From the jungles of Vietnam and Laos to the arrest of General Vang Pao

[Gue]

What do you guys think of the arrest of GVP, General Vang Pao, a former CIA-backed Hmong leader of the Vietnam War?

After taking a look at this web site, what do you still think of him as?
factfinding.org/media.html
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Was the coup an act of terrorism or patriotism?
Was the weapons involved... weapons of terrorism or war?

After the Vietnam War, a pact, treaty, was signed to ensure a peaceful rebuilding of Laos, but the Communist Pathet Lao "violated and didn't do as they promised to do" (General Vang Pao interviewed by The Fact Finding Commission) in this agreement. "Therefore the Communist arrested the Royal King and his family along with his high ranking officials in an estimation of 46,000 people and sent them to Vieng Xai, Sum Nuou province to "re-educate" them about communist rules. It was uncovered that the communist government imprisoned, tortured, and killed all of those people.
This did not end the killing; the communist continues to target and kill the citizens of Laos who are loyal to freedom and democracy." (General Vang Pao interviewed by The Fact Finding Commission)

factfinding.org
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[contedicavour]

Sad story indeed. The point is that, leaving ethics aside, politically it makes more sense to persuade the Laotian government to open up to the world than to revive old memories of glorious guerrilla fighting back against communists...
Nowadays chances of toppling the regime with a small number of activists are close to zero, so any action would probably make the regime even more paranoid and delay any timid opening to the world.
The model is probably Vietnam which surely isn't democratic yet but which is at least approaching the status of market economy and is going in the right direction...

cheers