Agenda For Bush-Thai Meeting Must Include Yellow Rain

The Center for Security Policy called on President Bush to arrange with Thai Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan during their meeting today at the White House for an immediate, systematic investigation of new charges of chemical warfare in Southeast Asia.

These charges — reported over the past two days in important articles by Claudia Rosett, editorial page editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal — suggest that the brutal communist government of Laos has resumed the use of poisonous "yellow rain" against democratic Laotian insurgents. The evidence cited includes first-hand interviews with Laotian refugees in Thailand who claim to have been attacked, doctors who have treated them, individuals who have delivered samples of alleged chemical weapons residues and who claim to possess captured munitions suspected of containing chemical agents.

Such allegations should be particularly troubling to President Bush. After all, in addition to the moral and humanitarian concern he surely feels, stopping the use and possession of chemical weapons has been among his highest personal priorities.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director said, "It is inconceivable that — in light of the prestige and energy he has committed to combatting chemical weapons — President Bush would fail to use the opportunity afforded by the Thai prime minister’s visit to set in train the needed, unilateral and bilateral inquiries into the charges of their use in Laos."

In previous capacities, Gaffney and several members of the Center’s Board of Advisors were intimately involved in past efforts by the U.S. government to obtain information concerning reports of the use during the 1980s by the Laotian government (possibly with the direct assistance of its Soviet and Vietnamese allies) of "yellow rain" against the Hmong peoples of Laos. Gaffney noted, "The Reagan Administration’s experience suggests that when the United States focuses the spotlight of world attention on such allegations — by engaging its personnel and resources in their investigation — it can help to deter that use."

The Center believes that, while they are at it, the President and the Thai prime minister should go beyond simply trying to mitigate the loss of life of the democratic Laotian resistance. It is high time for the United States and Thailand to initiate military and non-military assistance programs that will help these freedom fighters bring to their long-suffering nation the sort of political liberties and economic opportunity now being obtained by millions elsewhere around the world.

Copies of the Rosett articles which appeared in yesterday’s and today’s Wall Street Journal are attached.