Years of warfare had bred deep distrust, however, and as many as 120,000 Hmong out of a population of some 300,000 fled Laos after 1975, rather than live under the Lao communist regime. Most were resettled in the US. Among the Hmong who sided with the Pathet Lao, several now hold senior positions in the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) and in government.
Division & Unity
At the Geneva Conference it was agreed to temporarily divide Vietnam into north and south, Cambodia was left undivided, and in Laos two northeastern provinces (Hua Phan and Phongsali) were set aside as regroupment areas for Pathet Lao forces. There the Pathet Lao consolidated their political and military organisation, while negotiating with the Royal Lao Government (RLG) to reintegrate the two provinces into a unified Lao state.
The first thing Pathet Lao leaders did was to establish the Marxist-leaning Lao People's Party (LPP) in 1955 (later renamed the Lao People's Revolutionary Party; LPRP). Today, it remains the ruling party of the Lao PDR (Lao People's Democratic Republic). The LPP established a broad political front, called the Lao Patriotic Front (LPF), with Souphanouvong as its president and Kaysone secretary-general. Together with other members of the 'team' they led the Lao revolution throughout its '30-year struggle' (1945 to 1975) for power.
The first priority for the Royal Lao Government was to reunify the country with a political solution palatable to the Pathet Lao. In its remote base areas, the Pathet Lao was entirely dependent for weapons and most other kinds of assistance on the North Vietnamese, whose own agenda was the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule. Meanwhile, the Royal Lao Government became increasingly dependent on the US, which soon took over from France as its principal aid donor. Thus Laos became the cockpit for Cold War enmity.
The Lao politician with the task of finding a way through both ideological differences and foreign interference was Souvanna Phouma. As prime minister of the RLG, he negotiated a deal with his half-brother Souphanouvong which saw two Pathet Lao ministers and two deputy ministers included in a coalition government. The Pathet Lao provinces were returned to the royal administration. Elections were held, in which the LPF did surprisingly well. And the US was furious.
Between 1955 and 1958, the US gave Laos US$120 million, or four times what France had provided over the previous eight years. Laos was almost entirely dependent, therefore, on American largesse to survive. When that aid was withheld, as it was in August 1958 in response to the inclusion of Pathet Lao ministers in the government, Laos was plunged into a financial and political crisis. As a result, the first coalition government collapsed after just eight months.
As guerrilla warfare resumed over large areas, moral objections were raised against Lao killing Lao. On 9 August 1960, the diminutive commanding officer of the elite Second Paratroop Batallion of the Royal Lao Army seized power in Vientiane while almost the entire Lao government was in Luang Prabang making arrangements for the funeral of King Sisavang Vong. Captain Kong Le announced to the world that Laos was returning to a policy of neutrality, and demanded that Souvanna Phouma be reinstated as prime minister. King Sisavang Vatthana acquiesced, but General Phoumi refused to take part, and flew to central Laos where he instigated opposition to the new government.
In this, he had the support of the Thai government and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which supplied him with cash and weapons. The neutralist government still claimed to be the legitimate government of Laos, and as such received arms, via Vietnam, from the Soviet Union. Most of these found their way to the Pathet Lao, however. Throughout the country large areas fell under the control of communist forces. The US sent troops to Thailand, in case communist forces should attempt to cross the Mekong, and it looked for a while as if the major commitment of US troops in Southeast Asia would be to Laos rather than Vietnam.
Kaysone Phomvihane was born in central Laos. As his father was Vietnamese and his mother Lao, he had a Vietnamese surname. He personally adopted the name Phomvihane, which is Lao for Brahmavihara, a series of four divine states – an interesting choice for a committed Marxist.
The Second Indochina War
At this point the new US administration of President John F Kennedy had second thoughts about fighting a war in Laos. In an about-face it decided instead to back Lao neutrality. In May 1961 a new conference on Laos was convened in Geneva.
