SOME FUSS has been kicked up in a a thing as the Indochina Governmem | Continental Air Service, a subsidiary few (a very few) newspapers over a General, about I5 per cent of is inreport that Vice-President Nguyen come came from. the French nearCao Ky of South Vietnam, the erstmonopoly in opium. Loday the Meo while premier. once smuggled some operate a little differently, with fewer orum from Laos 100E WHe middlemen in Bangkok anu Vientiane; werking for the CIA. instead, they use the CIA. The report.
written bv. an American The -South-cast Asia drug trailickers who was on the scene, was loaned to a heterogenous lot There's a the Associated Press by a Senate sub- band of old colonial Europeans who on foreign aid expendi- have somehow SUNCE with the word that it is con- headed by a Corsican pirate. There sidered highly reliable deals are Chinese merchants the flying of saboteurs into and in the north of Thailand. Theie is North Vietnam in 1963 and 1964, an that nororious gang of old Kuomin opcration in which the CIA used tang soldiers who took up residence Vietnamese air crews. In He area cars ago, after an ill-fated Ky at the time was commander of CIA adventure in Chine's Yünnan the air force. and the report sars. province; these Chinese still maintain Colonel Ky took advantage of his their own arstrips. situation o fir onium from Laos to At least until recently, stafl members Saigon. Of course the CIA removed ot the International Control CommisColond Ky. sion in Laos (Canadians, Indians and Sure they did. It's not casy to defend Poles) were dealing themselves pieces Ine swashbucking adinH niter of the opium action too, fiving around and virtual dictator of South Viet- in white helicopten without hindrance. nam, and ol course two wrones don't Today, though, the traffic is mostly make a right-but KV didn't American-to the disgust of Euro smuggle opium when he was flying Bangkok who have been serened and. and others in Vientiane and for the CIA, there are a great many ether pilots who de not share his Dotted abour the hills of Laos scruples. mOre than 150 • AID Opium is, and has been for years, the named because ostensibly it's the largest export item from Laos, where Agency for International Development it is the principal cash crop of the Meo that The opcrations. Rice who migrated to northern Taos from drop-dalone with radio enuinment of Continental Airlines which is under contract to the CIA.
Many of the "AID projects' are Meo villages-the Meo rarely live below 3,500 feet-and when CIA pilots bring in ammunition, the sometimes take out opium. Because a number of middlemen are eliminated. the pilots pay more than the Meo used to get SUMATRA (ane that i means leaders and Lao officials).
IVeO Payment is usually made in gold bars, sometimes in dollars or precious stones.
huadred kilo barrels of raw opium are difficult to hide even for the CIA, but on an island in the Mekong River is a tactory run by an Austrian where the opium is refined to the powdery morpaine base which takes up only a tenth of the space. Air America flies it to the giant United States hase at Nakhon Phanom in Thailand. 10 Chieng Mai, Bangkok, Danang, Saion. It never leaves the loading area of the air base; the harmless. looking suitcases or crates move from one aircraft to another, shuttling toward their ultimate destination (with money changing hands at every step)
Taiwan the Philippines Hong Kong or Singapore, where it is nimned into Meroin There are reports that heroin itself is now being manufactured in Laose if our heroes are making just that much more money. KALMANTAN verted to West Kalimantan, focus of the rebellion, from where, notably from North Sumatra, According to official estimates, number of armed guerrillas is -somewhere between 700 and 2,000 it is claimed. But this has quite enough to cause the authorities great trouble and concern. crack Indonesian Siliwangi Division has been SCHI against guerrillas, and in March top military manders met in Djakarta to discuss intensification American troops engaged in 'advising and modernising the Indonesian armed forces clearly familiar role to play in all this. The West Kalimantan lighting WEST IRIAN apparently commanded by Sofian, a PKI leader, now said to have his base in the Mt. Slabu region. Clashes have been reported from Batu Hitam, Bengkajang, Sengkung, Melantjeu, Benua Martinus. SamDAS Seluas, Sanggau, Singkawang and elsewhere. Preparation for appears to have been thorough. Rice supplies have cached in a score or so of Dermanant training areas in S Australia region between and behind Sambas and Pontianak, centring on Mr. Niut, which is in a range which stretches over the border into Sarawak. Such supplies in remote and