French make a late effort to upgrade Laos

The French now made a belated effort to give Laos the institutions of a modern state. The Garde Indigène was replaced by a Lao National Guard, and a Lao police force established. Elections for a Constituent Assembly, on the basis of universal male suffrage, were held in December 1946, and in 1947 the Assembly adopted a constitution confirming the status of Laos as a constitutional monarchy and an "autonomous state" within the French Union. A senior high school was opened in Viang Chan, and new schools opened in Pākxē, Savannakhēt and Luang Phrabāng.

New hospitals and clinics were also established, although there was an acute shortage of qualified staff for them. A crash program to train more Lao civil servants was also instituted. In August 1947 elections were held for the National Assembly, and 35 deputies were elected. A royal relative, Prince Suvannarāt, became Prime Minister of Laos at the head of a cabinet composed entirely of members of influential Lao-Lum families. This was to remain a characteristic of Lao politics. Various transient political parties came and went, but the same 20-odd families alternated in office, feuding with each other over the spoils of office.

Laos gains independence (1950)

In 1949, as the French position in Vietnam worsened and the continuing goodwill of the Lao became more important, further concessions were made. Lao ministers took control of all government functions except foreign affairs and defence, although the almost total dependence of the economy on French aid made this new independence more apparent than real. In February 1950, Laos was formally declared an independent state, and was recognised as such by the United States and Great Britain.

Laos applied to join the United Nations, but its application was vetoed by the Soviet Union. None of these measures disguised the fact that France remained in essential control of the country. Foreign affairs, defence and finance remained under de facto French control, and justice was only slowly devolved to Lao ministers. Most importantly, the French Army retained the right to operate freely in Laos, and to issue orders to Lao forces without reference to Lao ministers.

Meanwhile, the Lao Issara government-in-exile planned a nationalist revolt against the French and what they saw as their Lao puppets in Viang Chan. For a time the Lao Issara forces, under the command of Suphānuvong, were able to operate from bases in Thailand, and achieved some successes, particularly around Savannakhēt. But in November 1947 a military coup in Bangkok brought Marshall Phibun back to power. Encouraged by the Americans, he sought to repair Thailand's relations with France, and shut down the Lao Issara bases. The Lao Issara could now only mount operations into Laos from territory controlled by the Vietnamese Communists, but this came at a political price which the non-communist Lao Issara leaders, Phetxarāt and Suvannaphūmā, were not prepared to pay.

In January 1949 Lao Communists led by Kaisôn established a new Communist-controlled Lao military force in Vietnam, nominally loyal to the Lao Issara government but in fact answerable to the Indochinese Communist Party. Suphānuvong sided with the Communists over control of this new force, and this led rapidly to a split in the Lao Issara. In July 1949 the non-communist leaders of the Lao Issara declared the government-in-exile dissolved, and most of its members, led by Suvannaphūmā, returned to Laos under an amnesty. Only Phetxarāt remained in exile, but by now he had lost his previous influence. In August 1951, Suvannaphūmā became Prime Minister for the first time, confirming his status as the new leader of the non-communist Lao.

After the Geneva conference

Two months after the Geneva conference, North Vietnam began plotting against the government of Laos. A military organisation was created called Group 100. Its headquarters was established at Ban Namèo. Its purpose was to organise, train, direct and supply the army of the Pathēt Lao. North Vietnam had no particular interest in the Geneva Conference or in the creating a neutral Laos other than in their use in strengthening their grip on the eastern portions of the country. According to the Geneva Accords in article 13, the cessation of hostile outsiders granted for the withdrawal of the foreign forces - the French and Vietnamese volunteer units - from Laos. This part of the agreement, in accordance with Article 4a were to be completed within 120 days.^[1]

Katāy was a much less subtle figure than Suvannaphūmā, and he found the task of implementing the Geneva agreements beyond him. The essential problem was that although the French forces departed on schedule, the Vietnamese forces supporting the Pathēt Lao in their upland base areas did not, and the Lao government had no means of forcing them to do so. Under the agreements, the Pathēt Lao forces were supposed to assemble in Houaphan and Phongsālī provinces before disbanding.

