Continuing from the previous article, "Miao outside the Miao" XI: In order to withdraw the troops decently, the Miao armed forces cooperate with the US military to stage the end of the road madness."
The Vietnam War actually had three battlefields. The first battlefield is in Vietnam, the second battlefield is Laos engaged in "secret war", and the third battlefield is in Cambodia and other neighboring countries. When the United States completely failed in the first battlefield, the defeat of the second and third battlefields was also an inevitable outcome. The defeat of the United States in Laos determined that the Hmong mercenaries entered an era of misery and flight.
1. Bathallao took charge of the Laotian state power, and Wang Bao fled to Thailand.
The Vietnam War was a permanent nightmare for the United States, and the U.S. government paid a huge price for it. U.S. military aid to the Saigon regime during the Vietnam War averaged $1 billion a year, while the U.S. spent the entire war on between $112 billion and $155 billion, equivalent to 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product that year. The United States lost 2,477 servicemen in the war, and 58,193 American servicemen died.
The Sunken Wall structure in Washington, D.C., is a Memorial to the Vietnam War, the American "Wailing Wall," inscribed with the names of soldiers who died in the Vietnam War
Vietnam is almost scorched and full of bullet marks. According to incomplete statistics, at least 3.2 million Vietnamese died in the war, of which more than 2 million were civilians. The heavy use of plant killers in Vietnam by the United States has caused congenital disabilities in about 50,000 Vietnamese children, permanent destruction of Mangrove Forests in Vietnam, and extinction of more than a dozen species of birds.
On the Battlefield in Vietnam, the U.S. military used a variety of leaf litters in order to make the leaves fall out, causing chemical pollution, which endangered more than 4 million people in Vietnam
More than 50,000 South Korean, Australian and Thai soldiers who fought alongside the Americans in Vietnam were killed. But almost no one in the United States recounts the experiences of these victims.
South Korean actors went to Vietnam to comfort the U.S. military, which is the kind of poor situation that Russia says is not an independent country
On July 23, 1970, Kissinger assigned the task of peacefully resolving the Laos issue to the National Security Council at Nixon's request. On August 6, the National Security Research Memorandum, which is responsible for the study of the issue, was completed, document NSSM96. The document was sent to the Vice Minister of Defense, assistant secretary of state, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, director of the CIA, and other senior officials for review on August 20. The document provides the United States with three options for peace talks: negative negotiations, active negotiations and effective negotiations. Negative negotiations mean not responding explicitly to peace talks, but only minimizing the negative impact of the Lao Patriotic Front's peace talks efforts on the United States and South Vietnam; Active negotiation refers to finding terms of peace talks that are acceptable to both the South Vietnamese and Lao Patriotic Fronts without changing the current military plan; Effective negotiations were to persuade South Vietnam to respond by withdrawing some military operation or a military plan being implemented, so that reconciliation could be reached. The Nixon administration chose the strategy of winning victory on the battlefield and then engaging in peace negotiations.
In order to curb north Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam, the United States launched Operation Lambson 719 in February 1971, launching a deadly air strike on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Nixon was eager to get the Communist forces to bow their heads at the negotiating table by doing so, but the outcome of the campaign left the president frustrated. Nixon reflected on this in his memoirs: "The strong resistance of the communist forces was beyond our expectations, and the U.S. command in Saigon failed to respond to this unexpectedly fierce level of combat and correspondingly increase the necessary air cover for the attacking forces." As a result, the South Vietnamese puppet army suffered heavy casualties." The U.S. plan to "Vietnamize" the war against Vietnam proved to be unworkable.
The U.S. invasion of Laos, the tragic images of the battlefield were transmitted to thousands of households in the United States through television, such as "the children of Laos in their teens put on military uniforms that were too big for them and died on the battlefield." Thousands of orphans have been devastated by war, left naked, and wandered all year round," which provoked larger anti-war demonstrations in the United States in April and May 1971.
