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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
During the Second Indochina War (1954-75), particularly
between
1960 and 1973, large numbers of Laotians were displaced
from their
villages, either to escape frequent bombings or as a
result of
forced relocations by one side or the other seeking to
consolidate
control over an area. In the eastern zone controlled by
the Pathet
Lao, many villages were abandoned, and the inhabitants
either lived
in caves, fled across the border to Vietnam (where,
despite the
massive United States aerial war, the bombing was less
intense than
in the areas to which they moved), or moved to refugee
villages or
camps in Royal Lao Government
(RLG--see Glossary) areas
(see Toward Neutrality: The First Coalition
;
The Attempt to Restore Neutrality
;
International Pressure and the Advent of the Second Coalition
;
The Third Coalition and the Lao Democratic People's Republic
, ch. 1).
These villages were established along Route 13 from
Savannakhét to
Pakxan and continued north of Vientiane. In addition, many
Hmong
and Mien villages that had allied with the RLG were
frequently
forced to move as a result of the changing battle lines
and were
regularly supplied by the RLG and United States.
At the end, an estimated 700,000 persons, or about 25
percent
of the population, were in some way displaced from their
original
homes. Many of these refugees began to return to their
villages, or
at least to the same general area, after the cease-fire of
1973,
emptying many of the refugee villages along Route 13. The
United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR--see Glossary)
provided some assistance in transportation and initial
rice
supplies, and after 1975 the government also assisted to
the extent
possible with its meager resources. Hmong who sided with
the RLG
were forced to flee after 1975.
Not all internal refugees returned to their home
districts,
however. Some chose to remain in more populated areas near
the
Mekong and the larger towns, continuing to farm land that
they had
cleared during the war. The fall of the RLG and increased
control
by government cadres over daily activities in the villages
also
caused many villagers to flee the country, ending up in
refugee
camps in Thailand. The outmigration occurred in three
phases. An
initial flight of RLG officials and Westernized elite
began in
1975. A second period of departures by many more ordinary
villagers
occurred between 1977 and 1981, responding as much to
economic
hardship caused by poor weather and government
mismanagement of the
agricultural sector than to political control measures. A
later
period of less rapid departure lasted through the late
1980s. In
all, more than 360,000 Laotians--about 10 percent or more
of the
population--fled the country between 1975 and 1992. This
group
included nearly all Western-educated Laotians, and, as
political
scientist Martin Stuart-Fox has noted, the loss of the
intelligentsia may have set the country back an entire
generation.
Some upland minorities who had supported the RLG and the
United
States military effort also fled immediately, while other
groups
continued a guerrilla insurgency, which was not brought
under
control until after about 1979
(see Threats to National Security
, ch. 5).
By the end of 1992, approximately 305,000 Laotian
refugees had
been permanently resettled in third countries, most
commonly in the
United States and France. Forty thousand Laotians--mostly
Hmong--
remained in refugee camps in Thailand, and 12,000 refugees
had been
voluntarily repatriated to Laos under the supervision and
with the
assistance of the UNHCR. International agreements mandated
the
resettlement or repatriation of all remaining refugees in
Thailand
by the end of 1994.
Even without the circumstances of war, Laotian
villagers
traditionally have moved in search of better prospects.
Because of
the overall low population density, if farmland near a
village
became scarce or its quality declined, part or all of a
village
might decide to relocate where there was more potential.
This
pattern occurs more frequently among upland semimigratory
peoples
where there is a regular pattern of movement linked to the
use of
swidden fields, but even the lowland Lao have a history of
village
fragmentation in search of new lands although their
investment in
household or village infrastructure has tended to
stabilize the
population. Since the mid-1980s, the government has
encouraged or
compelled a number of upland villages farming swidden rice
to
resettle in lowland environments--a pattern also used by
the RLG to
more easily control villagers. In some instances,
assistance in
relocation and initial land clearing has been provided,
while in
others people have been left to fend for themselves in
their new
locations.
Data as of July 1994
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