Vang Pao's FBI file, requested by MuckRock user Robert Delaware, reveals that the Bureau had been monitoring the general for nearly 30 years, ever since it first investigated allegations of murder, extortion and kidnapping - all in the name of the Hmong people - in 1985. Following this appearance, on April 6, 2009, federal prosecutors denied all allegations of fabrications in the motion. Courtesy of Doualy William Colby, C.I.A. We "I'm not like you," she says in the recording, having given me her usual angry face. He said he feared staying in Laos after fighting alongside the United States. Family History: The General, His Sisters And Me : NPR Far from uniting the Hmong, they say, he divided them. [13][pageneeded] He was one of the eight founders of the organization in 1981, along with Prince Sisouk na Champassak, General Phoumi Nosavan and General Kouprasith Abhay. He is like the earth and the sky, Houa Thao, a Hmong refugee, said in an interview with The Fresno Bee in 2007. He was the chief of a secret army financed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The general had been hospitalized for about 10 days, Clovis Community Medical Center Michelle Von Tersch spokeswoman said. They include retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Youa True Vang and 11 members of California's Hmong community, many of whom fought for the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Vang Pao was born in Xieng Khouang province, in north-eastern Laos. Tue 22 Feb 2011 17.17 EST. Gen. Vang Pao in 1961. The Minnesota Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press reported extensively on these matters. Following the issuance of the warrants, an estimated 250 federal agents representing numerous U.S. federal law enforcement and other agencies conducted simultaneous raids on homes, offices and other locations throughout central and southern California, arresting Vang Pao and the other nine. Further information on covert war in Laos: Kaufman, Marc, Knight-Ridder / Tribune News Service (8 April 1996) "Hmong refugees will now be allowed to enter the U.S.", Washington, Wayne, Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) (17 April 1996) "Agencies say influx of Hmong will go smoothly", The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) "NEW WAVE OF LAOTIAN REFUGEES ON THE WAY HUNDREDS EXPECTED TO COME TO STATE" (18 April 1996), Barber, Ben, Washington Times (Washington, D.C.) (22 April 1996), Scoop Independent News, Auckland, New Zealand (17 February 2011) "Vietnam, Laos Nationalist Fighter Honored By Lao Hmong", Kennedy, Tony and McEnroe, Paul (5 July 2005)"THE COVERT WARS OF VANG PAO; Ex-guerrilla's gamble for peace backfires; With his empire unraveling, Gen. Vang Pao met with the enemy, a tactic that to his people felt like a total betrayal. One technique was to marry women from different tribes, as multiple marriages were permitted in Laos. She died four years ago, but people used to tell me that if she had been born a boy, she would have been the one tapped by the CIA to help them during the Vietnam War. Yang said leaving Laos was probably the hardest decision he ever had to make. The Monitor Daily amplifies and clarifies how we deliver on the Monitors purpose, to benefit humanity by reporting what is happening in the world and why and how this information matters to you. [21][22] (Smith, a foreign policy, human rights and legislative affairs specialist, serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis. by General Vang Pao On behalf of the members of the United Lao National liberation Front, the Laotian people, and the freedom fighters in Laos, I would like to take this opportunity to express our . He and his wife, May Song Vang, whom he married in 1973, initially moved to Montana before settling in California. He came very close to having a park in Madison City, Wisconsin, named after him in 2002. approached him in 1960, he was already fighting Laotian Communists. Vang Pao (Hmong: Vaj Pov, born 1929) is a former Major General in the Royal Lao Army. Their resilience today -- particularly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic -- has taken the form of advocacy for the vulnerable, Dinh said. While in exile, Vang Pao assembled other Lao and Hmong leaders from around the world to create the United Lao National Liberation Front (ULNF), also known as Lao National Liberation Movement and Neo Hom,[4] a right-wing pro-royalist political movement. U.S. Drops Case Against Exiled Hmong Leader", "Parents Pack Meeting To Object To New School's Name", "McCoy challenged on Vang Pao; he fires back", "Sen. George Asks UW For Probe On Vang Pao", "Board To Revisit New School's Name After Hmong General's Arrest", "School Board Drops New School's Name, OKs Teacher Contract", "General Vang Pao Elementary School: A First for Fresno", "Federal charges dropped against Hmong leader Vang Pao: The exiled general was accused of plotting to overthrow the communist regime in Laos", "IMPORTANCE OF THE ONGOING U.S. CONGRESSIONAL FORUM ON LAOS", "Statement of the Honorable Patrick Kennedy: US Congressional Forum on Laos", "Laos: Massacre of unarmed Hmong women and children", "Laos Regime Urged to Release Hakit Yang, Hmong Tortured in Vientiane Prison", http://www.centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org, "Fearing a Forced Return: The Situation of the Lao Hmong Refugees in Petchabun, Thailand", "Lao People's Democratic Republic: Hiding in the jungle - Hmong under threat", Fresno New Year festivities honor Hmong 'mother', "Hmong leader remains in critical condition", "AFP: Vietnam War 'secret army' chief dies in US