HISTORY

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Human beings began living in the present territory of Laos more than 10,000 years ago.  Stone tools implements and skulls discovered in Huaphan and Luang Prabang provinces certify the existence of such settlements.  The giant jars in Xieng Khouang province and stone columns in Huaphan province date from the Neolithic period.  As clearly as the last century B.C.  humans in Laos used iron to forge their tools.  The rural community grouping of people slowly formed into muang (townships) between fourth and eight century on both sides of the Mekong River and along its tributaries.  However, the history of country as it is today truly begins with the first unified kingdom to be established there.  Laos has long been occupied by migrating Thais (including Shans, Siamese and Lao) and slash-and-burn Hmong/Mien hill tribes.  For much of its history, Laos has been under the thumb of its neighbors – at various times the Cambodians, Burmese, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Siamese (Thais).  The result is that Laos has experienced great difficulty in establishing a national identity.  From the 11th century onward, parts of Laos fell under the Khmer Empire, and later under Siamese influence from the Sukhothai dynasty.  The first Lao principalities were consolidated in the 13th century following the invasion of south-west China by Kublai Khan's Mongol hordes.  

With the fall of Sukhothai in 1345, the first kingdom of Laos emerged under Fa Ngum, a Lao prince brought up in the court of Angkor Wat.  As the Khmer Empire crumbled, Fa Ngum brought together the disparate townships that had grown up across the land.  Fa Ngoum also installed Theravada Buddhism as the principle religion of the country.  From his capital at Luang Prabang, the charismatic king and brilliant tactician spread the power of his rule throughout present-day Laos and into northern and eastern Thailand.  Lan Xang covered the whole of present-day Laos plus most of Issan (northeast Thailand).  Fa Ngum declared himself king of the realm in 1353.  Fa Ngum was unable to subdue the unruly highlanders of the northeast regions; these remained independent of Lan Xang Rule.  Upon Fa Ngum’s marriage to a Cambodian princess, the Khmer court gave the Lao king a sacred gold Buddha called Pra Bang.  Fa Ngum made Buddhism the state religion, and Pra Bang became the protector of the Lao kingdom.  Nobility pledged allegiance to the king before the statue.  Named after Pra Bang was the city of Luang Prabang, the cradle of Lao culture and the centre of the Lao state for the next 200 years.

