The Best of Cambodia & Laos

184
LAOS IN DEPTH
9
LOOKING BACK
BOMBING & WAR
The Americans installed a right-wing
proxy regime and the Pathet Lao returned
to war. The following years were marked
by confusion, uncertainty, and conflict. In
May 1961, a second conference was held
in Geneva to hammer out a solution.
Eventually the three protagonists, Sovanna
Phouma for the neutralists, Souphanouvong
for the Pathet Lao, and Prince Boun
Oum of Champasak for the right wing,
came to an agreement that established a
government that balanced all factions.
This quickly started to crumble as the
pressures of increasingly ferocious conflict
in Vietnam took its toll. As with Cambodia,
North Vietnam used Laos as a place
from which to arm and supply its army.
And as previously for the French, the Plain
of Jars was the Achilles’ heel of Hanoi and
it became a fierce battleground. While the
fiction of neutrality was maintained, in
1964 the U.S. started a campaign of mass
carpet-bombing and air-to-ground attacks
on the Plain of Jars. This was soon repeated
all up and down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. Air Force
dropped more ordinance on Laos than it
did on Germany in World War II; more
than 2 million tons of it involving over
600,000 missions. No one knows just how
many Lao villagers were killed or incinerated
in this brutal but secret war, but what
is certainly known is that North Vietnamese
supply lines to the Viet Cong in the
south remained intact. One-third of Lao
people became internally displaced. By
1968, there were an estimated 40,000
North Vietnamese troops on Lao soil with
an added 35,000 Pathet Lao. The Lao
government fielded 70,000 soldiers supported
by 30,000 U.S.-sponsored hill tribe
Hmong mercenaries under the command
of General Vang Pao. The battles raged
until the Americans pulled American
forces out of the Vietnam War in 1973.
THE PATHET LAO TAKE
OVER
April 1975 marked the fall of both Saigon
and Phnom Penh. The Pathet Lao instigated
mass street protests against the Lao
government and the Americans. After
peacefully “liberating” town after town
across the country, Pathet Lao forces
marched into Vientiane in August 1975
and Souvanna Phouma stepped down to
prevent bloodshed. This was essentially a
North Vietnamese victory. Many prominent
figures from the old regime, and
many less prominent, were sent to remote
camps for long periods of what both the
North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao
termed “reeducation.” Many Lao people
voted with their feet and crossed the river
to Thailand, while King Sisavang Vatthana
was forced to abdicate and died 3 years
later in a Pathet Lao prison camp. On
December 2, 1975, the victorious Communists
established the Lao People’s Democratic
Republic and the institutions that
exist to this day.
Although by no means cuddly, the new
regime was far more flexible than those in
Vietnam or Cambodia. Its final victory
was achieved by pressure and negotiation
rather than direct military conquest.
Although rigorously Communist, the
Pathet Lao did not challenge Buddhism or
the respect for the Sangha (the Buddhist
clergy). The former Hmong mercenaries
of Vang Pao were hunted down and continue
to be persecuted, though they have
also become a regional and international
political football. The Lao government has
also been relatively nimble on economic
reform, instituting the “New Economic
Mechanism” in 1986 to counter a crisis of
lack of investment and foreign aid. With
the death of the original leader, Kaysone
Phomvihane, the party did not falter in
maintaining its grip on power. It has successfully
followed the Chinese model of