Instead the Pathēt Lao and the Vietnamese continued to treat these provinces as their own "liberated areas," refusing to allow government officials to exercise authority, and also evicting the local Hmong forces which had supported the French and were now loyal to the Lao government. They also maintained their underground forces in the south.

After a year of stalemate, the government went ahead with elections in the rest of the country in December 1955. After the elections Katāy's government was defeated in the new National Assembly, and Suvannaphūmā returned to office, still determined to create a neutralist coalition government. Suvannaphūmā always believed that the Lao, if left alone, could settle their own differences, and that he could come to an agreement with his half-brother Suphānuvong.

The United States did not ratify the Geneva agreements, and the Eisenhower administration, particularly the militantly anti-communist Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, shared the views of the right-wing Lao politicians. Under Dulles's influence the US had backed the French war in Vietnam, and now that the French were leaving he was determined that the US would take over France's role of supporting anti-communist forces in Vietnam and preventing Ho Chi Minh's forces taking over southern Vietnam. This, he believed, necessitated maintaining an anti-communist government in Laos and preventing Vietnam using Laos as a transport route to south Vietnam.

To get around the prohibitions of the Geneva agreements – which the United States had pledged to honour – the US Department of Defense in December 1955 established a disguised military mission in Vientiane called the Programs Evaluation Office (PEO).^[2] The PEO became operational on 13 December 1955 and worked under the cover of the civilian aid mission and was staffed by military personnel and headed by a general officer,^[2] all of whom wore civilian clothes and had been removed from Department of Defense rosters of active service personnel.^[2]

Over the 1955-61 period, the PEO gradually supplanted the French military mission in providing equipment and training to the Royal Lao Army^[2] and the anti-communist Hmong Tribe. In this way, the US was footing the entire cost of keeping the Royal Lao Army in the field in the same way that the Soviets and Vietnamese footed the entire cost of the Pathēt Lao, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was providing intelligence and political direction. The US therefore strongly opposed Suvannaphūmā's efforts to bring the Pathēt Lao into the government and to make Laos a "neutral" country. What neutrality meant in practice was allowing permanent Vietnamese occupation of the east of the country and allowing the Pathēt Lao to keep their army in the field. Suvannaphūmā's efforts to settle the conflict in Laos always failed due to the refusal of the Vietnamese to leave and the refusal of the Pathēt Lao to disarm.

In August 1956 Suvannaphūmā reached an agreement with Suphānuvong. He was helped by his elder brother Prince Phetxarāt, who returned to Laos in 1956 after ten years in exile, and played the role of mediator and elder statesman until his death in 1959. A coalition government was formed in which Suphānuvong became Minister for Planning and Reconstruction, and another Pathēt Lao leader, Phūmī Vongvichit (1909–94) was Minister for Religion and Fine Arts. The Pathēt Lao agreed to allow the reintegration of Houaphan and Phongsālī provinces, and to integrate the Pathēt Lao army into the Royal Lao Army. Guarantees were given that Laos would be a neutral country and would not allow its territory to be used as a base for aggression against any of its neighbours. The coalition government formally took office in November, and in May 1958 reasonably free elections were held, at which the Pathēt Lao won nine seats in the National Assembly out of 21 contested. Suphānuvong won the Viang Chan seat with the highest vote of any candidate in the country.

The 1956 agreement was welcomed by France, Britain, the Soviet Union, China and both Vietnamese governments. The US was muted in its opposition, and did not carry out previous threats to cut off aid if the Pathēt Lao joined the government. But behind the scenes the US embassy continued to encourage anti-communist Lao politicians to question the agreement. The Vietnamese and Lao communists also had no intention of honouring the spirit of the 1956 agreement, which they saw in purely tactical terms.

Some Pathēt Lao weapons were handed over, and two battalions of Pathēt Lao troops were nominally designated as units of the Royal Lao Army. The bulk of the Pathēt Lao forces, led by Kaisôn, withdrew to bases on the Vietnamese border to await developments. The Vietnamese also continued to use the mountains of the frontier zone as a safe haven and transport route (later known as the Ho Chi Minh trail).

