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From the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.
Analysing and debunking anticommunist propaganda about Laos and the Hmong "genocide".
Review essay by Frank Proschan - “Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation”; on the book "Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992, by Jane Hamilton-Merritt.
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BCAS Vol. 28, No.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1996) - “Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation”; about the book "Tragic Mountains"
From the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.
Analysing and debunking anticommunist propaganda about Laos and the Hmong "genocide".
Review essay by Frank Proschan - “Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation”; on the book "Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992, by Jane Hamilton-Merritt.
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From the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.
Analysing and debunking anticommunist propaganda about Laos and the Hmong "genocide".
Review essay by Frank Proschan - “Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation”; on the book "Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992, by Jane Hamilton-Merritt.
Drepturi de autor:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formate disponibile
Descărcați ca PDF, TXT sau citiți online pe Scribd
''Rumor, Innuendo, Propaganda, and Disinformation"
by Frank Proschan For many years Jane Hamilton-Merritt has carried out a publicity campaign in supportofVang Pao andthe so-called "Lao resistance," while condemning the government ofthe Lao Peo ple's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and anyone who chal lenges her own views. Hamilton-Merritt has demonstrated great effectiveness in marshaling the mainstream media, reputable public figures, and otherwise respected institutions as the chan nels or even mouthpieces for her campaign. The publication of Tragic Mountains highlights her ongoing efforts to find accep tance for her fanciful vision of the recent history of Laos (and the United States). Hersuccess inthis campaign has been possible only because few in her audience know the facts behind her distorted misrepresentations. In this book, Hamilton-Merritt con structs a fantastical account of "the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for Laos" that bears little relation to the truth of the events and personalities she discusses. In my critique here I seek to discern Hamilton-Merritt's essential arguments and establish that they are unsupported or indeed often contradicted-by the facts. I attempt to dis credit Hamilton-Merritt's arguments within the terms ofthose very arguments as she sets them out, leaving aside certain larger issues and questions that bear on the issues Hamilton Merritt raises. Thus, to offer one example, I take no position here on current debates about the adequacy of the definition of genocide used in the 1948 U.N. convention, since Hamil ton-Merritt never raises such underlying questions but instead alleges that the Lao PDR is guilty of genocide as defined legally by that convention. Readers of this review who have not read Hamilton-Merritt's book may nevertheless wonder whether she might not in some cases be accidentally right for all the wrong reasons-for instance, even if a strict legal standard for genocide may not have been met, was there not de facto genocide? I believe, however, that the evidence shows that she is indeed wrong for all the right reasons. What are Hamilton-Merritt's fundamental allegations that serve to structure her account? In Tragic Mountains she intends TRAGIC MOUNTAINS: THE HMONG, THE AMERICANS,AND THE SECRET WARS FOR LAOS, 1942-1992, by Jane Hamilton-Merritt. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992, illus., 580 pp. Hard cover, S 29.95. to demonstrate that "the Hmong" universally supported the French and United States during the First (1945-54) and Second (1954-75) Indochina Wars; that they alone constituted a loyal and effective (albeit invisible) ally ofthe United States in Laos; that since 1975 "the Hmong" have been the target of genocide by the Lao People's Democratic Republic; that the Lao PDRwith Soviet assistance ifnot control subjected ''the Hmong" to chemi cal/biological warfare (CBW); and that the U.S. government has betrayed and abandoned its former ally, ignoring or suppressing evidence of CBW use, and most recently supporting the forced repatriation of Hmong refugees from Thailand to a "certain death" in Laos. Not one of these major tenets is supported by adequate factual evidence. The Problem of the Unverifiable According to a prominent oral historian, the prerequisite for a work to be considered as a credible work ofhistory is that its claims and evidence be subject to scrutiny by other historians: "a fundamental canon in the use ofhistorical evidence is that it be capable of being verified or falsified ....'" This principle is embodied, for example, in the American Historical Association (AHA)'s Standards ofProfessional Conduct: "Historians should carefully document their fmdings and thereafter be prepared to make available to others their sources, evidence, and data, in cluding the documentation they develop through interviews."z Tragic Mountains cannot satisfy the prerequisite ofverifiability 1. David Henige, '''In the Possession of the Author': the Problem of Source Monopoly in Oral Historiography," International Journal of Oral History. vol. I, no. 3 (1980), pp. 181-94 (p. 184). 2. American Historical Association (AHA), Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct (as amended in May 1990) (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1992), p. 5; cf. pp. 6, 25-27. 52 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org \ Hmong guerrillas receiving marksmanship training with assault rifles in the early years ofthe misnamed "secret war" that consumed Laos from J945 to 1975. The underlying thesis o[fragic Mountains is that the majority ofHmong supported France, the United States, and the Royal Lao Government (RLG) in the First and Second Indochina Wars, but since the defeat ofthe RLG in 1975 the United States has betrayed and abandoned its one-time Hmong allies. This photo and the next one were provided by Frank Proschan arefrom and reprinted here courtesy ofthe Civil Air Transport/Air America Archives at the University ofTexas in Dallas. that would allow it to be considered a reliable work of history, even though it purports to be a work ofscholarship and has been taken by others to be an authoritative source. Crucial aspects ofHamilton-Merritt's argument depend on allegations made with absolutely noprimary evidence to support them. Examples are legion: numerous demographic claims are made with no supporting documentation (pp. 303, 403, 448, 503);3 the alleged killing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Xieng Khouang (p. 500) is unattested in any credible source; the translation of ''Hmong'' as meaning "'free people' or 'those who must have their freedom and independence'" (p. 3) has absolutely no linguistic foundation;4 the fable of a Hmong alphabet sup pressed by the Chinese (p. 5) is apocryphal; the claim that "most" or ''the majority of' Hmong supported the French and Americans 3. Some are presented as Hamilton-Merritt's figures, and others are the unsupported allegations of others; compare also Hamilton-Merritt's use of very divergent figures in her other publications and congressional testimony. 4. See Joakim Enwall, ''Miao or Hmong?" Thai-Yunnan Project News letter (Canberra, Australia National University), no. 17 (1992), pp. 25-26; Thomas A. Lyman, "The 'Free Mong': An End to a Contro versy," Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 30, no. 1 (1988), pp. 128-32; and Cheung Siu-Woo, "A Preliminary Survey of the White Hmong Vocabulary on the Hmong Classification ofEthnic Categories," unpub lished paper, 1989. (pp. 45-46, p. xviii) is insupportable; the claim that Missing in Action (MIA) "survivors were captured and kept as prisoners" (p. 186) is pure speculation. In some cases Hamilton-Merritt can provide no evidence because the facts are simply wrong or invented: she claims that in 1990 Phoumi Vongvichit (then acting president of Laos) was a guest at a July 4th party at the home of the U.S. charge d' affaires in Vientiane (p. 50 I); she mistakes him for Phoun Sipraseuth, the foreign minister, who did attend. Throughout, both informants/interviewees and historical actors are identified with pseudonyms or nicknames and their true identity is disguised, even in some cases where the actors are already publicly identified with their actions. These data are consequently unverifiable and of little or no evidentiary value from the standpoint of accepted historical methodology. Foot notes and other citations of sources, when they are provided at all, do not allow specific information to be related to a specific identifiable and locatable source. Moreover, there is no indica tion in the text that the author has deposited notes, documents, and interview tapes and transcripts in any public archive where they may be examined by other scholars.' 