Avoiding the Laos Trap - human rights, Laos

In a seedy Bangkok hotel, I found pimps, prostitutes, and the guy who makes America's foreign policy.

THE BANGKOK HOTEL TO WHICH I pulled up on a motorbike looked more like the kind of place you go for a full-body massage than for a foreign policy briefing. Johns loitered outside the building, occasionally disappearing into the alley. Shady-looking businessmen lounged inside the lobby, sipping Johnny Walker and toasting each other--at one in the afternoon. Porters alternately grabbed people's bags and unceremoniously dumped them on the floor.

I had been asked to the hotel to interview Vang Pobzeb, head of something called the Lao Human Rights Council, an organization in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, that lobbies on behalf of the Hmong, a Laotian ethnic minority, and against closer relations between our country and the government of Laos. Despite the fact that his chosen venue seemed longer on bargirls than conference rooms, Vang had managed to lure reporters from two of the three main newswires--myself and a Reuters guy--by dint of his Web site, a product that was a good deal classier than our hotel. The Reuters reporter and I quickly realized that Vang, who spoke so fast that he sounded like a Christies auctioneer, had little hard evidence to prove his points. To support his contention that the Lao government was massacring ethnic Hmong, Vang produced a grainy videotape that resembled a `70s snuff film minus the music. When I played the tape on a VCR, all I could make out were shadowy figures. I half expected Haley Joel Osment to appear suddenly and warn me that I was seeing ghosts.

Still, Vang was talking more about Lao-U.S. and Hmong-Lao relations than any of the local diplomats, most of whom wouldn't trouble themselves with such a tiny state. Since the U.S. embassy and the Lao government offered us nothing newsworthy to fill out wire quotas--as a wire service journalist for Agence France-Presse, I had to file stories constantly or risk having my sins catalogued in French by my indignant boss--we dutifully jotted down whatever Vang told us and used his briefing in stories. In this small way, our stories helped prevent the United States from strengthening its ties with Laos.

Hmong the Believers

The scene at the hotel encapsulates an important but little-understood shift in the conduct of post-Cold War American foreign policy. These days, ethnic lobbies are about the only American organizations actively engaged in many small countries around the globe. But while they can be helpful--to reporters like me, for instance--ethnic lobbies increasingly determine U.S. action 'towards these countries, sometimes pushing Washington into extremely inconsistent policies.

Ever wonder, for instance, why the U.S. government bends over backward to develop closer trade relations with a repressive communist regime like China, but maintains sanctions against Cuba? Well, China is a vast new market and a growing military power that threatens U.S. security. American corporations and some military experts believe that engagement with China is crucial. Cuba, on the other hand, poses no military threat to the U.S and is too small a market to be of major interest to corporate America. Consequently, it's easy for Washington to pander to the noisy Cuban-American lobby.

Laos is a poorer, smaller version of Cuba: a tiny, tropical state of roughly five million people in Southeast Asia that is home to one of the world's more backward governments. The country's opaque communist regime routinely attacks opponents and stifles public demonstrations, while its fiscal mismanagement has plunged ordinary Lao citizens into near-African poverty. Laos' currency, the kip, has plummeted from 760 to the dollar in 1997 to more than 8,000 today. Although Laos has an emerging middle class, many more have fallen into squalor. This year, foreign aid (none of it from the United States) will constitute more than half the government's budget. Meanwhile, the government celebrated 25 years in power last winter with a Soviet-style parade replete with goose-stepping troops and masses of civilians conscripted to cheer.

Though Laos is neither an expansive potential market like China nor a missile threat like North Korea, there are good reasons to keep an eye on it. One third of the world's opium supply originates in the northern part of the country. Over the past two years, a series of unexplained bombings and other acts of violence--some allegedly facilitated by Hmong-Americans--have shattered the country's somnolent atmosphere. What's more, China is increasing its influence there in order to gain leverage against the U.S. in Southeast Asia.

Thirty-five years ago, Laos was a frontline state in the battle against communism. Top White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials guided our policy towards it. Today, despite the opium production and bombings, it is of little consequence to Washington. But it remains a considerable interest to one small lobby: Hmong veterans of the Vietnam War now living in the United States. In the absence of other interests, U.S. policy toward Laos is now determined by whatever the Hmong's lobby wants.