hospital", "Vang Pao, Guerilla Fighter and Hmong Leader, Dead at 81", "Laos general and Hmong leader Vang Pao dies in exile", "Thousands mourn Gen. Vang Pao in Fresno", "Vang Pao Gets Arlington Ceremony After Burial Snub", "Vietnam vet to get US honors after burial snub", http://www.thefreelibrary.com/California+funeral+planned+for+Hmong+general-a01612410970, http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20110513-278644.html, "Arlington ceremony honors Gen. Vang Pao". I decided to record her. He was 52 when he arrived and struggled to find a stable job that let him provide for his family. In his early teen years, Vang Pao launched his military career, joining the French Military to protect fellow Hmong during the Japanese invasion. [66], Vang, who battled diabetes and heart disease, died at age 81 from pneumonia with cardiac complications on 6 January 2011, at Clovis Community Medical Center, in Clovis, California. As a teenager, he had been recruited to fight communism alongside the United States. Vang was a hero of the Hmong community, and thousands gathered for his six-day long funeral. Tou Long Yang served in the Laotian Civil War and then migrated to America to make $7 an hour. "You call yourself a journalist, fooling around like this it's crap!". The CIA's 'Secret War' - The Diplomat He says when he was 13, he saw a family from his village unable to pay their taxes. His official sentence of death was issued in 1975, the year Vang Pao fled Laos to take refuge in America. Vang Pao, the former general and leader of his Hmong ethnic group in Laos, has died in exile in the US, aged 81. Since the June 4 federal raid, Vang Paos arrest has been the subject of mounting criticism. "He's the last of his kind, the last of the leadership that carries that reference that everyone holds dear," said Blong Xiong, a Fresno city councilman and the first Hmong-American in California to win a city council seat. Five years later, the Madison school board removed his name from a new elementary school named for him, after dissenters said it should not bear the name of a figure with such a violent history. Vang Pao | Military Wiki | Fandom After WWII, French GCMA authorities recruited Vang Pao as an officer during the First Indochina War to combat the Viet Minh. It was a war that the US public was not allowed to see or know about. It was a major human rights victory for the Hmong. (NEWS)(SERIES: THE COVERT WARS OF VANG PAO)", Lovering, Daniel, Associated Press (AP) (13 January 2014)"Former enemies wage battle over U.S. trade with Laos", Kennedy, Tony and McEnroe, Paul, Minneapolis Star Tribune (5 July 2005)"THE COVERT WARS OF VANG PAO; Ex-guerrilla's gamble for peace backfires; With his empire unraveling, Gen. Vang Pao met with the enemy, a tactic that to his people felt like a total betrayal. Story Themes: America's Secret War, CIA, Covert Operations, Ganghis Khang, General Vang Pao, Laos, Long Cheng, Long Tieng, Saint Paul, Secret War, SGU, Special Guerilla Unit, St Paul, Tony Poe, A Twin Cities PBS initiative in collaboration with the MN PBS Stations, This excerpt is from Twin Cities PBS's documentary, America's Secret War, CIA, Covert Operations, Ganghis Khang, General Vang Pao, Laos, Long Cheng, Long Tieng, Saint Paul, Secret War, SGU, Special Guerilla Unit, St Paul, Tony Poe, Terms and Conditions for Submitting Your Story. "To think that these elderly men would be in a position to try to overthrow a country is, on its face, almost laughable.". General Vang Pao's House in Long Tieng Laos | Now in Lao Nobody will be left behind. About 35,000 Hmong died in battle. Vang Pao, the Laotian general who marshalled a CIA mercenary army to fight a "secret war" against communist insurgents in the remote mountains of Laos in the 1960s, has . This got me wondering about the surviving sisters of Gen. Vang Pao Lee, Xai, Ying and Der. If he didnt leave, he expected to be sent to a labor camp where he would have been worked to death. [19][20] Over time, Smith was instrumental in helping Vang to meet with key Members of Congress and senior Administration officials as well as helping to organize Congressional hearings, briefings and research missions to South East Asia. Your session to The Christian Former Hmong Gen. Vang Pao (right) in May 2000 during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Vang Pao (Hmong: Vaj Pov, born 1929) is a former Major General in the Royal Lao Army. The general formed several nonprofits to aid the refugee communities and set up a council to mediate disputes between the 18 Hmong clans, whose president he hand-picked for decades. He began his military career as an officer in the French army in the early 1940s. He was invited to speak at the U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos, with Members of Congress, about the persecution of the Laotian and Hmong people on several occasions in the U.S. Congress from 1999 to 2003. There will probably be a search for identity. He led a guerrilla army into battle against communist troops along the Ho Chi Minh trail relieving U.S. forces of that burden and saving the lives of countless American soldiers. In the mid-1990s, Vang Pao, aided by influential American diplomatic allies and vast numbers of Hmong-Americans, halted forced United Nations-sponsored repatriation back to Laos of thousands of Hmong refugees in Thailand. NPR reporter Doualy Xaykaothao speaks with her great-aunts Gen. Vang Pao's sisters in Fresno, Calif. Lee starts talking about her brother and then tells me a secret: Her brother did not marry eight wives to unite the many Hmong clans, as legend has it. Vang Pao (RPA: Vaj Pov [v p], Lao: ; 8 December 1929 6 January 2011)[1] was a major general in the Royal Lao Army. [37][38][39][40][41], Thailand-based Laotian and Hmong refugees, many of whom had been living at formal and informal refugee camps including Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist temple in Thailand, were afforded the right to avoid the forced return to Laos and instead over 15,000 were offered relocation rights and assistance to the U.S. in 200405. [50] On 18 June 2007, the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education voted to drop Vang's name from the new school, in light of the federal charges against him and the previous allegations. General Vang Pao, who battled diabetes and heart problems, died aged 81 of pneumonia with heart complications on January 6, 2011, at Clovis Community Medical Center. hide caption. Federal prosecutors alleged [that Vang], then 77, and several colleagues were funding guerilla fighters still living in Laos. The United States wanted to interdict the supply route, rescue American pilots shot down over Laos and aid anti-Communist forces in a continuing civil war, but was hampered in doing so publicly because Laos was officially neutral, so the C.I.A. KaYing Yang, director of programs and partnerships at the nonprofit Coalition of Asian American Leaders, who is Tou Long Yang's niece, called the deportations unjust, and a betrayal of the United States and its duties to refugees. As the Bee adds: "Over 100 people crowded into the outpatient care center at Clovis Community Medical Center to grieve the loss of a beloved leader, who some saw as the George Washington of the Hmong.". General Vang Pao offered a reward and ordered the assassination of Shong Lue Yang, who was killed in February 1971 by Nos Toom Yang in the village of Nam Chia. "Pappy Hicks", U.S. Special Forces Association, and others.[75][79]. By 1968, 30% of the new recruits were only 14 years old. Several of Vang's high-level U.S. supporters criticized the California court that issued the arrest warrants. It also allowed for that broader definition to be applied retroactively. Vang Pao later admitted that his Hmong soldiers suffered appalling losses fighting around the Plain of Jars, in Xieng Khouang province. Complete information about survivors was not available. [2] He was a leader of the Hmong American community in the United States. He had to divorce all but one of his five wives when he went to the United States in 1975, settling on a ranch in Montana. New. The former CIA chief William Colby once called him "the biggest hero of the Vietnam war". Former Hmong Gen. Vang Pao (right) in May 2000 during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. "Gen. Vang Pao, an iconic figure in the Hmong community and a key U.S. ally during the Vietnam War, died Thursday afternoon in Clovis [Calif.] after spending days in the hospital with pneumonia and a heart problem," The Fresno Bee writes this morning. [54][55], At special sessions of the U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos, Smith and the Center for Public Policy Analysis joined by Members of Congress, including U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, and others, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to immediately drop the case, and the charges, against General Vang and the other Hmong defendants, especially in light of the Lao government's and Lao Peoples Army's (LPA) ongoing military attacks and egregious human rights violations directed against many of the Laotian and Hmong people, which included attacks on unarmed civilians and political and religious dissidents, atrocities, rape, torture and the use of mass starvation. The Gvp Project Tens of thousands of them followed him in his flight to Thailand after the Communist victory in 1975. Thousands from the Hmong community line the streets as the general's body is transported on a horse-drawn carriage to Fresno's convention center for the funeral. [44] The federal charges alleged that members of the group inspected weapons, including AK-47s, smoke grenades, and Stinger missiles, with the intent of purchasing them and smuggling them into Thailand, where they allegedly would be shipped to anti-Laotian governmental resistance movement forces inside Laos. Vng Pao ( RPA: Vaj Pov, ch Lo: ; Ch Hmng Vit: Vangx Paor, 1929 - 2011 [1]) l ngi H'mong u tin c phong hm tng Qun i Hong gia Lo. Sucheng ed. He was 81. So, during the nine-year bombing campaign the U.S. carried out against Laos from 1964 to 1973 making it the most heavily bombed nation per capita in history Yang said he was in charge of calling some of the 2 million tons of artillery that rained on the country. He was a leader in the Hmong American Community in the United States and lived in Clovis, California. After his guerrillas ultimately lost to communist forces, Vang Pao came to the U.S., where he was credited with brokering the resettlement of tens of thousands of Hmong, an ethnic minority from the hillsides of Laos. John Dominis/Time Life Pictures Getty Images. His lawyers claimed that the charges were fabricated and had no bearing in court. Vang Pao, or 'the General,' was selected for his charisma and leadership skills, honed when the Hmong had previously allied with the French against North Vietnamese forces. All rights reserved. A hospital spokesman said his family was at the hospital at the time of Vang's death. Later, he fell under suspicion by both Hmong groups who supported the Royal Lao Government (including members of Vang Pao's army) and by those Hmong who supported the communist Pathet Lao.
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