5. Hamilton-Merritt made no reply to my letter of 14 December 1995 inquiring ''where your notes, recordings, and supporting documentation are archived, and under what conditions they are available to interested scholars for examination." 53 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Admittedly the nature ofthe subjects about which Ham ilton-Merritt writes (including the past or present Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] affiliation of a number of actors and informants and the ongoing illegal activities of the Lao resistance terrorists) might impose particular problems with confidentiality and the protection ofidentities. Oral historians and other scholars have nevertheless devised methods of balancing confidentiality and verifiability, such as recording identities under seal or depositing materials in restricted ar chives. Hamilton-Merritt makes no mention of such provi sions, and the effect ofher inadequate citations is to ultimately make it impossible to verify or validate her historical inter pretations. As David Henige notes, "no scholar has the right to seek both the approval ofhis peers and immunity from any criticism based on their familiarity with his sources.,,6 Presented in the veneer of a scholarly study, with the trappings ofscholarly apparatus, the book has great potential to deceive naive readers into mistak enly believing it to be a reliable work of research and interpretation. The issue of proper citation, adequate supporting docu mentation, and the verifiability ofthe author's claims takes on greater than normal importance because in numerous instances where historical evidence is readily available itfalsifies Ham ilton-Merritt's account or interpretation. Examples are legion where she distorts the evidence she herself presents, or makes what can only be construed as misstatements of fact. Hamil ton-Merritt regularly violates the AHA canon that "Historians must not misrepresent evidence or the sources of evidence." 7 What then should we expect where the historical "evidence" exists nowhere outside of Hamilton-Merritt's own files? For instance, Hamilton-Merritt misrepresents easily acces sible documents when she claims on two occasions that "the 1954 Geneva Accords ... prohibited [North Vietnam] from using a second country (Laos) in order to fight in yet another country (South Vietnam)" (p. 114, cf. p. 126). Instead, the Final Decla ration ofthe 1954 Geneva Conference states explicitly that "the military demarcation line [at the 17th parallel] is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary." 8 Note that this is not a question of whether the 1954 accords were eventually superseded by later events that made North Vietnam and South Vietnam de facto separate countries, as many reputable experts on international 6. David Henige, Oral Historiography (New York: Longman, 1982), p.124. 7. AHA, Statement, p. 5. 8. Geneva Accords of1954, Final Declaration, sec. 6. law have contended: The question is simply whether the Geneva Accords said what Hamilton-Merritt claims-or whether she instead misrepresented the evidence itself. Hamilton-Merritt also misrepresents the contents ofa cited source when she claims that "international drug enforcement agencies documented that the current 'drug lords' ofLaos were the communist government" (p. 541), and cites the U.S. Depart ment ofState 's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1992 as the source. In fact, that document reaches exactly the opposite conclusion: despite receiving "reports" (note there is no material evidence beyond hearsay) of involvement by low-level military and local officials, ''the USG [U.S. Govern ment] has no credible evidence that senior officials directly engage in, encourage, or facilitate the production or distribution of illegal drugs." 10 Beyond the numerous misstatements, factual distortions, and unsupported allegations in the book-only a few of which have been detailed above-there are endless small mistakes. Lao words are frequently misspelled (typically a Thai spelling is substituted for the proper Lao spelling), dates are wrong, the Democratic Republic ofVietnam is misnamed a ''people's demo cratic republic," and place names are confused. The profusion of such mistakes taken together call the author's credibility into question on other matters as well. Beyond the mistakes ofdetail, however, there are also much larger conceptual faults and distor tions, to which we now tum. The Unanimity of ''the Hmong" Hamilton-Merritt would have us believe that all of "the Hmong" in Laos shared a single political viewpoint on the major events that engulfed them between 1940 and the present. In fact, there is virtually no way to quantify the proportion of Hmong who sided with the French and later the Americans, as compared to the proportion who supported Lao independence from France and later opposed the United States. Certainly Hamilton-Merritt offers no data to support her claims that "most," let alone all, supported Touby Lyfoung and Vang Pao. Compare the situation of Hmong in Vietnam: Hamilton-Merritt's account of the 1954 battles for Dien Bien Phu asserts that '" all the Meo'" were loyal to the French (p. 58, quoting Trinquier). In fact, the sizable Hmong population "in the vicinity of Dien Bien Phu ... joined the Viet Minh ... they rendered great service to the Viet Minh." 11 By McAlister's account, without Hmong support the Viet Minh could never have achieved victory. In Laos the largest part ofthe Hmong population endeav ored to stay alive by staying out of things, supporting neither the RLG nor the Pathet Lao, the communist-led independence movement more properly known as the Neo Lao Hak Xat 9. Richard A. Falk, ed., The Vietnam War and International Law (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968-72). 10. U. S. Department ofState, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1992 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1992), p. 280. 11. John T. McAlister Jr., ''Mountain Minorities and the Viet Minh: A Key to the Indochina War," in Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations, ed. Peter Kunstadter (princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), vol. 2, pp. 771-844; see p. 824; cf. p. 831. 54 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org 1 I The hero ofthe Hamilton-Merritt hagiography, Vang Pao, shown here in the early years ofhis involvement with the u.s. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). An opponent ofLao independence from France in the years after World War II, Vang Pao was later chosen by the CIA as military leader ofan irregular army composed ofHmong and other ethnic minorities recruited to fight the Pathet Lao, the communist-led independence movement. In painting Vang Pao as a great Hmong hero, Hamilton-Merritt ignores the fact that many Hmong in Laos chose to support the other side. Hamilton-Merritt also tell us nothing about Vang Pao sefforts to have the Hmong secede from Laos, his documented alliance with the ousted Khmer Rouge after 1979, or his supporters' continuing corruption in the United States and terrorist acts against Laotian civilians. (NLHX). But the Pathet Lao indisputably enjoyed the support of several Hmong leaders equal in prestige and popularity to Touby and Yang Pao, including Faydang, Nhiavu, and Lao foung. A 1959 U.S. intelligence analysis notes the support of Meo in Phongsaly and Sam Neua for the Pathet Lao, pointing out that "most of the guerrillas in the northern provinces are ex-Pathet Lao soldiers, and Meo and Black Thai tribal groups."12 Similarly, a 1964 CIA working paper notes that the Neo Lao Hak Xat (NLHX) ''represents the many ethnic groups in Laos, and provides a potential means to power and prestige for Kha and Meo minorities who have in the past been ignored or persecuted by the Royal Lao Government (RLG)."13 See also Arthur Stillman's report that "great tribal leaders on the Pathet Lao side are equally numerous, ifless well known [than those on the RLG side]."14 Despite grudging acknowledgment that her study concerns only ''those Hmong who sided ... with 12. Pentagon Papers, House ofRepresentatives edition, document 292, SNIE 68-2-59, 18 Sept. 1959. 