Suvannaphūmā turned a blind eye to this rather than risk the unity of his government, but the CIA was fully aware of these facts. US aid, directed by the US Agency for International Aid (USAID), continued at the rate of US$40 million a year (in a country of 3 million people), but deliberately bypassed Suphānuvong's Ministry for Planning and Reconstruction and was channelled to the Army and friendly politicians.

Conflict

The conflict was divided into five military regions:

• Military Region I at Luang Prabang was dominated by the royal family and the former commander in Chief of the Royal Laos Army, General Oune Rathikul. The region commander was Brigadier General Tiao Say~vong, a half brother of the king. The region was located in northwest Laos and covered four provinces: Phong Saly, Houa Khong, Sayaboury and Luang Prabang.

• Military Region II, in the northeastern section of Laos, was under Major General Vang P.ao, the Hmong guerilla war hero of Laos. It covered two provinces: Houa Phan (Samneua), and Xieng Khouang. The headquarters was at Long Cheng, northwest of the Plain of Jars.

• Military Region III in central Laos was headquartered at Savannakhet and covered two provinces; Khammouane (Thakitek) and Savannakhet. This region was commanded by General Bounpon and later by Brigadier General Nouphet Dao Heuang, in July 1971. The real power in this region was the Insixiengmay family led by Minister Leuam Insixiengmay, Vice Premier and Minister of Education. (His wife is elder sister of mother bouanphan who is a wife of Chao Boun oum na champasack).

• Military Region IV, with headquarters at Pakse, included the six provinces of southern Laos: Saravane, Attopeu, Champassak, Sedone, Khong Sedone, and Sithandone (Khong Island). It was dominated by the Nachampassak family led by Prince Boun Oum Nachampassak. The commander of Military Region IV was Major General Phasouk S. Rassaphak, a member of the Champassak family. He commanded this area for almost a decade and a half until finally replaced by the author, Brigadier General Soutchay Vongsavanh, in July 1971.

• Military Region V contained Borikhane and Vientiane Provinces, the capital province of Laos, was headquartered at Chinaimo Army Camp and was led by Major General Kouprasith Abhay until he was replaced by Brigadier General Thongligh Chokbeng Boun in July 1971.

US objectives

The US objective in Laos was to push government control as far eastward as practical. It sought to prevent the North Vietnamese and Pathēt Lao forces holding the Plain of Jars. After 1968, the US accomplished this mainly through Vang Pao's Hmong militia and massive bombing of communist positions. The other US objectives were intelligence gathering and interruption of North Vietnam's use of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and for this it relied on air power. During this period Laos was bombed more heavily than any other country ever has been in history: much infrastructure in the Pathēt Lao zone was destroyed and many were made refugees. The North Vietnamese objectives were more complicated. Their primary goal was to keep the Ho Chi Minh trail in the south open, and to prevent the US using Laos as a base for raids into North Vietnam. The war degenerated into the two sides pushing each other into or out of the Plain of Jars.

In 1969 Richard Nixon became President of the US and began the long process of winding down the Vietnam War and finding a political settlement. But this brought no immediate draw-down in Laos. The new administration pursued the same goals by the same means, and in fact during 1969 and 1970 the bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao increased in intensity. In the spring of 1969 the North Vietnamese attempted to hold the Plain of Jars through the rainy season. This led to a coordinated campaign that lead to a disastrous defeat of the North Vietnamese. Under constant pressure, their resistance collapsed in the Plain of Jars. They abandoned millions of dollars worth of military equipment and were chased almost to the North Vietnamese border. The success however was short-lived. The North Vietnamese launched a two-division counteroffensive led by a large tank force. All the gains of that year were lost back to the North Vietnamese.

