CIA's one-time Lao base still shrouded in secrecy

http://www.bt.com.bn/features/2013/03/14/cias-one-time-lao-base-still-shrouded-secrecy



Low-lying clouds masking Long Tieng's Skyline Ridge, which guards the valley to the north. Hmong and Thai mercenaries held on here under heavy pressure during the hostilities.

CIA's one-time Lao base still shrouded in secrecy
John Mcbeth
SINGAPORE
Thursday, March 14, 2013

ELECTRICITY and an unsealed road now run through what was once known as Lima Site (LS) 20A. But 38 years after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) abandoned its secret Long Tieng base in one of the last acts of the Indochina War, it remains just that a secret place.

Off-limits to outsiders, special permission is needed to enter the mist-shrouded valley that served as the nerve centre of the CIA's private war in which Hmong hilltribe irregulars fought North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces across the mountains of north-east Laos.

But driving along the overgrown 1,350m runway, once the busiest in the world, it is not readily apparent why it remains closed especially when the present communist government has turned its own wartime headquarters into a fascinating tourist attraction.

Seven years ago, Vientiane dissolved the Xaysomboune special military zone, which since 1994 had encompassed Long Tieng and nearby Phou Bia, the country's highest mountain and for decades a refuge for armed Hmong holdouts.