The Hmong Genral Van Pou

 

Hmong honour general who fought secret war for CIA

Mark Arax, Fresno

February 8, 2011

Hmong mourners watch General Vang Pao's funeral procession in Fresno. Photo: AFP

IF VANG Pao had died a simple farmer like so many other Hmong here, his funeral would have been an elaborate affair.
For three days, as Hmong custom has it, his family and friends would have mourned in high-pitched chants, feasted on freshly slaughtered beef and burnt a giant pile of fake currency to buy his soul into the spirit world.
But General Vang Pao was no plain Hmong elder, and his death last month at age 81 has brought forth no ordinary grief. He is known to his people as the general, the hero of the Central Intelligence Agency's long-ago secret war in the jungles of Laos, a man who was leaving behind 25 children, 68 grandchildren and an uprooted nation of Hmong refugees who regard him as something near a king.

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Lt-Col. Vang Pao in 1961. Photo: Getty Images

So his funeral - six days and nights, with 10 cows slaughtered and stir-fried each day - has become a send-off for the ages.
It began last Friday, his body borne on a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Fresno, California, throngs of grieving Hmong lining the way. Scottish bagpipers played The Green Hills of Tyrol and two T-28 planes, the aircraft piloted by Hmong guerilla fighters in the Vietnam War, flew overhead.
And the funeral rolled down a long red carpet at the weekend, as thousands more Hmong from across the country, and some from as far away as Thailand and France, strode into the convention centre of this farming capital of California to say goodbye.
Many of the Hmong here - tens of thousands of tribal people who emigrated from Thai refugee camps in the 1970s, '80s and '90s - wanted to see Vang Pao buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honours, befitting a man, they say, whose Hmong battalions saved the lives of many downed American pilots. But on Friday, the Pentagon announced that it had denied the family's request to waive the policy that restricts military burials at Arlington to US service members.
Vang Pao's family and friends said they were disappointed by the decision. ''The CIA recruited General Vang Pao in 1961 to lead a guerilla force,'' a statement read. ''He fought in combat situations for 15 years. The covert war resulted in the death of 35,000 of the general's men.
''We strongly believe the right thing to do is to honour his contributions to the United States.''
NEW YORK TIMES


This war continues without pause. It may be the longest war in recent history and no one take responsibility for the ongoing destruction of the Hmong People and Land. Rather is is accepted that this animistic culture be destroyed.

I wish to take note that these people and way of life and place of life is a vital school of teaching and demonstration of what success is and how success can be achieved. The Hmong are the most successful society on this world that offer the secrets of immortality of human life.The wisdom these people carry should not be exterminated by planned and deliberate war of eradication.

The oldest remnant Celtic Pagan Goddess worshiping society in Europe lasted till 1550 and it was on the remote Dalmatian coastline of Croatia. Its demise coincided with the instigation of the Papal Inquisition administered right across Europe for 200 years there after. The genocide statistics of exterminated women alone goes through 100 million over that period.

The Hmong in there high mountain retreats of very in hospitable topography represent this same remnant of pure animists for Asia and the World, now in direct conflict since the colonial French invasion to modern times. These people have helped change history and saved many lives. They themselves have experienced modern  germ and chemical warfare kill whole villages of their people and concentration death camps by the North Vietnamese Army and continue the conflict into present times.The Vietnamese Army is still occupying Laos and the war against the Hmong continues. The Army Generals are deforesting Hmong Land to pay for their armies conveniently while Laos is still occupied since the Vietnam War.

The Hmong are keepers of immortality and the power base does not want it.

The world needs the Hmong. The world needs the secrets of the Hmong for its own survival.

The diametrical opposite is the Neo-Libertarian thinking that is responsible for the Hmong destruction and the destruction and poisoning of our planets water, air and soil, of the removal of our worlds forests and fish from all the Oceans.

What appears to be hopeless for all concerned, the Hmong show faith to a world we all will be so sorry to lose. They are fighting for you and me as we speak. I give my most sincerest and humblest thanks to these people for they give the lives of their children and themselves to hold onto what is true and valuable; they belong.