In March 1970 the Cambodian government of Lon Nol ended the policy of ignoring the Vietnamese presence in the country. The port of Sihanoukville in Cambodia, which had effectively been a North Vietnamese Army supply terminal for years, was closed by the government. Cambodia soon collapsed into war. This had the effect of making the supply routes from North Vietnam through Laos even more important to the North Vietnamese. In the spring of 1970 the North Vietnamese Army began advancing westward deeper into Laos than ever before. During the same year, units of the Thai Army entered the conflict. These so-called Unity Battalions were in theory volunteers, but were effectively Thai regulars.

In 1971 the Royal Lao Army came back into the conflict. The North Vietnamese advance deep into the country destroyed the status quo and prompted the Army back into action. In July the Thai and irregular forces attempted a repeat of the successful 1969 offensive into the Plain of Jars. But the North Vietnamese had learned from their previous mistakes and withdrew in good order ahead of the offensive. While much territory was captured, no serious damage was done to the North Vietnamese Army.

The Thai and irregular forces built a chain of fortifications down the middle of the Plain of Jars. In 1971 the US sponsored an incursion into southern Laos by the South Vietnamese army, with the aim of severing the trail and shoring up the South Vietnamese government as the US withdrew its combat troops. The invasion was bitterly resisted by North Vietnamese and was decisively defeated. The North Vietnamese also retaliated by capturing several provincial capitals which it had previously surrounded but not tried to take.

About 50,000 people were killed in Laos in the course of the war, many of them Lao civilians. While the ethnic minorities who mainly populated the mountains of the Pathēt Lao areas suffered terribly as a result of the war, the majority of the Lao-Lum people in the Mekong Valley towns were little effected in a military sense. The influx of US personnel and money (an estimated $US500 million in US aid alone) produced an economic boom in the towns as service industries grew to meet the demands of the war and the large resident American civilian population.

Lao generals and politicians, led by Phūmī Nôsavan until his fall from power in 1965, grew rich on corruption, drug dealing, prostitution and smuggling, and large numbers of ordinary Lao moved into the cash economy for the first time, particularly in Viang Chan, which grew rapidly. The war also exposed the Lao to the full force of western popular culture for the first time, with an effect that both the Pathēt Lao and conservative Buddhists regarded as deeply corrupting of Lao tradition and culture.

During these years the Pathēt Lao sought to project an image of moderation both domestically and internationally. Suphānuvong, as head of the Lao Patriotic Front, was the public face of the Pathēt Lao, while the Communist Party and its leader Kaisôn remained in the background. At its 1968 congress, the Front issued a 12-point program which made no mention of socialism, but called for a Government of National Union and free elections, and promised respect for Buddhism and the monarchy. The fact that Suphānuvong was a royal prince as well as a communist seemed to many Lao a reassurance that the Pathēt Lao in power would pursue a moderate path.

In the Pathēt Lao zone, the communists followed conspicuously moderate policies, although there were some attempts at collectivising agriculture where this was possible. The Pathēt Lao were effective providers of basic services, despite the difficulties created by the endless bombing, and also effective at mobilising the upland minorities. Most notably, the Pathēt Lao were largely free from corruption. On the negative side, as most Lao knew, their policies were largely controlled by the North Vietnamese.

Peace agreement (1973)

In January 1973, following Nixon's re-election, a peace agreement was announced between North Vietnam and the US Following the pattern which had been established in Geneva in 1954, a peace settlement in Laos was agreed on as a side issue to the Vietnam question. The two sides in Laos had been in informal discussions since the previous July, and once their respective patrons had consented, they quickly signed a ceasefire and announced an Agreement on the Restoration of Peace and National Reconciliation. The main provisions were the formation of a Third Coalition government, with Suvannaphūmā as prime minister and 12 ministers from each side. The National Assembly, which had long lost its political legitimacy, was to be replaced by a Consultative Council of 42 members - 16 from each side plus ten agreed nominees. This body, to be chaired by Suphānuvong, was given equal status with the government, making Suphānuvong in effect co-ruler of the country.

There was no mention of the Pathēt Lao giving up de facto control of its zone. Its armed forces were to be integrated into the national army in theory, but the timetable was never really certain. While the agreement required the North Vietnamese Army to leave Laos, the Vietnamese never left. The arrangements reflected the vastly strengthened position of the Pathēt Lao since the Second Coalition government. In recognition of this, the rightists attempted a last-gasp coup in Viang Chan in August, but it quickly collapsed, since by then many Lao recognised that it was only a matter of time before the Pathēt Lao took power.

