POLISH ARTICLE CITES CIA OPIUM PURCHASES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060025-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: March 19, 1971
• Content Type: SUMMARY

Approved For Release 2001/08/30 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060025-6
POLISH ARTICLE CITES CIA OPIUM PURCHASES
Warsaw PERSPEKTYWY 19 Mar 71 pp 10-12
[Article by Daniel Lulinski: "From a silent war to invasion"]
[Excerpt] At nearly every Lao airport one can observe the
following scene: each afternoon, after "work", hundreds of
U.S. officers dressed in civilian clothes get into unmarked
airplanes or helicopters in order to leave the Mekong for
nearby Thailand. In the morning they return again to Laos.
Thus they attempt to maintain the fiction that American
military personnel are "not stationed" in Laos, that they
only stay there temporarily "on business trips." However,
American 'officers or advisers living in so-called "secret
CIA cities" in Long Cheng or Sam Thong northeast of
Vientiane on the Plaine des Jarres do not leave the country.
Attack bases and airfields of General Vang Pao's mountaineer
army, which is composed of CIA 'lerceneries from the Moo tribes,
are situated here. "Air America" or "Continental Air Service"
planes take off from here with weapons and supplies for
rebellious Meo active on the Pathet Lao home front.
The CIA brutally uses for its own ends ethnic discord
and certain resentments frequently kindled in the past by
colonialists between Lao and Vietnamese, between various
ethnic groups living in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia,
Burma, and southern provinces of China. Among these
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minority ethnic groups, which live mainly in Laos, the
DRV, and CPR, the Thai, Yao, and Meo play a special role
in CIA plans. About 300,000 Meo live in Laos, mainly in
the northeastern provinces of Sam Neua, Meng Khouang, and
Luang Prabang.
This is a very proud, brave, nomadic mountain tribe,
of whom it is said they cannot live below 1,000 meters above
sea level. Meo live in small villages in the mountains,
engaged in primitive agriculture and opium production. They
have been on an unfriendly basis for years with the royal
government in Vientiane, which did not want to recognize their
economic wishes and desire for autonomy; in other words,
freedom in opium trade. The Meo are also rebelling against
the government of Thailand, where about 250,000 of them
live, for similar reasons.
After increased U.S. intervention in Laos the CIA decided
to utilize the rebellious sentiment and to draw the Meo over
to their side. Therefore, sabotage units composed of Meo
and subordinate to U.S. intelligence officers were created.
Forty-year-old Vang Pao, former sergeant in,the French
colonial army, was put at the :head of the units and given
the rank of major general. To win over the Meo, the CIA
buys opium from them at a high price -- of course without
respecting international agreements on the fight against
narcotics -- or facilitates a market for this commodity in
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Danang or Macao. This is also a form of financing arms
deliveries to the Meo on the Pathet Lao front.
The U.S. promises the mountaineers that they will impel
the Lao government to accept Meo demands for autonomy, which
the Vientiane government certainly will not honor after the
eventual withdrawal of American troops. The royal government
views with great reserve the role which the CIA has assigned
the Meo and did not recognize Vang Pao's rank of general for
along time. However, it recently named him "commander of
the Second Military District" under pressure from Washington.
The army of Meo executioners numbers about 10,000 soldiers,
which is directly commanded by American officers and
receives its tasks from the "H.Q. 333" staff in Udon, Thailand.
Approved For Release 2001/08/30 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060025-6