Laos: Kartographer Katie
Hi everyone! I’m Katie, and I’m obsessed with geography. While I embrace my Southern family roots in North Carolina, I’ve always had a travel bug and have an immense appreciation for history, politics, and culture. I’ve lived in Charlotte, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, and most recently (pandemic) New York City, and have traveled to 30+ countries on 4 continents so far.
My intended audience is people who have a Eurocentric, United States worldview. Whether we like it or not, we sit in positions of power as citizens of a country with hegemonic dominance. This perpetuates self-importance — and accompanying naivety — in the narrative we create about the world around us. Precisely because of this, we often do not grapple with considerations of indigenous issues, Western extractive power structures, and other aspects of the present-day diplomatic status quo of other countries while we enjoy our travels and leisure.
While I do want these blog posts to be fun and interesting (traveling is fun, and I’ll hopefully convince you that maps are cool!), my ultimate goal is for them to inform, inspire, and spark critical thinking about what maps — and the places and people behind them — tell us about power structures and how we can be more unifying and empathic in our understanding of the world around us.
- Please note that these posts are in no way meant to be exhaustive, comprehensive histories and overviews — if I held myself to those standards, I could never do these places justice. They are also not intended to highlight what scholars consider to be the most important issues — I am NOT an expert to attempt to make those sorts of calls. These posts are merely “starter packs” to further research, and I’ve done my best to link credit where credit is due for further exploration.
Table of Contents
Why it matters — Moral reckoning of US Secret War during Vietnam War
Indigenous history — Tai-Lao migration, origins of Theravada Buddhism, Lao unification
Power structures — Expansionist Siamese and Vietnamese neighbors, French colonialism (as part of broader French Indochina), US anti-communist meddling
Today — Tourism, ongoing Buddhist influences, nonprofit hotspot, economy
Why it matters
Let’s talk about Laos. Why Laos? Why NOW?
Before traveling to Southeast Asia after graduation in summer 2018, I must admit Laos had barely been a blip on my radar. I tended to hear about this landlocked country as a side note, an afterthought, to a Southeast Asia itinerary that focused primarily on Thailand, Vietnam, or Cambodia.
Yet Laos had some of the most incredible hidden gems I had seen in that entire region, as well as some of the most appalling hidden atrocities.
Given the state of world and US affairs now, I continue to feel inspired to write about my travels because holding the US accountable to its hegemonic role internally and globally is more important now than ever. Because acknowledging and accepting is the only way to begin improvement.
That is REAL patriotism to me. And where have we seen “problematic patriotism” displayed in the past? Besides from our dangerous, empowered rioters who stormed the US Capitol building in DC in early January? Well, I think lots of examples can be found in the last century of our incessant need to flex our military might over other world affairs that provoke our ideological savior complex, to the absolute detriment of civilians in other countries, for a prolonged period of time based on shabby data and political gaming.
If Vietnam comes to mind, you’re close. But did you know there was a parallel “Secret War” in Laos? From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions — equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years — making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. The bombings were part of the U.S. Secret War in Laos to support the Royal Lao Government against the Pathet Lao and to interdict traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The bombings destroyed many villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lao civilians during the nine-year period.
Up to a third of the bombs dropped did not explode, leaving Laos contaminated with vast quantities of unexploded ordnance (UXO). Over 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO in Laos since the bombing ceased. The wounds of war are not only felt in Laos. When the Americans withdrew from Laos in 1973, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the country, and many of them ultimately resettled in the United States.
While Laos has attempted more serious reform beginning in the 1990s, it remains a country with poorly developed infrastructure domestically and for tourists, and is illiterate relative to many countries on the continent. I find it important while I reminisce on the beautiful landscapes and compelling city details to remember the role my country played in stagnating Laos’ growth potential over the past half century.
