Mainland Southeast Asia: Turmoil and Peace - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 439

The first European visitors reported on the city' s impos-
ing buildings and religious structures. For lack of a royal
heir, the kingdom broke up in 1694 and Vientiane and
Louang Phrabang became centers of rival states. The
south fell under Thai patronage.

but the French recaptured Laos in 1946. In the late
1940s, Lao guerrilla groups developed along the moun-
tainous Lao-Vietnam border, aided by Viet Minh know-
how and supplies. Meanwhile, the French declared the
king in Louang Phrabang king of all Laos, held elections
for a national assembly , and declared the country inde-
pendent in 1949. Nevertheless, the guerrilla movement
expanded, known by then as the Pathet Lao. By 1954, it
controlled large areas of northern Laos.
In 1954, the same year as the French were defeated at
Dien Bien Phu, a conference was held in Geneva to settle
Indochina' s disputes. The Pathet Lao were not invited. By
1959, guerrilla warfare was in full swing, with the United
States involved in supporting the Royal Lao Forces. At the
same time, the CIA was clandestinely forming links with
the opium-growing Hmong, whom they assisted in sell-
ing drugs to new markets in Southeast Asia.
Unfortunately , Laos became deeply involved in the
Vietnam War. About one-third of the bombs dropped in
Indochina fell on Laos, especially on the Plain of Jars,
part of the route of the Ho Chi Minh T Trail. Thousands of
unexploded bombs still mar the landscape of northern
Laos. When I was in Laos in 1998, seven children were
killed by an unexploded bomb. It will take many years
for these bombs to be removed. Meanwhile, the people
collect bomb casings, aircraft fuel tanks, and other mate-
rials and incorporate them as practical items in their
landscape (Figure 15-17).
By 1972, the Pathet Lao, backed by the well-armed
DRV , was gaining ground. In 1973, the two sides reached
an “Agreement on the Restoration of Peace and Reconcil-
iation in Laos.” When, in 1975, communist organiza-
tions toppled the power structures in Saigon and Phnom
Penh, the Pathet Lao supported a “popular revolution.”
The king abdicated. A total of 300,000 Lao—10 percent
of the population—left the country between 1973 and
1975. These were mostly middle-class people. Many
ended up in the United States and France. Then, in De-
cember 1975, a National Congress of Peoples Represen-
tatives voted for the establishment of the Lao People' s
Democratic Republic.

FRENCH TAKEOVER
The nineteenth century was a period of devastation for a
Laos caught in regional rivalries. The surviving kingdom
at Louang Phrabang acknowledged the overlordship of
both the Vietnamese and the Thais, but was really within
the Thai orbit of control.
The French takeover between the 1860s and 1885
resulted from several factors. They perceived the Mekong
as a route to China, although this was an incorrect as-
sumption, as the Mekong is broken by impassable rapids.
They feared Thai interests in their territories. They were
concerned about the intentions of armed bands of rene-
gade Chinese who were attacking northern Laos and
Vietnam. Also, they were worried about British en-
croachment from Burma. By 1885, the French controlled
the Vietnamese emperor' s claims to overlordship of the
Lao territories. Still, Laos remained the center of rivalries
among the surrounding states in addition to the compet-
ing colonial powers.
The French' s attitude to Laos was one of “benign
neglect.” Few French actually went there, and Viet-
namese were placed in administrative positions. T Trade
was left to the Vietnamese and growing numbers of Chi-
nese. Most people in the region continued as subsistence
farmers, the lowlanders growing rice and the uplanders
pursuing slash-and-burn cultivation. The colony' s most
important products were tin, mined by the Vietnamese,
and opium grown by the Hmong and other mountain
dwellers. The French had a monopoly on the opium
trade throughout Indochina.
Prior to World War II, modernization was extremely
limited. A mere 8,050 miles (5,000 km) of mostly un-
paved roads eased communication, but most services, in-
cluding health care, were limited to the towns, and no
Western-style education was available beyond the pri-
mary level. However, a small Vietnamese or French-
educated elite did emerge in Viangchan, and by the
1940s it became the core of a Lao nationalist movement.

The Plain of Jars

The Plain of Jars is a plateau 3,280 feet (1,000 m)
high, covering an area of 390 square miles
(1,000 km 2 ). It is also known as Plaine des Jarres .
Upon this bomb-crater-pocked plateau lie more

THE W AR YEARS
Nationalist politicization was a feature of the war years in
Laos. After 1945, there were attempts at independence,