Date:  April 3, 2003

Laos (FFC)  Sources in Laos report heavy assaults by LPDR and Vietnamese military forces  began Tuesday, April 01, 2003, against the group of Freedom Fighters in Xaysomboune Special Zone led by Moua Toua Ter.  This group of veterans of the U. S. Secret War and their families have been under continuous attack since December 1, 1999. For a number of months the group hid in the steep cliffs at Pha Sie.  On October 9, 2002, they were driven out from the protection the nearly inaccessible cliffs provided.  Since then communist military forces have cutoff their food supply by encamping at or by placing landmines around the fields where the people harvested cassava.   
Many of the Freedom Fighters and their families have died since October due to military assaults, landmines, chemical poisoning, and starvation.  The veterans are armed only with a handful of rifles left over from the war in South East Asia.  They are poorly clothed, have no medicine, and survive only on bamboo and the roots of trees.  While little match for the heavily armed communist military they have survived by their knowledge of the mountains and jungles in the remote regions of the Xaysomboune Special Zone.  They live several days travel form the nearest villages and the much needed aid.
Sources report that on March 25, 2003, Vietnamese Battalion 335 was brought by military trucks to two bases between Phonsavan and Ban Khoum.  This unit of about 1,000 soldiers were observed to be wearing uniforms with Vietnamese unit emblems.  Another Vietnamese troop, Battalion 4, was reported positioning in La Khai.  Other reports indicate there are another 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers in Phonsavan.  These soldier are disguised in civilian clothes and have been identified by the term "Kamakouan."
Tuesday, military helicopters were observed airlifting the Vietnamese troops in an attack against Moua Toua Ter's group in who is now in Nam Choung, near the old military air base known as Lima Site 17.
Unconfirmed sources state the attacks were ordered by LPDR Minister of Defence, Douan Chi Phichit.  Only two days earlier Phichit was heard on a Voice of America broadcast denying the assaults against the Secret War veterans and their families.  In that broadcast Phichit dismissed Fact Finding Commission videotapes showing the military attacks against the men, women, and children, as having been staged enactments.
Commentary:  The Fact Finding Commission is surprised as well as angered over the renewed attacks against this group of nearly defenseless people.  Particularly as the world is becoming aware of the plight of these people who's only crime is their loyalty to the United States during the Secret War nearly thirty years ago.  The LPDR government is aware Time Magazine reporter Andrew Perrin and photographer Philip Blenkinsop experienced firsthand the hardships faced by Moua Toua Ter and his people.  Commonsense would dictate that with Time Magazines report about to be published they would withdraw their troops from the region.  However, not untypical of communist thinking, they press forward in either retaliation or to erase the existence of these people in denial of the upcoming report.  The Secret War veterans and their families are no threat the internal security of Laos.  They live in very remote areas and while ready to defend themselves against communist attacks they commit no crimes.  These attacks are intended to genocide those that fought against the communists, particularly the Hmong and Khmu in the northern regions of Laos.

Women and Children cry out for help.  They have no food, no medicine, no hope.