Hmong soldiers: the forgotten US ally during the Vietnam war ... just like Khmer Krom soldiers

Steve Schofield, 62, a U.S. Special Forces veteran assigned to U.S.-funded military operations in Laos during the Vietnam War, says government secrecy deprived America's Hmong allies from the recognition they earned during the covert war. Schofield now seeks to unveil the tragic costs of the Hmong people as a result of their support for the U.S. in Laos during the 1960s and 1970s. Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers photo by Sam Castro

Historic Hmong Photo by Steve Schofield

June 24, 2007
Hmong soldiers' service, an untold history

Lawmakers and veterans push for recognition; bill seeks Secret War taught in schools

By Ed Lowe
Post-Crescent staff writer (Appleton, Wisconsin, USA)

Had the war in Vietnam ended in victory, much that is would not be. There would be no battle over a bill to teach Hmong history in Wisconsin schools, no news of a plot hatched in the U.S. to overthrow the Laotian government and no established Hmong community in the heart of the Midwest.

The Vietnam War did not end in victory, though, and the Secret War that raged in obscurity at the same time as the fight in Vietnam still is echoing today. It ties together forever the Hmong and America, and leads to oddities like the overthrow plot recently uncovered by American authorities.

The Secret War and its legacy is a long story, one kept as a government secret for too long in the judgment of Steve Schofield, a former Green Beret who served with the Hmong in the covert U.S. war in Laos.

"Because everything they did for us during the war was secret, nobody in our government told anybody what the Hmong had done for us," said Schofield, 62, of Manitowoc County.

"When they came here, they were just lumped in together with the boat people and all the other groups that most thought of as economic refugees."

Now, as another American war rages overseas, the untold history of the Hmong becomes a potential cautionary tale, said Schofield, a military-trained civilian stationed in Laos from 1969 until after the war's official end.

"We ended up with a couple hundred thousand immigrants after the Vietnam War," noted Schofield, who contends the Hmong people have paid dearly for America's lack of wartime resolve.

"What's it going to look like if we pull out of Iraq and we have two million Iraqis living here?"

Battles past and present

Some 50,000 Hmong live in Wisconsin. Many still are loyal to Vang Pao, 77, the former Laotian general who led some 30,000 Hmong soldiers fighting for U.S. military interests in Laos from 1960 to 1975.

Most Hmong Americans who fought in the Secret War, so called because the American military was operating covertly in parts of Southeast Asia, view Vang Pao's arrest as the betrayal of a trusted U.S. ally.

The passions aroused by Vang Pao's arrest were in full display in the past few weeks in Madison, where the school board reversed its decision to name a new elementary school for the Hmong war hero and supporters rallied at the Capitol.

Meanwhile, state Assembly Bill 78, which could help to put these current events in context by requiring Hmong history in the public school curriculum, is stalled in committee awaiting a hearing that likely will not come for the second straight legislative session.

The bill would require public school instruction on the role of the Hmong support during the Vietnam War era, their postwar persecution and explain "the reasons for the emigration of many Hmong" to the United States. Most have settled in three states: Wisconsin, Minnesota and California.

"Because they were integral to our role during the Vietnam War, we invited these people to our country as refugees," said state Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, a Senate co-sponsor. "I've heard again and again of the American lives that were saved by the role that they played."

An author of the bill, state Rep. Tom Nelson, D-Kaukauna, said he has heard nothing to suggest the bill will get a legislative hearing, or a vote, anytime soon.

"It's unfortunate," Nelson said. "I think this is an easy way to give back to a community that has given so much.

"Under this bill, it's basically up to the school board to decide how much time it wants to spend on this period of history. It doesn't say you have to have a whole new class, or you have to spend a certain amount of hours. The parameters are pretty open-ended."

A soldier's mission

A piece of the history lesson was preserved by Chong Vang Xiong.

The Hmong soldier died in a Thai refugee camp in 1985, but not before passing a few wartime memories to his son, Kor Xiong, who came to America in 1992.

Kor Xiong founded Appleton-based Hmong Wisconsin Radio two years ago. The special-frequency station broadcasts to Hmong and Laotian families within a 70-mile radius of the city.

Chong Vang Xiong was assigned to try to recapture an allied military base in 1968, his son said. Members of his unit were dropped into the heart of the battle by unmarked U.S. planes.

"He was one of the lucky ones," Kor Xiong said, "In the unit, they had about 60 soldiers. Twelve of them came back, and my dad was one of the survivors."