Fa Ngum’s son, Thao Ounheuane succeeded him to the throne in 1373.  In his 43-year reign, King Ounheuane maintained the territorial integrity of the kingdom which his father had united.  After repelling an invasion by Burmese feudalists, King Ounheuane conducted a population census which showed that there were 300,000 Tai-Lao people and 400,000 people of other ethnic groups.  The census gave King Ounheuane the new name of King Samsenethai, meaning ‘three hundred thousand Tai people’.  Samsenthai, who reigned 1373-1416, consolidated the royal administration, developing Luang Prabang as a trading and religious center.  His death was followed by unrest under a swift succession of lackluster monarchs.  Throughout the sixteenth century, 14 monarchs ruled the Kingdom of Lane Xang.  In 1520 AD Prince Phothisarath ascended the throne, following King Visounnarath.  Prince Phothisarath was born in 1506 and married a princess of Chiang Mai.  In 1548, he made Prince Sayasetthathirath King of Chiang Mai (at that time the Kingdom of Lanna was a sister kingdom to Lane Xang).  When, in the same year, King Phothisarath suddenly died, Prince Sayasetthathirath returned to Swa to take the throne of the Kingdom of Lane Xang.  Under threat from both Siamese, Burmese and Chinese invaders in the sixteenth century, the capital of the faltering Lane Xang was moved to Vieng Chan (Vientiane) by King Setthathirat in 1560.  The Burmese were not to be put off by this tactical move and finally occupied the city in 1575, holding it for seven years and finally bringing an end to the once great Lane Xang.  In this same year, a Burmese army led by Ba Ying Nong raided Chiang Mai and Vientiane, but were forced to retreat by King Sayasetthathirath.  In the wake of the retreat, at the end of the sixteenth century, the kingdoms of Luang Prabang and Vieng Chan took the place once filled by Lane Xang.   Luang Prabang came under increasing threat from incursions by the Vietnamese and later the Burmese.    These were once again united in 1591, under the leadership of King Nokeo Koumane.  The seventeenth century saw the new kingdom enter its golden age with European traders exclaiming the capital, Vieng Chan, to be one of the most beautiful cities in southeast Asia.  During this period, King Settathirat built Wat Pra Keo to house the Emerald Buddha, a gift from the king of Ceylon, as a new talisman for the kingdom.  A moated rampart was built to protect the new capital whose name means the rampart if sandalwood.  King Setthathirath also erected the That Luang Stupa, a venerated religious shrine which is now the symbol of the Lao nation.  Settathirat is revered as one of the great Lao kings because he protected the nation from foreign subjugation.  When he disappeared in 1574 on a military campaign, the kingdom rapidly declined and was subject to Burmese invasion.  In 1569-1570 the Burmese made another attempt and suffered another reverse, being forced again to retreat.  These were the two victorious struggles (1563 and 1569) under the able command of King Sayasetthathirath, a hero of national salvation against the aggression of the Burmese feudalism, then a strong enemy.  There were continued uprisings and struggles of the masses over the last 24 years of the sixteenth century against the yoke of vassalage of Burmese feudalism, including the overthrow of a throne under Burmese vassalage (1579).  After the reign of King Sayasetthathirath, the Kingdom of Lane Xang fell into chaos for years before Prince Sourigna Vongsa assumed the throne in 1637.  He reigned for 57 years, during which time the Kingdom of Lane Xang was at peace.  The kingdom also began to open up for trade with the rest of the world.  Education and literature developed noticeably, and the most outstanding works of poetry and literature of the Kingdom of Lane Xang were created during this period - a period regarded as Lan Xang’s golden age.  In 1694, a Dutch merchant of the East Indian Company, Geritt Van Wuysthoff, and later, two Italian missionaries, Leria and Marini, visited the Kingdom of Lan Xang.  They wrote awed reports on the rich and beautiful palaces and temples, and the splendid religious ceremonies, saying Vientiane was the most magnificent city in South East Asia. 
 

Siamese Satellite
When Souligna Vongsa died in 1694 without an heir, the leadership of Lan Xang was contested, and the nation split into three kingdoms.  The area around Vientiane was taken over by Souligna’s nephew, supported by the Annamites from northern Vietnam; Souligna’s grandson controlled the area around Luang Prabang, while another prince controlled the southern kingdom of Champassak, with Thai backing.  China, Burma, and Vietnam briefly held sway over these kingdoms; bands of Chinese marauders terrorized the north of the country.  In the 1820s, Vientiane’s king Anou rebelled against Siamese interference and attacked the Thais.  The Thai response was to sack Vientiane in 1827, razing most of the city.  Between 1828 and 1829 Siam forced 100,000 Lao people to cross the Mekong River and resettle as prisoners of war.  The Siamese ransacked and burned 6,000 houses in the capital, removing valuables from all temples in Vientiane (except Sisaketh Temple).  They also removed the most sacred Buddha images - the Phra Bang and the Emerald Buddha - from Vientiane.  By the end of the 18th century, although most of Laos came under Siamese (Thai) suzerainty but the territory was also being pressured by Vietnam.  Unable or unwilling to serve two masters, the country went to war with Siam in the 1820s.  This disastrous ploy led to all three kingdoms falling under Thai control.  In the late 19th century, the king of Siam, seeking to keep Thailand free of foreign domination, ceded a large tract of territory – equivalent of what is now Laos and Cambodia combined – to the French.  By then, France had established French Indochina in the Vietnamese provinces of Tonkin and Annam.  The Thais eventually ceded all of Laos to the French, who were content to use the territory merely as a buffer between its colonial holdings and Siam.  A series of treaties released more Lao territories to the French between 1893 and 1907.  Former Lao territories were thus united again, although the three kingdoms founded in the late 17th century remained in existence, and tribal princes were able to increase their power by collaborating with the French.  The French gave the new protectorate the name Laos, from les Laos, the plural term for the people of Laos.  Laos was a low-key French protectorate, known as the land of the lotus-eaters, where an indolent lifestyle prevailed.  It was too mountainous for plantations, there was little in the way of mining, and the Mekong was not suitable for commercial navigation.  The French built very few roads – the main colonial route constructed was from Luang Prabang through Vientiane to Savannakhet and the Cambodian frontier.  The French built no higher-education facilities; some half-hearted attempts were made to cultivate rubber and coffee, but the main export under the French was opium.  Only a few hundred French resided in Laos.  They adopted a dissolute lifestyle with Lao or Annamite consorts, and left the running of the place to Vietnamese civil servants.  The king was allowed to remain in Luang Prabang, trade was left to resident Vietnamese and Chinese, and the Lao carried on farming as they had for hundreds of years.  During the colonial period, administration, health care, and education hardly made any impact or progress at all.  The only significant change for ordinary folk was the presence of obnoxious tax collectors, a frequent cause of uprisings.  In the lowlands, revolts were quickly put down, but in the highlands of Xieng Khuang and the Bolovens Plateau, the French had trouble deploying their heavy weaponry. 

