The Bangkok Post
GENERAL NEWS - Tuesday 08 July 2003  
 
ANALYSIS / IN SEARCH OF BALANCE 
 
Laos is getting a bad rap from the world's media
 
Laos is a secretive country. That makes reporting on events inside the communist state very difficult. And so reporters make errors of judgment. Such as on events involving the Hmong ethnic minority. 
 
GRANT EVANS 
 
Laos has been described in recent weeks as a ``rogue state'', as a ``Taliban regime'' in a US senate inquiry, as a state engaged in ``ethnic cleansing'' against its Hmong minority, and, not surprisingly, it is also alleged by some lobby groups in the United States to be using outlawed chemical weapons against the Hmong  in another instance of the ever-illusive ``weapons of mass destruction''.
 
All of the above allegations are untrue.
 
Many of the reports on the Hmong inside Laos suggest that the government is engaged in an ethnically inspired campaign of discrimination against them. In fact, the Lao constitution and laws are more tolerant towards minorities than many of its neighbours. More tolerant than Thailand, for example, which does not recognise many minorities as Thai citizens, whereas in Laos minority residents are considered Lao citizens. Laos may have a ``minority problem'', but it is not because of official discrimination.
 
One finds Hmong people inside Laos at all levels of government, either as officials in ministries or practising as medical doctors or as teachers in the schools or the university. One finds Hmong active as commercial traders in the countryside in the north and in the northern towns, many of them assisted in this activity by significant remittances received from their relatives overseas. Indeed, I think one could reasonably argue that, among the minorities, the Hmong are among those who are best educated and most prosperous.
 
Of course, there are also many Hmong living in remote villages where the standard of living is low by modern standards, but in this respect they are little different from other minorities in the countryside, and indeed poor ethnic Lao farmers. Both the government and international donors are committed to trying to alleviate the poverty of all Lao regardless of ethnicity.
 
The fighting going on in the special region of Muang Saysomboune, Vientiane province, which was reported on by Andrew Perrin in his already legendary Time magazine article of May 5, as far as we know intensified two years ago. The Hmong here are the descendants of what was an irregular force under the command of General Vang Pao before 1975. I say descendants advisedly, because most of these Hmong, like half the population of Laos today, have been born since 1975 and could not possibly have been part of a so-called CIA ``secret army''. Therefore, the question is: Why has the conflict with this small group of Hmong continued? For this we need just a little history.
 
The forces commanded by the Royal Lao Army general, Vang Pao, were made up of regular and irregular soldiers, the latter being financed mostly by the CIA. These irregular soldiers were perhaps 60% Hmong, with other minorities, plus some Lao making up the rest. Following the withdrawal of US aid and the overthrow of the Royal Lao Government, this force also collapsed, and indeed split into two wings: one still loyal to Vang Pao, and another inspired by a millennial vision of a Hmong kingdom, the ``Chao Fa''.
 
Fearing the repercussions of surrender, they fought on against the new communist government. In a massive campaign over 1977-78, the Lao army, assisted by some 50,000 Vietnamese troops, savagely crushed this resistance to the new regime. Since then it has never represented a serious threat.
 
Attempts to form a ``Resistance'' to the Lao government by overseas Lao after 1975 suffered the fate of most such exile groups, splintering into factions and becoming ineffective. Vang Pao in exile became the head of an ethnically-based faction in this ``Resistance'', and has appeared to represent a real force inside Laos. 
 
Hmong rebels have survived longest in Laos simply because of the remoteness of many of their villages and the rugged terrain, and some assistance from the outside, though this assistance is often exaggerated by both sides for their own propaganda purposes. The group of Hmong in Saysomboune, perhaps a few thousand, are all that is left of these rebels. Children have replaced their parents, sometimes to avenge the death of the latter.
 
As a so-called ``insurgency'', these Hmong have been more or less inactive for many years. And although suspicious of government intentions towards them, there have been attempts to put out feelers to the government either for surrender or to make arrangements for them to leave the country to join relatives in America.
 
Around two years ago, however, the army started a campaign to bring this group to heel. The reasons for this would appear to be associated with a stepped up campaign by Vientiane to resettle down on the plains the various minorities (not just the Hmong) living up in the mountains. This has been a long-standing policy of the government, which it carried out with a heavy hand after 1975, but in the 1990s it has been under the surveillance of the aid community in Laos, which has limited, but not stopped, abuses of power.
 
The results of this resettlement policy are extremely mixed. But in some cases like Saysomboune it has occurred without outside surveillance and under the control of the army, which has led to heavy handed tactics and an apparently vicious round of attacks and counter-attacks reminiscent of Palestine. It should be taken out of the hands of the army, and a negotiated solution sought.
 
Combined with this, throughout the north over this year heavy handed suppression of opium cultivation will no doubt be a cause for discontent among Hmong. After all, opium is an important cash crop for them, and with no substitute they will become poorer.
 
But it must be observed that the Lao government has been pushed to do this by the ``international community'', in particular the United States, whose approach to the policing of drug suppression leaves much to be desired. Maybe the Lao government's motivation is to avoid even further hysterical appellations like ``narco-state''.
 
The recently arrested and imprisoned freelance journalists, and their Hmong guide, a pastor from the United States, appear to have been attempting to further document what Time's Mr Perrin had already documented. There is little evidence so far that they, like most other journalists, are much interested in the situation of most Hmong in Laos.
 
But Lao government policy, which restricts access to information about what is happening in the country, is the prime cause of such sensationalist attempts to document the so-called ``insurgency''. Indeed, as we know, in the absence of hard information, rumour and speculation rush to fill the gap in our understanding, and all sorts of stories can seem to be credible, whether they are about ``weapons of mass destruction'', or whatever.
 
But the quality of reporting on Laos has also sunk to an all-time low. Besides Mr Perrin's piece, which reported on something unique, I cannot recall when I last read an informative article by a journalist on Laos. Beat up stories written from afar are the usual fare.
 
Of course, journalists cannot be expected to be experts on all countries and situations, which is why they ring up academics like me who are considered experts in their field. But then I find myself quoted by people I have never spoken with, and misquoted. Naturally, I begin to ask myself ``why bother talking to journalists who are too lazy to do background reading and are simply in search of a `sexy' quote?''.
 
There is much which needs reform in Laos, not least its judicial system. And it needs a free press. But when the ``free press'' outside is so cavalier in the way it reports Laos, then it sets a poor example for Laos, and sets back the cause of an open society here.
 
- Grant Evans is reader in anthropology, Centre for Anthropological Research, Sociology Department, University of Hong Kong. Mr Evans' latest book on Laos is: A Short History of Laos: the land in between (2002).
 
© Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2003