Locations bombed by U.S. forces during the "secret war" in Laos
The Nixon administration used a large number of armed military police and hordes of military helicopters to suppress the demonstrators and threw tear gas at the demonstrators. Severe anti-war pressure at home forced the United States to take a disguised invasion of Laos, that is, the Nixon administration had to use Wang Bao's army, which was not as effective as before, and a large number of Thai irregular troops to cooperate with the Lao Army and fight against the armed strength of the Lao Communist Party. The United States secretly provided weapons and logistics supplies, and secretly planned and directed the battle through the CIA. But the eventual defeat of the Lao Kingdom's army and Wang Bao's armed forces on the battlefield was already an inevitable consequence.
On 18 December 1971, Bat Lao launched a new all-out offensive against Lao government forces, which made rapid progress. In a memorandum to Nixon dated January 17, 1972, Kissinger argued that the operation had been carefully planned by North Vietnam before President Nixon's visit to China to maximize its political and geographical superiority in Indochina, and that in order to ensure the desired results, North Vietnam had invested a great deal of strength in support of Bat Liao, and that the situation on the battlefield was very unfavorable to the Non-Communist forces. To this end, the United States should put aside its concerns and spare no effort to carry out military strikes, even if it leads to the escalation of the war. Nixon took Kissinger's advice, and the war on the Laotian battlefield became increasingly brutal.
In October 1972, the United States and North Vietnam resumed the Paris peace talks, and the domestic war in Laos began to ease, creating conditions for peace negotiations between the Royal Government of Laos and the Lao Patriotic Front. On January 27, 1973, the United States and Vietnam formally signed the Paris Peace Agreement, which accelerated the introduction of the Laos Peace Agreement. In order to complete the withdrawal from Indochina, in early February, US Vice President Spiro Agnew, Secretary of State Kissinger, former Laotian Ambassador Sullivan and others arrived in Vientiane to persuade Prime Minister Sofana to make concessions and sign the Laos Peace Agreement as soon as possible.
On 21 February, the Sophia government finally gave up its resistance and reached the Agreement on the Restoration of Peace and National Harmony in Laos, known as the Laos Agreement, with representatives of the Lao Patriotic Front in Vientiane, stipulating that within 30 days of the signing of the agreement, a provisional coalition government and a joint national political committee should be established to negotiate as soon as possible to end the war and protect lasting peace.
Subsequently, there were many armed clashes between the two sides in violation of the ceasefire agreement, and the Lao Patriotic Front forces gradually gained the upper hand. Prime Minister Sofana took the initiative to make appropriate concessions, abandoning the demand that the Provisional Government be dominated by the Vientiane authorities and agreeing to the negotiation of a government jointly under equal conditions, with the former National Assembly giving way to the Provisional Government.
On August 20, Tao Ma, a former Laotian air force general who had been exiled to Thailand under Fumi Nosawan, gathered 60 rebels to stage a coup d'état and raided The Airport in an attempt to overthrow the Sophina government and seize power in Laos. The military coup was soon dismantled, with the T-28 plane piloted by Tao Ma forced to land, and the coup d'état was immediately arrested and summarily executed. The failure of this military coup warned the Laotian right not to undermine peace and reunification.
In the month that followed, the Royal Lao Government and the Lao Patriotic Front made concessions to each other and finally agreed on the formation of a new government. Negotiators from both sides jointly signed the Lao Protocol in Vientiane on 14 September 1973, the main elements of which include the peace and neutrality of vientiane and Luang Prabang; Jointly form a new national political advisory committee; Joint allocation of cabinet seats on an equal basis; Each minister in the government is assigned a deputy minister from the other member to form a check on power. At this point, the large-scale armed conflict in Laos has temporarily stopped.
Under the Paris and Laos Agreements, the United States is required to gradually withdraw its military forces in Laos within the stipulated dates. At this time, there were still 16,000 Thai special guerrillas with 30 battalions in Laos, who played a crucial role in the confrontation between the Royal Government of Laos and the Lao Patriotic Front. According to the regulations, the Thai army also needs to complete the full withdrawal of troops as planned.
