Subject:      Re: "Yellow rain"
From:         drpao@lexicon.net.au
Date:         1998/01/29
Message-ID:   <886121295.72744971@dejanews.com>
Newsgroups:   alt.war.vietnam,soc.culture.hmong
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In article <01bd29dd$2491fb60$8d49accf@default>,
  "Michael Yared"  wrote:
>
> 	Was the "yellow rain" poured on the Hmong people in
> Laos really Soviet chemical weapons, as the CIA said, or
> bee feces, as American scientists said?
> 	Mike Yared
=D8 PS. I am not a veteran, fyi.



I am not an expert of chemical warfare or on bee shit but I have read
most of the available materials on these topics and yellow rain.

Yellow Rain is not a Hmong word=85 in fact I have never heard any Hmong
talk about "yellow rain".  They talked only about poison "tshuaj lom" -
the word yellow rain has no equivalent in Hmong.

Stories of gassing and poisoning  of the Hmong in Laos began as early as
June 1975.  Hmong villages was bombarded by aircraft with different types
of bombs including those that exploded on contact with the ground and
releasing colourful smokes ranging from black, green, red and yellow.=20
Water from their wells and even salt from the low land began to cause
mysterious illness among the villagers.  They described complex symptoms
including tingling and eye irritation, vomiting, diarrhoea, dizziness,
palpitation, chest pain, visual disturbance, loss of consciousness,
bloody diarrhoea  (but not infectious as compare to other known
dysentery), joint pain, fatigue, anorexia, skin rash and death.

Due to some the gas/smoke of yellow colour, the word "Yellow Rain" was
invented  by the West.	During the first few years, the US Government
received large amount of evidence but  did not want to rock the boat.=20
Nothing was done.  One journalist reported that  these early evidence
were passed back to Vientiane for the Russians.  The US Government did
not take this issue seriously until similar stories were coming out from
Cambodia and Afganistan.  Finally, the US Government, hesitantly sent a
team to Thailand to collect evidence.  The Hmong had provided 100's if
not thousands of specimen and pages and pages of testimonies for the US
Embassy in Bangkok to be sent to Washington.  The US First Secretary at
the US Embassy in Bangkok was the man in charge and he confirmed to me,
personally,  that he had sent all these "evidence" to the State
Department=85. But no one have heard or seen them=85 What happen to all=
 these
evidence?

As Sterling Seagrave was ready to launch his book, "Yellow Rain -
Chemical Warfare - the deadly arms race", the US announced in Berlin that
mycotoxin, as revealed	in Seagrave's book,  is the agent used in Laos.

The Russians replied in TASS that the US report was a "dirty lie".  Two
months later, the Russians  launching their own counter attack , not
denying the presence of  mycotoxin in S-E Asia, but suggest that these
mycotoxin-producing fungi occur naturally in Indochina:  This is due to
the ecological changes brought by heavy bombardment by the US, leading to
the growing of tall elephant grass which become the new home for the new
colonies of fungi - the fusarium species.  Marshall for Science magazine
called it, "The Soviet Elephant Grass Theory".

>From that day onwards, the Western scientific community was divided.

The critics of the mycotoxin theory began to propose their own
hypothesis.  For example, Grant Evans in Australia, a Left Winger and  a
strong supporter of the Communist Government in Vientiane, propose that
Yellow Rain is simply a "wild rumour".

Due to these yellow specks, the content of some pollen and the occasional
bee hair, Mathew Meselson of Havard University and his colleagues
proposed at the Meeting of the American Ass. for the Advancement of
Science, on 31st May 1983, that these yellow spots are bee excrement.=20
This hypothesis was expanded by Crone et al. in Australia who reported
that "yellow rain" sample contains uric acid... hence they concluded,
"the presence of uric acid alone is a strong indication that a yellow
rain sample is bee excrement" (Tch report OCD 83/13 - Dept of Defence).=20
But the Australian Government release an official statement that "It
should be borne in mind that the analysis are findings related to one set
of specimens alone.  It does not necessarily follow that all so call
'yellow rain' charges have been disproved" (AFAR March 1983, p. 119).

