at around 3 millions) still live today, to migrate south. A number of Hmong thus settled in the ranges of the Indochina Peninsula to practise subsistence agriculture.

Vietnam, where their presence is attested from the late 18th century onwards, is likely to be the first Indochinese country into which the Hmong migrated. During the colonization of 'Tonkin' (north Vietnam) between 1883 and 1954, a number of Hmong decided to join the Vietnamese Nationalists and Communists, while many Christianized Hmong sided with the French. After the Viet Minh victory, numerous pro-French Hmong had to fall back to Laos and South Vietnam. The ones remaining in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam from 1954 to 1976) had to accept to live under Communist rule.

At the 2009 national census, there were 1,068,189 Hmong living in Vietnam, the vast majority of them in the north of the country. The traditional trade in coffin wood with China and the cultivation of the opium poppy – both prohibited only in 1993 in Vietnam – long guaranteed a regular cash income. Today, converting to cash cropping is the main economic activity. As in China and Laos, there is a certain degree of participation of Hmong in the local and regional administration. In the late 1990s, several thousands of Hmong have started moving to the Central Highlands and some have crossed the border into Cambodia, constituting the first attested presence of Hmong settlers in that country.

In 2005, the Hmong in Laos numbered 460,000. Hmong settlement there is nearly as ancient as in Vietnam. After decades of distant relations with the Lao kingdoms, closer relations between the French military and some Hmong on the Xieng Khouang plateau were set up after WWII. There, a particular rivalry between members of the Lo and Ly clans developed into open enmity, also affecting those connected with them by kinship. Clan leaders took opposite sides and as a consequence, several thousand Hmong participated in the fighting against the Pathet Lao Communists, while perhaps as many were enrolled in the People's Liberation Army. As in Vietnam, numerous Hmong in Laos also genuinely tried to avoid getting involved in the conflict in spite of the extremely difficult material conditions under which they lived during wartime.

After the 1975 Communist victory, thousands of Hmong from Laos had to seek refuge abroad (see Laos below). Approximately 30 percent of the Hmong left, although the only concrete figure we have is that of 116,000 Hmong from Laos and Vietnam together seeking refuge in Thailand up to 1990.

In 2002 the Hmong in Thailand numbered 151,080. The presence of Hmong settlements there is documented from the end of the 19th century. Initially, the Siamese paid little attention to them. But in the early 1950s, the state suddenly took a number of initiatives aimed at establishing links. Decolonization and nationalism were gaining momentum in the Peninsula and wars of independence were raging. Armed opposition to the state in northern Thailand, triggered by outside influence, started in 1967 while here again, many Hmong refused to take sides in the conflict. Communist guerrilla warfare stopped by 1982 as a result of an international concurrence of events that rendered it pointless. Priority is since given by the Thai state to sedentarizing the mountain population, introducing commercially viable agricultural techniques and national education, with the aim of integrating these non-Tai animists within the national identity.

Burma most likely includes a modest number of Hmong (perhaps around 2,500) but no reliable census has been conducted there recently.

As result of refugee movements in the wake of the Indochina Wars (1946–1975), in particular in Laos, the largest Hmong community to settle outside Asia went to the United States where approximately 100,000 individuals had already arrived by 1990. California became home to half this group, while the remainder went to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. By the same date, 10,000 Hmong had migrated to France, including 1,400 in French Guyana. Canada admitted 900 individuals, while another 360 went to Australia, 260 to China, and 250 to Argentina. Over the following years and until the definitive closure of the last refugee camps in Thailand in 1998, additional numbers of Hmong have left Asia, but the definitive figures are still to be produced.

Outside of Asia, where about 5% or the world Hmong population now lives, the United States is home to the largest Hmong population. The 2008 Census counted 171,316 persons of Hmong Alone Population,and 221,948 persons of Hmong Alone Population or in Any Combination. Other countries with significant populations include:

France: 15,000

Australia: 2,000

French Guiana: 1,500

Canada and Argentina: 600

Within the United States, the Hmong population is centred in the Upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota) and California.

