Is US heating up conflicts in Indochina?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is time to set a yellow-alert on Indochina.  It is probably not an
accident that growing miliatry pressure on the Laotian government comes at a
time when Vietnam has opposed the war on Iraq, reaffirmed strongly its
traditional close ties with Cuba and (I suspect this is most important)
reaffirmed its tendency to retreat before popular worker-peasant opposition
to procapitalist measures which the government has favored.

We should also look for Thai government and military involvement in the
cuirrent attacks in Laos.

The Hmong (an oppressed national minority in the United States) may have
reasons to complain of some discrimination in Laos, where as they have come
to be viewed at times as the traditional proimperialist enemy (for real
historical reasons as any reader of the Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
can tell you). But I suspect the current upsurge has a broader basis in
world politics.  Because of the depth of  the national and socialist
revolution that took place there, Vietnam may be the least amenable society
in Asia to Washington's plans for world domination, despite the government's
efforts to seem accommodating.

We should also keep an eye on Cambodia.  Contrary to the way it is sometimes
presented in the US media,  the war in Cambodia -- carried out in response
to a massive invasion of Southern Vietnam in 1977, and in which Vietnam was
supported by strong local military forces that included the current ruler,
Hun Sen -- was not at all Vietnam's Afghanistan.  The Vietnamese and their
allies decisively won the war there and the UN agreements accepted by the
United States in 1992 basically accepted this reality.

The government and army of Cambodia today are basically the ones that
Vietnam and its allies established, and this regime has successfully faced
down all contenders {Pol Pot and his successors, the US backed Khmer Serei,
and the monarchists who look to Sihanouk).  While the regime is basically a
corrupt capitalist regime, the situation since Vietnam's withdrawal bears
little resemblance to the unending catastrophe was multiplied by  the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan.

At any rate, I suspect the US imperialists are upping the pressure on
Vietnam and Laos (and probably, to a lesser degree, Cambodia).  We should
watch this space for further developments.
Fred Feldman

[From "Asia Times Online" (Hong Kong) 17 May 2003]

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.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/EE17Ae01.html



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