ABSTRACT
While a fraction of the Hmong eventually rallied to Faydang's "Anti-Japanese Meo Resistance League" and subsequently to the Lao Issara and the Pathet Lao during and after the period of Japanese rule in Laos and the French reconquest, another albeit laiger fraction of this minority remained loyal to Touby Lyfong, a French-appointed clan chief, and his heir apparent on the battlefield, Vang Pao. As developed in a first section of this chapter, the division within the Hmong was not only perpetuated through decades of civil and revolutionary warfare but has persisted into the post-revolutionary era as well. As we shall see in a second section, the montagnards of the southern highlands were also allotted a special role in the counter-revolution alongside US agencies inside Laos in the 1960s and early 1970s. Finally, as shown, the 1980s saw the montagnards recaste in a more than symbolic role as "freedom fighters" along the lines of the Reagan Doctrine.