Laos

The "Secret War"

In the early 1960s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Special Activities Division began to recruit, train and lead the indigenous Hmong people in Laos to fight against North Vietnamese Army intruders into Laos during the Vietnam War. It became a Special Guerrilla Unit led by General Vang Pao. About 60% of the Hmong men in Laos were assisted by the CIA to join fighting for the "Secret War" in Laos. The CIA used the Special Guerrilla Unit as the counter attack unit to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the main military supply route from the north to the south. Hmong soldiers served against the NVA and the Pathet Lao, helping block the Hanoi's Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos and rescuing downed American pilots.As inhabitants of the more mountainous regions of Laos, the Hmong people earned a special place in the hearts of American combat soldiers because of their strong support for the United States in its fight against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao communist forces. Though their role was generally kept secret in the early stages of the conflict, they made monumental sacrifices to help the U.S., with 18,000 of their soldiers killed in battle before 1969 alone, and more than 100,000 Hmong losing their lives by the time the U.S. made the decision to pull out of Vietnam.

General Vang Pao led the Region II (MR2) defense against NVA incursion from his headquarters in Long Cheng, also known as Lima Site 20 Alternate (LS 20A). At the height of its activity, Long Cheng became the second largest city in Laos. Long Cheng was a micro-nation operational site with its own bank, airport, school system, officials, and many other facilities and services in addition to its military units. Before the end of the Secret War, Long Cheng would fall in and out of General Vang Pao's control.

The Secret War began about the time the United States became actively involved in the Vietnam War. Two years after the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos was overthrown by communist troops supported by the North Vietnamese Army. The Hmong people immediately became targets of retaliation and persecution. While some Hmong returned to their villages and attempted to resume life under the new regime, thousands more made the trek across the Mekong River into Thailand, often under attack. This marked the beginning of a mass exodus of Hmong from Laos. Those who reached Thailand were kept in squalid United Nations refugee camps until they could be resettled. Nearly 20 years later, in the 1990s, a major international debate ensued over whether Hmong refugees remaining in Thailand should be forcibly repatriated to Laos, where they were still subject to persecution, or should be allowed to emigrate to the United States and other Western nations.

Hmong Lao resistance

Of those Hmong who did not flee Laos, somewhere between two and three thousand were sent to re-education camps where political prisoners served terms of 3–5 years. Many Hmong died in these camps, after being subjected to hard physical labor and harsh conditions. Thousands more Hmong people, mainly former soldiers and their families, escaped to remote mountain regions—particularly Phou Bia, the highest (and thus least accessible) mountain peak in Laos. Initially, some Hmong groups staged attacks against Pathet Lao and Vietnamese troops while others remained in hiding to avoid military retaliation and persecution. Spiritual leader Zong Zoua Her rallied his followers in a guerrilla resistance movement called Chao Fa (RPA: Cauj Fab). Initial military successes by these small bands led to military counter-attacks by government forces, including aerial bombing and heavy artillery, as well as the use of defoliants and possibly chemical weapons. These events led to the yellow rain controversy, when the United States accused the Soviet Union of supplying and using chemical weapons in this conflict.

Small groups of Hmong people, many of them second or third generation descendants of former CIA soldiers, remain internally displaced in remote parts of Laos, in fear of government reprisals. Faced with continuing military operations against them by the government and a scarcity of food, some groups have begun coming out of hiding, while others have sought asylum in Thailand and other countries.

Throughout the Vietnam War, and for two decades following it, the U.S. government stated that there was no "Secret War" in Laos and that the U.S. was not engaged in air or ground combat operations in Laos. In the late 1990s, however, several U.S. conservatives, alleging that the Clinton administration was using the denial of this covert war to justify a repatriation of Thailand-based Hmong war veterans to Laos, urged the U.S. government to acknowledge the existence of the Secret War and to honor the Hmong and U.S. veterans from the war. On May 15, 1997, in a total reversal of U.S. policy, the U.S. government acknowledged that it had supported a prolonged air and ground campaign against the NVA and VietCong. It simultaneously dedicated the Laos Memorial on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery in honor of the Hmong and other combat veterans from the Secret War.

