Forgotten U.S. allies emerge from jungles of Laos

By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Up to 4,000 ethnic Hmong, remnants of a U.S.-backed anti-communist guerrilla army in the Laotian jungles during the Vietnam War, are ready to surrender after 30 years on the run, a U.S. activist said on Thursday.

Ex-California police officer Ed Szendrey, who was detained at the weekend by the Laotian communist government for helping 173 women, children and elderly people give themselves up, said many more Hmong were waiting to come in from the cold.

"We've had indications that there are nearly three to four thousand ready to surrender," Szendrey told a news conference in the Thai capital after his deportation from the landlocked southeast Asian nation as a "trouble-maker."

Semper Fi