During 1974 and 1975 the balance of power in Laos shifted steadily in favour of the Pathēt Lao as the US disengaged itself from Indochina. Suvannaphūmā was tired and demoralised, and following a heart attack in mid-1974 he spent some months recuperating in France, after which he announced that he would retire from politics following the elections scheduled for early 1976. The anti-communist forces were thus leaderless, and also divided and deeply mired in corruption.

Suphānuvong, by contrast, was confident and a master political tactician, and had behind him the disciplined cadres of the communist party and the Pathēt Lao forces and the North Vietnamese army. The end of American aid also meant the mass demobilisation of most of the non-Pathēt Lao military forces in the country. The Pathēt Lao on the other hand continued to be both funded and equipped by North Vietnam.

In May 1974 Suphānuvong put forward an 18-point plan for "National Reconstruction," which was unanimously adopted - a sign of his increasing dominance. The plan was mostly uncontroversial, with renewed promises of free elections, democratic rights and respect for religion, as well as constructive economic policies. But press censorship was introduced in the name of "national unity," making it more difficult for non-communist forces to organise politically in response to the creeping Pathēt Lao takeover. In January 1975 all public meetings and demonstrations were banned. Recognising the trend of events, influential business and political figures began to move their assets, and in some cases themselves, to Thailand, France or the US

In 1975, the Pathēt Lao forces on the Plain of Jars supported by North Vietnamese heavy artillery and other units began advancing westward. In late April, the Pathēt Lao took the government outpost at Sala Phou Khoum crossroads which opened up Route 13 to a Pathēt Lao advance toward Muang Kassy. For the non-Pathēt Lao elements in the government, compromise seemed better than allowing what had happened in Cambodia and South Vietnam to happen in Laos. A surrender was thought to be better than a change of power by force.

Start of totalitarianism

In December 1975, there was a sharp change in policy. A joint meeting of the government and the Consultative Council was held, at which Suphānuvong demanded immediate change. There was no resistance. On 2 December the King agreed to abdicate, and Suvannaphūmā resigned. The Lao People's Democratic Republic was proclaimed with Suphānuvong as President. Kaisôn Phomvihān emerged from the shadows to become Prime Minister and the real ruler of the country. Kaisôn immediately began the process of establishing the new republic as a one-party communist state.^[4]

No more was heard of elections or political freedoms: non-communist newspapers were closed, and a large-scale purge of the civil service, army and police was launched. Thousands were dispatched for "re-education" in remote parts of the country, where many died and many more were kept for up to ten years. This prompted a renewed flight from the country. Many of the professional and intellectual class, who had initially been willing to work for the new regime, changed their minds and left - a much easier thing to do from Laos than from either Vietnam or Cambodia. By 1977, 10 percent of the population had left the country, including most of the business and educated classes.

The leadership group of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party had hardly changed since the party's foundation, and did not change significantly during its first decade in power. Real power in the party rested with four men: General Secretary Kaisôn, his trusted deputy and economics chief Nuhak Phumsavan (both from humble origins in Savannakhet), planning minister Sālī Vongkhamxao (who died in 1991) and the Army commander and security chief Khamtai Siphandôn. The party's French-educated intellectuals - President Souphanavong and education and propaganda minister Phumi Vongvichit - were more widely seen in public and were Politburo members, but not part of the inner group.

All these leaders were Lao-Lum: while the ethnic minorities had provided most of the troops for the Pathēt Lao army, their leaders were confined to symbolic roles in front organisations rather than admitted to the inner core of party leadership. In 1975 the party had only 30,000 members in a country of 3.5 million people. Of these, a substantial number were members of ethnic minorities from the former Pathēt Lao zone, who had joined the party for pragmatic or patriotic reasons rather than through a real understanding of communism. The number of committed communists among the Lao-Lum majority of the Lao population was very small.