Controversy over repatriation

In 1989, the UNHCR, with the support of the United States government, instituted the Comprehensive Plan of Action, a program to stem the tide of Indochinese refugees from Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Under the plan, the status of the refugees was to be evaluated through a screening process. Recognized asylum seekers were to be given resettlement opportunities, while the remaining refugees were to be repatriated under guarantee of safety.

After talks with the UNHCR and the Thai government, Laos agreed to repatriate the 60,000 Lao refugees living in Thailand, including several thousand Hmong people. Very few of the Lao refugees, however, were willing to return voluntarily. Pressure to resettle the refugees grew as the Thai government worked to close its remaining refugee camps. While some Hmong people returned to Laos voluntarily, with development assistance from UNHCR, allegations of forced repatriation surfaced. Of those Hmong who did return to Laos, some quickly escaped back to Thailand, describing discrimination and brutal treatment at the hands of Lao authorities.

In 1993, Vue Mai, a former Hmong soldier who had been recruited by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to return to Laos as proof of the repatriation program's success, disappeared in Vientiane. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, he was arrested by Lao security forces and was never seen again.

Following the Vue Mai incident, debate over the Hmong's planned repatriation to Laos intensified greatly, especially in the U.S., where it drew strong opposition from many American conservatives and some human rights advocates. In an October 23, 1995 ''National Review'' article, Michael Johns, the former Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert and Republican White House aide, labeled the Hmong's repatriation a Clinton administration "betrayal," describing the Hmong as a people "who have spilled their blood in defense of American geopolitical interests." Debate on the issue escalated quickly. In an effort to halt the planned repatriation, the Republican-led U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives both appropriated funds for the remaining Thailand-based Hmong to be immediately resettled in the U.S.; Clinton, however, responded by promising a veto of the legislation. In their opposition of the repatriation plans, Republicans also challenged the Clinton administration's position that the Laotian government was not systematically violating Hmong human rights. U.S. Representative Steve Gunderson (R-WI), for instance, told a Hmong gathering: "I do not enjoy standing up and saying to my government that you are not telling the truth, but if that is necessary to defend truth and justice, I will do that." Republicans also called several Congressional hearings on alleged persecution of the Hmong in Laos in an apparent attempt to generate further support for their opposition to the Hmong's repatriation to Laos.

Although some accusations of forced repatriation were denied, thousands of Hmong people refused to return to Laos. In 1996, as the deadline for the closure of Thai refugee camps approached, and under mounting political pressure, the U.S. agreed to resettle Hmong refugees who passed a new screening process. Around 5,000 Hmong people who were not resettled at the time of the camp closures sought asylum at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist monastery in central Thailand where more than 10,000 Hmong refugees were already living. The Thai government attempted to repatriate these refugees, but the Wat Tham Krabok Hmong refused to leave and the Lao government refused to accept them, claiming they were involved in the illegal drug trade and were of non-Lao origin.

In 2003, following threats of forcible removal by the Thai government, the U.S., in a significant victory for the Hmong, agreed to accept 15,000 of the refugees. Several thousand Hmong people, fearing forced repatriation to Laos if they were not accepted for resettlement in the U.S., fled the camp to live elsewhere within Thailand where a sizable Hmong population has been present since the 19th-century.

In 2004 and 2005, thousands of Hmong fled from the jungles of Laos to a temporary refugee camp in the Thai province of Phetchabun. These Hmong refugees, many of whom are descendants of the former-CIA Secret Army and their relatives, claim that they have been attacked by both the Lao and Vietnamese military forces operating inside Laos as recently as June 2006. The refugees claim that attacks against them have continued almost unabated since the war officially ended in 1975, and have become more intense in recent years.

