Tripping Along the Mekong
Chapter 7
We took the scenic route to Nong Khai, heading first due north to Chiang Rai and then southeast following the Mekong River into the city. I chose the road since I wanted to immerse myself in the landscape and daily activities of the people on the river. River crossings accounted for the majority of smuggling according to Chi. Hopefully, a little insight as to the surroundings might rub off on me. Jimmy’s English was passable so he understood when I asked for smoke and pee breaks along the way. It was to be a long journey, so I was relieved.
We watched many, small boats ply the river. Some were fishing vessels throwing and retrieving nets, some simply meandering up and down along the embankments with no discernible purpose or destination. The larger boats were home to many families with laundry hanging out to dry and children playing on the decks. Just glimpses of everyday life on the muddy Mekong it seemed to me.
Chi explained that most of the contraband smuggling was from Thailand to Laos and not the other way around as I’d supposed. Consumer products, especially electronics and pharmaceuticals, were in high demand by the Lao since they were mostly unavailable in their own country or exorbitantly expensive due to high import taxes.
In turn, the Lao brought fruits, vegetables, handicrafts and some meat products across the river. Often with these items, the authorities turned a blind eye or opened a hand for a petite bribe. However, some Lao would also smuggle opium and large quantities of yaba to the Thai side of the border. Yaba was a particularly worrisome, highly addicting drug that had caught on with the youth of the region. Its use was now widespread and more and more addicts were being created by its ready availability and low cost. It was a blend of methamphetamine and caffeine. Chi mentioned that the stuff coming across the border was a synthetic form of the drug; much faster and cheaper to manufacture than the traditional formulation.
Chi related another very bizarre Lao export and, as soon as he mentioned it, I flashed back on my one brief experience with the noxious concoction. It was a home distilled whiskey, a local version of our moonshine. Except in this case, the large, clear bottles contained whole snakes, scorpions or other indescribable critters. I had tasted it once on a tour in Laos and it was god awful! I later learned that drinking it wasn’t advisable. That was because some of the snakes were venomous and their venom sacs hadn’t been removed before being dumped into the bottle. With time, the sacs would dissolve in the alcohol and seep into the mixture causing some to get violently ill and others to die. I decided then and there to stick with White Zinfandel. I hated snakes even more than fish!
“Jimmy, turn right at the next road! I want to show Khun Richard one of the camps,” Chi ordered. “I think you’ll find this bit of Thai history instructive. The camps resulted from your country’s so-called secret war in Laos. It was never a secret to us. Nevertheless, my government was fully complicit too.”
“Beginning in the middle of the 1970’s, many displaced refugees of the conflict in Laos began flowing into my country. International aid agencies and refugee camps began emerging along this side of the Mekong and many of these camps became both famous and infamous in their own ways. For more than 20 years, these camps were home to generations of Hmong people as they awaited a foster country to immigrate to or just lived with the anxiety of an uncertain future. I think you should see it since it may provide some context for our mission. Regardless, it doesn’t hurt to take a quick look.”
“Chi, refresh my memory about the secret war. I only have imprecise, vague recollections of it,” I asked.
“Ah, I was fairly new on the force then, but given my police duties, I still remember much of that time very well. I remember the camps too and what took place in them, some very unpleasant things as I recall.”
“The largest paramilitary operations ever undertaken by your CIA took place in Laos. For more than 13 years, the CIA directed native forces, the Hmong in particular, that fought major North Vietnamese units to a standstill. Although the country eventually fell to the Communists, your government remained proud of the CIA’s accomplishments in Laos. Air America, an airline secretly owned by the CIA, was a vital component in the Agency's operations in Laos. We were witting to most of the activity except for the most sensitive operations.”
“By the summer of 1970, the airline had some two dozen twin-engine transports, another two dozen short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, and some 30 helicopters dedicated to operations in Laos. There were more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and air-freight specialists flying out of Laos and Thailand. It was a tremendous undertaking.”