Meselson took his theory further by travelling to Thailand with Thomas
Seeley, a  Yale biologist. Meselson was reported to said that his team
were caught in a storm of bee defeacating reception in Thailand (The
Florida Times-Union, 30 March 84)...hence they were more convince about
their "bee doo doo theory".

Meselson may be right about bee shit but that was beside the point as  the
Bangkok Post pointed out:

"Prof. Mesleson should take our words, and others, that bee doo doo
doesn't kill, that a lot of people have died.  And trying - purposely or
not - to make light of the yellow rain tragedy is not in terrific taste.=20
One thing we all should know for sure is that herds of defeacating bees
may reek of a great black-humour motion picture, but it hardly explains
what has been happening virtually at our borders for the past years"=20
(BKK Post 31 March 84).

"YELLOW RAIN AND SOVIET LIES DON'T COMPARE "  The New York Times 12-3-88
(The writer, a former Defense Department official (1983-87), is now=20
director of the Center for Security Policy.)
http://www.powerup.com.au/~dominion/ff/y11.htm

>From that time onwards, the western scientist began a head-on debate of
who's right and who's wrong about bee shit.  The details were covered
extensively  by Lois Ember in  "Yellow Rain - the strange case of the
Hmong", Chemical Engineering News, Jan 9. 1984 page 8-33) and  I invite
all interested people to read it.

Other readings include:
BEE-FECES THEORY STILL HAS NO STING   William Kucewicz
                   The Wall Street Journal, 9/17/1987
http://www.powerup.com.au/~dominion/ff/y04.htm

As the debate went on furiously, it is interesting to note that the focus
has changed:  it is not about whether the Hmong were victims of chemical
warfare or not but these scientists were acting inappropriately , almost
to the point  to " falsify science and the facts" as  described by Claude
Bernard in his book, "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental
Medicine" written in 1927:

 "=85 man who believe too firmly in their theories do not believe enough in
the theories of others. So the dominant idea of these despisers of their
fellows is to find other's theories faulty and to try to contradict
them.... They make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of
seeking the truth.  At the same time, they make poor observations because
they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their
objective, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it, and carefully setting
aside everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat. By
these two opposite roads, men are thus led to  the same results. that is.
to falsify science and the facts...If men discuss and experiment... to
prove a preconceived idea, in spite of everything, they no longer have
freedom of mind, and they no longer search the truth.  Their is a narrow
science, mingle with personal vanity or the diverse passion of man.
Pride, however, should have nothing to do with all these vain disputes.=20
When two (scientists) quarrel, each to maintain his own ideas or
theories, in the midst of their contradictory arguments, only one thing
is absolutely certain: THAT BOTH THEORIES ARE INSUFFICIENT, AND NEITHER
OF THEM CORERESPONS TO THE TRUTH."

This is the words of the father of modern scientific experimentation!

Having said all that, in my humble opinion, the Hmong in Laos have been
victims of some sort of chemical warfare as it is well known  that the
Communist Lao Government has never hide the fact that the Hmong are not
wanted.  Chemical warfare is just ONE way to eradicate the Hmong. See
more deatails at:


The "yellow rain" debate will  not end here... But it is sad the way our
scientists behave in this debate.  Which scientist(s) really fit into what
Bernard describes above?

Today, the debate is no longer about whether the Hmong have been poisoned
but it is a fight among the western scientific community.  And secondly,
Yellow Rain has become a reason and excuse for the Super Powers in their
chemical warfare game.

The Hmong just happen to be the victims!  Thousands  have died.  But who
cares any way?

Who is to blame?  Who is/are responsible?  Is it the US Government? The
Soviet Union?  The Communist Lao Government?  Or the scientists?  Or even
the tax payers?

And lastly, what have the Hmong done to deserve all this?

I would love to have some answers.


Pao Saykao
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
drpao@lexicon.net
http://www.lexicon.net/drpao/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Web sites with articles on Yellow Rain:

"Yellow Rain" and the Future of Arms Agreements. by Robert L.
     Bartley, William P. Kucewicz. Foreign Affairs..
http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g450/vueb0001/HER/Bartley_YellowRain.html

YELLOW RAIN: HOW IS A LAYMAN TO DECIDE?
http://www.powerup.com.au/~dominion/ff/y02.htm

WISHFUL DISBELIEF
http://www.powerup.com.au/~dominion/ff/y03.htm