Vang Pao

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This is a Hmong name; the family name is Vang.

Major General Vang Pao
Born 1931

Place of birth	Central Xiangkhuang Province, Laos, French Indochina
Allegiance	Kingdom of Laos United States of America
Service/branch	Royal Lao Army
Rank	Major General
Commands held	GCMA Laos "Secret Army"
Battles/wars	First Indochina War Laotian Civil War Second Indochina War

Vang Pao (born ca. 1931) is a former Major General in the Royal Lao Government's Royal Lao Army. He is an ethnic Hmong and a leader of the Hmong American community in the United States.

1 Early life
2 Military career
3 Allegations of drug running
4 Vang Pao in the United States
5 Alleged plot to overthrow government of Laos
6 Release from jail
7 See also
8 Further reading
9 External links
10 References
11 External links

[edit] Early life

Vang Pao was born in 1931, in Central Xiangkhuang Province, in the northeastern region of Laos. He began his early life as a farmer until Japanese forces invaded and occupied French Indochina in World War II. In his early teen years, Vang Pao launched his military career when he, in an effort to protect his fellow Hmong, joined the French Military.

[edit] Military career

For more details on covert war in Laos, see Operation Barrel Roll.

The term "Meo 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 an officer during the First Indochina War to combat the Viet Minh. Although French forces lost the war, Vang remained in the army of the newly independent Kingdom of Laos. 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.

[edit] Allegations of drug running

Several American participants in the Laos operation have stated that Vang Pao and his officers used the opium trade to pay for his army and even to enrich himself, transporting it on aircraft provided by Air America. These include USAID official Ron Rickenbach, CIA officer Anthony Poshepny and photographer John Everingham.^[1] These allegations are supported by Alfred McCoy, who interviewed Hmong opium farmers in Laos near the end of the war.^[2]

[edit] Vang Pao in the United States

General Vang immigrated to the United States after the communists seized power in Laos in 1975. He remains widely respected by his fellow Hmong and is an esteemed elder of the American Hmong people, many of whom experienced the war or the reprisals that followed. Though he is somewhat less influential among younger Hmong-Americans who have grown up primarily in the United States, he has generally been considered an influential leader of U.S.-based Hmong, enjoying great loyalty for his position of leadership and respect for his military accomplishments.^[3]

The government of Laos, along with the governments of Vietnam, 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.

Since the communist Pathet Lao seized power in Laos in 1975, the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic has been repeatedly accused of human rights violations, including attempted genocide against the Hmong people, and since 2001 the government of Laos has alleged that the Hmong are an international terrorist group.

[edit] Alleged plot to overthrow government of Laos

Main article: 2007 Laotian coup d'état attempt

On June 4, 2007, following a lengthy federal investigation labeled "Operation Flawed 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. 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.^[4] 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 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 plot.^[5] The defendants face possible life prison terms for violation of the Neutrality Act and various weapons charges. Vang and the other Hmong also were initially denied bail by the California federal court, which cited each of them as a flight risk.

Since the June 4 federal raid, the Vang arrest has been the subject of mounting criticism. Protest rallies, including thousands of Hmong and other supporters, have taken place in California, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Several of Vang's high-level U.S. supporters have criticized the California court that issued the arrest warrants, arguing that Vang is a historically important American ally and valued current leader of U.S. and foreign-based Hmong. Calls for Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to dismiss the case with help from President Bush have yet to be answered.^[6]

Prior to his arrest, Vang was slated to have an elementary school in Madison, Wisconsin named after him,^[7] a proposal that met with opposition over Alfred W. McCoy's allegations that Vang had been involved in war crimes and drug trafficking,^[8] with Gary Yia Lee and other scholars strongly disputing his claims.^[9]^[10] Vang's June 2007 arrest later led the Madison School to reopen discussion on the school's naming.^[11] 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.^[12]

[edit] 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.^[13]