Southeast Asian repression has many facets. Here is a brief account from an informed observer in northern Laos about the local aftermath of the alleged Vang Pao plot:
Last June and July in Huayxai, and in the whole Bokeo province, political and military tensions occurred in the aftermath of the arrest of Vang Pao early June in the United States. The rumour said that two Hmong villages from the bank of the Mekong, Ban Xay Chaleun and Ban Fay (two villages of Hmong “returnees”), received money from Thailand to stir up a rebellion in the region. Lao soldiers were sent from the neighbouring Namtha province to crush the “rebels”. A shooting occurred near the two Hmong villages quoted above and, according to unofficial interviews with several residents in Huayxai, two villagers were killed. Over several weeks, young people from Huayxai were requisitioned to operate as local militia in the evening. They wandered in the streets for several weeks, some of them drunk and visibly excited, searching for any “suspect” that is anyone looking more or less as a “Lao Sung” (the Lao name for Hmong). In this dreadful climate, more than 300 people were arrested, just because they were at the wrong place at the wrong moment. After few days, and interventions of local influent Hmong leaders, most of them were liberated. Currently [as of early September 2007], and according to local sources, 30 people would still be in jail, of which some would hold foreign passports.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Khili // Sep 28, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I have lived in Luang Prabang and worked in tourism here for several years now. The whole Vang Pao incident has scared the bejeezus out of the Lao government. Just after news of this broke in June, all of us heads of tourism bodies (I was the only westerner present as the meeting was conducted in Lao) were corralled into the Provincial Tourism Office, where Vang Pao’s crimes against humanity were read by a visibly shaken/enraged/terrified military officer. These ranged from stealing soldiers paychecks back in 1960 to defaulting on personal loans in California to armed resistance against the government. I did my best not to snicker at the whole affair as everyone else was dead serious. After several hours, the whole Vang Pao denunciation was finally finished, but then the military commander made one final chilling statement: “Be careful if you take westerners trekking. An order has been made by Vang Pao to his associates (presumably Hmong) to kidnap western hikers in the woods.”
After that the town was placed on curfew, as many towns in the north were. One wasn’t to be out after 10 pm and there were police and military out each night. I didn’t really understand how the curfew was to keep Vang Pao’s people from doing any harm, as they would have been quite able to move about freely in the daytime!
Anyway, since then, the curfew has been lifted, no one kidnapped near Luang Prabang and everything else is still calm and languid as ever.
2 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // Sep 29, 2007 at 1:39 am
re: Khili> I don’t see what Laos is so upset about. After all, the U.S. played ball and imprisoned the fellow.
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