13. Central Intelligence Agency, The Structure ofCommunist Organi zations in Laos as ofMarch 1964, CIA-319/00003-64, 20 Oct. 1964, pp. 8-9. Microfilm edition, Paul Kesaris, ed., CIA Research Reports: Vietnam and Southeast Asia, 1946-1976 (Frederick, MD: University Publications ofAmerica, 1983). the Americans," Hamilton-Merritt insists absolutely without any supporting evidence that "they constituted the majority of the Hmong in Laos" (p. xviii). The Singularity of the Hmong, and Their Devotion to the Lao Nation From Hamilton-Merritt's account one would never learn that members of other ethnic minorities-specifically the Mien and Kmhmu-made up a substantial proportion of the troops under Yang Pao's command or under separate but coordinated CIA patronage. Mien and Kmhmu in the Nam Tha region under the command ofYao (Mien) leader Chao Mai were recruited as irregular troops beginning in 1959, prior to the first documented CIA recruiting ofHmong under Yang Pao. ls Other Kmhmu were 14. Arthur D. Stillman, Notes on Minority Policy in Laos (Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, 1970). 15. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics ofHeroin in Southeast Asia (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 297ff (revised edition, The Politics ofHeroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade [Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill, 1991]); cf. Timothy N. Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: u.s. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955-1975 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 155. 55 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org members ofVang Pao's Military Region II troops from 1960 on. Indeed, the participation of Kmhmu in Vang Pao's armies was so substantial that "by April 1971 Lao Theung [in other words, Kmhmu] ... comprised 40 percent of his troops." 16 Hamilton Merritt sees fit to mention these other groups only in passing, and they are otherwise invisible in her account. This silence on the central role ofother ethnic groups can only be taken as willful distortion of the historical record. A similar distortion of interethnic relations is Hamilton Merritt's Claim that "[the Plain ofJars] belonged to the Hmong" (p. 232). There is no historical basis upon which the Hmong could Claim "ownership" of the Plain of Jars. According to Douglas Blaufarb, ''the Plain ofJars itself is not Meo-inhab ited, [although] a concentration of Meo villages exists in the hills around it ... "17 The plain was the home oflarge numbers ofLao Phouan, Kmhmu, Tai Dam, and other ethnic groups who probably outnumbered the Hmong (who had indeed migrated into the region barely a hundred years before, displacing other prior inhabitants). No matter how sympathetic one might be to recognizing indigenous land rights, Hamilton-Merritt's claim on behalfofthe Hmong can only be seen as completely without merit; in fact it trespasses on the land rights of other earlier populations. adopted precisely to respond to the Hmong ssecessionist ten dencies. 20 Compare Blaufarb again: ''CIA ... advisers urged Vang Pao to reject Meo autonomy both symbolically and in his policies and programs .... [but] Vang Pao thus far [1972] is not inclined to accept Lao domination ofthe Meo people after the United States withdraws. "21 Whether or not one believes that ethnic minorities ultimately have a moral or political right of secession from larger nation-states, or that the Hmong might have had justification for seceding from Laos, it is clear that Hamilton-Merritt attempts here to rewrite the historical record by denying-in the face ofconsistent and unrefuted evidence that Vang Pao sought to do so. Finally, especially egregious are Hamilton-Merritt's racist characterizations of the Vietnamese, the lowland Lao Loum in general, and the Lao Theung affiliated with Kong Le (inCluding Kong Le himself). Hamilton-Merritt discusses the "traditional enemies [of the Hmong] ... the Vietnamese" (p. 83) without offering any evidence to support the assertion that Hmong and Vietnamese were ''traditional'' enemies. In fact, Hmong and Vietnamese had virtually no contact prior to 1850; in northwest ern Vietnam and northeastern Laos there were no sizable Viet namese populations and only minimal Vietnamese (or Laotian) administrative authority, and the Hmong came into conflict not with Vietnamese but with highland Tai populations. Projecting contemporary ethnic or national conflicts backward into the primordial past is a familiar strategy; it is, of course, simply jingoism rather than sound history and least of all scholarship. The issue ofproper citation, adequate supporting documentation, andthe verifiability ofthe author's claims takes on greater than normal importance because in numerous instances where historical evidence is readily available it falsifies Hamilton Merritt's account or interpretation. Examples are legion where she distorts the evidence she herself presents, or makes what can only be construed as misstatements offact. Hamilton-Merritt also seeks to deny the well-documented secessionist tendencies ofVang Pao and his followers. Discuss ing National Geographic author W. E. Garrett's 1974 account ofVang Pao's earlier efforts to proclaim an autonomous Hmong nation,I8 Hamilton-Merritt claims that "according to teacher Moua Lia, 'Mr. Garrett's statement ... is wrong'" (p. 327). However, Bernard Fall, G. Linwood Barney, Gary Wekkin, Alfred W. McCoy, D. Gareth Porter, and others provide evi dence consistent with Garrett's statement. 19 Marek Thee gives the most detailed account of measures that Souvanna Phouma 16. McCoy, Politics of Heroin. p. 281, summarizing congressional testimony. 17. Douglas Blaufarb, Organizing and Managing Unconventional War in Laos. 1962-1970 (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1972), p. 23, emphasis added. Genocide against the Hmong as a People? The author's assumption that all Hmong agreed with and supported Vang Pao is a necessary foundation to her Claims that since 1975 ''the Hmong" in general and in toto have been the target of genocide by the Lao PDR. Hamilton-Merritt makes great rhetorical use of the trope of synecdoche, substituting the part for the whole, or perhaps metalepsis, "in which the general idea substituted is considerably removed from the particular detail." 22 Statements that might be true when referring specifi cally to ''those Hmong under Vang Pao's command" or ''that 18. W. E. Garrett, ''No Place to Run: the Hmong of Laos," National Geographic. vol. 145, no. 1, (Jan. 1974), pp. 78-111; see p. 89. 19. Bernard Fall, Anatomy ofa Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of1960-1961 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1969); G. Linwood Bar ney, ''The Meo of Xieng Khouang Province, Laos, " in Southeast Asian Tribes, ed. Kunstadter, vol. 1, pp. 271-94; Gary D. Wekkin, "The Rewards ofRevolution: Pathet Lao Policy towards the Hill Tribes since 1975," in Contemporary Laos: Studies in the Politics andSociety ofthe Lao. People sDemocratic Republic. ed. Martin Stuart-Fox (New York: 8t. Martin's Press, 1982), pp. 181-98; McCoy, Politics of Heroin; D. Gareth Porter, "After Geneva: Subverting Laotian Neutrality," in Laos: War and Revolution, ed. Nina S. Adams and Alfred W. McCoy (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1970), pp. 179-212. 20. Marek Thee (pseudonym for Marek Gdanski), Notes ofa Witness: Laos and the Second Indochinese War (New York: Random House, 1973). 21. Blaufarb, Organizing and Managing. p. 79, emphasis added. 22. J. A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Press, 1982), p. 391. 56 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org small number ofHmong who violently resisted the Lao govern ment after 1975" or "those Hmong terrorists who today support Yang Pao instead ofKong Le or Pa Kao Her" are not necessarily true ofthe Hmong in general or the Hmong as a whole (and are o f t ~ n demonstrably false). Indeed, the most damning "evidence" that. Hamilton-Merritt can offer of the Lao PDR's purported gen6cidal intentions invariably either involves misquotes or remdins undocumented (see below). Hamilton-Merritt may well be unaware of the degree to which many Hmong have thrived politically under the Lao PDR government. The vice-president of the National Assembly and the president of the Lao Front for National Construction are Hmong, as is the governor of the National Ban1c There are several Hmong governors or vice-governors in the northern provinces, and areas of heavy Hmong population such as Nong Het, Xieng Khouang, Km. 52, and Muong Hom are governed by Hmong district and sub-district chiefs. There are Hmong highly placed on the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolu tionary Party, Hmong professors at the teacher's college at Dong Dok, and Hmong vice-ministers and department directors. Of course, none of this necessarily means that Laos has become a multi-ethnic paradise. The fact that certain members ofan ethnic group may achieve high positions does not preclude the possi bility that others might be victims ofinjustice or ofhuman rights violations. 