WEBVTT

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All right.

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So Yeah, lots of research I've
done over the last 10 years,

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mostly digging through
declassified materials,

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going out to the National
Security Archive at George

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Washington University to dig
through more declassified

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materials, but to
actually be able to hold

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a lot of these
relics in my hand,

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too, because they had them
all in these file boxes.

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It was really just incredible to
come across all this material.

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This next poem is about
escape and how people escape

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and under what circumstances
could one escape.

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Case Studies In
Escape, Post 1975.

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"One.

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Hmong Village Chief.

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Five times your village was
forced to roam, restless

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and uprooted by
eyes of the regime

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to settle in the Ban Don Valley.

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Wise ones taken to seminar
meant this was a land of rules.

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No farming in the lowlands.

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No contact with the locals.

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No hunting within the forests.

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No trade outside the settlement.

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No clinics.

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No schools.

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No elders allowed
to spirit lead.

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Monitored by 2
officials and a brigade.

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Then it happened.

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The first attack in 1979.

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Source saw a plane
fly over and then saw

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yellow sugar on farm plants.

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Once more, December 1980,
until no more withstanding.

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February 1981.

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Permission granted to move
the village once more.

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And this time you broke free.

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77 families to the Mekong.

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13 day walk.

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3.

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A Former Hmong Captain
in the Royal Lao Army.

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You averted your fate
in a cleansing camp.

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People never came back.

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If only you were quick as deer,
atmospheric as bird, small as

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beetle to hide in the Earth.

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25 relatives gone to the gas.

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More had been forsaken
without shield.

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Eating roots and grass
for the last six months.

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Children and old people
who can no longer walk

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are abandoned in a
cave in the forest."

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