Word: opium
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Whoever finally wins control of Laos will have a prime headache from a band of wiry mountain tribesmen who wear their hair in a tangled bun, love opium and hate law, order and progress. The Meos are the best fighters in Laos, and during the course of the civil war, they have traded in their crossbows and poisoned arrows for shiny new weapons donated by both the Communists and the U.S. "Give one of those little guys a rifle in the morning," says a U.S. military adviser, "and when he comes back that night, he'll be able...
...great snows, and will live only above 3,000 ft. More probably, they originated in northern China and were gradually driven south. About 5,000,000 Meos are scattered through Southeast Asia, perhaps 250,000 of them in Laos. They hold a virtual monopoly on the growing of opium and hence are among the more affluent Laotians. They hoard their wealth in massive silver necklaces, worn by all Meo women. Unlike the Buddhist Lao, the Meos have no qualms about killing...
Radio Hanoi has been wooing the Meos for years with Meo-language broadcasts, but the tribe reportedly split into pro-and anti-Communist factions after a quarrel over the division of the opium crop. Colonel Vang and his cousin, Health Minister Touby Lyfoung, lead the loyalist Meos. The Pathet Lao Meos follow Chief Phay Dang, described by Communist Journalist Wilfred Burchett, who once visited him, as "a noble figure with a fine head, the dignity and poise of a great Indian chief...
...early in the 19th century when a pair of thrusting Scots-James Matheson and Dr. William Jardine-cracked the British East India Co.'s trading monopoly with China and, with the aid of a heavily armed clipper fleet, won for themselves 25% of the illegal but vastly profitable opium trade. In 1839, when the Manchu Emperor seized 20,000 chests of smuggled British opium, it was William Jardine who convinced British Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston that this was an indignity to which Britain could not submit. The result was the three-year Opium War, which ended in 1842 with...
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people. The people cannot be really happy until it has been deprived of illusory happiness by the abolition of religion...