23 But the facts do belie Hamilton-Merritt's claims that "the Hmong" are singled out for systematic and pervasive per secution based upon their ethnicity itself, 'yust because they are Hmong" (p. 524, emphasis added). Note, in this regard, that in the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide (inserted by Hamilton-Merritt as an appendix, p. 533), the crucial defming factor is that ofintent. Under the convention simply killing members of a group or causing them bodily or mental harm does not constitute genocide: it is only genocide when those acts are done "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." The Lao PDR's efforts after 1975 to eliminate or control that tiny fraction of the Hmong people who were actively engaged in violent resistance to the government do not constitute genocide under the terms ofthe U.N. Convention on Genocide. No matter how harsh the Lao government's efforts might on occasion have been (and even ifthese efforts might have involved human rights violations, the use ofCBW, or other acts that could be considered war crimes or crimes against humanity), such actions in them selves do not prove genocidal intent to destroy the Hmong as a group. Recall also that Hamilton-Merritt never argues (as have some indigenous groups, international lawyers, and other schol ars) for a broader or less state-centered defmition of genocide that recognizes effects rather than intentions, and in the end she offers no credible evidence of either intent or genocidelike effects. The evidence that Hamilton-Merritt does offer to support her imputation of a policy of genocide to the Lao government 23. For recent views of ethnic minority policies and their effects in Laos, see Wendy Batson, "After the Revolution: Ethnic Minorities and the New Lao State," in Laos: Beyond the Revolution, ed. Joseph J. Zasloffand Leonard Unger (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), pp. 133-58; and Carol Ireson and W. Randall Ireson, "Ethnicity and Development in Laos," Asian Survey, vol. 31 (1991), pp. 920-37. is flimsy at best, when it is not simply distorted or invented. Crucial to Hamilton-Merritt's charges ofgenocide is her asser tion that sometime in early May 1975, Phoumi Vongvichit (at the time vice premier and foreign minister of the Lao govern ment) "announced on national radio that the Hmong must be 'taken out at the roots'" (p. 337). Elsewhere, relying on a 1981 letter from Yang Pao to then secretary of state Alexander Haig, Hamilton-Merritt recounts a strikingly similar threat: ''Vang Pao also reminded Haig ... [that] 'The Pathet Lao had threat ened to wipe out the Hmong ethnic tribe once they were in power.... the Pathet Lao News Bulletin in May 9, 1975 ... stated that ''the Hmong are the sole enemies ofthe Pathet Lao. ... such an ethnic group must be destroyed and all roots must be pulled up"'" (p. 424). Whether this was one event or two, on radio or in print, Hamilton-Merritt provides no primary source citation whatsoever, nor does she refer to any publicly available secondary source; the only citation is to Yang Pao's letter written six years after the alleged event(s). While proving a negative is impossible, and thus I cannot say with absolute certainty that no such broadcast was made or bulletin publish ed, an exhaustive search ofthe Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports, Joint Publication Research Services Reports, and BBe Summary ofWorld Broadcasts for the period from I- April through 30 June 1975 shows absolutely no evi dence to support Yang Pao's and Hamilton-Merritt's allega tion.24 It is all the more regrettable that Tragic Mountains propagates a view ofHmong history that glorifies and reinforces the authority 0/an older generation ofHmong whose leadership poorly serves the com munity at large and especially its younger members. Moreover, the public record instead suggests the unlike lihood ofany such blanket threat--all contemporaneous broad casts, speeches, and statements ofthe Pathet Lao and Phoumi Vongvichit are careful to distinguish a very small handful of named individuals as the subjects ofthreats, not an entire group or class. In the early part of May, Phoumi was acting as host to the king and queen ofLaos during a visit to Viengxay in the liberated zone; it is highly unlikely that he would have taken the occasion to threaten an entire ethnic group of Lao citizens (many ofwhom were indeed allied with the Pathet Lao). From 7 May until the end of the month he was in Vientiane as the 24. Foreign Broadcasting Information Service Daily Report, Asia and the Pacific; Joint Publication Research Services Reports, and British Broadcasting Service, Summary ofWorld Broadcasts, Far East. 57 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org The opposing sides in the conflict in Laos pursued very different military and political strategies. The United States and the RLG placed great faith in military armaments and firepower, carrying out a strategy of technowar that blanketed most ofthe countryside with bombs. At the same time, the United States supported guerrillas drawn from the Hmong and other ethnic minorities, bypassing the elite families ofthe majority Lao ethnic group that dominated the RLG. The Pathet Lao, in contrast, placed its faith in the support ofthe rural populations, both Lao and minority. Because of its success in enlisting support from inhabitants ofremote mountainous areas, the Pathet Lao was able to maintain control over most ofthe country for decades, even iffinal victory over the RLG came only in 1975. This photo from Khaosan Pathet Lao, the news agency ofthe Pathet Lao and later the Lao People sDemocratic Republic (Lao PDR), shows a low-tech supply convoy during the war, when the United States was flying in supplies to Vang Pao through its Air America affiliate. highest NLHX official in the coalition government, the Provi sional Government ofNational Union; since Pathet Lao Radio was broadcast from Viengxay he could not have been on the radio after 7 May.2s There was indeed another broadcast over Pathet Lao radio on 6 May 1975 that Hamilton-Merritt employs as a keystone ofher argument, although it did not involve Phoumi Vongvichit, and it included no language approximating that referred to above.26 Taken in full the broadcast criticizes a "handful of special forces" that were "formed, trained, armed and commanded" by the CIA and that remained under the direction ofthe ''Vientiane ultrarightist reactionary clique. " 27 The Patriotic Armed Forces, the broadcast continues, ''have no fear of this handful of special forces. We can wipe them out (at any time?). That is not our primary goal, we are 25. The foregoing events are described in FBIS and BBC-SWB for the period. 26. A full translation of this broadcast is included in the FBIS Daily Report, Asia and the Pacific (9 May 1975, p. 13, titled [by FBIS?] 'The U.S.-Vang Pao Special Forces Must Be Completely Cleaned Up"); excerpts are provided in another slightly different translation in the BBe Summary of World Broadcasts, Far East (12 May 1975, p. FE/49011B/l). constrained to repeat, because we want to preserve the spirit of national concord called for in the [1973] peace accords." 21 Clearly the Pathet Lao are simply boasting here: they do not threaten the shrinking membership ofthe special forces (only some of whom, in fact, were Hmong), instead simply calling for them to be disbanded as promised in the 1973 accords and denying any hostile intent against them, while bragging ofthe ability to ''wipe them out" if they wished. The only threat made in the broadcast (and in all contem poraneous statements ofthe Pathet Lao) is directed very specifi cally against "the obstinate reactionary clique on the Vientiane side"-that is, a dozen or so (non-Hmong) Lao government officials-who were accused of directing the activities of the special forces: "the Patriotic Armed Forces must exercise our 27. In contemporaneous broadcasts and speeches, the members of this "reactionary clique" are identified by name, constituting a dozen or so prominent lowland Lao officials and, on occasion, Yang Pao as the single non-Lao clique member. For names of those in the ''ultrarightist reactionary clique," see FB1S Daily Report, Asia and the Pacific, 5 May 1975, p. 11; 12 May 1975, p. 115; 19 May 1975, p. 13; 21 May 1975 p. 15; 23 May 1975 p. 11; 23 May 1975 p. 112. 28. FBIS Daily Report; the words in parentheses are in parentheses in the original. 