When America Quits: Hmong Defense Asks for Bail

All eleven defendants have asked for bail in the alleged plot to overthrow the government of Laos. According to an article by Stephen Maganini in the Sacramento Bee, documents filed by their attorneys on Monday in District Court in Sacramento made the argument that, "their alleged scheme was so inept they pose no danger to others."

"’The alleged coup plot was never dangerous," the defendants' joint brief said. "It was, at most, a government-propelled fantasy, lacking any realistic planning, money or support.’

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So far, seven of the defendants -- including 77-year-old Gen. Vang Pao, who suffers from diabetes, heart problems and other ailments -- have been denied bail pending trial because of the seriousness of the charges.

All the defendants are charged with conspiring to violate the federal Neutrality Act by planning to overthrow a country at peace with the United States, conspiring to kill and injure people in a foreign nation, conspiring to obtain firearms and destructive devices, and conspiring to export items with a U.S. State Department license.

Nine of the 11 are charged with conspiring to obtain missile systems designed to bring down aircraft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years.

But the defense brief -- citing the affidavit filed by the undercover agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- said: "It was the government who suggested using explosives. It was the government who suggested using anti-tank rockets. And it was the government who suggested using Stinger missiles. ...

"The supposed coup plot never posed a danger to others or the community, because it was never more than a pipe dream the government itself breathed life into."

U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said the prosecution -- which has until July 9 to answer – ‘will respond in the appropriate manner. I'm very confident we will rebut the allegations.’

The defense brief said the plot came to light when Harrison Jack -- a Vietnam veteran from Woodland sympathetic to the Hmong who are still hiding in Laos – ‘contacted a defense contractor (not an illegal arms dealer) and inquired about purchasing 500 automatic weapons to defend against the Lao government's genocide of the Hmong people. From that point, the government entered the scheme and orchestrated its every step.’

The undercover agent contacted Jack to discuss the 500 rifles but soon offered much greater firepower, including Stinger missiles, because "the persecution of the Hmong in Laos had taken an ominous turn, and the Lao government was using helicopters to spray 'yellow rain' on Hmong villagers ... a chemical weapon that causes bleeding, convulsions and death."

The Lao government has repeatedly denied persecution of any Hmong in Laos and claims there are no Hmong trapped in the jungles. But Amnesty International has reported that several thousand Hmong -- the remnants of the CIA-funded jungle army that fought the Lao and Vietnamese communists from 1961 to 1975 -- are hiding from the Lao military, which has mutilated and killed Hmong men, women and children foraging for food.

The defendants, who raised about $150,000 of the plot's estimated $9.8 million cost, may have intended to use the money for ‘humanitarian aid for the Hmong people in Laos whom the communist government is ruthlessly persecuting, the defense brief said.

The defense also filed a declaration by Bill Lair, the CIA agent who recruited Vang Pao to lead a CIA-funded Hmong guerrilla army against the communists during the Vietnam War.

Lair -- an expert in funding insurgencies -- said ‘the so-called plot described in the allegations never stood any chance of coming to fruition.’

Having spent more than 20 years working with Thai security forces, Lair said it would be impossible to transport weapons across the Thai border into Laos, as the plot and the undercover agent suggested.

Lair added that such a plot would need not only much greater funding but the cooperation of neighboring governments. He said he had studied ‘Operation Popcorn’ -- an 18-page blueprint for the overthrow of Laos drafted by defendant Dang Vang, an out-of-work consultant -- and called it ‘inept.’

Another flaw in the plan was infighting among the defendants, according to the documents. The defense brief cited a phone call intercepted by the government in which defendant Lo Cha Thao -- Vang Pao's alleged point man in the plot -- complained ‘the old people are trying to discredit’ him.

The defense team, which hopes to question the undercover ATF agent at a July 12 hearing, said the court must determine not whether the defendants posed a danger to others in the past. Instead, the question is whether they ‘would present a danger to the community or others in the future’ if they were put under house arrest with electronic monitoring and other restrictions.

Since the plot has gained media attention worldwide, ‘any possibility of danger has been eliminated,’ the brief said.”

See earlier articles in this series.