The public policy of the party was to "advance, step by step, to socialism, without going through the stage of capitalist development." This objective made a virtue of necessity: there was no chance of Laos having a "stage of capitalist development" while 90 percent of its population were subsistence farmers, and no chance of an orthodox Marxist path to socialism via a working class revolution in a country which had no industrial working class.

The party leaders, having fought for 30 years to achieve power, now had to confront the question of what "socialism" meant in a country such as Laos, and how it was to be achieved in circumstances of poverty and isolation, when most administrative and professional personnel had fled the country. Out of public sight, the policy of the party was generally determined by Vietnam. The policies of Vietnam led to the economic isolation of Laos from all its neighbours which in turn led to its total dependence on Vietnam.

Agricultural collectivisation

For Kaisôn the path to socialism lay in emulating first the Vietnamese and then the Soviet models. "Socialist relations of production" must be introduced, and this, in an agricultural country, meant primarily the collectivisation of agriculture. All land was declared to be state property, and individual farms were merged into large-scale "co-operatives." The means of production - which in Laos meant buffalo and wooden ploughs - were to be owned collectively. By the end of 1978 most of the lowland Lao rice-growers had been subjected to collectivisation.

The program was deeply unpopular. The Pathēt Lao had never had much active support in these areas, and the peasants felt no sense of gratitude to the communists for having freed them from oppressive landlords, since there had been few in Laos. The peasants engaged in passive resistance, including the slaughter of livestock, and many emigrated to Thailand. The impossibility of controlling the long Lao-Thai border meant that farmers could easily sell their crops on the free market in Thailand.

As a result, state food procurements fell sharply, and this, coupled with the cutoff of American aid, postwar cutback of Vietnamese/Soviet aid and the virtual disappearance of imported goods, produced shortages, unemployment and economic hardship in the towns. Matters were made worse in 1979 when the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and subsequent Sino-Vietnamese War, resulted in the Lao government being ordered by Vietnam to break off relations with China, ending another source of foreign assistance and trade.

Economic deterioration

The deteriorating economic situation soon led to active resistance to the communist regime. Incidents of sabotage escalated, particularly in the south, and a shadowy Lao National Revolutionary Front began guerilla operations from bases in Thailand, just as the communists themselves had done in the 1940s. In 1976 the army seized power again in Thailand, and the anti-communist military regime closed off all exports to Laos, making economic conditions even worse, and actively supported the Lao opposition: shortly afterwards a plot to assassinate Kaisôn, engineered by exiles with Thai support, was exposed.

As well as economic grievances, the resistance was fuelled by resentment in urban areas over the government's restrictions on freedom of movement, tight censorship and curtailment of "decadent" western cultural activities such as cinema and nightclubs°. The exodus of educated people to Thailand led to a partial collapse of the education system, leaving large numbers of idle young people as a ready source of discontent.

The Vietnamese, Soviet and eastern European technicians and advisors had little interest in developing the country other than as a source of resources to be extracted, and infrastructure and plants soon deteriorated. Lack of money and skilled personnel, plus an anti-Chinese political line directed by Vietnam, plus the Thai trade embargo, caused interruptions to vital services such as electricity.

Ruptured relations with China and Thailand made Laos totally dependent on Vietnam. In 1977 a 25-year treaty of friendship was signed, providing for large numbers of Vietnamese advisors and for 30,000 Vietnamese troops to stay in the country. The Vietnamese were as unpopular as ever with the majority of the Lao people, despite a barrage of propaganda designed to encourage "solidarity" between the two countries, and the belief that the communists were allowing the Vietnamese to take over Laos fuelled opposition.

During 1978 and 1979 the government became increasingly alarmed about the security situation. Both China and Thailand were supporting insurgencies in different parts of the country, and the resistance of the Hmong in central Laos revived with covert assistance from the exiled Hmong leaders in Thailand and the Laotian government reaction was to arrest the elderly King, his Queen and the Crown Prince, and deport them to a remote location near the Vietnamese border, where they died of neglect and lack of medical attention. For many years the fate of the Lao royal family remained unknown, but in the 1990s the truth leaked out and caused wide resentment in Laos.

