For UW-Madison history Professor Alfred McCoy, history really does repeat itself. After the Madison Park Board turned down a request to name a new park after Hmong General Vang Pao, protests ignited in Madison's Hmong community condemning McCoy's 1972 book \The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,"" which criticizes Pao for his role in the Southeast Asian Opium market.
Approximately 30 protesters rallied outside McCoy's office in Humanities Thursday holding signs that read ""Stop teaching lies"" and ""General Vang Pao is a hero."" Protester and Madison community member Cha Chaog said the group would protest McCoy again on Friday and would continue until he apologizes.
""We fight for democracy,"" Chaog said. ""He's spreading lies.""
Chaog said that people from Minnesota are expected to join the Madison protesters tomorrow, adding that ""eventually individuals from the entire country will be in Madison protesting McCoy.""
Naming the park after Pao was suggested by Madison's Hmong community to honor the general's role as leader of Hmong forces which aided the United States in the Vietnam War. After the board recommended that the Park not be named after Pao, an article written in Wednesday's Capital Times cited McCoy's book which criticized Pao's role in the Southeast Asian Opium trade, and his errors in combat which, McCoy said, caused the deaths of thousands of Hmong people.
""The death toll was so high that they were recruiting 14-year-old boys,"" McCoy said.
McCoy, who has studied the growth of drug trafficking in Southeast Asia over the past 20 years, says he feels there is no reason to apologize for statements made in his book.
""They want me to apologize? Do I say the things that I saw and the events that I observed didn't happen?"" he asked.
McCoy spent time in Laos in 1971 researching his book and interviewing civilians living under Pao's authority.
""The Hmong I talked to in 1971 were sharply critical of Vang Pao. He cared too little about Hmong life. [This was] ample reason to doubt his leadership,"" McCoy said.
He added that he believes the protesters are Pao's political followers and veterans of his secret army whom he has confronted before.
""That I've run into them does not surprise me,"" said McCoy.
He said that people from Pao's secret army tried to silence him while he was still in Laos investigating Pao's role in the opium trade. After being cornered by Pao's assassins McCoy said that he and his colleagues had to shoot their way out of the ambush.
""These demonstrations are that kind of intimidation,"" McCoy said. ""They are an attempt to silence academic freedom.\