58 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org I right of self-defense and duly punish or wipe them out." 29 The ''them'' who are the subject ofthis direct threat are the lowland Lao generals and ministers-Sisouk Na Champassak, the San anikones, and other prominent lowland Lao officials-not the special forces in general nor the Hmong in particular. Yet throughout the book Hamilton-Merritt repeatedly asserts that in this 6 May 1975 broadcast the Pathet Lao threaten to wipe out the Hmong as a people, in their entirety, and with genocidal intent. For instance, note the chronology where she alleges that the ''Pathet Lao publicly announce plans to 'wipe out' Hmong" (p. xxvi); cf. the chapter heading pp. 337-51: '''Wipe Them Out! '" with an exclamation point added. See also where she refers to ''the LPDR's publicly stated policy to 'wipe out' the reactionary Hmong" (p. 516). Hamilton-Merritt quotes out of context in two respects: first, where she presents the radio broadcast at some length (p. 340) but omits the crucial sentences that would make it unmistakable that threats were leveled not against the special forces (and least of all against the Hmong in general) but only against a clique of Lao officials who were charged with sponsoring those illegal special forces, and second, where she further excerpts and further misrepresents the threat (pp. xxvi, 337-51, 516). Although the Lao original text is not available to us, it is worth making quite plain that nowhere in the English translations is there any mention of the Hmong ethnic group as such. There is a very important issue here: during this period the Pathet Lao were careful and quite consistent in their use of the two paired tenns ''Meo'' and ''Lao Soung" (and "Hmong"was indeed never used by them during this period). The tenn "Lao Soung" was used to refer to that sizable proportion of Hmong who actively supported the NLHX and Patriotic Anned Forces. The tenn ''Meo'' (usually qualified by adjectives identifying them with the United States) was used only to refer to that small proportion of Hmongwho continued to support Vang Pao and refused to accept the tenns of the 1973 Vientiane Agreement under which his special forces were to be disbanded. So even if there had been any threats directed against the "Meo"-and remember, Hamil ton-Merritt provides no evidence thereof, nor is any available in the most likely sources-the referent would have been not the Hmong in general but Vang Pao's troops in particular. Beyond one seemingly fabricated radio broadcast (or news bulletin) and another whose content Hamilton-Merritt distorts and misrepresents, the only other "evidence" she offers of a genocidal intent includes "confessions" of two Laotians who defected (one to China and one to Thailand) and then claimed to have witnessed or participated in Soviet and/or Vietnamese genocide against the Hmong. Ifwe had genuine documents from Laos, Vietnam, or the Soviet Union showing such an intention 29. Quoted from FBIS; the BBC text differs only trivially. The same distinction is made elsewhere between "dissolving" the special forces and "punishing" the rightist clique that directed them. See FBIS Daily Report, Asia and the Pacific, 7 May 1975, p. 14: "dissolve immediately the Vang Pao 'special forces' ... [and] punish those who use the U.S. Vang Pao 'special forces'to attack areas under the control ofthe patriotic forces" (emphasis added); FBIS Daily Report, Asia and the Pacific, 14 May 1975, p. 18: ''the patriotic forces' side has many times demanded that the Vientiane side dissolve at once the Vang Pao 'special forces' as defmed in the Vientiane agreement" (emphasis added). or indeed, ifthere existed even a shred ofmaterial evidence of CBWuse or genocidal attacks--then personal testimonies (even dubious ones like these of self-interested parties such as these two defectors) would provide important corroboration; alone they do not. IfHamilton-Merritt is unable to offer any credible evidence of a genocidal motivation from the Lao PDR (and recall that to distinguish genocide from other mass killing, human rights violations, or war crimes requires proof ofintent), she neverthe less attempts-ultimately with no greater success-to show genocidelike effects. Though Hamilton-Merritt herself never argues for a defmition ofgenocide based on consequences rather than intent, has she perhaps marshaled evidence that might be used to establish that the Lao PDR was guilty under an expanded, effects-based defmition of genocide? In a word, no: what little she has to offer that purports to show genocidelike effects is simply numbers she has plucked from thin air with absolutely no supporting evidence. The publication of Tragic Mountains highlights Hamilton-Me"itt's ongoing efforts to fmd accep tancefor herfanciful vision ofthe recent history of Laos (and the United States). Her success in this campaign has been possible only becausefew in her audience know thefacts behindHamilton-Me"itt's distorted misrepresentations. Hamilton Merritt asserts, for example that in 1978-79, "on Phou Bia alone the poisons had killed 50,000; another 45,000 had been shot, died of starvation, or tortured to death" (p. 403). The Hmong population ofLaos prior to 1975 could not possibly have exceeded 250,000. A total of 50,000 fled to Thailand in 1975 and 1976, and another 25,000 in the years between 1975 and 1979, according to statistics ofthe U.N. High Commission on Refugees. IfHamilton-Merritt is correct, this would mean that one-half ofthe remaining population of Hmong in Laos died in the space of a few months "on Phou Bia alone," a ridiculous claim. This is also irreconcilable with the current population of Hmong in Laos: if there were only 100,000 Hmong alive after the attacks on Phou Bia in 1978, there could not possibly have been a population of231,000 Hmong in 1985, as a U.N. funded and supervised population census established Compare Hamil ton-Merritt's previously published estimates of 500,000 Hmong in Laos in 1960 (approximately 350,000 more than any reliable source suggests, and this was at a time when the population of the entire nation did not come to 1.5 million) bfwhom "perhaps 70,000 are still alive" in 1980. 30 This figure of70,000 is patently impossible, considering that between 1980 and 1988 45,000 30. Jane Hamilton-Merritt, ''Gas Warfare in Laos: Communism's Drive to Annihilate a People," Reader sDigest, Oct. 1980. 59 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Hmong entered Thailand from Laos-at that rate there would be only 25,000 or so left in Laos, rather than 231,000! Note also that the present assertion is clearly based on Vang Pao's claim (cited by Hamilton-Merritt in previous articles) that "45,000 died from starvation and disease, or were shot trying to escape to Thailand," but now she has inserted that they were also ''tortured to death. "31 Elsewhere Hamilton-Merritt recounts that ''Yang Xeu an grily reported that somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 Hmong had died in the Phou Bia area ofLaos, many from CBW" (p. 448). With a typical population density of 9-14 per sons per square kilometer in mountainous rural areas ofnorthern Laos, a population of 50,000 persons would require an area of more than 4,000 square kilometers (more than 63 kilometers along each dimension), far vaster than the Phou Bia area itself. And there is no way that the Phou Bia area itself could have sustained a population ofthis size, especially since by Hamilton Merritt's account many were displaced persons and could not plant rice fields. Betrayed and Abandoned? The second half ofHamilton-Merritt's book centers on the author's notion that the U.S. government, motivated by its own domestic and international purposes, cynically betrayed and abandoned its former steadfast allies, the Hmong. Refighting the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War), Hamilton-Merritt pur sues the thesis that an "increasingly ... ' violent [!] antiwar movement" (p. 247) in the United States compelled the U.S. government to abandon South Vietnam and Laos even though we were winning (the hackneyed argument ''we won all the battles in Vietnam but lost the war in Washington and Berkeley"). Disingenuous Congressional peaceniks forced the administra tion to disavow its commitments to the Hmong (p. 225-29), and then cut off a naive and "inexperienced" Kissinger at the knees in his negotiations with the "intractable ... hard-core, strident" Vietnamese (p. 245). According to Hamilton-Merritt, Nixon cynically bought domestic peace by betraying Vietnam, Laos, and especially the Hmong. The second leg of Hamilton-Merritt's betrayal thesis holds that the U.S. government covered up evidence of CBW use by the Soviets in Laos (or at least pursued the issue in a dilatory manner) in an immoral and crass effort to push through bilateral Soviet-American arms control agreements (cf. the Storella in scription on p. 453). In this conspiratorial view, an opportunist cabal of American academics, the media, and careerist State Departnlent insiders made common cause with the Evil Empire to deny or ignore Soviet CBW use, so that it would not block bilateral arms-control accords. This is as close as Hamilton-Mer ritt ever approaches to identifying any possible motive for why, by her account, the interests of ''the Hmong" were cynically traded off for U.S. self-interest. However, the well-documented increase in U.S. CBW activity during this period is impossible to reconcile with 3 L By 1995 the numbers had gotten even fuzzier: since 1975 ''tens of thousands ofHmong have been killed or imprisoned in 'seminar camps'" (Jane Hamilton-Merritt, ''Refugees ofthe Secret War," New York Times. 