Sometimes a remission of taxes led to pacification. The fall of France to Germany and the Japanese occupation of Indochina during World War II, helped to foment a new breed of nationalism among the Lao people.  The situation was exacerbated when Japanese troops forced the pro-French King Sisavang Vong to declare independence from the French in the waning months of the war.  With the August 14 1945 surrender of Japan, a power vacuum was left in Laos that the French were at that time unable to refill.  For a little over six months Laos was independent, but, with the help of British and Pro-French Lao forces, the colonialists were able to re-occupy Vientiane in April 1946.  In August of 1945 the Lao Issara (Free Laos) movement declared liberation from the French in September, and set about establishing an alternative government.  The Lao Issara leader was Prince Phetsarath, a nephew of the king.  Other key players in the Lao Issara were his half-brothers, Prince Souvanna Phouma and Prince Souphanouvong.  King Sisavang Vong sided with the French, and the movement for Lao independence was crushed, causing Prince Phetsarath and Prince Souvanna Phouma to flee to Thailand.  King Sisavang Vong was crowned constitutional monarch of all Laos in 1946.  Meanwhile, the Lao Issara dissolved, and a splinter group called the Pathet Lao formed a new resistance group based in northeast Laos.  The Pathet Lao were led by Prince Souphanouvong and backed by the Vietminh of North Vietnam.  Prince Souvanna Phouma returned to Vientiane and joined the newly formed Royal Lao Government.  

The French granted full sovereignty to Laos in 1953, but the Pathet Lao regarded the royalist government as Western-dominated and conflict persisted between royalist, neutralist and communist factions.  When in 1954 the French made a last stand at Dien Bien Phu, it ended badly, with a stunning defeat.  The weary French started a withdrawal from Indochina; at this point, the US started supplying the Royal Lao Government with arms.

The US-backed Royal Lao Government ruled over a divided country from 1951 to 1954.  The Geneva Conference of July 1954 granted full independence to Laos but did not settle the issue of who would rule.  Prince Souvanna Phouma, a neutralist, operated from Vientiane; in the south, right-wing, pro-US Prince Boun Oum of Champassak dominated the Pakse area.  In the far north, Prince Souphanouvong led the leftist resistance movement, the Pathet Lao, drawing support from North Vietnam. 
 

In 1959, the Lao king died and was succeeded by his son, Sisavang Vatthana.  Over the next few years there were a number of unsuccessful attempts to set up a coalition government to bring royalists and communists together.  Souvanna Phouma became Prime Minister in 1956 and tried to integrate his half-brother’s Pathet Lao forces into a coalition government.  That government was toppled in 1958.  Fighting broke out between the Royal Lao Army and the Pathet Lao in 1960; in 1961, a neutral independent government was set up under Prince Souvanna Phouma, based in Vientiane.  A second attempt at a coalition government floundered in 1962 due to the widening war in Vietnam.  The neutralists later joined forces with the Pathet Lao to oppose forces backed by the US and Thailand.  For the next decade, Laos was plagued by civil war, coups, countercoups, and chaos, and was dragged headlong into the Vietnam War.  Laos became a pawn of the superpowers, with Hmong tribesmen trained by CIA agents, Thai mercenaries fighting for the Royal Lao government, and the Pathet Lao receiving help from the Chinese, the Russians, and the Vietminh.