Chong Vang Xiong "had three jobs that the Hmong soldiers would do," Kor Xiong said.

The Hmong protected the mountaintop American radar station monitoring North Vietnam, he said. They attacked the Ho Chi Minh Trail that supplied the communist troops fighting in South Vietnam and Cambodia.

"The third role was to rescue the American pilots," Kor Xiong said. "When an American pilot was shot down, they would go. It didn't matter what it cost."

Chong Vang Xiong and his family fled to Thailand after the communists took control of Laos in 1975. The new communist government rounded up the Hmong loyal to the United States, sending them to "training camps" soon after taking control.

Those sent to the camps were never seen again, Kor Xiong said.

Then and now

Vietnam and Iraq are exactly one generation apart from the perspective of Boua Chong Xiong, 63, of Appleton, a Hmong fighter not related to Kor Xiong.

Boua Chong Xiong fought the North Vietnamese and rescued U.S. pilots shot down on covert bombing runs over Laos. His son, Michael, 23, a U.S. Army specialist, is now serving his second tour of duty in Iraq.

After the war, "The communist government was looking for any old soldiers who had worked for the U.S.," explained Jan Xiong, a 25-year-old son working toward a degree in business management.

Boua Chong Xiong's words flow rapidly, his hands wave as he recalls the family's trek through the jungle, across the Mekong River and into the temporary haven of a Thai refugee camp after the Americans left.

"There is a lot of stress going on between that time and now," said his daughter Kia, interpreting her father's words. "A lot of the Hmong have kept the story of the war to themselves."

Kia pointed to a framed portrait of "the great General Vang Pao," which hangs high on the family's living room wall.

Vang Pao and the alleged accomplices, including a retired U.S. lieutenant colonel who served with Hmong fighters during the Vietnam War era, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges Monday.

The general long was critical of what he described as a lack of U.S. action to end the postwar persecution the Hmong in Laos.

An attorney for one of the alleged conspirators told The Associated Press the defense will stretch back to 1951, when covert American influence in Laos began.

A legacy of silence

"Because it was all top-secret, I didn't talk about what I did in Laos for probably 10 years after I came back," Schofield said.

"I was one of the last 26 Americans to leave the region. South Vietnam and Cambodia were already gone. We were the last ones out."

Once the information embargo expired, Schofield realized even Vietnam veterans who reached out to support the Hmong after the war knew little about them.

Few American soldiers saw combat inside Laos. In fact, the U.S. wasn't involved in military action in Laos when Schofield arrived as a civilian employee of the United States Agency for International Development, a division of the State Department.

Not officially, at least. Schofield supported search-and-rescue operations for the American pilots shot down in bombing runs over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He also served as the public health administrator for the troops led by Gen. Vang Pao.

"The Hmong are and were very hard-working, loyal, honest, tough. They weren't like a lot of the other Southeast Asians. The Hmong were different, and the Hmong and the Americans bonded almost instantly. I trusted them with my life and vice versa.

"In those last two years in Laos, you had tremendous casualties and the Hmong were thrown up against regular North Vietnamese army units with tanks and artillery. The Hmong had been fighting this war since 1960, and most of their older soldiers were dead" by 1973.

"They had started recruiting these Hmong boys, boys of 10 years old, who were thrown right into the front lines ... They were just slaughtered."

Schofield said other Wisconsinites who promote the wartime history of the Hmong do it for "the usual liberal reasons, the oppressed-minority type of thing.

"I'm doing this because of the veterans. I think we owe them that."

Ed Lowe: 920-993-1000, ext. 293, or elowe@postcrescent.com

Vang Pao refused bail, held in jail

Sacramento, California (Agencies) - Hundreds of supporters demonstrated outside a federal courthouse Monday as a magistrate refused to release Hmong leader and ex-general Vang Pao on bail while he awaits trial on charges of trying to overthrow the communist government of Laos.

Despite his age and deteriorating health, Vang Pao, 77, is too dangerous and too great a flight risk to be freed under any circumstances, US Magistrate Judge Edmund Brennan ruled after a 30-minute hearing.

Vang Pao and eight other Hmong elders were arrested June 4 on charges that they tried to buy nearly $10 million worth of military weapons and recruit mercenaries to unseat Laos's communist government.