Lending further support to earlier claims that the government of Laos was persecuting the Hmong, filmmaker Rebecca Sommer documented first-hand accounts in her documentary, ''Hunted Like Animals'', and in a comprehensive report which includes summaries of claims made by the refugees and was submitted to the U.N. in May 2006.

The European Union, UNHCHR, UNHCR, and international groups have since spoken out about the forced repatriation.

For the time being, countries willing to resettle the refugees are hindered to proceed with immigration and settlement procedures because the Thai administration does not grant them access to the refugees. Plans to resettle additional Hmong refugees in the U.S. have been complicated by provisions of President Bush's Patriot Act and Real ID Act, under which Hmong veterans of the Secret War, who fought on the side of the United States, are classified as terrorists because of their historical involvement in armed conflict.

On December 27, 2009, the New York Times reported that the Thai military is preparing to forcibly return 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers to Laos by the end of the year: the BBC later reported that repatriations had started. Both United States and United Nations officials have protested this action. Outside government representatives have not been allowed to interview this group over the last three years. Médecins Sans Frontières has refused to assist the Hmong refugees because of what they have called "increasingly restrictive measures" taken by the Thai military. The Thai military jammed all cellular phone reception and disallowed any foreign journalists from the Hmong camps.

Alleged plot to overthrow government of Laos

On June 4, 2007, as part of a lengthy and still ongoing federal investigation labeled "Operation Tarnished Eagle," warrants were issued by U.S. federal courts ordering the arrest of Vang Pao and nine others for plotting to overthrow the government of Laos in violation of the federal Neutrality Acts and for multiple weapons charges. The federal charges allege that members of the group inspected weapons, including AK-47s, smoke grenades, and Stinger missiles, with the intent of purchasing them and smuggling them into Thailand in June 2007 where they were intended to be used by Hmong resistance forces in Laos. The one non-Hmong person of the nine arrested, Harrison Jack, a 1968 West Point graduate and retired Army infantry officer, allegedly attempted to recruit Special Operations veterans to act as mercenaries.

In an effort to obtain the weapons, Jack allegedly met unknowingly with undercover U.S. federal agents posing as weapons dealers, which prompted the issuance of the warrants as part of a long-running investigation into the activities of the U.S.-based Hmong leadership and its supporters.

On June 15, the defendants were indicted by a grand jury and a warrant was also issued for the arrest of an 11th man, allegedly involved in the plot. Simultaneous raids of the defendants homes and work locations, involving over 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officials, were conducted in approximately 15 cities in central and southern California.

The defendants face possible life prison terms for violation of the Neutrality Acts and various weapons charges. They initially were denied bail, with a federal court ruling that they were likely flight risks, given their extensive connections, access to private aircraft, and resources.

Multiple protest rallies in support of the suspects, designed to raise awareness of the treatment of Hmong peoples in the jungles of Laos, have taken place in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Alaska, and several of Vang Pao's high-level supporters in the U.S. have criticized the California court that issued the arrest warrants, arguing that Vang is a historically important American ally and a currently valued leader of U.S. and foreign-based Hmong. However, calls for Californian Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President George W. Bush to pardon the defendants have yet to be answered, presumably pending a conclusion of the large and still-ongoing federal investigation.

On September 18, 2009, the federal government dropped all charges against Vang Pao, announcing in a release that the federal government was permitted to consider "the probable sentence or other consequences if the person is convicted." On January 10, 2011, after Vang Pao's death, the federal government dropped all charges against the remaining defendants saying, "Based on the totality of the circumstances in the case, the government believes, as a discretionary matter, that continued prosecution of defendants is no longer warranted," according to court documents.