“During 1970 alone, Air America airdropped or landed 46 million pounds of foodstuffs, mainly rice, in Laos. Air America crews transported tens of thousands of troops and refugees, flew emergency medical missions and rescued downed airmen throughout Laos, inserted and extracted road-watch teams, flew nighttime airdrop missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, monitored sensors along infiltration routes, conducted a highly successful photoreconnaissance program, and engaged in numerous clandestine missions using night-vision glasses and state-of-the-art electronic equipment. All-in-all, it was a massive operation that lasted many years. And we Thais fully condoned and supported the effort.”
“Without Air America's presence, your country’s effort in Laos could not have been sustained. It’s as simple and complicated as that. It’s something the American public is only vaguely aware of even today. I believe it’s still important to understand the history of the secret war and that’s why I share this with you. A couple of dominos fell as you Americans like to say, but Southeast Asia is now more politically stable than it’s ever been. Yes, we worried about becoming one of those dominos, but fortunately that didn’t happen. That’s the reason Thailand supported your war operations. We had only one instance in our country’s history of being occupied by a foreign power and that was by the Japanese for three years during World War II. We badly wanted to keep it that way.”
“However, the aftermath of the secret war is what we’re looking at today. That’s another matter altogether: the hardships and miseries of the refugees that were housed in the camps,” Chi solemnly spoke, just above a whisper.
“The end of the secret war forced many thousands of Hmong peoples to flee to Thailand for safety and sanctuary,” Chi continued. “They had fought the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese army on behalf of America. Remaining in Laos meant total extermination of their tribe. However, it wasn’t only the Hmong hill tribes that fled. Many low-land Lao were persecuted as well and made their way here.”
“The Pathet Lao government was accused of committing genocide against the country’s Hmong ethnic minority after it took over the country in 1975. In 1977, a communist newspaper promised the party would hunt down the American collaborators and their families to the last root. Reportedly, up to 100,000 Hmong were killed out of an estimated population of 400,000. By the way, I don’t doubt the numbers,” Chi added.
I cringed when he mentioned the horrific number of deaths. It seemed that ethnic cleansing was a world-wide phenomenon that had no boundaries or remorse.
We entered the camp through a simple bamboo gate with its name written on a placard in Thai. It had been abandoned some 20 years ago since there was no longer a need for it. It was called Na Pho. I didn’t bother to ask Chi what it meant in English.
What struck me immediately was the sheer size of the place. It extended several thousands of meters in all directions. It was cut from the surrounding jungle and the ground was mostly denuded of trees and other vegetation even after so many years of abandonment. Chi said the camp was meant to accommodate 20,000 refugees, but the population quickly soared to over 35,000 at its peak. The conditions were horrible with disease, fire and crime being constant concerns. The rainy season and its flash flooding added more misery to an already desperate people.
Fortunately, it was now the dry season with the monsoon rains still several weeks off. We easily negotiated the rutted roads without using the Jeep’s four-wheel drive. The camp’s remnants consisted of a number of outbuildings; some dilapidated, given the many years of disuse and neglect, while others appeared to be in relatively, good shape, things considered.
“Chi, what were all the blue, plastic tarps we’ve seen used for?” I was puzzled to see so many scattered around the camp.
“Those were used by all the refuges to construct makeshift tents; their new homes here,” he replied. “They came here with nothing and left with nothing when they were ultimately expatriated, dispersed if you will, to the United States and elsewhere around the world. This was the worst period of the Diaspora for the Hmong and other Lao tribes. However, it still continues to this day since they can no longer return to their homeland.”
“The Hmong accepted for settlement in Thailand still cling to their centuries-old traditions. They simply have not assimilated into Thai society and culture by their own desire and intent. You’ve seen them on the streets in Chiang Mai, Khun Richard, so you know what I’m talking about. They wear traditional, handmade clothes and eschew western dress and customs mostly. They maintain a subsistence way of life and earn money from selling handicrafts to the tourists. They are a proud people who are treated here like your American Indians: outsiders and second-class citizens. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the situation.”
