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a party in American uniform in Kokang; they stated that the party claimed to be working for the Americans, but that they were more probably spies working for the Japanese. They enquired whether they should be arrested? The American officers concerned were evidently unused to the tortuous complexities of oriental politics, nor had they any means of direct communication with the local population; they were in the hands of their interpreters, who before being provided by the Chinese were put through a conditioning course in Kuo Min Tang ideology. It was thus not at all easy for the American officers to arrive at the facts. So Lopez' party was surrounded early one morning by a company of Chinese troops, arrested and disarmed. Their supplies were all confiscated. Two of Dr. Seagrave's nurses, caught by the war in Kokang, had joined Lopez; one succeeded in hiding in the jungle, but the other was taken. With Lopez the Chinese also arrested twelve natives of Kokang, who had been serving him as cook, coolies, grooms, and so on. The headman's son was one of these twelve. The whole party was removed under guard to Tetang, since when the people of Kokang had heard nothing more of them. For all they knew their twelve men might be dead.
The men had already been missing for three months when I took up the affair. I wrote to the General Commanding at Tetang, pointed out the circumstances under which the men had been taken, and requested his kind consideration to obtain their release. He replied that he knew nothing of the matter! The Chinese then informed our authorities that the men had been taken to Shunning, tried and released; but they did not arrive back in Kokang, nor could we find out anything about them. Much later one of them, the headman's son, turned up. I sent for him to enquire into his story. He reported that they had been held for a week at Tetang and then imprisoned at Shunning, without trial, and that one morning they had been taken out and compulsorily enlisted in the Chinese army, in the transportation corps — that meant, as coolies. The company to which they were attached, belonging to a unit of the Nth Division, had moved to such and such a place; on the way he had managed to elude the vigilance of the soldiers and escape. Weeks later two more men escaped, but the remainder, for all we know, are still working in the Chinese army.
The news of the marching out of a party, wearing American uniform, under arrest gave the natives the impression that in Kokang the Chinese were all powerful; the summary disappearance of twelve of their own people showed them what to expect. On a number of occasions they asked
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