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Continuing outside exploitation and the recent muzzling of the press spell bad news for the Hmong’s fading insurgency. The recent arrest, trial, conviction and sudden release of two European reporters and their American Hmong interpreter drew the world’s attention once again to the long-simmering opposition, by some Hmong at least, to the current Lao government. From the start, the matter was badly handled. The fifteen-year prison term for "possession" of a "bomb" that was either planted or belonged to someone else was a massively disproportionate sentence for the three men, and immediately brought howls of international protest. From the Lao point of view, the sentence was exemplary, in the sense that it was a warning to all other foreign journalists not to try to make contact with Hmong anti-government insurgents. In other words, it was a political use of the law of a kind common in a one-party state like Laos, but which flew in the face of the Western sense of natural justice and human rights. Instead of insisting that the men serve at least some of their sentences, the Lao government then caved in to pressure to release the three men, in a vain attempt to distract any further attention from the Hmong insurgency that has been spluttering along in northern Laos since 1975. Then in order to keep the momentum going, an American, predominantly Hmong organization calling itself the Fact Finding Commission claimed that resistance groups across eleven provinces in Laos had begun a coordinated uprising. This was "confirmed" by a member of the same organization in Thailand, but denied in Laos, both officially and by foreign diplomatic sources. Since then, there have been unconfirmed reports of a few small-scale clashes between Lao government forces and Hmong dissidents. Before trying to assess what is going on in Laos, amid all the claims and denials, a little historical background is necessary. The Hmong insurgency against the Lao communist government has deep historical roots that go back well before the Second Indochina War (1960-1975). The Hmong who fled China for Laos in the nineteenth century brought with them hopes for an independent state. These hopes crystallised in a messianic belief that a Hmong leader would arise who would carve out such a state in the mountains of northern Laos. This movement was known as the Chao Fa, literally the Heavenly Lord. The Hmong who arrived in Laos were divided into clans, two prominent ones being the Lo and the Ly. When the French favoured the latter over the former, a bitter division followed. When the French found themselves pitted against the Vietminh in the First Indochina War (1945-1954), the Lo joined the communist side, while the Ly took the side of the French. With the outbreak of the Second Indochina War, anti-communist Hmong began to be recruited by the US Central Intelligence Agency for undercover operations against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao. In time these Hmong formed the core of what became known as the "Secret Army", whose job it was, at horrific cost, to deny control of the Plain of Jars and surrounding mountains to communist forces. The hatred and suspicion generated by this internecine conflict ran deep, so deep that many "Secret Army" Hmong preferred to flee Laos after the Pathet Lao seized power in 1975 for fear of reprisals. Some were flown out by the Americans; others undertook an epic trek across the Mekong through Sayaboury Province to Thailand, pursued by communist forces. Most of these who made it were eventually resettled in the US, but only after years in refugee camps. Some Hmong, however, elected to stay in their beloved mountains to the south of the Plain of Jars, to carry on the fight and to be ready to construct the future Hmong state in which they still believed. Neither the military stick applied by the Lao People’s Army (LPA), backed by the Vietnamese, nor the carrot of resettlement on better land at lower altitudes offered by the Lao government, have been able to convince them to abandon their crusade. They were supported in the form of supplies and recruits from the Hmong refugee camps in Thailand, backed by Hmong in the US. But when the camps were finally closed, in the late 1990s, contact all but ceased. Since then Hmong insurgents have come under continuing pressure from the LPA, especially in the military "special zone" of Xaisomboun. Earlier this year, two Time reporters managed to reach Xaisomboun. They returned with stories and photographs of hunted people in a pitiable state, of emaciated Hmong clutching outdated rifles, on their knees weeping and begging for assistance.