Indigenous history
The first modern humans (Homo sapiens) arrived in Southeast Asia around 50,000 years ago. As a Neolithic culture evolved from these earliest peoples about 8000 BC, hunter-gatherers spread to present-day Laos. These people comprised the ancestors of the present-day upland minorities known as the Lao Thoeng (“Upland Lao”), the largest group of which are the Khamu in northern Laos. These indigenous people spoke Austro-Asiatic languages. They cultivated wet rice along river valleys and organized themselves into groups called meuang, governed by a hereditary ruler called chao meuang (lord of the meuang).
The first extended Lao kingdom was Lan Xang or “Land of the Million Elephants.” When the Lao people who originated from Yunnan, China, were pushed south to the border of the Khmer empire in the 13th century, they established unprecedented political and social change.
Angkor-educated Lao prince Fa Ngum fought his way back along the Mekong Valley to regain his birthright in Muang Sua and to establish a unified Lao Kingdom. In an attempt to unite the various ethnic groups under the kingdom, he introduced Theravada Buddhism. His father-in-law, the Khmer king, sent Buddhist scholars and scriptures, as well as a sacred golden Buddha called Pra Bang. Pra Bang was considered a symbol of the right to rule Laos. It was placed in the capital, Muang Sua, which was renamed Luang Prabang in honor of the sacred image. For the next 200 years Luang Prabang was the religious and cultural center of the kingdom.
Over the years, Lan Xang armies won and lost territory from the Khmer, Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese in Yunnan. By the 17th century its holdings were quite sizable. However, its power began to crumble in 1694 when King Souligna Vongsa died without an heir. Internal strife, spurred on by various neighbors, ultimately split Lan Xang into three kingdoms: Luang Prabang in the north, Vientiane in the center and Champassak in the south. The rivals never stopped quarrelling and were easily invaded and overrun, particularly by the Siamese who, by the end of the 18th century, controlled most of present-day Laos and Cambodia.
During the 18th century, the three Laotian states struggled to maintain independence from the Myanmar and Siamese kingdoms, both of which were aspiring to control the western segment of continental Southeast Asia. Disunity weakened these Laotian kingdoms and they eventually fell prey to the Siamese. The kings of Champassak, Vientiane, and Luang Prabang were allowed to rule in their respective kingdoms but had to pay tribute to Bangkok in Siam — in fact, their appointments to the throne were made in Bangkok as well.
Power structures
As Siam (modern-day Thailand) continued to expand northeast, they ran up against tensions with the French, who had established a protectorate over Vietnam. In 1886, France entered negotiations with Bangkok which resulted in France establishing a vice-consul in Luang Prabang. France made several demonstrations of power on the Mekong River in 1893 and Siam, under the advice of the British, agreed to withdraw from the eastern bank of the Mekong and give official recognition to the evacuated territory as a French protectorate.
Siam ultimately ceded the territory of Lan Xang (and of the Khmer) to French Indochina in a bid to maintain its own independence — which worked. In 1900, Vientiane was re-established as the administrative capital of Laos, with real power exercised from Hanoi, the capital of French Indochina. In 1904 and 1907, additional treaties closed the deal that made Laos officially a unified protectorate from its previous three kingdoms. The French reunited the three territories and called the new protectorate Laos, from les Laos, the plural form of the Lao people. Siam retained what is now Northeast Thailand, or Issan, where many Lao people lived then and still do. Today, there are more Lao people living in Issan than in Laos itself.
During the first half of the 20th century, the French set up colonial control apparatuses in Lao cities that drove local villagers out. Spacious villas were built for senior French officials, and colonial French architecture replaced more rudimentary architecture especially in Luang Prabang. A heavily subsidized riverboat service linked the Lao Mekong towns to Phnom Penh and Saigon.
The outbreak of World War II weakened France’s position in the region and this led a new aggressively nationalist government in Bangkok to try to regain a stronghold in Laos. After the war, the French worked to make up their previous neglect. As stalemate developed between France and Vietnam in 1949, the French began to encourage greater independence in Laos, which gave them recognition by Britain and the United States.