The Americas

Many Hmong refugees resettled in the United States after the Vietnam War. Beginning in December 1975, the first Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S., mainly from refugee camps in Thailand; however, only 3,466 were granted asylum at that time under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. In May 1976, another 11,000 were allowed to enter the United States, and by 1978 some 30,000 Hmong people had immigrated. This first wave was made up predominantly of men directly associated with General Vang Pao's secret army. It was not until the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 that families were able to enter the U.S., becoming the second wave of Hmong immigrants. Today, 209,866 Hmong people reside in the United States the majority of whom live in California (65,831), Minnesota (45,930), and Wisconsin (31,578).

In terms of cities and towns, the largest Hmong-American community is in Fresno, followed by Merced and Porterville. There are also significant Hmong communities in Chico, Oroville, Yuba City, Eureka, Long Beach, Banning, Santa Ana, Acton, Stockton, and Sacramento, California; Detroit, Michigan; Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota; Lowell, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island and Madison, Milwaukee, Eau Claire, Wausau, and La Crosse, Wisconsin and Massachusetts/Rhode Island have especially high concentrations of Hmong and Mong people.

There are smaller Hmong populations scattered across the country, including Arlington, Texas; Dallas, Texas; Irving, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; Missoula, Montana; Denver, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; northeastern Washington State (Spokane); western North Carolina (Charlotte, Hickory, and Morganton); northeastern Georgia (Auburn, Duluth, Monroe, Atlanta, and Winder); San Diego, California and Los Angeles area; Wisconsin (Eau Claire, Appleton, Green Bay, La Crosse, and Sheboygan); Winooski, Vermont; and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, centered around the towns of Ephrata and Denver; and Memphis, Tennessee; Nashville, Tennessee.

There is also a small community of several thousand Hmong who migrated to French Guiana in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Community leaders

Minnesota State Representative Cy Thao

Lieutenant Colonel Hang Sao

Minnesota State Senator Mee Moua

Pa Chay Vue

Pa Kao Her

Touby Lyfoung

General Vang Pao (recognized as the leader of U.S.-based Hmong)

Zong Zoua Her

See also

Notes

References

Hillmer, Paul. ''A People’s History of the Hmong'' (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010) 327 pp. isbn 978-0-87351-726-3

[TYPN 1992] The section on nomenclature draws heavily on ''Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter'', Number 17, June 1992, Department of Anthropology, Australian National University. Material from that newsletter may be freely reproduced with due acknowledgment.

W.R. Geddes. Migrants of the Mountains: The Cultural Ecology of the Blue Miao (Hmong Njua) of Thailand. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1976.

Tapp, N., J.Michaud, C.Culas, G.Y.Lee (Eds) 2004 Hmong/Miao in Asia. Chiang Mai (Thailand): Silkworm, 500p.

Vang, Chia Youyee. ''Hmong America: Reconstructing Community in Diaspora'' (University of Illinois Press; 2011) 200 pages; Combines scholarly and personal perspectives in an ethnographic history of the Hmong refugee experience in the United States.

Earlier books

Edkins, ''The Miau-tsi Tribes''. Foochow: 1870.

Henry, ''Lingnam''. London: 1886.

Bourne, ''Journey in Southwest China''. London: 1888.

A. H. Keaw, ''Man: Past and Present''. Cambridge: 1900.

Merritt, ''Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992''. Indiana: 1999.

External links

HmongNet.org, list of Hmong-related web sites edited by Mark Pfeifer of the Hmong Cultural Center.

Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center, including multimedia educational content about Hmong culture.

GaryYiaLee.com, articles on Hmong history and culture by Hmong Australian anthropologist, Dr. Gary Yia Lee

''Hmong Contemporary Issues'', articles on Hmong culture, history, and other topics by Hmong French anthropologist and linguist, Dr. Kao-Ly Yang (English, French, and Hmong languages).

