OVERTHROW PLOT

Laos lauds US move to stop coup

Welcomes prosecution of Gen Vang Pao, eight others allegedly planning to oust Vientiane's communist rulers

Laos yesterday welcomed US action against high-profile dissident Hmong lea-der Vang Pao and eight other Hmong who have been arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the communist government in Vientiane.

"We praise the US government as this group committed wrongdoing against the Lao government, which has good relations with the US," Laos' Foreign Ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy told The Nation yesterday.

Yong was in Bangkok on a one-day visit to meet with senior military officers at the Supreme Command to discuss the arrest of the exiled Hmong leader, as well as border security issues.

Vang Pao, 77, a former general in the Royal Lao Army, helped the US Central Intelli-gence Agency in the "secret war" against the communist Pathet Lao before the fall of Vientiane in 1975. He was resettled in the US later in 1975 after fleeing to Thailand.

Vang Pao and eight others were charged in a US federal court yesterday.

Also charged was former California National Guardsman Lt Col Harrison Ulrich Jack, a 1968 West Point military academy graduate who was involved in covert operations during the Vietnam War. Jack acted as an arms broker and organiser in the plot, according to a criminal complaint filed in the US District Court.

"We're looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time," Assistant US Attorney Bob Twiss said in federal court on Monday. He said thousands of co-conspirators remained at large.

The criminal complaint said Vang Pao and the other Hmong defendants formed a committee "to evaluate the feasibility of conducting a military expedition or enterprise to engage in the overthrow of the existing government of Laos by violent means including murder, assaults on both military and civilian officials of Laos and destruction of buildings and property".

As recently as May, people acting on behalf of the committee were gathering intelligence about military installations and government buildings in the Lao capital of Vientiane, accor-ding to prosecutors.

Since January, the Hmong leaders and Jack had inspected shipments of military equipment that were to be purchased and shipped to Thailand on June 12 and 19, the complaint alleged.

During a news conference after the defendants' court appearance, prosecutors displayed photographs of the equipment and weapons in-volved in the alleged plot. They showed a light anti-tank rocket system, a Stinger missile, Claymore mines and an AK-47 assault rifle.

The defendants also attempted to recruit a mercenary force that included former members of the US Special Forces.

US magistrate Judge Kim-berly J Mueller ordered all nine defendants to be held in custody until separate hearings later this week.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said the Thai government "acknowledged" the charges against Vang Pao and his associates and added that Thai security agencies would investigate whether any arms smuggling via Thailand to Laos was planned.

"Thailand has a clear policy not to allow any party to use our territory as a launching pad against our neighbours," Tharit said.

Thailand currently shelters about 7,800 Hmong, some of whom claim they are descendants or close associates of the CIA's "secret" fighters in the Lao theatre of the Vietnam conflict, or those who fled from Laos after the war. Many Hmong in Thailand say they also hope to resettle in third countries.

About 3,000 destitute Hmong - a handful of whom may be lightly armed - are said to be on the run in the mountainous jungles of northern Laos amid an ongoing assault by government soldiers. The Lao government dismisses reports about the group.

Yong, a spokesman for the Hmong in Thailand, said his people were the "victims of trafficking syndicates". There were no active dissident groups in Laos, he said.

"The arrest of Vang Pao and his group might not have a direct impact on Laos, as we have nothing to do with them, but it is good news for the Hmong because traffickers will no longer have an excuse to lure [them] to Thailand to seek resettlement in the US with Vang Pao," Yong said.

The two countries [Thailand and Laos] shared a "common agreement" to deport the Hmong in Thailand to Laos, Yong said.

Vang Pao went to the United States in 1975 and has been credited by thousands of Hmong refugees with helping them build new lives in the US.

In April a dispute erupted in Madison, Wisconsin over a proposal to name a new elementary school after him. The move was intended to recognise the area's large Hmong population but dissenters said a school should not bear the name of a figure with such a violent history.

In 2002 the city of Madison dropped a plan to name a park in Vang Pao's honour after a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor cited numerous published sources alleging that Vang Pao had ordered executions of his own followers, of enemy prisoners of war and of his political enemies. A spokesman for Vang Pao and his followers denied the charges at the time.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation,

Associated Press