- It sounded like the plot of a horror film. Eight deer
hunters become hunted themselves, by a lone gunman. Only two injured survivors
live to tell the tale.
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- This was no movie, however, but a real killing spree
that has stunned America. And its seriousness does not end with the echo
of gunshots in a Wisconsin forest. The massacre has raised the prospect
of ethnic strife and revealed a link to a bloody, forgotten sideshow of
the Vietnam war.
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- All six of those killed - five men and one woman - were
white. However, the gunman is Chai Soua Vang, an immigrant of the Hmong
tribe from Laos. The Hmong were recruited by the CIA in the Sixties to
fight communism, but were betrayed by the US and forced from their homes.
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- The killings resonated beyond the families of the dead
by raising fears that the Hmong could now become the victims of a fresh
ethnic vendetta in their new homeland. They have occurred just as thousands
of Hmong men and women are leaving a refugee camp in Thailand, many preparing
to settle in the city where Vang lived.
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- There is panic among some Hmong rights activists. 'I
am worried that the actions of one man will be used to judge a whole community,'
said Dr Vang Pobzeb, director of the Wisconsin-based Lao Human Rights Council.
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- The story began with a chance meeting in the deep woods
of western Wisconsin, where hunting is common. Vang was hunting alone when
he stumbled across a hunting 'stand' in a tree on land owned by local man,
Terry Willers. Willers discovered Vang up the tree 15 minutes later and
asked him to stop trespassing. Willers then radioed for five other members
of his hunting group to arrive and they wrote Vang's deer licence number
in the dust on one of their vehicles. They swore at Vang and told him to
leave. Vang began to walk away.
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- That should have been the end of it. But it was just
the beginning of a deadly nightmare. Vang says the hunters began to abuse
him racially. They called him 'chink' and 'gook', and one of them fired
a shot into the ground behind him. The surviving hunters deny this. They
say it was Vang who suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to face them.
Whatever the truth, what happened next is not in doubt. Vang began to kill
them all one by one.
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- Court papers obtained by The Observer reveal Vang's own
account to police of the murders. No matter what the racial provocation,
it is brutal in the extreme.
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- Vang turned towards the hunters and began to fire, picking
his victims off with deadly accuracy. Two of the men, father and son Joey
and Robert Crotteau, fled through the forest, but Vang chased after them,
jumping over logs and racing through the trees. He shot Robert dead and
then caught up with Joey. When he was about 20 yards behind him Vang opened
fire. 'Help me, help me,' Joey Crotteau cried as Vang shot him.
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- Vang's account then describes how he came up to the dying
man, lying groaning on the ground, looked at him, and then turned and walked
away.
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- Another hunter, Lauren Hesebeck, had cowered behind a
vehicle. Vang ran around it and shot at him three times as he tried to
hide. Hesebeck survived, though wounded in the shoulder.
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- One of the terrified hunters managed to call for help
and three men with guns drove up through the woods. At that, Vang turned
his orange hunting jacket inside out to reveal its camouflage lining.
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- Reloading his rifle, he disappeared into the woods. There
he encountered two more unarmed hunters. One was 27-year-old Jessica Willers.
Vang opened fire and killed them both.
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- He returned to the first shooting scene. He saw one of
the original hunters, wounded, but still standing. He opened fire again,
screaming: 'You're not dead yet?' Vang then fled into the woods. Six people
were dead and two seriously injured.
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- Vang surrendered an hour later after getting lost and
asking another hunter for a lift out of the woods. At his arrest, he was
described as being calm. Who did the killing is therefore not in doubt.
But the question of why is haunting America, and in particular the Hmong
community of which Vang was a respected member.
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- 'This certainly seems not to be a who dunnit but a why,'
said Steven Kohn, Vang's lawyer.
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- Though frank as to how he killed the hunters, Vang has
shed little light on his motives. Even if his description of being racially
abused is true, his explosion of cold-blooded killing seems far out of
proportion to the provocation. Last week, he appeared in court to be charged
with six murders.
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- To cope with the massive security needed to cope with
an outraged population, the case was heard in the fortified basement of
a local school. Wearing orange prison clothes, Vang sat impassively throughout
the proceedings. He replied with a simple 'yes' to all questions. His longest
remark was 'two years of college' when asked by the judge about his education.
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- Vang's family are equally baffled. None appeared in the
court to offer support. 'I don't know what my father did. I'm really shocked,'
said his eldest daughter, Kia.
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- The murders have traumatised the Hmong community in this
overwhelmingly white part of America. There are about 180,000 Hmong in
the US, mostly in Wisconsin and neighbouring Minnesota. Their story is
one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.
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- A peaceful farming community in the hills of Laos, the
Hmong were recruited by the CIA during the Vietnam war to fight communists.
They helped to rescue downed US pilots, attacked communist bases and fought
North Vietnamese troops.
-
- However, after the US fled Vietnam in 1975 and communist
governments came to power across South-East Asia, the Hmong were abandoned
by their former paymasters. They bore the brunt of a campaign of ethnic
cleansing in Laos, where their villages were sprayed with chemicals from
the air.
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- Thousands of Hmong have since languished in refugee camps
as the process of moving to the US has ground on for decades. Those few
remaining in Laos and Vietnam still suffer from violent campaigns to drive
them out, according to Hmong activists, who claim that 300,000 Hmong have
died since the US left. This year, Amnesty International has published
details of the rape and murder of Hmong children by Laotian troops.
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- One of the last movements of Hmong is currently under
way, with 15,000 people scheduled to arrive in the US before the end of
next year after the shutting down of Thailand's Wat Tham Krabok refugee
camp.
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- Of those, at least 5,000 are expected to settle in St
Paul, where Vang's family lived. But after Vang's massacre, the Hmong in
St Paul are now a community in fear. His family are under police protection.
Community elders have urged Hmong not to hunt for the rest of the winter.
Partly that has to do with the fact that Vang, far from being a loner or
outsider, was a respected member of the community. He was one of 100 traditional
Hmong shamans who conducted religious ceremonies and could enter a trance-like
state as he prayed and meditated.
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- In many ways, the Hmong have assimilated well. Ex-refugees
and their children have founded businesses, become local politicians and
revived inner-city areas that had fallen on hard times. But many have complained
of racism.
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- But the mystery of why Vang began his killing spree remains.
There was little hint in his past of the violence he would wreak. He was
a truck driver who hunted only as a hobby. He worked in Hmong youth social
programmes, and seemed to have been assimilated fully into American life.
He spoke English well and served six years in the National Guard in California.
There he was awarded a medal for his ability in one special area: sharpshooting.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1366851,00.html
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