Hmong remember Vietnam 'secret army' general

FRESNO, California — Thousands of ethnic Hmong paid their last respects Friday to Laotian general Vang Pao, who led a CIA-backed "secret army" in the Vietnam war, at the start of a six-day funeral service in California.Military veterans who fought alongside him joined family and community mourners at the start of the traditional funeral in Fresco, California, near where he died last month.His coffin draped in the red, white and blue of the Stars and Stripes was borne into Fresno's convention center where tens of thousands of Hmong from the US and abroad were expected to gather over the weekend.Rows of black-clad mourners joined ranks of soldiers in uniforms and khakis, as well as bagpipers in kilts who had accompanied the casket into the hall, to the strains of Dvorak's "New World" Symphony."Today our Laotian nation has lost of... one of its outstanding sons," said Khamphay Abbay, a former Royal Lao official and Laotian currently living in Australia, who was an advisor to Vang Pao during the war.Supporters of the general, who died on January 6 aged 81 of pneumonia, have been pressing for Vang Pao to be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, where US military veterans lie.Vang Pao led the CIA-backed "secret army" that assisted the United States in Vietnam. The Hmong, a hill people, suffered persecution after Laos fell to the communists in 1975.Vang Pao, a fierce opponent of the communist government in Vientiane, was also a controversial figure.In 2007, he was arrested in California on charges of plotting to overthrow a foreign government after an undercover agent tried to sell him weapons at a Thai restaurant.Prosecutors dropped their charges in 2009. On Monday, a judge ended the case for the remaining 11 Hmong Americans accused in the case amid persistent questions over the government's evidence. Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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