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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
A small-scale insurgency that has existed since 1975
continues
in the early 1990s, although at a much lower level than in
previous
years. This insurgency has never seriously threatened the
regime,
but it is troublesome because the insurgents commit
sabotage, blow
up bridges, and threaten transport and communications. The
great
majority of insurgents are
Hmong (see Glossary), led by
ex-soldiers from United States Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA)-supported
units who fought against Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese
troops in
the 1960s. Hmong groups, most of them formerly associated
with the
RLG, draw recruits and support from Hmong refugee camps
and operate
from bases in Thailand with the cooperation of local Thai
military
officers. As relations between Thailand and Laos
continued to
improve in the 1990s, support for this insurgent activity
declined
(see Foreign Policy
, this ch.). Resistance spokesmen claim
that
their principal source of funds for weapons and supplies
comes from
Laotian expatriate communities overseas, including the
180,000
Laotians in the United States.
Even though the government lacks widespread public
support,
insurgency is less a measure of discontent than evidence
of a
serious ethnic problem. The LPDR, like the RLG that
preceded it,
has been dominated by lowland Lao. The two governments
exemplify
the traditional Lao disdain for upland peoples, in spite
of Pathet
Lao rhetoric in favor of ethnic equality. On the one hand,
because
many Hmong fought on the side of the "American
imperialists,"
government leaders feel additionally suspicious of them.
On the
other hand, Hmong and other upland minorities who served
with the
United States-supported forces have been suspicious and
uncomfortable under their former enemies. Thus, a core of
insurgents, composed largely of ethnic minorities,
continues to
fight against the authorities. It will be extremely
difficult--
perhaps impossible--for the government to pacify them,
especially
without help from Vietnamese military units, if the
insurgents
enjoy access to sanctuary in Thailand along the easily
crossed
1,000 kilometer Mekong River border.
In the early 1980s, Hmong insurgents claimed that the
Lao People's Army
(LPA--see Glossary)
was using lethal
chemical agents
against them. The Hmong refugees in Thailand often
referred to the
chemical agents as "poisons from above;" foreign
journalists used
the term "yellow rain." The government vehemently denied
these
charges. The United States Department of State noted in
1992 that
"considerable investigative efforts in recent years have
revealed
no evidence of chemical weapons use" in the post-1983
period. The
LPDR again denied these charges. The United States
Department of
State noted in 1992 that "considerable investigative
efforts in
recent years have revealed no evidence of chemical weapons
use."
Data as of July 1994
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