During the Vietnam War, Laos was effectively partitioned into four spheres of influence: the Chinese in the north, the Vietnamese along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the east, the Thais in western areas controlled by the US-backed Royal Lao Government, and the Khmer Rouge operating from parts of the south.  The USA began bombing North Vietnamese troops on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos in 1964, escalating conflict between the royalist Vientiane government and the communist Pathet Lao who fought alongside the North Vietnamese.  By the time a ceasefire was negotiated in 1973, Laos had the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in the history of warfare.  Because of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Laos was subjected to saturation bombing by aerial raids launched from Thailand and from within Laos.  In this undeclared dirty war, the tonnage of bombs dropped by US bombers on the northern Lao provinces of Xieng Khuang, Sam Neua, the Phong Saly between 1964 and 1973 exceeded the entire tonnage dropped over Europe by all sides during WWII.  It is estimated that US forces flew almost 600,000 sorties – the equivalent of one bombing run every eight minutes around the clock for nine years.  This air assault was shrouded in secrecy, since under the terms of the Geneva Accord of 1962 no foreign personnel were supposed to operate on Laotian territory.  The Vietminh and the Chinese also violated Laos’ neutrality with infantry divisions deployed in the north.  In the early days of the bombing, American pilots dressed in civilian clothing flew old planes with Royal Lao markings; Thai and Hmong pilots were also trained to fly missions.
 

So confusing did the number of Laotian coups become that the Americans were unsure which Phoumi, Phuouma, Phoui, Souvanna, or Souvanou was in power at any given time.  American journalist Malcolm Browne described this bewildering era thus:  "Laos was as improbable as the Looking Glass world ruled by the Red Queen, the White Queen and Alice.  Its towns and trackless jungles swarmed with guerillas, communist agents, Special Forces troopers, armed tribesmen, opium growers, an international corps of mercenaries and sundry camp followers.  Vientiane was awash with the dollars pouring in with the foreigners.  The Chinese-owned gold shops along Samsentai Street did a booming business in twenty-four karat gold bracelets, each weighing five ounces or more.  Customers included pilots of the CIA’s Air America, French military advisors, Belgian mercenaries, spooks, assassins and journalists.  Foreigners bought gold bracelets on the theory that if they were shot down or wounded, they could pay for help from tribesmen with gold, the only currency universally respected in Laos.

The January 1973 Paris Accords - which saw the end of US involvement in the Vietnam conflict was followed a month later by a cessation of hostilities between the opposing Lao factions, leading at last to the formation of a coalition government.  It was not to last.  With the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon to Communist forces in April 1975, many Royalists saw the eventual takeover of the country by the Pathet Lao as a forgone conclusion and fled to France.  That August, in a symbolic gesture, a force of fifty female Pathet Lao soldiers marched into and liberated Vientiane.  The Lao People's Democratic Republic was born on December 2, 1975.  Laos entered a period of isolation throughout the rest of the seventies, maintaining diplomatic and economic relations with only Vietnam and the USSR.  After failing to establish a successful socialist state modeled on Eastern Bloc collectivization, the Lao government moved towards a more flexible form of socialism - dismantling agricultural co-operatives in 1979, and installing economic reforms in 1986 that opened the way for the introduction of a market economy.  Laos remained closely allied with the Vietnamese communists throughout the 1980s.  Although many private businesses were closed down after 1975, there has been a relaxation of rules since 1989, and the move towards a market economy has led to a small-scale economic revival.  Laos cemented ties with its neighbors when it was welcomed into ASEAN in July 1997.  In 1998 former Prime Minister Khamtai became President.

By the late 1990s, the economy was in such poor shape - having experienced inflation of over 100 per cent and a depreciation of the kip by more than 500 per cent - that the resolutely socialist country did something that they'd never done before.  They devised a 'Visit Laos' campaign in order to attract the tourist dollar.  Although not an overwhelming success, the kip has been dragged back from its death bed and inflation reined in a little.  Perhaps more significantly, there have been unofficial reports of disaffected Laotians rattling the chains of the Politburo and hard liners of the draconian Lao People's Revolutionary Party.  In the last few years, Laos has made further strides towards international acceptance and integration into the global economy.  The 1994 opening of the Australian-financed Friendship Bridge - linking Vientiane with Nong Khai in Thailand - and the country's 1997 ASEAN membership are both seen as positive moves towards this goal.