Pull-back from Marxist orthodoxy

In mid-1979 the government, apparently at the urging of Soviet advisors who feared that the communist regime was on the point of collapse, announced a sudden reversal of policy. Kaisôn, a lifelong communist, showed himself to be a more flexible leader than many had expected. In a major speech in December, he admitted that Laos was not ready for socialism. "This policy cannot be successfully implemented in the economic field, and it is suicidal because any party which tries to implement such a policy will only meet with bankruptcy." Citing Lenin's "New Economic Policy" of the 1920s, he conceded that capitalist relations of production would have to be restored if the economic decline of the country was not to continue and be exploited by "enemies" of the regime.

Kaisôn's model was not Lenin, however, but China's Deng Xiaoping, who at this time was starting the free-market reforms that laid the foundation for China's subsequent economic growth. Collectivisation was abandoned, and farmers were told that they were free to leave the "co-operative" farms, which virtually all of them promptly did, and to sell their surplus grain on the free market. Other liberalisations followed. Restrictions on internal movement were lifted, and cultural policy relaxed. As in China, however, there was no relaxation of the party's grip on political power.

Insurgency in Laos

The conflict between Hmong militias and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets following the end of the Civil War. The government of Laos has been accused of committing genocide against the Hmong in collaboration with the Vietnamese army,^[5][6] with up to 100,000 killed out of a population of 400,000.^[7][8] From 1975 to 1996, the United States resettled some 250,000 Lao refugees from Thailand, including 130,000 Hmong.^[9]

In 1990, deputy minister of science and technology Thongsouk Saysangkhi resigned from the Government and Party, calling for political and economic reform. He was arrested and died in captivity in 1998.^[10]

Relations with Vietnam

Relations with Vietnam had secretly set the strategy for the LPRP during the struggle to achieve full power, and the "sudden" opportunity to establish the LPDR in 1975 left no leeway to consider foreign policy alignments other than a continuation of the "special relations" with Vietnam.^[11] The relationship cultivated in the revolutionary stage predisposed Laos to Indochinese solidarity in the reconstruction and "socialist construction" phases and all but ensured that relations or alignments with China and Thailand would be wary and potentially unfriendly.^[11] Further, the LPRP, unlike the Cambodian communists under Pol Pot, was far too accustomed to accepting Vietnamese advice to consider striking out on its own.^[11]

The final seizure of power by the hitherto secret LPRP in 1975 brought both a public acknowledgment of the previously hidden North Vietnamese guidance of the party and genuine expressions of gratitude by the LPRP to its Vietnamese partners.^[11] The challenge facing the ruling group—the construction of a socialist society—was seen as a natural extension of past collaboration with North Vietnam.^[11] The revolution was simply entering a new phase in 1975, and the LPRP leaders congratulated themselves upon ousting the imperialists and looked forward to advice and economic as well as military support, which was not available from any neighbour or counterrevolutionary state.^[11]

LPRP leaders were accustomed to discussing policies as well as studying doctrine in Hanoi.^[11] They formalised governmental contacts with their mentors at biannual meetings of the foreign ministers of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam starting in 1980 and through the joint Vietnam-Laos Cooperative Commission, which met annually to review progress of various projects.^[11] Other levels of co-operation between Laos and Vietnam existed, for example, party-to-party meetings and province-to-province exchanges, as well as mass organisations for youths and women.^[11] Meetings of the commission were held regularly.^[11]

The primary channels for Vietnam's influence in Laos, however, were the LPRP and the LPA.^[11] In the LPRP, long-standing collaboration and consultation at the very top made special committees unnecessary, whereas in the LPA, the Vietnamese advisers, instructors, and troops on station constituted a pervasive, inescapable influence, even though they scrupulously avoided public exposure by sticking to their designated base areas.^[11] Cooperation in the military field was probably the most extensive, with logistics, training, and communications largely supplied by Vietnam throughout the 1970s and 1980s (heavy ordnance and aircraft were provided by the Soviet Union).^[11]

