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Laos: Hotbed of
unrest
By Nelson Rand
BANGKOK
- Two deadly bus attacks; remnants of a CIA-backed army
fighting in the jungles; claims of two divisions of a
neighboring army entering the country - all with the
same dateline: Laos. The reports keep trickling in.
On February 6, a roadside ambush on a bus kills
10, including two Swiss tourists. On April 20, another
bus attack leaves at least 13 dead and dozens injured.
Days later, the Laotian army chief of staff visits Hanoi
to meet his Vietnamese counterpart. About a week later,
Time Asia magazine publishes a report of ethnic Hmong
rebels on the run in the jungles of northern Laos still
fighting a war that was supposed to have ended in 1975.
And on Wednesday, a US-based fact-finding team releases
a report that claims two divisions of the Vietnamese
army have entered into northern Laos.
The
reports, when compiled together, paint a picture that
all is not well in the sleepy communist country.
The bus attack on February 6 along Route 13 that
links the capital Vientiane with the ancient city of
Luang Prabang in the north shattered the image of Laos
being a safe tourist destination.
As many as 30
gunmen jumped out from behind bushes along the highway
five kilometers north of Vang Vieng and opened fire on a
bus with M-16 assault rifles and grenade launchers. Two
Swiss cyclists on the road were shot and killed as they
tried to flee. According to survivors, the attackers
looked Hmong and spoke the Hmong language. Time Asia
magazine reported that a military officer at the scene
said a calling card was left on the dead Swiss woman's
corpse that read: We have lost our nation and are
fighting to get it back."
A little over two
months later, on April 20, another bus attack occurred
in the same area, leaving at least 13 dead and dozens
injured. Again, it is believed that the gunmen were
Hmong.
No one has claimed responsibility for the
deadly attacks, and the Laotian government has dismissed
suggestions that they were carried out by antigovernment
Hmong rebels. "Both incidents involved robberies of
armed bandits," Deputy Prime Minister Somsavat Lengsavad
told Bangkok's The Nation newspaper after the second
attack. "Physical evidence shows that both of these
incidents were robberies," The Nation quoted him as
saying.
Hmong in the United States, including
General Vang Pao, who was picked by the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to lead an army of Hmong
guerrillas during the Vietnam War, insist that Hmong
insurgents still operating in Laos do not attack
civilians.
Whether these attacks were the work
of Hmong rebels or not, the country is still facing a
security problem, and Hmong insurgents continue to
operate 28 years after the communist takeover of Laos.
During the Vietnam War, the CIA recruited a
Hmong army led by General Vang Pao to help fight the
Communist Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese who used
Laos as a supply line to move troops and equipment into
South Vietnam. The Hmong paid a heavy price for helping
the United States - more than 17,000 of Vang Pao's
soldiers were killed or unaccounted for and an estimated
50,000 Hmong civilians died. And in the end, they were
abandoned by their US patrons and left on the losing
side of the war.
In the pursuing years,
thousands fled to Thailand telling horror tales of
atrocities committed by their new communist rulers who
publicly vowed to wipe them out. Those who didn't flee,
including about 15,000 of Vang Pao's guerrillas, were
left in the jungles to fight for their survival. They
still fight.
Time Asia magazine, in its May 5
issue, shed new light on this decades-old conflict that
has gone widely unnoticed by the rest of the world.
Hmong rebels are still on the run, fighting for their
survival - the last remnants of a US-backed army are
still battling it out in the jungles of northern Laos.
They are armed with weapons left over from the Vietnam
War and say they are too poorly equipped to fight back -
they can only run and defend, Time Asia reported.
Two days after the second deadly bus attack and
about a week before the Time Asia article hit
newsstands, Laotian army chief of staff Major-General
Kenekham Senglathone was in Hanoi on an official visit
to meet with his Vietnamese counterpart,
Lieutenant-General Phung Quang Thanh, and later with
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan and Defense Minister
Lieutenant-General Pham Van Tra. Radio Australia said
the talks were aimed to "strengthen relations".
Military cooperation between Hanoi and Vientiane
has always been strong. Hanoi aided the communist Pathet
Lao to victory in 1975, and since then has been
Vientiane's staunchest ally. Vietnam maintained an
upward of 50,000 troops in Laos through the 1980s until
the fall of the Soviet Union forced them to cut military
spending and pull back most of its forces.
So
when reports come out of Laos that Vietnamese soldiers
are operating in Laos - such as the Wednesday report by
a the US-based Fact Finding Commission that claims two
divisions of the Vietnamese army have moved into
northern Laos since February - it doesn't come as much
surprise to analysts.
"Well, there has always
been one division there," said a former US special
forces officer who has lived and worked in Asia for the
better part of 40 years and spoke on condition of
anonymity. "And by all reports they have been
reinforced," he said in a telephone interview when asked
about the validity of the Fact Finding Commission's
claim.
"They [Vietnamese forces] are primarily
used to suppress the Hmong," he said, adding that they
are also used for security at a Chinese gold mine.
In the report released on Wednesday, the Fact
Finding Commission claimed: "Since February of this
year, two divisions of Vietnamese Army forces have
entered Laos and [have] spread across the northern
provinces. These Vietnamese forces have joined up with
LPDR [Lao People's Democratic Republic] troops to
bolster defenses against rumored threats of internal
dissatisfaction with the LPDR government." The claim
cited "sources in Southeast Asia".
The group
also reported that 739 people have been killed, 615
injured, and 414 captured in skirmishes in the northern
region of Bolikamxay province since February. These
reports cannot be independently verified, but Time Asia,
quoting Hmong insurgents in its May 5 article, reported
that last October, 216 Hmong were killed in an attack
launched by the Laotian military in Xaysomboune.
The media are tightly controlled in Laos, so it
is difficult to get an accurate picture of what is going
on. But judging from the reports that keep trickling in,
one thing is clear: the country's turbulent past is not
yet over.
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