The Hmong & the U.S.

Jane Hamilton-Merritt has been a journalist, combat photographer and college professor, but also an advocate for the Laotian hill people, the Hmong, who were used by the United States in their secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War, and imprisoned, brutalized and systematically destroyed by the North Vietnamese after the Americans abandoned them at the end of the war. Hamilton-Merritt recounts the story of the Hmong, as well as her own efforts on their behalf, in Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992. The book offers insight into the Hmong people, Laotian civilization and the Indochina wars (French and the U.S.). Her methodology and informational sources include her own front-line experiences, over 1,000 interviews, and official French and U.S. documents. In spite of reliance on personal stories, the book is written in a scholarly fashion and includes maps, photographs, a Chronology of events and an Appendix of documents, extensive notes, a glossary, interviews and sources, and an index. The 580-page book also contains Hamilton-Merritt's impassioned views of the Hmong people and their plight. Her stated purpose is to present the story of the heroism of the Hmong people over a 50-year period, and "to help set the record straight" (xvii).

After presenting the background of the role of the Hmong people in the Indochina wars and American foreign policy, this paper will focus on the genocide of the Hmong people, and how they

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e, there seems to be little doubt about their authenticity, or about the brutal Communist retaliations against the Hmong for siding with the United States. Some give accounts of their experiences at Seminar Camps, which were re-education camps. One Hmong at the camp said that Seminar "was a euphemism for 'concentration camp' where those who posed a potential threat to the new (Communist) regime would be imprisoned" (p. 364). One prisoner reported that at night those Hmong who were believed to have worked with the CIA and get "American brains," were put into holes in the ground with no food. They were fed only as they were about to die. "I saw more than 20Hmong die from being put in the holes and starved to death" (p. 372). During the day, with chains on their legs, they worked in the fields all day. Another eyewitness reported that "Hmong children were maimed in public for all to see what happened to those who worked for the American warmongers" (p. 274). At the end of May, 1976, "life for the Hmong changed forever. A slow-flying biplane appeared...and fired three different kinds of rockets. They exploded at treetop level, releasing clouds of red, yellow, and white smoke" (p. 379). This was, of course, the start of the d

Category: Government - T