Historiography of Laos

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Running Head: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF COMMUNIST LAOS 1

Laos: Rewriting History

Joshua K. Crawford

University of Maryland University College

WRTG 391 7988

Professor Barbara Russell




The Historiography of Communist Laos

Despite the belief that history is unchangeable, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic

has been altering their own history since 1975 for political reasons. In order to smooth transition

from a recent monarchy to its current regime, a fictitious national narrative has been composed in

the form of standardized history books which include fabricated ancestral ties between current

political figures and heroes of the previous Buddhist-monarchy. As a means of irredentism, the

method by which nations claim territories based on historic or ethnic affiliations, the Lao PDR

has restricted publication of various works. The communist state, in an attempt to unify fifty

diverse ethnic groups, have censored the histories of some ethnic groups from modern school

texts while simultaneously eradicating those ethnic groups through military force. If left

unchecked by other nations, the LPDR may very well wipe several ethnicities from existence and

alter the roots of national and ethnic pride through systematic replacement of historical facts.

National Narrative

The current history book in Laos is called the Pavatsat Lao and is the culmination of the

current regime’s attempted historiography. It depicts the centuries-long struggle for national

independence and unity of the Lao multi-ethnic people under the leadership of several

outstanding historical figures from former Buddhist kings to the more modern communist

revolutionaries. The Lao People’s Revolutionary Party legitimizes it’s usurpation of power over

the monarchy by interpreting their success as the climax of a natural progression sought after by

generations of Lao people through the centuries (Tappe, 2013). Interestingly enough, the former

kings and monarchs, whom they overthrew, are re-interpreted as proto-revolutionary fighters

seeking independence from foreign invaders and to unite their multi-ethnic people. While there

are shared similarities between the goals of the communist state and the rule of former monarchs,




those goals do not translate to a natural progression from one to the other. For example, while

they may both seek to repel foreign invaders and unite their people, it doesn’t mean that the

monarchy sought to eventually become a communist state.

Through use of the Pavatsat Lao, the government further seeks to legitimize its leadership

as a transition from the monarchy through a series of contrived genealogies. Kaysone

Phomvihane, the founder of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and leader of the Lao People’s

Democratic Republic is listed as a descendant of heroic kings such as Setthathilat and Anouvong.

Goscha suggested in 2007 that such ancestry was not only chosen for their link to royal lineage,

but also for the events that took place during those monarchs’ lifetimes. For example Fa Ngoum

is likely listed as an ancestor due to the similarity of his militaristic campaign to unify the Lane

Xang kingdom. Setthathilat and Anouvong were probably used because they both had wars of

independence and opposed colonialism from Western culture during the 20th

century.

Overall, this primary tool for teaching students the history of their country, provides a

nearly seamless narrative that suggests a farsighted plan begun hundreds of years ago that

became realized in the form of the current government (Vatthana, 2006). Various governmental

setbacks such as the famines of the late 1970’s have been glossed over and contradictory

information has been omitted or edited (Tappe, 2013. The presence of the Hmong people within

the country and the hundreds of thousands of political refugees now living in Europe and the

United States provide the only visible contradiction to the perceived goal of a united multi-ethnic

country seeking communist regime.

History is not only altered within the Pavatsat Lao, but also upon the various public

monuments and art pieces in the country. As described by Evans in 2002, within the capitol of

Vientiane in front of museum stands a large group of statues composed of the revolutionary




triplet of soldier, peasant, and worker representing the past and present of the Lao People’s

Army; maximizing exposure and timelessness to their recent conquest. Within the museum is a

gallery of oil paintings displaying former Lao kings, all of which under the heading “History of

the resistance struggle against foreign feudalists to protect and unite the nation (Evans, 2002).”

Such wording downplays the power of the monarchy except in its perceived shared goal with the

current government as repelling foreign invaders.

Many of the individual paintings and statues are grouped together to support the

predestined narrative. Fa Ngoum, king during the fourteenth century, is listed because he

managed to unite all the Lao principalities into the kingdom of Lane Xane through military

actions. Near that stands Setthathilat of the sixteenth century and depicts him leading a guerrilla

war, which would provide similarities and easy transition to the tactics used during the

revolutionary period of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party.