The Geneva Accord of 1954 ended French imperialism in Southeast Asia. Participating western countries agreed that all of Laos should come under the rule of a royal government and should not undergo partition (as was the case with Vietnam).
As tensions mounted between the United States and Soviet Union, increasing attention was paid to communist forces in Southeast Asia. Despite remarks from multiple US presidents not to get involved with Laos, the US Secret War in Laos commenced in 1964, when communist paranoia building in Vietnam and surrounding countries reached a breaking point. The bombings were part of a US effort to support the Royal Lao government against the Pathet Lao, a communist political movement that would eventually take power in 1975.
Although the United States has supported ordnance recovery since the early 1990s, the comparison in spending between wartime and aftermath is worth putting in perspective. In just ten days of bombing Laos, the US spent $130M (in 2013 dollars), whereas the US spent $13.3M (in 2013 dollars) per day for nine years bombing Laos. Up to a third of the bombs dropped did not explode, leaving Laos contaminated with massive quantities of unexploded ordnance. Since the bombing ended in 1974, over 20,000 people have been killed or injured. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the country, and many of them ultimately resettled in the United States.
In parallel, the Ministry of Health of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic founded the Center for Medical Rehabilitation (then the National Rehabilitation Center) in 1963 to provide and coordinate rehabilitation services throughout the country. In 1997, the Lao Ministry of Health and a group of nongovernmental organizations (POWER, World Vision, and the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics) agreed to form a medical cooperative in conjunction with the center called COPE. This was in part due to the increasing number of casualties from unexploded ordnance from bombs dropped on Laos during the Secret War, from 1964 to 1973. It is estimated that 15,000 survivors still require ongoing support.
In 2016, President Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Laos. He pledged an additional $90M in aid to remove unexploded ordnance on top of the existing $100M that had been spent previously.
Today
Despite internationally-inflicted atrocities that have occurred throughout the centuries in Laos, it remains a peaceful country, with about half the population practicing Buddhists. For many young boys, the path to becoming a monk is a promising opportunity for hunger alleviation, education, and respect among the community.
The global nonprofit community has taken notice in Laos in their market landscape analyses, and with good reason. The literacy rates are a stark case for change. In 2012, only 46% of 12–18 year olds were enrolled in secondary school in Laos. 30% of Laos is illiterate, with even higher rates of illiteracy among ethnic minorities. Twice as many students are assigned to a teacher on average than in the United States. Pencils of Promise is one organization that works with 88 communities in Laos to ensure that students overcome these and other barriers to quality education.
Big Brother Mouse is another literacy program that also serves as a popular tourist destination for socially-minded visitors in Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Originally a book distribution company, Big Brother Mouse now offers a variety of language and educational opportunities that range from primary school education curriculum supplement programming to higher education for young adults. The company’s model also relies on English-speaking visitors to come for a day or week at a time and help its participants get more comfortable speaking English they have learned in the classroom. Its classroom-to-career approach recognizes that English can remove barriers to economic opportunity, where tourism is a growing and profitable sector in the country.
The economy of Laos is primarily agricultural and since the late 20th century has remained heavily dependent on foreign aid and investment. In the early years of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the attempt to collectivize agriculture among other economic policies resulted in the country’s economic stagnation. By the 1980s, however, the government began implementing market-oriented reforms which have allowed private and state enterprises to operate side by side. Some foreign investment has ensued, and several nongovernmental organizations, including US ones, have been providing government assistance, primarily in rural development and public health.
Garment production, largely for export, has been expanding rapidly. Handicrafts are also an important component of Laos’s manufacturing sector. Although manufacturing has been growing faster than any other sector since economic reforms in the late 20th century, it remains less than 25% of total contribution to Laos’s GDP.
For anyone looking to travel to Southeast Asia when the pandemic is over — I could not recommend Laos enough. Its rich history, culture, spirituality, and landscape are truly breathtaking, and I hope visiting inspires each of us to play a greater role in raising awareness of the United States’ dark historical impact, and also inspires us to push our thinking on how we can shift to be moralistic leaders in the 21st century.