A 10th defendant, retired California National Guard Lt. Col. Harrison Jack, is also charged, accused of trying to arrange the coup through an arms broker who turned out to be an undercover federal agent.

Hmong from across California and several other states packed the courtroom and filled a courthouse plaza and surrounding sidewalks for Vang Pao's detention hearing. Court security officials estimated that 500 to 1,000 Hmong showed up.

Most of the Hmong were dressed in white to show their peacefulness and purity, said Ka Va, who helped organise the rally.

They waved American flags, giant portraits of Vang Pao and signs calling for the release of the Vietnam War-era general whose guerrillas rescued downed American pilots and waged an ultimately futile covert war orchestrated by the CIA.

"This is how much this man is loved," said Thomas Heffelfinger, one of Vang Pao's attorneys, said over the noise of the crowd. "This reflects the general's commitment to a peaceful agenda."

Heffelfinger, a former federal prosecutor from Minnesota, said he was hired by Vang Pao's supporters to assist John Balazs, the Sacramento attorney who was appointed by the court to represent the general last week.

Heffelfinger said Vang Pao is innocent of the charges, which could bring him life in prison if he is convicted.

Balazs argued that Vang Pao could safely be released to home confinement with a virtual communications blackout: No phones, computers or other communications devices.

But Assistant US Attorney Bob Twiss told Brennan that Vang Pao's influence is so sweeping and unquestioned that he could organise his followers no matter what restrictions are imposed, perhaps sending messages through intermediaries or with a smuggled cell phone.

"Thousands of people came here on the day of his detention hearing," Twiss said in an interview. "If General Vang Pao were to pick up a cell phone, is there any doubt they wouldn't execute his order? To me, it (the rally) was an indication of his ability to effectuate action indirectly."

Vang Pao has foresworn violence and lobbied peacefully for the United States to protect Hmong still being persecuted in Laos, Heffelfinger said. Moreover, the general has had heart bypass and gallbladder surgery and a stroke, and suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes, he said.

"The mere fact that he has loyal followers does not make him dangerous," Heffelfinger said outside the courthouse. "The general is a man of peace."

Brennan nonetheless ordered Vang Pao detained. He also ordered the detention of two alleged coconspirators, Lo Thao and Nhia Vang, after brief separate hearings.

The general sat silently hunched over a table during the hearing, wearing a bright orange jail jumpsuit and listening through an interpreter.

Outside, supporters waved signs reading, "Honor your war heroes - don't jail them," and "Free our leader."

"He is like a supreme leader to all of us," said Silas Cha of Fresno, a leader of Hmong-American Concerned Citizens. "He is no threat to anyone, anywhere in the world. ... He is an American hero and a Hmong hero who has saved thousands of lives."

US Attorney McGregor Scott issued a statement saying his office respects the Hmong community's right to protest but expects they "will understand why we made the decisions we did" once more information becomes public.

Attorneys for the accused said they expect their clients to be indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury. The charges they face now were in a complaint filed by Scott's office. Their next hearing is set for Monday, when supporters are promising an even larger crowd.

Gen Vang Pao, a fierce US ally in fighting communism in Laos, is arrested by the same US gov't he helped

Hmong-Americans Stunned by Laos Charges

By GARANCE BURKE
AP

FRESNO, Calif. - Many of the thousands of Hmong refugees who fled to the United States following the Vietnam War never accepted the communist government that took power in their native Laos.

And if federal prosecutors are right, some apparently never abandoned their dream of toppling it.

A revered leader of the Hmong-American population was among 10 men charged this week with plotting to overthrow the Laotian regime in a case that has shaken the growing immigrant community.

Many Hmong credit Vang Pao, a 77-year-old former general in the Royal Army of Laos who led Hmong counterinsurgents, with helping them build new lives in the U.S. In California and Minnesota, where the first large wave of refugees settled in the 1980s, Hmong-American politicians are rising quickly through political ranks.

Despite that momentum, some in the community say elders still long to return to their highland villages.

"People of my father's generation have hoped one day that they could go back to a free Laos and farm the plot of land they left 30 years ago," said Minnesota state Rep. Cy Thao of St. Paul. "Vang Pao is sort of their last hope. You hear them talk about it, but you don't ever think it will come to this point."

An undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives secretly recorded a Feb. 7 luncheon meeting with Vang Pao, former California National Guard Lt. Col. Harrison Jack and others at a Thai restaurant a few blocks from the state Capitol in Sacramento, according to the agent's affidavit.