Other historical figures who cannot feasibly support the ideals of the LPRP have had their

commemorative plaques, statues, paintings, and other historical documentation systematically

destroyed. For example, the statue of former nationalist Prime Minister Katay Donsasorith was

torn down when he was denounced with other conservative figures within the Itsala movement as

being “lackeys” of the French and American imperialists. Sisavang Vatthana, the last reigning

king of Laos, no longer has any visible visages of him in Laos except within the walls of the

palace museum in Louang Phrabang, which denounce him as a puppet. Though the government

has attempted to repress them, some photographs have been leaked which show him and his wife

kneeling inside the Houaphan reeducation compound where they were sent after he was deposed.

The statues of his father, Sisavang Vong, only remain because they were gifts from the Soviet




Union. Overall, there are very few monuments remaining that depict anything that might stand

as an icon opposed to the contrived narrative, regardless of their historical significance.

As something of a juxtaposition, while many monuments depict the martial prowess of

Lao leaders, several exhibitions and historical artifacts remain that depict the victimization of the

Lao people by foreign invaders. Pictures of destroyed houses and temples such as the derelict

Phia Vat temple in Muang Khoun, depict the violent nature of foreigners. Military losses such as

those of Anouvong’s defeat by the Siamese are meant to give the impression of a people not

permitted to fight on equal terms. Gallaries showing the damage done to the Plain of Jars by

American bombers is used as a means of reinforcing distrust in Lao people of the Western

Powers while simultaneously seeking to make foreigners feel pity and guilt for what has been

done to Laos, downplaying that the Americans were attempting to stop the communist insurgents

usurp the monarchy. Such examples show the malleability of history bent to suit the ideals of a

particular geographic region and ethnic group.

Irredentism

Malleability of truth regarding regional ethnic history can be seen in the study of

irredentism. Irredentism is a political or popular movement intended to reclaim and reoccupy a

lost homeland. The movement is usually contested by conflicting historical narratives by

opposing nations. In regards to Laos, irredentism is prevalent along their borders with Cambodia

and Northern Thailand. One example, as described by Baird (2010), was the censoring of

controversial historical references in the publishing of his 1993 storybook series on the histories

of each Lao province. In writing the history of the ancient ruins of Vat Phao, which lies west of

the Mekong River in the Champasak Province of Laos, Baird had written of the Khom people as

having constructed Vat Phao.




While the information was accurate, the Vientiane based French non-governmental

organization, known as Ecoles Sans Frontieres, were concerned with the inclusion of the

referenced Khom people. As defined by Tappe (2011), the word “Khom” is sometimes used to

refer to the Lao Highland peoples of the past, the word more frequently is used to refer to the

ancient Kmer people of Cambodia. The Lao government were concerned that should the

Champasak Province book be published with that wording, they may be forced to officially

recognize that the Champasak Province was once held under the sovereignty of Cambodia. Due

to the Lao Ministry’s pressure, the ESF were told to remove the reference and replace it with the

statement that the Cham were the first people to inhabit the region; the Khmer people being left

out entirely. Further, a map included with the book displayed the province’s territory as

extending to the ocean and including much of northeastern Cambodia.

Irredentism was prevalent as well in northeastern Thailand during the 1950s and early

1960s. During this period, the Thai government were concerned that the increasing dissent from

the ethnic Lao in the region might lead to them becoming separatists and supporting the Lao

communist movement (Keys, 2002). There were, as stated by Stuart-Fox in 1979, many who

fled to Laos with the members of former Lao Issara in order to escape persecution by the Thai

government. Maha Sila Viravong was one of those who fled Thailand and later became one of

the pre-eminent architects of Lao national culture (Stuart-Fox, 1979).

This unusual war of words between Laos and Thailand, played out in the newspapers and

on the radio, led to a convoluting of the ethnic history of the people of that region (Streckfuss,

2012). The eventual outcome resulted in the general belief that rather than being ethnic Lao

living within the borders of Thailand, they were sub-branch of the ethnic Thai. Those that

maintained the belief that they were of Lao descent precipitously disengaged from the argument




and simply moved to Laos to support the new communist movement, making the war somewhat

of a stalemate.