"Being Hmong Means Being Free." Wisconsin Public Television

Hmong History Timeline

Category:Hmong Category:Ethnic groups in Laos Category:Ethnic groups in Thailand Category:Ethnic groups in Vietnam

ar:همونغ (شعب) bjn:Urang Hmong zh-min-nan:Hmong-cho̍k br:Hmong ca:Hmong (ètnia) cs:Hmongové da:Hmong de:Hmong eo:Hmongoj eu:Hmong (etnia) fr:Hmong id:Hmong it:Hmong nl:Hmong pl:Hmong pt:Hmong (etnia) ru:Хмонги sco:Hmong fowk simple:Hmong people sh:Hmong fi:Hmongit sv:Hmongfolket ta:மொங் மக்கள் th:ชาวม้ง tr:Hmonglar vi:H'Mông zh-yue:苗人

Name	Lieutenant General Vang Pao
Birth date	December 8, 1929
Death date	January 06, 2011
Birth place	Xiangkhouang Province, Laos, French Indochina
Death place	Clovis, California
Allegiance	French Indochina 22pxKingdom of Laos United States of America
Serviceyears	1940s - 1975
Rank	Lieutenant General
Branch	Royal Lao Army
Commands	GCMA Laos "Secret Army"
Battles	Second Sino-Japanese War First Indochina War Laotian Civil War Vietnam War (Second Indochina War)
Laterwork	}}

Vang Pao (Hmong: ''Vaj Pov''; December 8, 1929 – January 6, 2011) was a Lieutenant General in the Royal Lao Army. He was an ethnic Hmong and a leader of the Hmong American community in the United States.

Early life

Vang Pao was born in December 8, 1929, in a Hmong village named Nonghet, located in Central Xiangkhuang Province, in the northeastern region of Laos, where his father, Neng Chu Vang, was a county leader. He began his early life as a farmer until Japanese forces invaded and occupied French Indochina in World War II. His father sent him away to school from the age of 10 to 15 before he launched his military career, joining the French Military to protect fellow Hmong during the Japanese invasion.

When Vang Pao was taking an entrance examination, the captain who was the proctor realized that Vang Pao knew almost no written French. The captain dictated the answers to Vang so that he could join the army. Vang Pao insisted that the captain told him the answers, and that the captain did not actually guide his hand on the paper. Anne Fadiman, author of ''The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down'', said that Vang Pao did not express any embarrassment for his cheating. Fadiman added that "it is worth noting that in this incident, far from tarnishing Vang Pao's reputation—as, for example Ted Kennedy's fudged Spanish exam at Harvard tarnished his—merely added to his mythology: this was the sort of man who could never be held back by such petty impediments as rules."

Military career

The term "Mèo Maquis" was originally used by Free French and Allied intelligence officers to describe the Hmong resistance forces working against the Japanese forces occupying Indochina and China during World War II. After WWII, French GCMA authorities recruited Vang Pao as a lieutenant during the First Indochina War to combat the Viet Minh (archive video by Col. Jean Sassi). Although French forces lost the war in 1954, Vang remained in the army of the newly independent Kingdom of Laos in 1949. He was the only ethnic Hmong to attain the rank of General officer in the Royal Lao Army, and he was loyal to the King of Laos while remaining a champion of the Hmong people. During the 1960s and 1970s General Vang commanded the Secret Army, a highly-effective CIA-trained and supported force that fought against the Pathet Lao and People's Army of Vietnam. According to some former CIA Air America pilots, he made a small fortune as an opium warlord as they regularly flew his planeloads of opium to Saigon, he engaged in summary executions, and ran a Hmong Army with child soldiers as young as 14.(ref. The Ravens-Christopher Robbins 1987)

Vang Pao in the United States

Vang immigrated to the United States after the communists seized power in Laos in 1975. He remained widely respected by his fellow Hmong and was an esteemed elder of the American Hmong people, many of whom experienced the war or the reprisals that followed. Though he was somewhat less influential among younger Hmong-Americans who have grown up primarily in the United States, he generally was considered an influential leader of U.S.-based Hmong, enjoying great loyalty for his position of leadership and respect for his military accomplishments.