24 June 1995, national edition, p. 15, emphasis added). Hamilton-Merritt's vision of a U.S. government hellbent on arms control and covering up Soviet-sponsored CBW use. A far more credible thesis holds that charges of Yellow Rain, widely promoted by the U.S. government in both domestic and international forums, were made precisely in order to gain public support and then Congressional authorization for the Reagan administration to push forward with the manufacture of new CBW weapons that had previously been abandoned by Nixon and later banned by Congress (and, concurrently, to delay or weaken bilateral accords with the Soviet Union). The carefully orchestrated Yellow Rain pUblicity campaign of fered the perfect pretext for U.S. rearmament (and for adoption of new types ofCBW). Clearly one's larger political perspec tive will determine which one takes as cause and which as effect: did Soviet use of CBW in Laos compel Reagan and Schultz to seek new U.S. CBW weapons out of necessity, or did their eagerness to push through new weaponry cause them to orchestrate a propaganda campaign? (Although the CBW charges first surfaced under the Carter administration, the fervent campaign of "atrocity propaganda" was only later the child of the Reagan administration.) Hamilton-Merritt, rather than engaging in any meaningful debate or in any way disputing these studies of Yellow Rain on accepted scholarly and scientific grounds, simply condemns them all anonymously and collectively. Among the most striking deficiencies of Hamilton-Mer ritt's book is her almost total disregard for virtually all previous scholarship. There are quite sizable bodies ofliterature on these topics, but Hamilton-Merritt studiously ignores any evidence that in any way undercuts her own arguments (she also over looks substantial evidence that could support her interpreta tions). This is not the place to detail this sizable literature but to question how a historical work written in 1992 could be isolated so thoroughly from all previous scholarship. Consider the allegations that Yellow Rain was used against the Hmong.32 32. See, among proponents of the Yellow Rain accusations, Sterling Seagrave, Yellow Rain: A Journey Through the Terror ofChemical Warfare (New York: M. Evans and Co., 1981); "Yellow Rain ": Hearing before the Subcommittee on Arms Control ... of the Committee on Foreign Relations. United States Senate . .. (Wash ington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982); Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan: Report to the Congress from Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig. Jr.. March 22. 1982. Special Report No. 98, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department Bureau of Public Affairs, 1982); and Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan: An Update; and Report from Secretary of State George P. Schultz. Special Report No. 104, (Washington, D.C., U.S. State Department, Bureau of Public Affairs, 1982). 60 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Jane Hamilton-Merritt says that one of the ways the United States betrayed and abandoned its former steadfast allies. the Hmong. was by covering up evidence ofchemical/biological warfare (CBW) carried out against the Hmong by the Lao PDR with Soviet support. Her allegations depend heavily on the testimony ofHmong who claim to have been the victims ofchemicals known colloquially as "Yellow Rain. . However, the material evidence that has been offered to support claims that Yellow Rain was used has been shown by scientists to be insufficient proof Many believe that much ofthe oral testimony resultedfrom coordinated efforts by Vang Pao and his allies to propagate the Yellow Rain allega tions. But even the most carefully gathered oral testimony is also flawed. since the alleged victims report widely divergent phenomena and results. One ofthese witnesses was the Hmongfarmer Ger Thong. shown above with secondary students in Ban Done Village in Vientiane Province. Ger Thong believes that his son and grandson died from Yellow Rain. but the effects and characteristics he reported are hard to ascribe to any known CBWagent. This photo is by and Jacqui Chagnon. and it is reprinted here with permission. There are lengthy, detailed discussions of this topic from the standpoint of chemistry, palynology, entomology, anthropol ogy, and political science. 33 These are published in reputable scientific journals, refereed by peer reviewers, carefully docu mented, and basically consistent in their conclusion that there remains no credible evidence that Yellow Rain was ever used against the Hmong. Note that nobody claims to have proved the negative-that Yellow Rain was not used-since that is beyond the ability of any scholar; but scholars and scientists of various political persuasions, nationalities, and disciplines agree that the only evidence offered to ''prove'' the use of Yellow Rain is inadequate to do so. Hamilton-Merritt, rather 61 than engaging in any meaningful debate or in any way disputing these studies on accepted scholarly and scien tific grounds, simply condemns them all anonymously and collectively. Not just ignoring her obligation as a historian to disclose the counterarguments and evidence that would qualify her own argument, Hamilton-Merritt actively mis represents the large body of existing literature through unsupported slurs and ad hominem attacks on its authors. Hamilton-Merritt refers on three occasions to CBW expert Matthew Meselson's "assertion that bees defecat ing in flight . . . caused the death of the Hmong . . . " (p. 455); "Meselson's announcement that bees defecating in flight had killed the Hmong ... "(p. 456); and "Mesel son . . . proposed that bees defecating in flight had killed these people [the Hmong, CambodiaIis, and Afghanis]" (p. 553). What Meselson himself said and wrote is indeed quite different from what she reports. Notably, Hamilton Merritt provides not a single reference to any primary source for any of the remarks she attributes to Meselson, despite the fact that he has published several lengthy articles on the topic over the years, in refereed scientific and academic journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and Foreign Policy.3' To be sure, she could hardly have provided a primary source for the statements she herself fabricated and imputed to him, but at least she has the obligation to offer citations to Meselson's several readily available articles, so that readers could then verify for themselves that what he actually said is nothing like what she claims. The third and fourth elements of the ''betrayed and abandoned" argument hold that recent U.S. policy is to ignore if not actively undermine Hmong resistance to the Lao government and to support the forced repatriation of 33. See, among other sources, "The Riddle of 'Yellow Rain,'" Southeast Asia Chronicle. no. 90 (1983); Grant Evans, The Yellow Rainmakers: Are Chemical Weapons Being Used in Southeast Asia? (London: Verso, 1983); Lois R. Ember, "Yel low Rain," Chemical and Engineering News. vol. 62, no. 2 (1984), pp. 8-34; Erik Guyot, ''The Case is Not Proved: 'Yel low Rain'; Charges of Soviet Use of Chemical Warfare," The Nation. vol. 239 (10 Nov. 1984), pp. 465ff.; Peter Pringle, "Political Science: How the Rush to Scientific Judgment on Yellow Rain Embarrassed Both U.S. Science and the U.S. Government," The Atlantic, vol. 256 (Oct. 1985), pp. 67 ff.; Elisa D. Harris, "Sverdlosk and Yellow Rain: Two Cases of Soviet Noncompliance?" International Security, vol. 11, no. 4 (1987), pp. 41-95; Howard Hu, Robert Cook-Deegan, and Asfandiar Shukri, ''The Use of Chemical Weapons: Conducting an Investigation Using Survey Epidemiology," Journal ofthe American Medical Association. vol. 262 (1989), pp. 640-43; Thomas N. Whiteside, "Annals of the Cold War: the Yellow-Rain Complex," New Yorker, 11 Feb. 1991, pp. 38-<>7, and 18 Feb. 1991, pp. 44-<>8; as well as sources cited in footnote 32 and elsewhere in this review. 