I did understand and it was a sad story. Chi’s analogy of the two minorities seemed spot-on.
Suddenly we heard the unmistakable crack of a high-powered rifle shot, followed by a loud thud to the side of the Jeep!
Jimmy immediately did a bootleg turn and hit the accelerator, kicking up clouds of dust behind us. We heard a second shot as he swerved left and right along the dirt road. Five minutes later we reached the highway and stopped to examine the vehicle. No one was following, yet we all instinctively drew our guns as a precaution. Welcome to Thailand, I thought.
The rear passenger door where I was sitting had one neat hole in it, about an inch above the handle. It had easily penetrated the door’s sheet metal skin, but was stopped by the piece of ballistic aluminum affixed to the inside door panel. The results of the second shot couldn’t be determined and the shooter had likely missed. Without the shielding, I harbored no doubt I would have been killed. I was seated directly behind Jimmy and worried about his mortality too. Had the bullet been nine inches higher, it would have gone through the glass; like a hot knife through butter as the saying goes, because it had no ballistic protection: ballistic glass, a laminated polycarbonate, was too expensive and difficult to retrofit. So only the side doors and the back of the rear seat of the Jeep were fitted with the aluminum. The car’s engine rounded out our limited security cocoon. Regardless, the event was just too damn close for comfort and coincidence!
“Okay Chi, what the hell was that all about?” I not-so politely and pointedly asked, raising my voice a couple of octaves as I did.
“Have the drug traffickers or smugglers already been tipped as to our investigation? I can’t believe there’s already been a leak in the ranks. Only a handful of people were privy to what we’re up to and I don’t think any of them would intentionally leak our plans. No, it has to be something else, but what? Perhaps it was some recreational target shooting by the natives? Or was it something else altogether?”
“I would suspect something else altogether, Khun Avery. That would be my best guess,” Chi stiffly replied, using my surname to show his displeasure with my tone of voice.
It was a very Thai way of saying or doing things. No direct confrontation, but the message was crystal clear. I couldn’t afford to piss off Chi too much, otherwise he’d run home to Denny with his tail tucked between his legs and complain about the rude farang (foreigner) who’d badly dissed him in front of a fellow Thai. I couldn’t let that happen since he was too valuable to my finding Kris Amar.
“Poachers are my thought,” Chi continued. “The jungle forests around the camp’s perimeter are teeming with animals and many are rare or exotic or protected species that fetch top dollar on the international black market. It’s big business here. Gibbons, in particular, command high prices and this is one of their habitats. Also, certain birds are desired for their beautiful plumage; again for the same reason—money. The poachers likely have a small encampment in the forest and set traps for the animals. I think they saw us as a threat to their illicit business and that’s the reason they fired on us, basically to scare us off and as a warning not to return. I admit the first shot was a close call. Either it was a lucky, random one; a potshot as your American cowboys say, or the shooter was extremely proficient. I don’t know which, but that’s what I think happened back there, Khun Avery.”
He did the name thing again just to rub it in. I’d soothe his ego and smooth his ruffled feathers later. I was still upset over the unexpected and frightening experience. However, I acknowledged to myself that Chi’s explanation was logical and made sense. He knew the local scene and I didn’t, so I’d go with his judgment and trust his instincts. Yet, I still had some nagging concerns deep down that wouldn’t go away. My woman’s intuition had always been strong, but my intuitions regarding women, much less so.
Fortunately, the rest of the trip to Nong Khai was uneventful, actually boring, with Chi quietly sulking next to me. In the future, I had to watch my tone of voice and his sensitive feelings. With the car unusually quiet, maybe I could get in a nap before we arrived. Thank God for big favors!
We pulled into the city just before dark. Chi and Jimmy dropped me at the hotel and they went to stay at a friend’s house. It had been a long day for everyone. I was bushed, but luckily not fatally ambushed. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, it wasn’t a good start to our investigation.