While in exile, Vang Pao assembled other Lao and Hmong leaders from around the world to create the United Lao National Liberation Front (ULNF), also known as Lao National Liberation Movement and Neo Hom, to bring attention to atrocities happening in Laos and urge support for the military resistance.

The government of Laos, along with the governments of Vietnam, the People's Republic of China, Cuba and North Korea are the world's few remaining bastions of communism. In the mid-1990s, Vang Pao, aided by influential American diplomatic allies and vast numbers of Hmong-Americans, halted forced United Nations-sponsored repatriation back to Laos of thousands of Hmong refugees in Thailand. It was a major human rights victory for the Hmong. The Thailand-based refugees, many of whom had been living in refugee camps at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist temple in Thailand, were afforded the right to avoid the forced return to Laos and instead were offered relocation rights and assistance to the U.S.

Throughout Vang Pao's residence in the U.S., the Hmong leader has diplomatically opposed human rights violations by the communist government of Laos against the Hmong. In 2001, Vang Pao began to moderate this position, publicly advocating normalization of U.S.-Laotian relations in hope of alleviating the human rights abuses by the Laotian government against the indigenous Hmong people.

Alleged plot to overthrow government of Laos

On June 4, 2007, following a lengthy federal investigation labeled "Operation Tarnished Eagle," warrants were issued by U.S. federal courts ordering the arrest of Vang Pao and nine others for allegedly plotting to overthrow the communist government of Laos, an enemy the United States government trained Vang Pao to fight some thirty years ago, in violation of the federal Neutrality Acts. Following the issuance of the warrants, an estimated 250 federal agents representing numerous U.S. federal law enforcement and other agencies conducted simultaneous raids on homes, offices and other locations throughout central and southern California, arresting Vang Pao and the other nine. The federal charges allege that members of the group inspected weapons, including AK-47s, smoke grenades, and Stinger missiles, with the intent of purchasing them and smuggling them into Thailand, where they allegedly would be shipped to anti-Laotian governmental resistance movement forces inside Laos. The one non-Hmong person among the nine arrested, Harrison Jack, a 1968 West Point graduate and retired Army infantry officer, allegedly attempted to recruit Special Operations veterans to act as mercenaries in an invasion of Laos.

On June 15, the defendants were indicted by a grand jury and an 11th man was arrested in connection with the alleged plot. The defendants face possible life prison terms for violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act and various weapons charges. Vang Pao and the other Hmong were also initially denied bail by the California federal court, which cited each of them as a flight risk.

Since the June 4, 2007 federal raid, Vang Pao's arrest had been the subject of mounting criticism. Vang Pao's fellow friends, including Hmong, Mienh, Lao, Vietnamese, and Americans individuals who knew Vang Pao protested the arrest and rallied throughout California, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Several of Vang Pao's high-level U.S. supporters have criticized the California court that issued the arrest warrants, arguing that Vang Pao is a historically important American ally and valued current leader of U.S. and foreign-based Hmong. Numerous calls for the Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to dismiss the case went unheeded, but in 2009 all of the federal charges against Pao were dropped.

Prior to his arrest, Vang Pao was slated to have an elementary school in Madison, Wisconsin named after him, a proposal that met with opposition over Alfred W. McCoy's allegations that Vang had been involved in war crimes and drug trafficking, with Gary Yia Lee and other scholars strongly disputing his claims Vang's June 2007 arrest later led the Madison School to reopen discussion on the school's naming. On June 18, 2007, the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education voted to drop Vang's name from the new school, in light of the federal charges against him and the previous allegations.

Release from jail

On July 12, 2007, under significant pressure from Vang Pao's Hmong and influential American supporters, the California federal court ordered the release of the Hmong leader on a US$1.5 million bond secured by property owned by members of his family. The Hmong were joyful to hear this news; many had participated in numerous protests over several weeks in California and elsewhere, calling for Vang Pao's release from the date of his incarceration until his release under bail nearly a month later.