They then walked to a recreational vehicle parked nearby to examine machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank rockets, anti-personnel mines and other weapons, the agent wrote.

Hmong leaders had agreed to buy $9.8 million worth of military weapons, Jack said in a recorded conversation, with much of the money coming from immigrants throughout the United States, the affidavit states.

Vang Pao appeared briefly in federal court Tuesday in Sacramento.

"Gen. Vang Pao has worked actively to pursue peaceful solutions to the problems in Laos and has disavowed violence," his attorney, John Balazs, said afterward. "We look forward to a trial where we can demonstrate Gen. Pao's innocence."

An attorney for Jack declined to comment after a court proceeding Monday.

Vang Pao and the other nine defendants were scheduled for detention hearings later this week. Prosecutors recommended that all be held without bail until their trials.

"People don't know right now whether the charges are justified or a witch hunt. We just want people to remember that for 20 years the Hmong community has worked to make sure that this is our home," said Peter Vang, refugee community liaison for Fresno County, home to about 30,000 ethnic Hmong.

After fighting as U.S.-backed guerillas in Laos, members of the ethnic minority were all but abandoned when the country fell to communist forces in 1975. More than 300,000 Laotian refugees, mostly Hmong, fled into Thailand.

About 145,000 members of Laotian ethnic groups resettled in the U.S., establishing large enclaves in Fresno, St. Paul, Minn., cities across Wisconsin and in small towns throughout Arkansas' Ozark mountains.

Among those charged Monday were the founder of Fresno's annual Hmong International New Year celebration, a former police officer from the nearby suburb of Clovis and a one-time aide to former Wisconsin state Sen. Gary George.

George, 53, who recently finished serving a four-year prison term for taking kickbacks from a Milwaukee social service agency, is not charged in the Laos case. The ATF agent's affidavit, however, states that "probable cause exists to believe" George was involved in it.

George's attorney, Alex Flynn of Milwaukee, did not return repeated telephone messages from The Associated Press. Earlier Tuesday, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that the allegations are "utterly preposterous and categorically false."

Investigators also were examining whether those charged tried to use an unidentified congressman and the California Highway Patrol without their knowledge, according to authorities and court documents.

During a March meeting at a Sacramento restaurant, the affidavit says, Jack told the undercover ATF agent that he had contacted a patrol commissioner and arranged for Hmong leaders to help recruit.

The goal was for the Hmong officers to eventually move to Laos "to take positions of trust" in the new Lao government, the affidavit says.

Federal prosecutors said the men who are charged conspired with a Laotian liberation movement, led in the U.S. by Vang Pao, who splits his time between homes in the Twin Cities _ which has the largest concentration of Hmong in the United States _ and Southern California. The group raised money, directed surveillance operations and organized a force of insurgent troops within Laos, according to the complaint.

Somphet Khoukahoun, the permanent secretary for the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Tuesday he would wait to comment until authorities were briefed by U.S. officials.

Like many of their counterparts in the U.S., Hmong leaders in Thailand said they found the charges unbelievable.

"I think the charges are meant by rival Hmong in the United States to smear him," said Ming Wui, a Hmong Christian minister.

In Laos, Hmong people are still subject to detentions and human rights violations, according to the U.S. Department of State. Many recent immigrants arrive still traumatized by war and decades of persecution, said Sharon Stanley, director of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries.

Vang Pao's arrest has crushed families struggling to assume a new, American identity, said Blong Xiong, a Hmong-American city councilman in Fresno, where Hmong grocery stores and restaurants are fixtures in most shopping malls.

"I'm hoping that the mainstream understands that our community continues to share the American ideals we defended," Xiong said.

Associated Press writers Sutin Wannabovorn and Ambika Ahuja in Bangkok, Don Thompson in Sacramento and Gregg Aamot in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

Khmer Krom, Montagnard and Hmong to hold demonstration in front of VN embassy in Washington DC on 20 April

2007-04-13
Vietnam: Protest Planned in US

UNPO

Date: April 20, 2007
Time: 10:00 AM
Where: In front of the Vietnamese embassy in Washington DC

Below is a press release issued by The Montagnard Foundation:

On Friday the 20th of April 2007 the Montagnard Foundation in conjunction with the Khmer Krom and Hmong peoples will conduct a peaceful demonstration in Washington DC at capital hill and outside the Vietnamese Embassy calling for an end to persecution of their people by the Vietnamese communist government. The Degar Montagnards, the Khmer Krom and the Hmong peoples have long suffered religious persecution and human rights violations perpetrated by the Vietnamese communist government.

