13

YELLOW DEATH IN LAOS

At the same time that plans were being laid for Liberty City, in an ongoing saga that lasted half a year, we had gone in search of samples of Yellow Rain.

On 4 May, soon after arriving in Thailand, the SOF team went to Laos to visit a refugee camp. Through General Vang Pao’s contacts, they were introduced to and interviewed individuals who claimed that they had suf-fered from Vietnamese attacks of Yellow Rain. There they hit pay dirt.

“We happened on Soua Lee Vang by chance, while gathering background for a story on the state of the Lao resistance, and asked about refugee reports of the use of gas. “Absolutely! Would you like to talk to a man who has just come out of one of the gassed areas inside Laos?” our contact asked.

“But of course!” Coyne said.

The following story that Soua Lee Vang told SOF, if true, would confirm our worst fears.

An old biplane, flying high and slow, approached the village on Ban Paa Ngum mountaintop. Without warning, in one loud, low pass over the village the previous October, a wide trail of yellow mist poured from the wings and whipped into the slipstream, then fell quietly over the village center. Villagers, including Soua Lee Vang, convulsed coughing until they collapsed from severe abdominal cramps and spasms, many dying horribly in their own blood and voided bowels. They bled from their eyes and ears, and profusely from the nose and mouth. Men, women, children and animals died one by one, and the only sounds were of weeping and the brush of wind on the yellow covered leaves.

With the aid of an old Department of Defense escape-and-evasion map of Laos that our source had stashed with his few belongings from “the old days,” he began the trek toward Thailand. He meticulously noted the coordinates of the attack on Ban Paa Ngum, including date, time, type of aircraft, direction and results: 21 people dead, approximately 500 people critically ill with vomiting and bloody stools, approximately 400 people with skin disease, blisters or spreading infections.

Then, on 2 April 1981, he witnessed another attack, this time on the village of Ban Thong Hak. A MiG-17 appeared suddenly out of the sun to the northwest and dropped its lethal cargo of chemicals on the defenseless Hmong men, women and children: a brownish cloud in which Soua Lee Vang believed 24 people died horribly, and 47 became desperately ill.

With the chemical sample wrapped in plastic and tape, he reached the Ban Vanai Refugee Center in Thailand, six grueling days later.

At least five similar gassings occurred since the previous October in the areas he had been in. Hundreds, even thousands, had died. Soldier of Fortune had heard rumors for some time that the Soviets, and their client states, had been routinely and systematically employing chemical, and possibly biological, weapons in Laos, Afghanistan and Cambodia, but had been unable to prove it. The agent or agents used were unknown and elusive, and gassings always occurred deep within hostile, virtually inaccessible areas, far from inquisitive observers. The evidence itself seemed to just disappear. All that remained were the results, the accounts from survivors, and blank abandoned areas on the maps.

“Would you like a sample of the chemical?” Soua Lee Vang’s words hit us like a sledgehammer.

“Yes, we damn well would like a sample.”

Soua Lee Vang soon returned with the small, well-wrapped parcel he had carried so long and so far.

We held back our enthusiasm lest we end up with mud on our face. We had heard from reliable sources that one major Laotian charlatan, General Phoumi Nosavan, who headed U.S.-backed anti-communist military forces in the ‘60’s, had sold Australian ABC-TV what was purported to be a canister of Yellow Rain for $10,000. It looked like a RPG round painted yellow. When the TV station purchased the canister and it was taken to Australia for evaluation, it was found to be an RPG round painted yellow. No Yellow Rain.

All we needed was to be suckered in with a bogus sample. ABC was painted as a victim, whereas SOF, already on top of the media outlaw list, would become a liberal laughing stock.

Within 48 hours, Bleacher flew the sample, concealed in a toothpaste tube, to the United States to have it tested in a private laboratory. We were suspicious that an official government agency might not provide an honest analysis, as some government personnel might object to giving SOF credit for the find.

A MAJOR COUP FOR SOF!

The private lab proved to be useless, giving us negative results for the sample. We turned the remaining residue over to Congressman Jim Leach’s (R-Iowa) office through a third party, who in turn gave it to the appropriate U.S. laboratory where it was analyzed and found to contain a deadly myco-toxin.

When he was in West Berlin, Secretary of State Alexander Haig declared that for the first time the United States “had definite evidence” of the use of chemical weapons in Laos, Afghanistan and Cambodia, which were manufactured by the Soviet Union, one of which was provided by Soldier of Fortune magazine.

In November 1981, SOF staffer Jim Coyne went on the talk show circuit and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the Yellow Rain issue. SOF itself exposed the use of chemical and biological warfare in March ‘82 in an article called Yellow Rain. Dismissing the State Department’s confirmation that they had obtained four samples, one from SOF, the New York Times criticized the State Department in an article, “Too Quick on Yellow Rain.” We figured the NYT was just miffed because their reporters were not part of the story. But the people of Laos were suffering and dying for such lack of concern.

At this time, Soldier of Fortune magazine offered a $100,000 reward to the first communist pilot to defect to the West in an aircraft with intact samples of Soviet chemical or biological warfare agents. Unfortunately, there were no takers.

We were certain that the use of chemical and biological agents by the Soviet Union and its satellites was an integral part of their strategy and tactics. They would, without hesitation, poison Cambodian refugee-camp water wells inside Thailand, or spray lethal chemicals on Laotian villages, or gas an Afghan town. Fortunately, for reasons unknown, this did not happen.