Gen. Vang Pao, Hmong leader, U.S. ally

FRESNO, Calif. - Gen. Vang Pao, 81, an iconic figure in the Hmong community and a key U.S. ally in Laos during the Vietnam War, died Thursday after spending days in the hospital with pneumonia and a heart problem.

"He was a larger-than-life figure for this community," said Fresno City Council member Blong Xiong, the first Hmong American to win a council seat in California.

Former CIA chief William Colby called him "the biggest hero of the Vietnam War," for the 15 years he spent heading a CIA-sponsored guerrilla army fighting a communist takeover of Southeast Asia.

After his guerrillas ultimately lost, Gen. Vang fled to the United States, where he was credited with brokering the difficult resettlement of tens of thousands of Hmong, an ethnic minority from the hillsides of Laos.

He was admitted to Clovis Community Medical Center on Dec. 26 shortly after making his annual appearance at the Hmong International New Year event at the Fresno Fairgrounds. He lived in Southern California.

Charlie Waters, a friend and veterans advocate in Fresno, said Gen. Vang had been battling pneumonia, diabetes, and a heart problem. He "was a great man and a true warrior," Waters said.

While revered, he also was controversial. Federal authorities in 2007 charged him and 10 others with conspiring to overthrow the communist government in Laos.

Charges against him were dropped in 2009. Yet the arrest galvanized Hmong Americans who saw Gen. Vang as a symbol in their fight for public acknowledgment of the Hmong role in the war, and for liberation of those still living in the Laotian jungle.

Born in December 1929 to farmers in a Laotian village, he became a teenage translator for French paratroops fighting the Japanese in Laos during World War II.

He was selected to train at a French officers' school in Vietnam and became a commissioned officer in the French army. Laotian leaders then made him a general.

In 1961, he was recruited by the CIA to lead a secret Hmong army against Laotian communists and their North Vietnamese counterparts who were using routes through Laos to supply their troops.

When the war ended and U.S. forces pulled out of Vietnam, communists in Laos persecuted the Hmong. More than 300,000 Laotian refugees - most of them Hmong - sought safety, and many began a treacherous journey to reach Thai refugee camps.

Under CIA orders, Gen. Vang was flown out from his mountaintop headquarters in May 1975. He lived in Montana before moving to Orange County, Calif., which had a growing Southeast Asian population.

In 1977, he established the Lao Family Community organization to provide social services nationwide. The nonprofit helps refugees learn English and basic life skills.

That, and wartime memories, helped build the foundation for his influence.