The indigenous Degar Peoples (known under the French colonial term “Montagnard”) have suffered decades of persecution by the Vietnamese communist government, namely; confiscation of their ancestral lands, Christian religious repression, torture, killings and imprisonment. To date over 350 Degar prisoners remain in Vietnamese prisons for standing up for their human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia and many have been subjected to electric shock treatment and torture as well as being withheld food and medical care. The authorities today continue to persecute members of the Christian House Church movement and in many cases have killed prisoners by deliberately beating them causing internal organ damage. Throughout the Central Highlands, the Degar population continues to suffer abuses committed by soldiers and police.

The Montagnard Foundation welcomes all persons who value freedom, democracy and the triumph of the human spirit to attend and join us on Friday 20 April 2007 in showing that repressive and authoritarian governments like Vietnam cannot crush our desire for a better world.

The demonstration will commence at: 10 AM in front of Vietnamese Embassy and then at the Capitol Hill.

Vietnam's Politburo Continues to Oppress Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities [Including Khmer Krom]

February 25, 2007

By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network

"They abuse our people for so long, we are arrested for teaching our own language, or our history, and they always target our Buddhist monks, the heart and soul of our Khmer Krom people,” - T. Thach, president of NGO Khmer Krom Federation

Hardliners in Vietnam's politburo in Hanoi are obsessed with punishing, oppressing and even eliminating peoples -- such as the Khmer Krom, Montagnards and Hmong Lao, that aligned themselves more than 30 years ago with the United States during the Vietnam War.

That’s the view of international human rights groups,and many others in Southeast Asia concerned with the rights of indigenous and ethnic peoples.

Founded by Ho Chi Minh, the Communist Party of Indochina is well-known in the public for the killing fields of Cambodia, the boat people and the reeducation camps.

Less known is the current ongoing genocide on the Hmong Lao, which is currently making major headlines in the international media, after thousand of Hmong Lao fled Vietnamese and Laotian military aggressions inside of the Communist country Laos.

More than 10,000 of the ethnic minority Hmong Lao, descendants of former CIA soldiers, are hiding to this day in remote mountain areas in Laos. Well documented reports reveal that Vietnamese soldiers are taking part in attacking and killing thousands of half starved Hmong Lao who are constantly on the run from military attacks – including the use of chemical weapons, bombs and rockets.

Rebecca Sommer's video documentary "Hunted Like Animals" documented not only hundreds of testimonies of Hmong Lao refugees who recently fled from Laos, but includes shocking footage filmed by the Hmong Lao themselves -- people living-in-hiding in remote mountain areas of Laos -- showing gruesome atrocities which are considered genocide by international human rights groups. Passports of Vietnamese soldiers where confiscated by Hmong groups-in-hiding, after finding dead corpses of soldiers from troops who attacked them.

"We know that the Vietnamese are the higher rank military commanders inside of our country Laos, Hanoi is in charge of Laos - as in the case of Cambodia. Hanoi is giving the final orders - we saw them attacking us, we hear them speaking Vietnamese, it is no secret to us who is attacking us Hmong Lao" said Faitou Vue, a Hmong Lao refugee, and CIA veteran who fled Communist Laos’ widening military aggressions to refuge in Thailand.

In Vietnam, the indigenous peoples such as the Montagnards and Khmer Krom, who also sided with the U.S. during the Vietnam War, endure severe oppression and human rights violations, with many of them escaping to neighboring Cambodia.

"But if we stay in Cambodia, the Vietnamese will get us any minute. Cambodia listens to Hanoi, so many of our people got killed or forcefully brought back to Vietnam. The Cambodian authorities do nothing to protect us," stated one of many hundreds of Khmer Krom refugees, an indigenous peoples from the Mekong Delta, who fled further than Cambodia, hiding as an illegal migrant in Thailand.

Two weeks ago, inside of Vietnam -- five Khmer Krom Buddhist temples, together with their Khmer Krom communities held a peaceful demonstration to request to Hanoi to be allowed to maintain their Buddhist religion, which they say was not granted.

Instead, the temples were surrounded by Vietnamese authorities, and in the case of the Tra Set temple two hundred Vietnamese military officers surrounded and arrested numerous Buddhist monks, and disrobed them.

