The Hmong hill tribe in Laos was recruited in 1961 by the CIA, to fight a “Secret War” against the Communists of North Vietnam. Their job was to try to block the Vietcong’s supply route.Known as the “Ho Chi Minh trail”, it ran through Laos, along the border with Vietnam. More than 40,000 Hmong were killed in the fighting that followed.
When the US fled Saigon in 1975, Communists also seized control of Laos.
The Hmong, abandoned by the US, allegedly became the target of retaliation and persecution.
This marked the beginning of the mass exodus of Hmong refugees into Thailand, which eventually swelled to more than 300,000.
Words above and video below reported by AlJazeeraEnglish
Part 1
Part 2
The Hmong Indigenous People in Laos are born free and entitled to their human fundamental freedom and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized by The United Nations and International Human Rights Law. In addition, they are also entitled to and shall be protected by the Declaration on Indigenous People’s Rights adopted by United Nations on the 13 of Semptember 2007. The Hmong Indigenous People in Laos or any where else have every right to life, they we do not have to get on our knees begging for our rights that we are entitled to and born with. Shame on the Laotian Government for directly genociding the Hmong Indigenous People in Laos; shame on the Vietnamese Government that helping and participating in this crime of genocide toward the Hmong Indigenous People; shame on Thai Government that agreed with Laotian Government to participate with the crime of genocide, war crime, and crime against humanity (reffering to General Napit Thonglek March 1, 2008). Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam are all guilty for this crime accordingly to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, article II and III.
Vue
Dear Author,
Your facts are totally incorrect. The Hmong WERE NOT RECRUITED TO IMPEDE THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL!
The Hmong were recruited to defend their mountainous homeland in NORTHERN LAOS, and which in general was around the Plaines Des Jarres, PDJ.
Get yourself out a map of Laos.
The PDJ and the Ho Chi Minh Trail are not even remotely related. The Ho Chi Minh Trail penetrated Laos through the Mu Gia Pass in Southern Laos . . . and while there were hill tribes in that area . . . THEY WERE NOT HMONG.
The Hmong were recruited by the CIA to divert as many North Vietnamese military personnel as possible from being used in South Vietnam against friendly forces fighing there.
It continues to amaze me how only forty-odd years after the Secret CIA War in Laos, you modern revisionists have such a poor knowledge of the people and landscape of Laos.
And then you show your ignorance, or your leanings, by trying to tie the CIA support of our Hmong allies with an unrelated action along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The war efforts by the Hmong around the PDJ and the Royal Lao Air Force and the United States air assets used against the Ho Chi Minh Trail were TWO ENTIRELY SEPARATE MILITARY ACTIONS.
It is disgusting to have you modern revisionists and apologists get your informational facts so misconstrued. I get the impression that your ignorance is intended, not accidental.
Stop lying about why and what the CIA did in the Secret War in Laos. . . they have enough to apologize for without you dummies putting them on the wrong battle fields with the wrong ethnic troops.
Albert D. Shinkle
L/Colonel, USAF (ret.)
Laos: Jul 64: With Thai Air Force T-28 pilots assisting the Hmong around the PDJ.
Laos: Oct 64 – Aug 66: With the Royal Laos Air Force at Savannakhet attacking Ho Chi Minh Trail targets. . . and no Hmong troops involved.
Al: Thanks very much for your written response. Agree. Please get in touch with me if you care to reminisce about Det 5 days. Post Office Box 1477, Golden, CO 80402-1477. Kindest regards, Hap
Al: Thanks very much for your written response. Agree with you about the valiant contributions of our Hmmong allies. Please get in touch with me if you care to reminisce about Det 5 days. Post Office Box 1477, Golden, CO 80402-1477. Kindest regards, Hap
Albert Shinkle, i appreciate and would like to thank you for your comments. I do not know much about the Hmmong and i thank you for enlightening me further. I merely posted this video because it looked like an interesting situation/subject. i appologize for offending you, but i assure you my ignorance on the subject is purely that. the words and video are not my own, just something i came across on youtube that looked interesting.
The Light Colonel (USAF retired) Al Shinkle also doesn’t have his facts straight re: the Lao Hmong and the “Secret War” in Laos, and his rude outburst here is simply obscene. The video report on Al Jazeera TV news and related articles at their website is about the pitiful situation that up to 10-15,000 Hmong men, women, and children find themselves in today as they are hunted like animals by Lao and Vietnamese forces.
Since the end of U.S. involvement in the wars in Laos and Vietnam (1973-75)the Hmong and people from other indigenous Lao tribes have been systematically persecuted and murdered by the Communist regimes of Laos and Vietnam while the world community has for the most part ignored their desperate plight. More have died at the hands of the Lao government since 1975 than had died in the wars of the 1950’s-1975.
The report at Al Jazeera, The Lost Tribes, by British television journalist Tony Birtley is just the latest update on a small series of investigative reports about the killing of innocent Hmong villagers in Laos over the past 5 years. Birtley’s is the first video report from Hmong jungle hideouts in a very long time.
I’ll be writing about this subject over at my place very soon, and you (the author) are welcome to checkout my piece and follow-up on the many detailed credible sources and resources that I will be using.
Thanks for bringing this important news report to the attention of people around the world because it is an important story and those people shown in Birtley’s report are frantically desperate for any kind of help.
A U.S. Vietnam War era veteran____
like i said before, im not the author, the text is just the “about the video” from the youtube link where the video is. thats why it says “Words above and video below reported by AlJazeeraEnglish” i posted it because it looked like an interesting story.
Albert Shinkle, I just ran across a genealogy site that has a post from Oct 2007 that says your cousin Leonard is looking for you.
Gayle in Port Angeles
Albert Shinkle,
Noticed you posted a comment in March 08. Seems you
must still be amongst the living. How about getting
in contact with me? Have info for you.
Elaine Virginia