Delegates of the 14 participating countries reassembled in Geneva in July 1962 to sign the international agreement guaranteeing Lao neutrality and forbidding the presence of all foreign military personnel. In Laos the new coalition government took office buoyed by popular goodwill and hope.
Within months, however, cracks began to appear in the facade of the coalition. The problem was the war in Vietnam. Both the North Vietnamese and the Americans were jockeying for strategic advantage, and neither was going to let Lao neutrality get in the way. Despite the terms of the Geneva Agreements, both continued to provide their respective clients with arms and supplies. But no outside power did the same for the neutralists, who found themselves increasingly squeezed between left and right.
By the end of 1963, as each side denounced the other for violating the Geneva Agreements, the second coalition government had irrevocably broken down. It was in the interests of all powers, however, to preserve the facade of Lao neutrality, and international diplomatic support was brought to bear for Souvanna Phouma to prevent rightist generals from seizing power in coups mounted in 1964 and 1965.
In 1964 the US began its air war over Laos, with strafing and bombing of communist positions on the Plain of Jars. As North Vietnamese infiltration picked up along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, bombing was extended across all of Laos. According to official figures, the US dropped 2,093,100 tons of bombs on 580,944 sorties. The total cost was US$7.2 billion, or US$2 million a day for nine years. No one knows how many people died, but one-third of the population of 2.1 million became internal refugees.
During the 1960s both the North Vietnamese and the US presence increased exponentially. By 1968 an estimated 40,000 North Vietnamese regular army troops were based in Laos to keep the Ho Chi Minh Trail open and support some 35,000 Pathet Lao forces. The Royal Lao Army then numbered 60,000 (entirely paid for and equipped by the US), Vang Pao's forces were half that number (still under the direction of the CIA) and Kong Le's neutralists numbered 10,000. Lao forces on both sides were entirely funded by their foreign backers. For five more years this proxy war dragged on, until the ceasefire of 1973.
The turning point for the war in Vietnam was the 1968 Tet Offensive, which brought home to the American people the realisation that the war was unwinnable by military means, and convinced them of the need for a political solution. The effect in Laos, however, was to intensify both the air war and fighting on the Plain of Jars. When bombing was suspended over North Vietnam, the US Air Force concentrated all its efforts on Laos. The Pathet Lao leadership was forced underground, into the caves of Vieng Xai.
By mid-1972, when serious peace moves were underway, some four-fifths of the country was under communist control. In peace as in war, what happened in Laos depended on what happened in Vietnam. Not until a ceasefire came into effect in Vietnam in January 1973 could the fighting end in Laos. Then the political wrangling began. Not until September was an agreement reached on the composition of the third coalition government and how it would operate.
Post-War Laos: The Politics of Culture, History and Identity (2006), by Vatthana Pholsena, expertly examines how ethnicity, history and identity intersect in Laos.
Revolution & Reform
In April 1975, first Phnom Penh and then Saigon fell to communist forces. Immediately the Pathet Lao brought political pressure to bear on the right in Laos. Escalating street demonstrations forced leading rightist politicians and generals to flee the country. Throughout the country, town after town was peacefully 'liberated' by Pathet Lao forces, culminating with Vientiane in August.
Souvanna Phouma, who could see the writing on the wall, cooperated with
the Pathet Lao in order to prevent further bloodshed. Hundreds of senior military officers and civil servants voluntarily flew off to remote camps for 'political re-education', in the belief that they would be there only months at most, but hundreds of these inmates remained in re-education camps for several years.
In November an extraordinary meeting of what was left of the third coalition government bowed to the inevitable and demanded formation of a 'popular democratic regime'. Under pressure, the king agreed to abdicate, and on 2 December a National Congress of People's Representatives assembled by the party proclaimed the end of the 650-year-old Lao monarchy and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Kaysone Phomvihane, who in addition to leading the LPRP became prime minister in the new Marxist–Leninist government. Souphanouvong was named state president.