"They abuse our people for so long, we are arrested for teaching our own language, or our history, and they always target our Buddhist monks, the heart and soul of our Khmer Krom people,” said T. Thach, president of NGO Khmer Krom Federation. “Our temples are the center of our communities. We are imprisoned and tortured when we listen to the radio from the outside word, or when we check the internet related to our concerns. Writing e-mails to the outside world is prohibited.”

T. Thach continued: “If our Khmer Krom Buddhist monks teach the sacred Buddhist language Pali --- they are ordered by Hanoi to include Communist doctrines, if not, they get disrobed and are not allowed to be monks anymore, and are imprisoned as traitors and enemies of Communism . This is not right: our religion has nothing to do with Communism, or any form of politics, it is our religion, and sacred to us. It is the teaching of peace and rightful conduct in life. But we are not allowed to maintain our religion, we are not even allowed to maintain our Khmer Krom culture, way of life, actually, they want to Vietnamize us in a manner, that nothing would be left from us, as Khmer Krom peoples, or Montagnards peoples -- and we object to that.”

Award winning filmmaker Rebecca Sommer, a New York City-based representative from the Society for Threatened Peoples International documented in 2006 disturbing human rights violation claims made by hundreds of Khmer Krom from Vietnam in her video documentary " “Eliminated Without Bleeding".

"The title explains what is happening to the Khmer Krom -- they are not massacred like the Hmong Lao, which is well-documented in my feature film ‘Hunted Like Animals,’” Sommer told HNN. “The Khmer Krom and Montagnards have a different situation, They have no freedom of speech or religion, and are under tight control and intimidation -- targeted with their identity as a people. They are not massacred, but nevertheless eliminated as a people."

Sommer said that inside Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communist Party maintains a virtual iron curtain around the Central Highlands of Vietnam that used to be the traditional homeland for the 54 ethnic hill tribes loosely defined as Montagnards. No Montagnard can leave a village without a pass, their leaders are confined to house arrest, and many are in prison that refuse to denounce their protestant religion. The same rules apply to the Khmer Krom, who are Buddhists.

"One can always tell when a group of Montagnards escapes into Mondulkiri Province. Vietnamese army and police officials chase after them and cross the border as if they owned western Cambodia,” said journalist The Co Van, from Peace and Freedom. “The Cambodian provincial police are alerted, and the guesthouses in the capital of Sen Monorum quickly fill with Cambodian police and army officials from neighboring provinces,” The Co Van added. "What a tragedy that America has abandoned our former allies in the Vietnam War a second time. Now the U.S. has the leverage to force the Vietnamese government to treat the Montagnards better but it remains silent when Hanoi glosses over their draconian human rights record in their bid for entrance into the WTO."

The Montagnard Foundation reports that they hold evidence that bounty hunters capture the Montagnard refugees in Cambodia, and sell them back to the Vietnamese for $20 to $100. Twenty dollars is a month’s pay for a policeman in this part of the world.

"Why does the mainstream media ignore the plight of the Montagnards, the Khmer Krom, and their cousins, the Hmong in Laos for over 30 years, and still continue to do so?" asked Chue Chou Tchang, from the SGU Veterans, a U.S.- based Hmong organization.

Those Vietnam Veterans who fought the war along side with America -- and the holocaust that unraveled in Southeast Asia after the American military left -- had been simply too painful for the left in America to face, for if they honestly examined it, they might find themselves guilty by their tacit support for the perpetrators of the killing fields in Cambodia, the reeducation camps in Vietnam and Laos, and the genocide of the ethnic hill tribes that continues today, Tchang told HNN.

“One has to wonder why the Vietnamese Communist Party is so paranoid and ruthless in their treatment of a few Montagnards and Khmer Krom -- escaping their clutches in the middle of the night,” said Van. “Why Laos, under the advice of Hanoi pressures Thailand to force thousands of Hmong Lao refugees back to Laos. That’s because they know they can get away with it and that the mainstream media in the West really isn’t interested in the human rights abuses of Communist police states" said Van.

Sommer said that even though journalists and human rights advocates have entered and reported on the alarming human rights violations in in Laos and Vietnam, the ongoing silence by the U.S. administration that has lasted for over 30 years persists to this day. She opined that the U.S. continues to ignore the ongoing genocide in Southeast Asia of their former allies and swallows whole the communist doublespeak on the human rights violation there.