VZCZCXRO7757
PP RUEHCHI
DE RUEHVN #0390/01 1180857
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 280857Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY VIENTIANE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9847
INFO RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 6524
RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI 2632
RUEHGO/AMEMBASSY RANGOON 2092
RUEHPF/AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH 1751
RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI 0350
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0539
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0081

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENTIANE 000390 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, PRM 
HANOI ALSO FOR HCMC 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2016 
TAGS: PINS PHUM PREF PREL LA
SUBJECT: AS HMONG INSURGENT NUMBERS DECLINE, GOL UPS THE 
PRESSURE 
 
REF: VIENTIANE 360 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Patricia M. Haslach, reason 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
¶1. (C) Since early March, Lao People's Army (LPA) forces have 
conducted a dry season mopping-up operation against remnant 
insurgents, leading to numerous civilian casualties. 
Sustained military pressure in Bolikhamsai province has 
decimated insurgents there, with hundreds of mostly women and 
children either surrendering or being captured by Lao 
military and at least one senior insurgent leader fleeing the 
country. In the former Saisomboun Special Zone, the leader of 
what is probably the largest insurgent group has appealed to 
the international community to help as many as 500 women and 
children in his band surrender. The Lao have categorically 
denied reports of a massacre of 26 Hmong civilians in April, 
but evidence of the event is overwhelming.  With the GoL 
keeping a tight lid on information about this conflict and 
our diplomatic colleagues inclined to overlook the tragedy, 
we believe the best hope for the many women and children 
living in the forest is that they can reach populated areas 
to turn themselves in to civilian authorities. End summary. 
 
Bolikhamsai fighting 
-------------------- 
¶2. (C) The apparent focus of LPA efforts against the 
insurgency this year has been northern Bolikhamsai province, 
near the border with Vietnam.  We have received a steady 
stream of reports from Hmong sources since March that the 
LPA, assisted by Vietnamese troops, was launching regular 
assaults against several groups in the Sang River valley of 
northern Viengthong district. These sources have reported 
that in late March perhaps several hundred Hmong civilians 
associated with insurgent leader Sinone either surrendered or 
were captured by LPA troops in the area. These civilians were 
reportedly taken to Muang Mok district in southern Xieng 
Khouang province, an area where many former insurgents have 
resettled. However, Hmong contacts in Thailand have not been 
able to make contact with those who were taken to Muang Mok, 
and their fate is unknown. 
 
¶3. (C) One result of these attacks was the flight from the 
country of a senior Hmong insurgent leader, Wa Meng Yang, aka 
Sai Pia Yang. Yang fled to Thailand with a nephew in March or 
April, having been separated from his family during an LPA 
attack in which a number of families were captured by Lao 
troops. Yang reported from Thailand that a further 200-250 
Hmong remained in the Sang River area, scattered in small 
groups. The senior commander remaining in the Sang Valley, we 
believe, is Sinone Sosinsay, an ethnic Lao who continues to 
report via satellite phone to contacts outside the country 
about the conditions of those remaining in the forest. Sinone 
reported earlier this week, for example, that on April 16 LPA 
troops attacked one subgroup of Hmong, killing 16, including 
13 children.  (Comment: Unlike the April 6 massacre, we do 
not have corroborating evidence of this attack. End comment.) 
 
Saisomboun leader looks to surrender 
------------------------------------ 
¶4. (C) Separately several sources have reported to us that 
Moua Toua Ther, the commander of probably the largest 
remaining Hmong insurgent band -- about 500 people, now made 
up mostly of women and children -- has appealed to the 
international community to persuade the Lao government to 
permit women and children in his group to surrender. Moua 
made this appeal in mid-April, writing as well to the UN 
Secretary General. As a result of his appeal to the UN, UN 
 
SIPDIS 
New York has authorized the UNDP ResRep in Vientiane to raise 
this incident with the GoL. Subsequent conversations with 
Hmong sources in contact with him suggest the Hmong remain 
fearful they will be massacred if they try to surrender 
without some international observers present. This group is 
located south of Route 7 in southern Xieng Khouang province 
and the western part of the former Siasomboun Special Zone, 
near the site where a group of 170 women and children 
surrendered last June. 
 
Vientiane massacre 
------------------ 
¶5. (C) Finally, LPA forces in northern Vientiane have 
 
VIENTIANE 00000390  002 OF 002 
 
 
continued a campaign against scattered Hmong insurgent groups 
operating east of Route 13.  As reported reftel (notal), on 
April 16 LPA troops attacked what we believe was an unarmed 
group of Hmong "remote people" out gathering food, killing 
26, 25 of whom were women and children. This attack was part 
of a larger effort to eliminate the last groups still 
operating in the Vientiane area.  News of this massacre has 
been widely circulated based on the accounts of survivors. 
We have raised it with the GoL, with the request that the 
government investigate the incident and, if LPA forces are 
found culpable, punish those responsible. 
 
¶6. (C) On April 27, the Director of the MFA's 
newly-established Human Rights Unit told us that the incident 
was a "fabrication" by exile Hmong groups. We pressed hard on 
this, pointing out that evidence of the event was 
overwhelming, from multiple sources, and we were not 
satisfied with this categorical denial of the event. We have 
asked the Lao to contact appropriate military authorities in 
Vientiane province and in the MND to fully investigate the 
massacre. Ambassador has also requested a meeting with the 
Governor of Vientiane province, himself a former general, to 
discuss the killing. 
 
Comment 
------- 
¶7. (C) The insurgency is on its last legs. Probably some 
small groups will continue to hold out in the remotest 
corners of the country for years to come, but the days of the 
large, organized insurgent bands such as those visited by 
foreign journalists in 2002 and 2003 are numbered. The LPA's 
stranglehold tactic of cutting the insurgents off from food 
sources and launching harassing attacks have devastated the 
major groups.  Casualties among the insurgents, mostly of 
women and children, are hard to gauge but we suspect number 
in the hundreds this year alone. Of those, probably most have 
died of hunger and disease, but artillery fire, occasional 
helicopter attacks and small arms have all taken a toll. 
 
¶8. (C) Even as these reports gain currency abroad, the GoL 
continues to deny there is an insurgency or any sort of armed 
conflict in the Lao PDR. Remote areas of Bolikhamsai, the 
former Saisomboun and even Vientiane province are so cut off 
from the outside that this war can literally take place out 
of sight and mind even of the expat community in Vientiane. 
Just to make sure it stays that way, the GoL has limited 
access to some areas.  For example, NGO contacts have 
informed us that northern Bolikhamsai has been put off-limits 
to their staff. Word leaks out, but without journalistic 
access to the embattled groups or film footage of the 
after-effects of the military campaign, the world's interest 
in this issue is limited. With no chance that the Lao 
government will suddenly change its tune and admit to the 
existence of this small-scale conflict, we believe that the 
best hope for those Hmong "remote people" still in the forest 
is to make their way to areas where they can turn themselves 
in to civilian authorities and seek resettlement.  End 
comment. 
HASLACH