The phrase "special relations" came into general use by both parties after 1976, and in July 1977, the signing of the 25-year Lao-Vietnamese Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation legitimised the stationing of Vietnamese army troops in Laos for its protection against hostile or counterrevolutionary neighbours.^[11] Another element of co-operation involved hundreds of Vietnamese advisers who mentored their Laotian counterparts in virtually all the ministries in Vientiane.^[11] Hundreds of LPRP stalwarts and technicians studied in institutes of Marxism-Leninism or technical schools in Hanoi.^[11]

The resources that Vietnam was able to bestow upon its revolutionary partner, however, were severely limited by the physical destruction of war and the deadening orthodoxy of its economic structures and policies.^[11] However, it could put in a good word for its Laotian apprentices with the Soviet Union, which in turn could recommend economic assistance projects to its East European satellite states.^[11] Yet, Vietnam's influence on Laos was determined by economic assistance and ideology as well as by geographical and historical proximity.^[11] The two nations fit together, as the leaders liked to say, "like lips and teeth".^[11] Vietnam provided landlocked Laos a route to the sea, and the mountainous region of eastern Laos provided Vietnam a forward strategic position for challenging Thai hegemony in the Mekong Valley.^[11]

Despite the political and military alliance between Vietnam and the Soviet Union, the Vietnamese Communist leadership saw to it that Soviet influence be remain limited in the LPDR. In the mid-1980s, the Vietnamese leaders, unnerved by the efforts of Mikhail Gorbachev to reach reconciliation with China, decided to reinforce their grip over Laos, even at the expense of their Soviet allies. In May–June 1985, Truong Chinh, Vietnam's head of state, paid his first official visits to Laos and the People's Republic of Kampuchea, during which decisions were made to reduce Laotian imports from Thailand, and further redirect Laotian foreign trade toward the Vietnamese ports of Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. In late 1985, the Laotian government, probably due to Vietnamese pressure, asked the USSR to withdraw all Soviet civilian advisers from the LPDR, whereas the number of Vietnamese advisers underwent a simultaneous increase.^[12]

During the 1980s, Vietnam's regional opponents attributed to it a neocolonial ambition to create an "Indochina Federation".^[11] This phrase can be found in early pronouncements of the ICP in its struggle against the French colonial structures in Indochina.^[11] The charge, exaggerated as it was, lost its currency once Vietnam withdrew its troops from Cambodia in 1989 and subsequently from Laos.^[11] Laos's dependence on Vietnam since 1975 could then be perceived as a natural extension of their collaboration and solidarity in revolution rather than as domination by Vietnam.^[11]

With the departure of Vietnamese military forces—except for some construction engineers—and the passing of most senior Vietnamese revolutionary partners, the magnetism of the special relationship lost its grip.^[11] Further, Vietnam was never able to muster large-scale economic aid programs.^[11] It launched only 200 assistance projects between 1975 and 1985, whereas the Soviet Union generated considerably more in the way of contributions.^[11] In 1992 the long-standing Vietnamese ambassador to Laos, a veteran of fourteen years' service, characterised the relationship as composed "d'amitié et de coopération multiforme entre les pays" (of friendship and diverse co-operation between the two countries).^[11] This pronouncement was far less compelling than the "objective law of existence and development" formulation sometimes expressed in the past.^[11]

Although Vietnam's historical record of leadership in the revolution and its military power and proximity will not cease to exist, Laos struck out ahead of Vietnam with its New Economic Mechanism to introduce market mechanisms into its economy.^[11] In so doing, Laos has opened the door to rapprochement with Thailand and Russia at some expense to its special dependence on Vietnam.^[11] Laos might have reached the same point of normalisation in following Vietnam's economic and diplomatic change, but by moving ahead resolutely and responding to Thai and Russian gestures, Laos has broadened its range of donors, trading partners, and investors independent of Vietnam's attempts to accomplish the same goal.^[11] Thus, Vietnam remains in the shadows as a mentor and emergency ally, and the tutelage of Laos has shifted dramatically to development banks and international entrepreneurs.^[11]