Return to court

On March 9, 2009, Vang Pao's lawyers filed a motion seeking to dismiss the charges against him. His lawyers claimed that the charges were fabricated and had no bearing in court. Following this appearance, on April 6, 2009, federal prosecutors denied all allegations of fabrications in the motion. That following month, on May 11, 2009, Vang Pao returned to federal court in Sacramento, California with his lawyers to argue the motion. Judge Frank Damrell stated, after hearing the arguments for the motion, that there was not sufficient evidence from the defense to justify a dismissal.

Charges dropped

On September 18, 2009, the federal government dropped all charges against Vang Pao, announcing in a release that the federal government was permitted to consider "the probable sentence or other consequences if the person is convicted.”

Personal life

Vang Pao had 25 children with several wives. Reporter Doualy Xaykaothao is his great-niece

Death

Vang Pao, who battled diabetes and heart problems, died aged 81 of pneumonia with heart complications on January 6, 2011, at Clovis Community Medical Center His eldest son Chao Francois Vang said he had been admitted to the hospital on December 26, 2010, after attending Hmong New Year celebrations in Fresno. A hospital spokesman said his family had been at the hospital at the time of his death.

Traditional Hmong funeral services for Vang Pao were scheduled to be held for six days, starting February 4, 2011, at the Fresno Convention Center. More than 10,000 Hmong mourned the leader on the first day of the funeral.

A committee unanimously voted against a request to bury Vang Pao at Arlington National Cemetery.

See also

Battle of Lima Site 85

Eugene DeBruin

Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés GCMA Laos

History of Laos since 1945

Ho Chi Minh trail

Laos Memorial

Laotian Civil War, also known as the Secret War in Laos

Lee Lue

North Vietnamese invasion of Laos

Raven FACs

Further reading

Jane Hamilton-Merritt (1999). ''Tragic Mountains''. ISBN 0-253-20756-8

Robert Curry (2004). ''Whispering Death'', "Tuag Nco Ntsoov": ...Our Journey with the Hmong in the Secret War for Laos ...Lub caij peb thiab Hmoob koom tes ua ntsug rog ntsiag to nyob Los Tsuas teb. ISBN 0-595-31809-6

General Vang Pao's Last War ''New York Times'' Magazine, May 11, 2008

Nightmare in Laos - The True Story of a Woman Imprisoned in a communist gulag ISBN 1-905379-08-0

Dictionary of the modern politics of South-East Asia, Michael Leifer (2001) Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0415238757, Page 287 (biography entry for Vang Pao)

References

External links

"Against All Odds: The Laotian Freedom Fighters," by General Vang Pao, Heritage Foundation Lecture #96, March 19, 1987.

"Welcome to the Jungle: Recruited by the CIA to be a Secret Army During the Vietnam War, the Hmong Rebels of Laos Fought Communism. Now they Desperately Battle for their Own Survival," ''Time magazine'', May 5, 2003.

"Vang Pao Met with Senior State Department Official," by Sing Bourommavong, Voice of America news, January 28, 2004.

"The Covert Wars of Vang Pao," by Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe, ''Minneapolis Star-Tribune'', July 2, 2005.

"Hmong Hero Faces Trial in California (audio)," ''The World'', June 14, 2007.

Lao National Liberation Front information agency

Vang Pao - Obituary in ''The Independent'' (UK)

Category:1929 births Category:2011 deaths Category:American people of Hmong descent Category:Civil rights activists Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Infectious disease deaths in California Category:Laotian anti-communists Category:Laotian exiles Category:Laotian emigrants to the United States Category:Laotian military leaders Category:Military personnel of the Vietnam War Category:People of the First Indochina War

de:Vang Pao fr:Vang Pao pl:Vang Pao pt:Vang Pao fi:Vang Pao vi:Vàng Pao zh:王宝