Ethnic Cleansing

Unlike Thailand’s attempt at assimilating an ethnic minority through historiography,

Laos has attempted to use historiography and military prowess to erase one of their ethnic

minorities from the history books. Though the Lao People’s Democratic Party propaganda

overtly supports the uniting of its 50 ethnic groups, their actions against the Hmong people stand

as a startling contradiction to this policy. The reason for such systematic eradication rests on

their ability to contradict the historical narrative posed by the government.

Politically, the group stands as a historical embarrassment to the Lao People’s

Democratic Republic due to their foreign ties. Both France and the United States recruited

heavily among the Hmong people of Laos to fight against both Vietnam and communist Pathet

Lao insurgents, the latter group being the foundation for the current government (Vang, 2013).

While hundreds of thousands of Hmong fled Laos after the Laotian Civil War as refugees, those

that would not or could not leave the country have been physically hunted since 1975; many of

them hiding in the mountains and jungles of Laos. The inability of the Lao People’s Democratic

Republic to exterminate the Hmong allows a voice of opposition to any history book seeking to

exclude them or paint them as enemies of Laos. More aptly, they represent enemies to the

current communist regime, rather than the country itself.

Their presence in the country poses other problems for the Lao PDR, in that they are not

Buddhist. In the long history of Laos, there has been a longstanding reciprocal benefit between

the Buddhist religion in the Lowland region and the ruling regime (Evans, 1998). Theravada




Buddhist societies hold that karma demands a single individual at the apex of a given society

(Breazeale, 2002). As a means of garnering support and self-legitimization, the Lao People’s

Revolutionary Party sought to draw upon the apex leader aspect of Theravada Buddhism to

support the leader of the newly formed Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

Kaysone Phomvihane, in publically using this tenet of faith to legitimize his rule,

inadvertently alienated nearly 34 percent of the country’s population, those being non-Buddhist

practitioners of other religions. Representing the majority of the non-Buddhist population,

practicing as Animists and Christians in the Uplands region of Laos, the Hmong have opposed

all restrictions placed upon their ability to practice their respective religions by the Marxist

system of government in Laos. Further, the party’s propaganda regarding uniting more than 50

ethnic groups in the country made itself somewhat hollow by aligning itself with a single religion

and attempting to eliminate an ethnic group.

Summary

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic has quite successfully been able to edit their own

history. They have published a standardized history book to be used in schools that provide a

pleasing national narrative to its citizens. They have fictitiously linked their current political

leadership with the former monarchy, turning an enemy into a proto-revolutionary ancestors.

They have censored historical documents that would allow other countries the ability to contest

certain political boundaries. They have attempted to erase an ethnic minority from history books

because they represent ties to foreign powers and opposition to their regime. Such success,

however will be opposed so long as the Hmong people do not assimilate, flee, or be killed

through military action. Overall, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic has simultaneously

presented two diametrically opposed viewpoints of their history. The first is one meant for their




citizens and presents a history of successive military endeavors leading to a culminating

realization of the communist party. The second is a presentation of victimization by foreigners

meant to promote national pride and garner support from other nations. In the end, history is

always written by the victor, but the truth is written from several vantages.




References

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C. F. Keys, & S. Tanabe (Eds.). (2002). Cultural crisis and social memory – Modernity and

identity in Thailand and Laos. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.

doi:10.1017/S0022463403220488

K. Breazeale, & M. Ngaosrivathana (Eds.). (2002). Breaking new ground in Lao history: Essays

on the seventh to twentieth centuries. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

doi:10.1017/S0022463404300081

Evans, G. (1998). The politics of ritual and remembrance: Laos since 1975. Honolulu: University

of Hawaiʻi Press. Doi:10.1017/S0022463402300080

Evans, G. (2002). Immobile memories: Statues in Thailand and Laos. In C.F. Keys, & S. Tanabe

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Social Issues In Southeast Asia, 26(2), 174-195. doi:10.1355/sj26-2b

Vang, M. (2013). Displaced histories: Refugee critique and the politics of Hmong American

remembering. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A 73. Retrieved from

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bw458br#page-1

Vatthana, P. (2006). Post-war Laos : The politics of culture, history and identity. Singapore:

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Historiography of Laos