The new regime was organised in accordance with Soviet and North Vietnamese models. The government and bureaucracy were under the strict direction of the Party and its seven-member politburo. Immediately the Party moved to restrict liberal freedoms of speech and assembly, and to nationalise the economy. As inflation soared, price controls were introduced. In response, around 10% of the population, including virtually all the educated class, fled across the Mekong to Thailand as refugees, setting Lao development back at least a generation.
The Hmong insurgency dragged on for another 30 years. In 1977, fearing the king might escape his virtual house arrest to lead resistance, the authorities arrested him and his family and sent them to Vieng Xai, the old Pathet Lao wartime headquarters. There they were forced to labour in the fields. The king, queen and crown prince all eventually died, probably of malaria and malnutrition, although no official explanation of their deaths has ever been offered.
By 1979 it was clear that policies had to change. Kaysone announced that people could leave cooperatives and farm their own land, and that private enterprise would be permitted. Reforms were insufficient to improve the Lao economy. Over the next few years a struggle took place within the Party about what to do. By the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, the Soviet Union was getting tired of propping up the Lao regime, and was embarking on its own momentous reforms. Meanwhile, Vietnam had Cambodia to worry about. Eventually Kaysone convinced the Party to follow the Chinese example and open the economy up to market forces while retaining a tight monopoly on political power. The economic reforms were known as the 'new economic mechanism', and were enacted in November 1986.
Economic improvement was slow in coming, partly because relations with Thailand remained strained. In August 1987 the two countries fought a brief border war over disputed territory, which left 1000 people dead. The following year, relations with both Thailand and China were patched up. The first elections for a national assembly were held, and a constitution at last promulgated. Slowly a legal framework was put into place, and by the early 1990s, foreign direct investment was picking up and the economy was on the mend.
The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos Since 1975 (1998), by Grant Evans, provides a penetrating study of Lao political culture, including attitudes to Buddhism and the 'cult' of communist leader Kaysone.
RE-EDUCATION
Re-education camps were all in remote areas. Inmates laboured on road construction, helped local villagers and grew their own vegetables. Food was nevertheless scarce, work hard and medical attention inadequate or nonexistent. Except for a couple of high-security camps for top officials and army officers, inmates were allowed some freedom of contact with local villagers. Some even took local women as partners. Escape was all but impossible, however, because of the remoteness of the camps. Only those showing a contrite attitude to past 'crimes' were released, some to work for the regime, but most to leave the country to join families overseas.
Modern Laos
In 1992 Kaysone Phomvihane died. He had been the leading figure in Lao communism for more than a quarter of a century. The LPRP managed the transition to a new leadership with smooth efficiency, much to the disappointment of expatriate Lao communities abroad. General Khamtay Siphandone became both president of the LPRP and prime minister. Later he relinquished the latter to become state president. His rise signalled control of the Party by the revolutionary generation of military leaders. When Khamtay stepped down in 2006, he was succeeded by his close comrade, General Chummaly Sayasone.
The economic prosperity of the mid-1990s rested on increased investment and foreign aid, on which Laos remained very dependent. The Lao PDR enjoyed friendly relations with all its neighbours. Relations with Vietnam remained particularly close, but were balanced by much-improved relations with China. Relations with Bangkok were bumpy at times, but Thailand was a principal source of foreign direct investment. In 1997 Laos joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The good times came to an end with the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. The collapse of the Thai baht led to inflation of the Lao kip, to which it was largely tied through trading relations. The Lao regime took two lessons from this crisis: one was about the dangers of market capitalism; the other was that its real friends were China and Vietnam, both of which came to its aid with loans and advice.
The economic crisis sparked some political unrest. A small student demonstration calling for an end to the monopoly of political power by the LPRP was ruthlessly crushed and its leaders given long prison sentences.