34. Joan W. Nowicke and Matthew Meselson, "Yellow Rain-a Palynological Analysis," Nature. vol. 209 (17 May 1984), pp. 205-<>; Thomas D. Seeley, Joan W. Nowicke, Matthew Meselson, Jeanne Guillemin, and Pongthep Akratanakul, ''Yellow Rain," Scientific American. vol. 253, no. 3 (1985), pp. 128-37; and Julian Robinson, Jeanne Guillemin, and Matthew Meselson, ''Yellow Rain: The Story Collapses," Foreign Policy (fall 1987), pp. 100-17. BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Hmong refugees from Thailand to extreme danger-ifnot certain death-in Laos. Curiously, Hamilton-Merritt offers no conceiv able motive for these aspects of the betrayal, except a general implication that the State Department is so eager to pursue rapprochement with the Lao government (for some otherwise unexplained reason) that it is willing to do anything to ignore or obfuscate the plight ofthe Hmong. Hamilton-Merritt's conspira torial view of the world leads her to impute evil and insidious motives not just to the Pathet Lao, all Vietnamese, and the Evil Empire, but also to the U.S. State Department, the Washington Post, New York Times, the media in general, U.S. academia, everyone else who has ever written about Laos or the Hmong, anyone who opposes Yang Pao's terrorist bands, the Thai gov ernment, the United Nations, refugee relief organizations, and so on and so on. Not only are they all conspiring to exterminate the Hmong, they are also all out to silence Hamilton-Merritt or undercut her advocacy for Yang Pao. (It is hard tb believe that the entire betrayal and abandonment were done simply to frus trate Hamilton-Merritt, but reading her account one sometimes has the impression that the entire mechanism ofthe U.S. govern ment and mass media were mobilized for the primary purpose of undermining her advocacy for her Hmong friends.) As for the question of U.S. support for the armed resis tance to the Lao PDR, both national and international law compel the U.S. government to eschew violations of the terri torial integrity of another peaceful country and to suppress international terrorism. Indeed, the question should be not so much why has the U.S. "abandoned" the resistance, but why has the U.S. government been so unwilling to enforce the laws it is bound to uphold that would prevent some Hmong-Ameri cans from fmancially and in person supporting and engaging in terrorist acts against Lao civilians? Finally, how does Ham ilton-Merritt's conspiratorial thesis jibe with the longstanding pattern of "looking the other way" when the State Department, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Justice Depart ment have been faced with clear evidence of illegal acts by Hmong-Americans in Thailand (or in California and Minne sota) that should make them ineligible for permanent residence, U.S. citizenship, or passports and permits-to-reenter? 35 A corollary question would be to what extent the United States knowingly acquiesced in or actively encouraged the Lao resistance's strategic alliances and cooperation with the Khmer Rouge after they were ousted from Phnom Penh in 1979? 36 This latter cooperation curiously receives no mention from Hamilton Merritt, despite Yang Pao's documented involvement (nor, by the way, does she mention his trips to China to arrange training 35. See, among others, "Thailand Arrests Seven Lao Hmong on Insur gency Charge" Bangkok Post, 15 July 1992; Agence France Presse, "Lao-Americans Arrested in Thailand," 15 July 1992; Agence France Presse, "Laotian Rebel Leaders Deported to U.S.,"21 Oct. 1992; United Press International, "Laotian-Born Americans Deported from Thailand as Insurgents," 21 Oct. 1992; Reuter Library Report, ''Lao Warlord's Brother Deported from Thailand," 21 Oct. 1992; Bangkok Post, "De portees Suspected of Planning Raid into Laos," Bangkok Post, 21 Oct. 1992. It remains to be seen whether the new antiterrorism law of 1996 will be enforced against Hmong violators. 36. Geoffrey C. Gunn, ''Resistance Coalitions in Laos," Asian Survey, vol. 23, no. 3 (1983), pp. 328-32. and military support for his resistance bands). Hamilton-Merritt also neglects to mention threats and assaults by Yang Pao's supporters against Vue Mai and other rivals both in Thailand and the United States,37 the criminal corruption ofhis close associates in the United States,38 and other things that might make him less worthy of public sympathy. Nor does she mention the terrorist assaults he sponsors today against innocent Lao civilians, the massacres ofcivilian passengers on interurban buses in Laos, the torching of Lao villages that refuse to support him, and so on. 39 Interestingly, Hamilton-Merritt also makes no mention of the U.S. government's illegal efforts to channel private funds collected from Prisoners of War (pOW) I Missing in Action lobbying groups into the Lao resistance and Yang Pao's terrorist bands, as documented by the 1993 report of the congressional committee on POWIMIA matters under Senator John Kerry.40 Presumably, in light of her extensive contacts with many of the parties and players involved in these efforts, Hamilton-Merritt would long ago have had some inkling ofthis illegal use offunds (in violation ofthe Neutrality Act and other laws). Does she fail to mention this because it seriously undercuts her "betrayed and abandoned" theme? Or is it because such revelations would discredit Yang Pao or other ofher intelligence network friends? "Sensational Tales [That] Bear Little Resemblance to Truth"* The execrable quality ofHamilton-Merritt's Tragic Moun tains is all the more unfortunate because it is one of only a few books on the Hmong that are likely to make their way onto library bookshelves, or into the homes of Hmong-Americans. Presented with the trappings of scholarly apparatus giving it the veneer of a scholarly study, the book has great potential to deceive naive readers into mistakenly believing it to be a reliable work of research and interpretation. So we should not be sur *While discussing other unnamed recent books on Laos, Hamilton-Mer ritt comments that "some of these sensational tales bear little resem blance to truth" (p. xvii). 37. See, among others, Ruth Hammond, "Sad Suspicions ofa Refugee Ripoff; the Hmong are Paying to Free Laos-but What's Happening to the Money?" The Washington Post, 16 Apr. 1989, p. B1. 38. See Sonni Efron, "State Investigating Alleged Extortion by Laotian Agency; Refugees: Lao Family Community Inc. of Garden Grove Demanded Money for Revolutionary Group in Laos, New Arrivals Complain," Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, 19 Oct. 1990, p. A3, noting the conviction of Yang Pao's son-in-law for embezzle ment of public funds; James Leung, ''Laotian Aid Group Under Fire: The Organization is Suspected ofExtorting Money from Refugees," San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Nov. 1990, p. A2; Seth Mydans, "California Says Laos Refugee Group Is a Victim of Leadership's Extortion," New York Times, 7 Nov. 1990, p. A20. 39. See the U.S. Department of State, Country Report on Human Rights Practicesfor 1992 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department ofState, Senate Print 103-7, Feb. 1993), p. 603. 40. See the United States Senate, Report of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, United States Senate (Washington, D.C.: United States Senate, Senate Report 103-1, 13 Jan. 1993), pp. 303ff; Michael Ross, "Use ofPOW-MIA Groups in Covert Operations Alleged; Activ ists: Justice Dept. Urged to Probe Senate Charges that Aid was Funneled to Laotian Rebels," Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 1993, p. A16. 62 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org prised to find it cited as an authoritative source in the press and in recent publica tions.41 Hamilton-Merritt would pretend that there does not exist any reliable scholarship on Laos and the Hmong (p. xvii), but to do so requires that she ignore or deny a sizable body ofworks spanning a range of ideologi cal perspectives. Yet most readers (including especially young Hmong-Americans seek ing to understand the circumstances that have brought them to the United States) will likely turn to Hamilton-Merritt's fantastical account instead of ferreting out reliable scho larly studies. They will be poorly served by her book. Franklin Ng points out that his Hmong American college students in Fresno increas ingly rely on "printed English language sources to document their history." 42 Unfor tunately for them, Hamilton-Merritt's book is likely to be found in libraries with much greater frequency than such serious studies as Nicholas Tapp's Sovereignty and Rebel lion, which offers a comparative perspective on the Hmong in Thailand, or Lynellen Long's account of Hmong in the Ban Vinai refugee camp.43 A search ofthe OCLC library database, for example, shows that as ofMay 1996 Tragic Mountains is held by 845 librar ies, Tapp by 186, and Long by 205. Ofrecent works similarto Hamilton-Merritt's and c o n ~ cerned primarily with the involvement of Hmong in the Second Indochina War, only Roger Warner's BackFire comes close at 608 libraries, with Timothy Castle's historical monograph held by only 337, Kenneth Con- boy and James Morrison's military history by 121, and James Parker's memoirs by 149. 