Traces of craters on Lao soil are clearly visible
In June 1973, the U.S. Congress rejected continued appropriations after August 15 to "directly or indirectly support combat activities of U.S. forces in Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam," and aerial reconnaissance was banned. As a result, the U.S. military operation in Laos can only once again pin hope on Wang Bao's army with the support of the CIA. As the Communist Party grew stronger in Laos, the Lao people were more inclined to support and support Prince Sofanuphon.
On July 12, 1974, Prime Minister Sophana had a heart attack and flew to France for treatment on the 25th, leaving the Laos rightists leaderless. In December, the Lao Yao tribes rebelled, demanding peace and repealing the opium ban. The economic situation in Laos has deteriorated, and the domestic political situation has gradually descended into chaos and turmoil.
On August 8, 1974, President Nixon was forced to resign due to the Watergate scandal, and Vice President Gerald Rudolph Ford took over as president. The Ford government's aid to Laos has shrunk dramatically, and the Lao authorities are in economic trouble. On February 24, 1975, Sophia returned to China and took extreme measures to severely suppress the marching people, which aroused the anger of the Lao people. In order to effectively prevent the situation in Laos from deteriorating further, the Lao People's Revolutionary Party decided to take this opportunity to launch a counterattack against the conservative and reactionary Lao right-wing forces and seize the Laotian regime in an all-round way. On 5 May, the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party issued a call for a nationwide strategic offensive.
In the face of the strong fighting forces of the Lao People's Revolutionary Army, the remnants of Wang Bao were vulnerable, and on May 11 the Hmong army was severely damaged. Wang Bao asked the United States for help, asking the Ford government to help him, focusing on ensuring the safe evacuation of the main leaders of the army and their families. As a result, the CIA aircraft group at Udon Thani Airport in Thailand undertook the rescue mission. With the help of the United States, Wang Bao and his main generals fled the capital Vientiane to Thailand on May 14. When the remnants of Wang Bao learned that the leader of the troops had fled, the Miao army disbanded itself and fled in despair.
On 23 August, the Lao Revolutionary Committee successfully took over the vientiane government, and Pratiliao completed control over local power in the major lao towns. Subsequently, the representative of the Lao Communist Party, Khaisan Phung Wai Khan, declared in a public speech that "the revolution will be carried through to the end" As a result, the Domestic Political Advisory Committee began a screening process to ban and arrest members of the government who did not support the lao patriotic front forces. On 26 November, demonstrators demanded the dissolution of the provisional coalition government and demanded that national elections be held in accordance with democratic procedures. The next day, Sophia and Suffanuwon flew to Luang Prabang to persuade King Sissawan Wadana to abdicate.
On December 1, the Lao National People's Congress was successfully held in Vientiane, which lasted for two days, and Sufanuphon was elected chairman of the presidium of the national congress. At the meeting, Suffanupong announced the dissolution of the Provisional Coalition Government and the National Political Consultative Council, the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. So far, Laos has truly achieved national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, diplomatic autonomy and national autonomy.
In 2016, Oba President Ma took a photo with the members of the dud removal team in Laos and smiled so happily
My articles are often copied by a certain website, I only publish articles in "today's headlines", and I see this article on other websites as theft, and hereby declare.
Second, the Hmong mercenaries were settled after the war and fled tragically in extremely difficult circumstances.
In the secret war against Laos, in order to reduce its own casualties, the United States secretly hired the Miao army led by Wang Bao through the CIA, making it an agent in Laos and killing with the Lao people. At the end of the war, the U.S. military, concerned only for its own safety, decisively abandoned the Hmong army of their allies.
The United States engaged in a clandestine war in Laos in a serious violation of the 1962 Geneva Accords. In order to ostensibly guarantee compliance with the promise of lao neutrality, the United States maintained a high degree of secrecy about the matter. Therefore, the fact that the Hmong army in Laos gave life to the Americans has long been kept secret by the US government. This also brought bitter consequences to these Hmong people later: they worked for americans, but no one knew for a long time, and they could not get the compensation they deserved from the United States.
In this regard, the former Laotian ambassador Godley once commented: "This is a dirty deal, and the final result of the Laotian war has become a permanent stain on the good reputation of the United States." Since then, the United States has been deeply branded as a "war monger" who disregards humanity, loses principles, and is mercenary.
