The case against Gen. Vang Pao

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine features a sympathetic profile of Gen. Vang Pao. The story chronicles the U.S. government’s sting operation against the 78-year-old Hmong leader, who was tapped by the CIA to oversee a secret proxy war against the Laotian government in the ’60s and ’70s, and now faces conspiracy and gun-running charges that could land him in prison for the rest of his life. There are roughly a quarter-million Hmong immigrants now living in the U.S., with approximately 50,000 settled in Minnesota. The story, by Legacy of Ashes author Tim Weiner, makes the case that the charges against Vang Pao are unlikely to withstand legal scrutiny.

The case against Vang Pao grew out of a sting operation, a crime created in part by the government itself. What evidence there is rests largely on secretly recorded conversations led by an undercover federal agent, and while the transcripts implicating some of the co-defendants in the case seem damning, the agent barely met Vang Pao. The talk between them was brief; though Vang Pao may have dreamed aloud of a glorious revolution in Laos in years gone by, his role in the conspiracy charged by the government may be hard to prove.

Weiner portrays the alleged plot to overthrow the Laotian government as largely orchestrated by an ATF agent who preyed on the long-standing dreams of Hmong refugees to triumphantly return to their homeland. He compares it to the government’s case against the “Liberty City Seven,” charged with plotting to bomb the Sears Tower, which has twice resulted in mistrials.