44 It can only be expected, then, that "Hmong students [who] are drawing from external sources, in some cases fragments, distortions, or mediated versions of their oral traditions" 45 will glom onto Hamilton-Merritt's book. It is all the more regrettable that Tragic Mountains propagates a view of Hmong history that glorifies and reinforces the authority of an older generation of Hmong whose leadership poorly serves the community at large and especially its younger members. In its own way, though, Tragic Mountains offers more than enough weaknesses and vulnerabilities to ensure its own easy discrediting. There is potentially a case to be made, from a politically conservative perspective like Hamilton-Merritt's, that those Hmong who allied with the United States during the Second 41. See, for instance, Sucheng.chan., ed., Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994). 42. Franklin Ng, "Towards a Second Generation Hmong History," Amerasia Journal, vol. 19, no. 3 (1993), p. 55. 43. Nicholas Tapp, Sovereignty and Rebellion: The White Hmong of Northern Thailand (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Lynel len D. Long, Ban Vinai: the Refogee Camp (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). According to the u.s. census, by 1990 there were more than 90,000 Hmong in the United States. By 1994 the parents in this resettled Hmongfamily shown above in Seattle in 1984 were both working and owned their home and a rental property. They also had one more son, and their oldest son was in college. Hmong growing up in the United States are increasingly turning to English-language sources to document and understand their histo ries. It is regrettable that Hmong children ofthis and later generations are more likely to find Hamilton-Merritt'sjlawed book in libraries and homes than other more accurate and balanced accounts ofthe Hmong. This photo is by and courtesy of Nancy D. Donnelly, and it is from her Changing Lives of Refugee Hmong Women (Seattle, WA; and London: University ofWashington Press, 1994). Indochina War were to a very large extent pawns in the hands of U.S. policy-makers, and that after 1975 many of them suffered harsh retribution from the victorious Lao PDR. Adherents ofsuch an interpretation may well take self-satisfied comfort in Hamil ton-Merritt's account, and naive readers may well be fooled by it in their ignorance, but any critical reader cannot help but notice the flimsiness of her arguments and the fallacies in her method. Just as she has given any careful reader more than enough evidence to prove her own ineptness as a scholar, Hamilton-Mer ritt has inadvertently provided the words for a capsule review of her own book: it is no more than "rumor, innuendo, propaganda, and disinformation" (p. xv), no matter how much it pretends to be a work of scholarship. 44. Roger Warner, Back Fire: the CIA's Secret War in Laos and its Link to the War in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995); Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam; Kenneth J. Conboy and James Morrison, Shadow War: the CIA's Secret War in Laos (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1995); James E. Parker, Codename Mule: Fighting the Secret War in Laosfor the CIA (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995). For more on these books, see the next page of this issue of the Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars. 45. Ng, "Second Generation Hmong History," p. 63. 63 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Recent Works on the "Secret War in Laos" Timothy N. Castle, At War in the Shadow of Viet nam: u.s. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Govern ment, 1955-1975. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 210 pp. Hard cover, $47.50; paper, $15.00. Kenneth Conboy with James Morrison, Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1995, illus., 453 pp. Hard cover, $49.95. James E. Parker, Jr., Codename Mule: Fighting the Secret War in Laos for the CIA. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995, illus., 193 pp. Hard cover, $49.95. Roger Warner, Back Fire: The CM's Secret War in Laos and its Link to the War in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995, illus., 416 pp. Hard cover, $25.00. The warfare that consumed Laos from 1945 to 1975 "really was not all that secret, "historian William Leary points out in his foreword to Codename Mule (p. xiv), although the words "secret war in Laos" have a mantra-like appeal to publishers and authors, evinced by the titles above. Comple menting Hamilton-Merritt's Tragic Mountains are four other recent works, each of which approaches the war years in its own way, although only Hamilton-Merritt gives lengthy cov erage to the postwar years. Timothy Castle's historical study, expanded from a 1991 doctoral dissertation and drawing upon exhaustive documen tary and interview research, concentrates on questions of military and diplomatic policy, tracing the various forms of military assistance (both overt and covert) provided by the United States to the Royal Lao Government and the structures established to administer that assistance. The most scholarly of all of these works, the book devotes a third of its pages to scrupulously detailed notes, references, and bibliographies. Sharing with the other authors a strong antipathy for the Pathet Lao and sympathy for those Hmong allied with the United States, Castle nevertheless provides the best available overview ofU.S. diplomatic and military objectives, accom plishments, and failures during the entire span of years be tween France's resumption of colonial control over Laos in 1945 and fmal independence in 1975 (a longer time span than similar but earlier works such as those by Bernard Fall, Arthur J. Dommen, or Charles A. Stevenson). Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison provide military history of a different sort: blow-by-blow, battalion-by-battal ion, acronym-by-acronym accounts that are often ing in their minutiae and detail. Also based on exhaustIve research the book is nevertheless virtually undocumented, with no bibliography or list ofinterviews, and only occasional attributions or citations in endnotes. This sparse documenta tion is especially regrettable because Conboy and Morrison's study provides a more comprehensive and at the same time more detailed account of the multiple actors and groups involved than any other source. Thus make it unmistak ably clear, for instance, that ethnic groups other than Yang Pao's Hmong were in the thick of things at every stage ofthe conflict, and they provide an important body of concrete detail on incidents and individuals that is otherwise unavail able. Codename Mule is not military history but military memoir, by a former CIA case officer involved in the Laotian conflict from late 1971 to the end of 1973. It shares with Hamilton-Merritt's book a perspective ofHmong-cen tricity that renders the low land Lao and other ethnic groups invisible on the U.S.-Royal Lao Government side, and demonizes the opposing forces as all ''North Vietnamese" interlopers rather than Laotians. And like Hamilton-Mer ritt, James Parker delights in war stories, the hijinks ofCIA personnel, and the exploits of Hmong soldiers. But as a primary document the book provides an evocative and sometimes chilling account ofthe attitudes and motivations of the personnel involved in implementing U.S. policy on the ground and in the skies over Laos. Warner's Back Fire offers the broadest scope and greatest accessibility ofall the works discussed here, draw ing extensively from the files and correspondence ofEdgar "Pop" Buell and interviews with key actors such as Buell, Bill Lair, William Colby, Jerry Daniels, Charles Weldon, Yang Pao, and many others. Sources are cited and docu mented, albeit in journalistic format rather than scholarly notes; and there is no consolidated bibliography. Warner's account extends from the policy level ofembassy meetings, cable traffic, and internal CIA debates to the concrete level of battlefield engagements. Alone of the works here, War ner gives consideration to the larger political debates in Washington and the international media, and to the role of antiwar activists (Fred Branfman in particular) in stopping the bloodshed. Castle points out the substantial barriers obstructing fuller knowledge of the events and decisions covered by these books: "resistance to declassification of materials dealing with U.S. military involvement in Laos has come primarily from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of State" (p. xi). Should such materials finally come to light, perhaps they will answer some of the ques tions raised by the present books and their predecessors. But what is also vitally needed is a mbre demanding set of questions, posed by authors willing to go beyond hagiog raphy and nostalgic war stories to write critical biographies and analyses, to go beyond Hmong-centric accounts to understand the ethnic complexities of Laos, and to go beyond the retrospective myth making of Vang Pao-and his U.S. patrons seeking self-vindication-to acknowledge the fundamental misunderstandings that guided U.S. policy from its outset. * 64 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org