The remnants of the defeated Wang Bao Miao knelt down and begged foreign journalists to take them out of Laos
Let's look back at the embarrassing experiences of these Lao Hmong fleeing for americans.
During the war, the United States pledged allegiance to Wang Bao's Hmong troops, and in addition to providing them with food and medicine, they also transported opium to them. American Airlines, along with Continental Air Services (CAS) and Lao Development Airlines, transported Hmong-grown opium from Longjin (Longjin) to Vientiane, where the drugs were transshipped to Saigon. The cost of drugs in the Golden Triangle region has fallen to its lowest level ever due to the use of modern means of transport, and those engaged in the international opium trade have made huge profits. After 1970, with the gradual withdrawal of American troops, lao Hmong troops became more and more disadvantaged in the war, and more demoralized Hmong soldiers began to become addicted to drugs and use heroin.
In February 1974, the United States said it would stop the so-called "aid" to Laos, and the last CIA personnel withdrew from Laos.
During many years of fighting with Batliao, Wang Bao's Miao troops suffered heavy losses. Between 1968 and 1977, 3,772 of the 40,000-strong Miao army were killed and 5,426 wounded. In the last seven years of the battle, 70% of Hmong recruits were only teenagers aged 10 to 16.
The following introduction is mostly from the Western description, because the Western habit of wearing colored glasses for reporting, selectively let us know the truth of the event, we need to understand these materials critically.
After Seizing state power, Bat Liao began liquidating the Hmong who had fought with them, accusing them of being CIA mercenaries during the secret war in Laos. Under high pressure, the Hmong began to leave their villages together as a family and flee across the border to Thailand. Bat liao ambushed them on the road, destroyed roads, and sent them back to remote villages as prisoners of war to stop the Hmong from fleeing. Only about 1/3 of the Hmong who fled broke through the risk of disease, starvation and death, successfully crossed the Mekong River and fled to Thailand in search of a safe place to live.
It is said that there are labor camps in Laos against these Hmong people, and those who are arrested never return. The term "labor camp" has become a special term for smear in the West, and the West has been promoting this tune for many years. There have also been many assassinations in Hmong villages, with some being assassinated at home or on their way to the fields.
Of course, the remnants of Wang Bao's Miao army and his family should be the group of people who have the worst life. Vietnam was involved in reprisals and massacres against these Laotian Hmong.
The veracity of the massacre is a sensitive topic. First of all, the information I excerpted here comes from authoritative media and has certain reference value; Secondly, after Ho Chi Minh's death and after reunification, Vietnam began to oppose China and expel China on a large scale, killing many overseas Chinese is also an indisputable fact, and it is not an empty case to say that Vietnam caused massacres in Laos. History is history. Just because we have generally normalized State-to-State relations with our neighbours today, we cannot deliberately ignore some historical facts and give the false impression that there has been no friction in history.
On April 14, 1981, the People's Daily published an excerpt by Ding Chuanying from a report by the Bangkok Daily entitled "A Genocide Massacre", which said:
"With the end of the Vietnam War and the full control of Laos in Hanoi, the Vietnamese began a terrible genocidal massacre against the Hmong, using poison gases and chemicals provided by Russia. In the Tobisan region alone, an estimated 50,000 Hmong people died.
"Some Hmong survivors have told the story of the Vietnamese who created famine, raped and killed women, destroyed children and carried out massacres. The most frightening thing is what they call 'rain', 'gas' or 'smoke', because they cannot escape these chemical agents that poison people, water, livestock, plants and fields.
"When people touch the 'rain' directly, the blood spurts directly out of the nose, and at the same time spits out and pours out a large amount of blood, and the victim falls to the ground and rolls over, then dies.
