PHNOM PENH - It was known as the
'secret war', a covert operation waged by the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) throughout the sixties and early seventies against
communist guerrillas in Laos.
And the most secret location in this clandestine war was
the former CIA air base of Long Chen, in central Laos, a place that
remain off limits even today.
A new film, 'The Most Secret Place on Earth', to be released
in cinemas across Europe later this year, explores this little known
conflict.
The film, which previewed for the first time in Phnom Penh in
mid-August, includes images of Long Chen shot by the first Western
camera crew to enter the base since the communists took control of the
country in 1975.
"I first got the idea to do the film when I visited the Plain
of Jars in Laos in 2002," recalled Marc Eberle,36, the German director
in an interview with IPS.
"You could still see the craters from the air bombing and unexploded ordnance was everywhere."
"Then I heard about Long Chen and the fact that no one had got
there since the war and I thought, how do I visit and how do I make a
film about it?"
Little is known about the Lao conflict despite the fact that
it remains the largest and most expensive paramilitary operation ever
run by the U.S.
It was completely run by the CIA using largely civilian pilots from the
agency's own airline, Air America, and mercenaries recruited from the
Hmong, an ethnic tribe living in mountainous areas in central and
northern Laos.
Despite being the centre of the covert operation and, at its peak, one
of the world's busiest airports with a population of 50,000 people,
Long Chen's location was never marked on any map.
"I found it bizarre that at one time this was the second biggest city in Laos and it was completely secret," Eberle says.
Long Chen remains off limits to foreigners and most Lao due to
clashes with remnants of the CIA's Hmong army. Until recently it formed
part of a special administrative zone under the direct control of the
Lao army.
Renewed interest in the Laos' secret war was briefly rekindled
in 2003 when two Western journalists made contact with members of the
Hmong resistance, the first white people they had seen since the CIA
abandoned them 27 years ago.
Although pictures from the encounter were printed in Time Asia
and won a world press award, U.S. media failed to pick up the story and
it died.
The decades-old conflict again made headlines last year when
U.S. authorities arrested 78 year-old Vang Pao, the head of the CIA's
Hmong forces in the sixties, and indicted him on terrorism charges
relating to his alleged involvement in a plot to over throw the Lao
government.
Eberle also believes what happened in Laos in the sixties is
relevant in that it shares strong parallels with the conflict in Iraq.
"Laos was the progenitor of the way America fights wars in the 21st century," he says.
"Outsourcing the war to private companies, gathering public
support by falsifying intelligence and documents, embedded journalism
and automated warfare including the use of so-called 'smart weapons',
all these methods were first tested in Laos."
The conflict began in the late fifties, as Washington sought
to counter communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese
allies who had began building the Ho Chi Minh trail through the jungles
running down the eastern border of Laos.
The operation was placed under CIA control to get around Laos'
supposed political neutrality and the conditions set by the Geneva
Accords.
Vang Pao, then an officer in the Royal Lao Army, was recruited
in 1960 to lead the Hmong troops drafted to fight the communists, which
at the peak of the fighting numbered up to 30,000.
The largest of hundreds of airstrips built by the CIA throughout Laos, Long Chen was established soon after.
The Most Secret Place examines the conflict through the stories of
players involved in the covert, diplomatic and military aspects of the
conflict, including former diplomats, CIA officers and Air America
pilots.
It also draws on critics such as Alfred McCoy, author of The
Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade and a
reporter in Laos at the time, and Fred Branfman, an aid worker turned
anti-war activist who worked to expose the conflict.
Ordinary Lao people at the receiving end of the world's most
technologically sophisticated military machine get a chance to tell
their story.
Although there is a short interview with Vang Pao, the one aspect of
the story not adequately dealt with is the plight of the Hmong, who
bore the brunt of some of the most savage fighting. With the exception
of senior officers like Vang Pao and their families, the Hmong fighters
were abandoned when the U.S. pulled out.
One of the most interesting aspects of 'The Most Secret Place'
is that it incorporates previously unused footage Eberle managed to
collect, including film of actual combat missions and day-to-day life
at Long Chen.
This was gathered from myriad sources, including the U.S.
National Film Archive and footage held by television stations from
across Europe.
"The CIA had just declassified a whole lot of material so that helped
as well," he says. "The most important source was the guys who were
over there filming with their little Super 8 cameras, often illegally."
This film's analysis sets it apart from other books and documentaries
on the subject, most of which justify the conflict, lauding the CIA
operatives and their Air America pilots as heroes.
The reality, as Alfred McCoy says towards the end of the film,
was very different. "We destroyed a whole civilisation, we wiped it off
the map. We incinerated, atomised human remains in this air war and
what happened in the end? We lost."
The covert nature of the conflict meant that U.S. forces were
able to ignore virtually all the rules of engagement operating in
Vietnam. Every building was a potential target and the civilian toll
was huge.
The situation grew worse in 1970 when U.S. President Nixon
authorised massive B-52 bombing strikes on Laos, which remained
classified information until many years later.
American planes dropped an average of one planeload of bombs
on targets in Laos every eight minutes, 24 hours a day for nine years,
making it the most heavily bombed country on earth per capita in the
history of warfare.
Eberle remains cagey about exactly how he managed to gain
access to film at Long Chen. "It was a matter of having the right
contacts," he says.
The last film crew to try and get there were caught and
convicted to 15 years prison, although they were eventually freed after
four weeks due to international pressure.
"After we went another UK crew tried to get there but they were caught and deported," he adds.
"There are some places in the world that have a different energy and
Long Chen is one of these. You look down the runway and think this is
the place were it all happened. The planes took off from here and
bombed all those people."
The film, which contains aerial footage of the base as well as
shots from the ground, shows Long Chen today as an overgrown airstrip
surrounded by heavily forested mountains.
"It's just an army outpost now. A small village, a couple of hundred people, soldiers and their families."
The buildings, including Californian bungalows and a number of
other structures designed in sixties style, largely lie vacant and
derelict.
"The golden age of Long Chen is over. It used to be the high-tech oasis
for spooks in Laos. There were allegedly more antennas there than
trees. Now they do not even have power."
The 2007 arrest of Vang Pao in California, along with eight
other Hmong and a former U.S. army ranger who served in Vietnam, on
charges of allegedly plotting to topple the Lao government, has
highlighted the current state of Hmong resistance inside Laos.
Eberle believes, as do many other observers in Laos, that the resistance is on its last legs.
"There are still some groups but they are not organised. They
are certainly not politically or militarily organised. They are
remnants, the children and grandchildren of those involved in the war
who are scared to come out of the jungle because they have never known
anything else."
"Whether Vang Pao is guilty or not of the charges he is
facing, one thing that is true is that he and other expatriate Hmong
have used these people as pawns," maintains Eberle.
"Vang Pao has also got millions [of dollars] out of the Hmong community
in the U.S. under the guise of liberating their homeland."
The decline in the resistance has been accompanied by talk of opening up Long Chen and the area around it to tourism.
"I do not see that happening in the next few years. It is still
far too sensitive on the part of the Lao government," says Eberle.
"They are also keen not to risk unsettling relations with the Americans
by opening it up."
"It is the last chapter of the Vietnam War and both governments have an interest in making sure it is forgotten."