In 2003 Western journalists for the first time made contact with Hmong insurgents. Their reports revealed an insurgency on the point of collapse. Renewed military pressure forced some Hmong to surrender, while others made their way to refuge in Thailand. However, the Thai classified the Hmong as illegal immigrants; negotiations for resettlement in third countries stalled, and in December 2009, despite widespread international condemnation, some 4000 Hmong were forcibly repatriated to Laos.
Bamboo Palace: Discovering the Lost Dynasty of Laos (2003) by Christopher Kremmer builds on his personal travelogue told in Stalking the Elephant Kings (1997) to try to discover the fate of the Lao royal family.
Political & Economic Inspiration
In the decade to 2010, China greatly increased investment in Laos to equal that of Thailand. Japan remained the largest aid donor. However, Chinese companies invested in major projects in mining, hydropower and plantation agriculture and timber. Meanwhile, cross-border trade grew apace. Increased economic power brought political influence at the expense of Vietnam, though Lao–Vietnamese relations remained close and warm. Senior Lao Party cadres still take courses in Marxism–Leninism in Vietnam, although their economic inspiration is more likely from the mighty northern neighbour, China.
In April 2016 former Vice President Bounnhang Vorachith became president of the Lao PDR, establishing himself as a force against corruption. Calling for a halt on logging, making a pledge to reforest 70% of Laos by 2020 and (allegedly) sacking many of his minsters and replacing them with people he could trust, he set the stage for the August gathering of ASEAN, held in Laos and attended by US President Barack Obama. This followed high-profile visits from Hillary Clinton in 2010 and John Kerry in 2015. America seemed keen to signal to China it intended to take an interest in Laos’ future as the Asian superpower pushed on with funding dams and high-speed rail lines through Laos, placing the diminutive country ever more in its debt, as a key conduit to Southeast Asia in its 'new Silk Road' trade strategy.
By naming his kingdom Lan Xang Hom Khao, Fa Ngum was making a statement about power and kingship. Elephants were the battle tanks of Southeast Asian warfare, so to claim to be the 'Kingdom of a Million Elephants' was to issue a warning to surrounding kingdoms: 'Don't mess with the Lao!' A white parasol was the traditional symbol of kingship.
Timeline
500
The early Mon-Khmer Chenla capital of Shrestapura is a thriving city based around the ancient temple of Wat Phu Champasak.
1181
King Jayavarman VII vanquishes the Chams from Angkor and becomes the most powerful ruler of t
he Khmer empire, extending its boundaries to include most of modern-day Laos.
1256
Kublai Khan sacks the Tai state of Nan Chao, part of the Xishuangbanna region of modern-day Yunnan in China. This sparks a southern exodus of the Tai people.
1353
Fa Ngum establishes the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang and builds a capital at Xiang Dong Xiang Thong.
1421
King Fa Ngum's son and successor Samsenthai dies and Lan Xang implodes into warring factions for the next century.
1479
The Vietnamese emperor Le Thanh Tong invades Lan Xang, sending a large force including many war elephants.
1501
King Visoun comes to the throne and rebuilds the Lao kingdom, marking a cultural renaissance for Lan Xang. He installs the Pha Bang Buddha image in Luang Prabang.
1560
King Setthathirat, grandson of King Visoun, moves the capital to Viang Chan because of the threat from Burma, a rising power in the region.
1638
The great Lao king Suriya Vongsa begins a 57-year reign known as the 'Golden Age' of the kingdom of Lan Xang.
1641–42
The first Europeans to write accounts of Lan Xang arrive in Viang Chan providing information about trade and culture, descriptions of King Setthathirat's royal palace and details of the king's power.
1694
King Suriya Vongsa dies and Lan Xang once again fractures into competing kingdoms.
1707–13
Lan Xang is divided into three smaller and weaker kingdoms: Viang Chan, Luang Prabang and Champasak.
1769
Burmese armies overrun northern Laos and annex the kingdom of Luang Prabang.
Lonely Planet Laos Page 49