"A Hmong farmer in his 40s said: 'For two years, they attacked the area where we lived, many people died, planes cast red smoke over our heads, people and animals died.' We can't grow rice, we can't do farm work, we have to hide in caves. ’
Another Hmong who fled to Thailand said: "They gassed us for 3 days, 75 people died on the spot, 500 fell ill, and most of them died in a short period of time. Soon after a person dies, yellow water flows from his body. For 3 years, we were constantly attacked by poison gas. In areas where poison gas is emitted, if you eat the plants there, or drink the water there, you will bleed and die. People were so hungry that they had to eat poisoned leaves, and as a result, 715 people in our region had died since 1980. ’
"In January 1980, during a visit to Thailand, this reporter met with a man who had just escaped from a concentration camp set up by Vietnam in Laos, and he recounted another act of terror: drug experiments and the use of chemicals on imprisoned Hmong men, women and children.
"'In November 1978, a 3,500 Vietnamese force captured about 1,200 Hmong men, women and children (including myself) in the jungle. We were taken to a camp called Tongmian, where there were about 2,000 Hmong people.
"'On March 25, 1979, two MiG jets swirled low over the camp. Then it sprayed white rain on us, and 100 people died immediately, and others had diarrhea for more than 20 days and then a fever. We couldn't walk, we couldn't even lift our arms, and a lot of people died.
"'In May, 4 doctors injected a colored water into the arms of 30 Hmong people, and I was also injected, and I immediately became dizzy and couldn't breathe. Blood spurted out of his nose and he fell to the ground unconscious.
"'The next day, 4 more doctors came. This time, 40 victims who were gassed were injected and given pills. After 12 hours, they couldn't see clearly, couldn't speak, and fainted. 15 people died. The doctor wrote a report on the reactions of the people who took the drugs. ’
In the winter of 1979, the U.S. Army Medical Director sent a delegation to Thailand to investigate the gas delivery. The delegation met with 40 men, 2 women and a 12-year-old girl, all witnesses and survivors of the poison gassing in Laos. In a report, the delegation concluded that 'chemical agents have been used against the Hmong, and judging from the effects produced in these agents, it may be that nerve agents and a mixture of unknown composition have been used. ”
The above reports also have the implication that the United States innuendo the Soviet Union, the supporter behind Vietnam, conducted biological and chemical weapons experiments. Isn't it funny to think of Russia's revelations today about the massive construction of biochemical laboratories in Ukraine by the United States? For the two superpowers, who is qualified to stand on the moral high ground to criticize each other?
In order to verify whether such reports are objective, I found a report in the 4th edition of the Reference News on April 12, 1981, for your reference.
"Reference News" reported on April 12, 1981, 4th edition
Third, the displaced Hmong people are exiled from Thailand's "refugee camps" to third countries and disperse all over the world.
After the Lao Hmong fled to Thailand, they first lived in "refugee camps". Since May 1975, The Hmong and Taydan, Yao, Kemu and other Lao mountain people have arrived in Thai refugee camps. Thailand has established a number of "refugee camps" in the territory to host Laotian fugitives. Nam Phong was the first Hmong refugee centre, formerly a military camp surrounded by barbed wire, in an isolated, isolated area in the forests of northeastern Thailand. The camp was officially opened in October 1975 and some 12,500 refugees had been sheltered by the end of the same year. In early 1976, the centre moved to Avi Ne, a border mountainous area near Laos.
Life in thailand's "refugee camps" is tough. In the hard life, many Miao people died, and funerals were held every day in the camp during the most difficult times. One Hmong woman who emigrated to the United States said she had lived in a "refugee camp" for eight years, making a living by doing needlework and selling handicrafts. Initially, some Lao anti-government organizations and some people with U.S. passports vigorously encouraged the people of the "refugee camps" to "fight back to Laos and regain land", but with the normalization of relations between Thailand and Laos, Thailand is no longer allowed to use "refugee camp" personnel to engage in activities against the Lao government.
In June 1991, representatives of the governments of Thailand and Laos, together with UNHCR officials, signed an agreement to resettle refugees in phases with a view to closing the "camps" in 1994. Under this agreement, refugees in "camps" must choose between returning to Laos and emigrating to a third country. Thailand's last "refugee camp" was closed in 2004, leaving tens of thousands of Miao people who did not choose to return to Laos or be accepted by a third country on the streets of Thailand.
