US team: refugees show signs of Viet chemicals

Seventy Laotian refugees who fled to Thailand appear to have been subject to chemical attacks launched by Vietnam-backed Laos, according to a team of US experts on chemical and biological warfare.

Team leader Gary Crocker of the State Department said the eight-member team interviewed medical personnel and the 70 Laotian Hmong hill tribesmen at the northern Thai-Lao border camp of Ban Vinai. Mr. Crocker said that while the team lacked evidence of the lethal chemical attacks from captured weapons or bodies of victims, evidence of chemical attacks had been obtained from samples of water and vegetation and the testimony of thousands of refugees.