Curse of the Pogo Stick Read Online Free PDF Page A

became unproductive. Originally, land had been plentiful and this was no problem. But soon, with overcrowding on the plains, they were forced to higher and higher ground. They were a race with no nation, no large cities, and few ambitions beyond family and home. They lived according to tradition with the elders teaching everything technical, moral, and spiritual to the young. But history constantly found them in the wrong place at the wrong time. Opium cultivation had been imposed on them by the Chinese and French administrators, then they were taxed for producing it. When they supplied to the wrong side, they were hounded off the land. They found themselves in a system they’d had no desire to enter, constantly having to fight for their independence. When they fought it was not out of conviction but for their own survival. In Laos, interclan rivalry was exploited at the time of the Japanese occupation. One clan collaborated with the Japanese, the other with the French. This split became even more pronounced after the war, with one side forming an alliance with the communists in the north and the other with the Americans. There was very little option of non-alignment. The Lao Hmong lived in a land that had forever been somebody’s battleground. Diverse groups who had no interest in politics were forced by their clan name to favour one side or the other. Clans found themselves pulled into the fray by recruiters. Once again, the Hmong had become somebody’s enemy – a title their culture abhorred and, given their history of abuse, one they hardly deserved.
    Once rallied, the Hmong were fierce fighters and all those who battled alongside or against them vouched for their valour. It wasn’t until 1973 that a cease fire was called in the protracted civil war but the suffering hadn’t stopped for the hill tribes. In 1975, the so-called thirty-year Hmong who had sided with the Pathet Lao were somehow forgotten when the communists took control of the country. There were token positions and ranks allocated, but the majority were either sent back to grow opium, or, worse still, relocated to the plains, where they succumbed to diseases unknown in the mountains.
    The Hmong who fought with the CIA under General Vang Pao were also forgotten by their allies. The Americans could retreat to the land of the free and the brave, but the Hmong had nowhere to go. They were the enemy in their own land. They weren’t extended the luxury of being ignored or relocated. They were hunted. They fled, of course, some to the camps in Thailand, other old soldiers to the mountains around Phu Bia, where they formed the armee clandestine in a hopeless resistance against the PL. Others still formed bandit gangs and vented their frustration on their own kind. Once again, war had divided a culture, split families, and left only shells of the proud men and women who had fought and lived to tell the tale.
    No, it wasn’t the Hmong Siri was afraid of. He’d been in battles all his life and survived. A bullet to the head wouldn’t have been that much of an upheaval to him now. What distressed him was the thought of being stuck in the jungle with spotty-faced Judge Haeng for a month. That, he decided, would be a slow and agonizing way to go.
     
    There wasn’t a lot for individuals to do on a Sunday in Vientiane. At least from Monday to Saturday a person could work for next to no pay and spend her evenings doing community service for the sheer joy of it. But Daeng was officially a business proprietor and Dtui had recently moved to her new husband’s rooms at the police compound so neither was registered for the Sunday community development programmes. This meant there wasn’t even a slim hope of clearing garbage from the banks of the irrigation ditch or laying gravel on a dirt road while singing ‘The Blood We Shed for the Republic Has Turned to Sweat.’
    So, instead, they rode their bicycles to the little metal bridge at kilometre 2 that crossed over