At the end of 1975, in accordance with the Indochina Immigration and Refugee Assistance Ordinance of 1975 signed by UNHCR and the Thai government, about 150 Hmong families totaling 750 people, mainly Wang Bao and military officers and their families, were the first to leave the Thai refugee camps to immigrate to the United States. But the emigration of Lao refugees to the United States was initially difficult. The U.S. government initially approved only Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States, and there was a fierce debate in the U.S. Congress over whether to admit Laotian Hmong refugees. Some Americans who are aware of the "secret war" in Laos, especially those who have fought side by side with or worked together with the Hmong in Laos, have used various occasions to appeal to the Lao Hmong refugees, demanding that the United States Government fulfill its promise when it first hired the Lao Hmong army, accept these refugees to the United States and properly resettle them. Later, some Laotian Hmong refugees were able to gradually immigrate to the United States.
For about 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, about 100,000 Lao Hmong refugees emigrated to the United States. After all, these people were reluctant to be accepted by the United States, and when they arrived in the United States, they were resettled in urban areas with lack of infrastructure and underdeveloped economy, living with local blacks. The Hmong, like the black and brown races, were ostracized and discriminated against by the white population, and Wang Bao himself was powerless in the face of this situation. Since April 1, 1996, the U.S. government has stopped issuing immigrant visas to Lao Hmong refugees.
Laotian Hmong refugees who immigrated to the United States later made secondary migrations within the United States, most of them moving to California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Some Hmong have struggled to achieve something in the United States, but it is difficult to draw conclusions if they have been integrated into American society. In the United States, the enrollment rate of Hmong students is only 39%, which means that most Hmong people in the United States can only struggle at the bottom of society for the rest of their lives.
Among the four violent law enforcement police officers involved in the 2020 kneeling killing of black George Floyd, one Asian policeman is a descendant of the Hmong who migrated to the United States that year
The Hmong have traveled thousands of miles to the United States, and their material culture, way of life, socio-religious organization, and political leadership model have undergone tremendous changes. In the United States, they no longer engage in slash-and-burn production, and clans can no longer control the right to use land or influence the relocation of clan members. Three-quarters of the Hmong survive on financial support or on social welfare. In this way, the traditional life and cultural environment of the Hmong people who immigrated to the United States have been destroyed, the traditional cultural inheritance of the Miao people has been broken here in the younger generation, and the gradual disappearance of traditional Hmong culture in modern Western culture is an inevitable trend, and no amount of hard work can change this social trend.
Reference News, April 22, 1981, 4th edition
Thanks to the efforts of the United Nations, more than a dozen countries, including China, have accepted migrants from Laotian Hmong refugees in "refugee camps" in Thailand. According to the research of American Hmong scholars, in the 1970s, there were about 300,000 Miao people in Laos, and after 1975, about half of the Miao people left Laos, and these people were later scattered around the world: the United States received 80,000 to 90,000 Lao Hmong refugees, France received about 110,000, French Guiana received 0.3 million, Germany received 0.15 million, Canada received 0.12 million, Argentina received 0.1 million, and Australia received 0.2 million.
By 2005, the world's Hmong population was about 11.4 million. Among them, about 9.6 million people in China, 850,000 people in Vietnam, 360,000 people in Laos, 160,000 people in Thailand, 40,000 people in Myanmar, 280,000 people in the United States, 17,000 people in France, 0.8 million people in Guyana, 0.12 million people in Germany, 0.3 million people in Argentina, 0.15 million people in Canada, 0.4 million people in Australia, 0.07 million people in New Zealand, and about 20,000 people in Cambodia.
The lives of the Hmong people who supported Pak Laos and did not leave Laos were normal. Many young people in Laos have received higher education and entered Lao governments at all levels of government or various social labor positions, and some Hmong have become leaders. They also maintained quite a bit of traditional Hmong culture.
According to the China Statistical Yearbook-2021, the miao population in China is 11067929, and the best-developed Miao in the world is the Miao people in China.
To be continued.